Don't worry about the title.  It doesn't actually mean anything in Turkish.  It's an invented word designed to help remind people about certain spelling/grammar rules.  However, it's quite popular if you do a search for it on Google. I have a fan in my room now.  I'm hoping it will circulate the air enough to help me sl

It's my first week in Istanbul, and I'm feeling ambivalent. Overall, I'm happy.  School is going well.  It's only the first week, and I feel like I'm learning a lot.  Of course, when you start from nothing every little thing you learn seems huge.  Additionally, I have classmates from all over the world:  Spain, Korea, Mali, Canada, Austria, Ukrain

I'm here at my favorite neighborhood coffee shop.  It's Polish, but it reminds me of something more western European - like an Italian eatery or a French bistro.  The demolished remnants of a large, Oreo shake is sitting next to me - the sides of the cup caked in cookie crumbs.  The thing is a meal in itself. The detox diet is off -

That's what this past week has felt like - a sudden crash, and I'm still trying to untangle my limbs. Columbia barely gave me time to breathe, and then, rather abruptly, it ended.  School came to a halt.  No more assignments to turn in.  No more group meetings to attend.  No more deadlines to meet.  Nothing.  And now this free time has left me fe

So, this has been a rather sad experiment.  Every once in a while, I think about what I would be posting on this blog were I keeping it up to date.  Those thoughts are fleeting, and I never have the time or desire to post. Here's where we are: I have about a month and a half left of school, and I'm feeling the heat of five classes, work, and a ps

I have a tough semester coming up.  Here's why: Five classes.  Many of them meet more than once a week because of labs.  Today, for example, I have four classes.  I pretty much go from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. I get Monday's off!  No classes, but I will probably work at my job on campus.  No idea yet on how much I'm going to work, but if I want to make

I've been wanting to update - really, I have.  When they lit up College Walk at Columbia with gorgeous Christmas lights around all the tree trunks, I wanted to post about drinking hot apple cider and the anti-climactic atmosphere.  When I went with a friend to 5th Avenue and Rockefeller Center, I wanted to write about the freezing wind and the wa

I got my mid-term exam and paper back.  I could have done better.  I could have done worse.  I am definitely very "average" at this Ivy League university.  That's what takes getting used to.  In school, and even in college to some extent, things always came easily to me.  Now, I really have to work for it.  I'm not used to working for it.  And, eve

I can't figure out whether or not I have bedbugs.  Every once in a while, I wake up with these bites.  They're usually on my face.  And New York has been in the news recently for an outbreak.  A couple of my friends have told me that they don't bite on the face, but I don't think that's true.  I've seen pictures online of people with bedbug bites o

It's been an adjustment.  All of it.  I'm still adjusting.  That's what I say whenever anyone asks me how I'm liking Columbia - or New York in general. I haven't written in a while.  I've been so busy.  I leave in the morning, and I don't get back until late at night.  I've been exhausted.  I'm exhausted right now.  If I weren't so exhausted, I wo