Istanbul

So, I was in Istanbul this last week, which you know because I dutifully warned you. It was an intense week, starting with the intense-but-relatively-convenient direct flight from here to Amsterdam, then direct from there to Istanbul. The planes, for some reason, were FREEZING COLD. I had my airplane socks and a sweater, and even pestered the stewardess into giving me an extra blanket, and I still nearly died of exposure. The flight to Amsterdam landed early, which was great, because I only had 1 hour to make the flight to Istanbul, but we wound up having to sit on the runway for so long that it was later than scheduled getting to the gate. The sprint to the next flight was probably all that saved my frozen toes from falling right off.
When I finally did get to Istanbul, though, things went quite smoothly. They let me into the country (you have to buy a "visa" for $20 at the airport before they let you leave), my bag arrived on the same plane I did (a shock, considering my layover), and Ayse was even there to meet me. Since I arrived at about 4:30, all we did the first day was go home and eat and go to bed. When Ayse explained this to me at the airport, I said "no, no, I don't want to ruin your evening, I have the energy to do something!" But Ayse just shook her head. Then we sat in traffic for THREE HOURS. I wish I were exaggerating, but I am not. It was excruciating, after the airplanes, and terrifying. As you can perhaps tell from the picture of Ayse, she does not have very good peripheral vision, between the headscarf and the sunglasses, which certainly had something to do with the 5 or 6 near-death-experiences we had on the way to her house.
When we weren't almost getting killed, we were sitting completely still, not moving at all, not even an inch. Luckily, Ayse understands the silliness of the Turkish belief that air-conditioning can cause paralysis, so at least we weren't at risk for dying of heat-stroke. And we weren't going to starve or die of dehydration either, because there is an entire industry which has sprung up around the traffic jams of Istanbul. There are men who walk up and down the highways between cars selling cold bottled water, simit (a kind of Turkish bagel), and lemonade. If you squint, you can see one of the simit men in the photo on the left. I wanted to take one closer, but Ayse said if I did, he would not only insist that I buy a simit, but that I buy it at "foreigner prices."
Eventually we made it home. Ayse's family lives in a part of town called Sultan Beyli, which is about an hour from the city center. They (Ayse, her mom and dad, and two of her three brothers) live in an apartment on the second floor of a 5 or 6 story building populated entirely by her relatives. The outside looked pretty run-down, and the "courtyard" was really just a driveway with a couch in it, but (typically for Turkish families, I learned) the inside was very nice. The only things that weren't nice were the toilet (squat toilet) and the lack of air conditioning or even fans (which won't necessarily cause paralysis, but definitely aren't good for your health).
I should get on with my day, which will be jet-laggedly short, so I'll post more stories tomorrow. Here are some pictures, though:
Me, Ayse, Elif, Elif's little sister, with Anna and Jenny (the two on my side of the table, who are staying with Elif while they take Turkish classes for the summer), and one of Ayse's 500 uncles. This one thought I was hilarious, but spoke very quickly with a Kurdish accent (Ayse's family is Kurdish), so I never really quite understood why. I thought he was pretty great too, because he owns a fantastic fish restaurant, which is where we are in this picture, on the verge of stuffing ourselves.


This is Ayse at some random cafe on the water, where we met up with a couple of her friends for tea one night. You can sort of see the bridge across the Bosporus in the background, which is the stuff driving nightmares are made of, but which is also lit up with funny changing, dancing light shows at night.






This is the only thing I ate in Turkey that I didn't like. It's their version of the stuffed baked potato, which I love in America (with cheese and broccoli and ham or bacon). In Turkey, though, they stuff it with seasoned bulgar wheat, canned corn, pickles, bologna-like sausage, ketchup, and mayonaise. I ate two polite bites and then switched to the fresh fruit and nuts in the background.

Indulgence, Part II

The indulgence continues. Not in the form of hot dogs, but I just don't have that many pictures of myself indulging. I'm not really getting things done, with the exception of Oxygen, by Andrew Miller (he occasionally uses grammar with which I disagree, and I've found four typos in his book so far, but I do generally like his style). It is lovely to read for pleasure.
Still haven't done the pound cake recipe, but I did make a pan of caramel rolls, which was both a success (I got the caramel just right, with no recipe!) and a failure (I need a better pan, and maybe a recalibrated oven).
This morning, I got up with big plans to go to the gym and clean and pack and organize and study, but had such a terrible headache that I went back to bed and stayed there, with the curtains drawn, for several hours. This may not count as an indulgence in your book, but it sure felt indulgent to me.
Tomorrow, Rob and Matt and I are headed to Nebraska. It'll be a multi-purpose trip, seeing relatives and looking for a reception site and thinking about all manner of wedding things. Also, I'm inheriting a box of cookbooks Papa purged when he had the counters redone. Do I really need more cookbooks? Probably not. But such petty details will not stop me from taking them home and installing them on the new shelves we built just for my book problem.
After we get back, I have one and a half busy days to remember all my Turkish before I go to Istanbul to see Ayse and continue to be self-indulgent, eat lots of garlicky sauces and pastries and fish, read some more, and not think about the messes and piles of work I should have dealt with before I go.
Eventually, I suppose, this indulgence thing will backfire, my laziness will be exposed, I will fail spectacularly at something important, and hopefully learn my lesson. But until that happens, I think a bowl of ice cream and a good read are brilliant ways to pass the time.

Indulgence

I've been feeling kind of down lately, between the problems in the department, my to-do lists, and my issue with unstructured time, so yesterday, after I dragged my lazy butt to the gym and forced my heart rate up into the healthy cardio zone for 30 minutes and tried to focus on This American Life on my ipod instead of Regis and That-woman-who-replaced-Kathy-Lee talking about some new, Guantanamo-style interrogation mind-control technique called the High-Heel-A-Thon, I decided to take some control and cheer myself up (although I didn't try that pound cake recipe). I went to Half Price Books down the street, which is a little piece of heaven as far as I'm concerned. Not quite seventh heaven, but maybe second heaven. Or third. I had a gift card, which made it even better, because as you might have noticed, I'm trying very hard to save money for the fall, when my pay will be reduced by half, and for the house I would someday like to buy, and for the Lasik surgery I would someday like to have, and for the food I would someday like to eat, etc.
Books are very possibly better than anything in the entire world, especially when they're cheap (I could just go to the library and check them out, like some good people I know, but I like to own them). A balm for the soul and all that. Here is what I bought:
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
The Desert Rose, by Larry McMurtry
Oxygen, by Andrew Miller
The Optimists, by Andrew Miller
Bury Me Standing, by Isabel Fonseca

Weighing my options

Most of you know that I'm spending the summer working on a research project, funded by grant money I won with my research proposal. You may also be aware that Professor R. with whom I'm working has been more or less MIA so far. I've been trying very hard not to panic about this. I've been doing all the things I know to do to structure my time and get work done and not be the Needy Student, which works better for me some days than others. Deep down, though, I am the Needy Student - I learn much more from people when I feel like they like me, and care whether or not I'm learning. So when I got an email from the chair notifying the department that R. would be taking this next year away from our department to work as a visiting professor at a German university, it felt kind of like someone kicked my feet out from under me. See, I'd been planning to ask R. to be my M.A. advisor, since the woman I'd actually like to have as an advisor has been postponing a meeting with me since March, and is supposed to be on sabbatical this fall or maybe the entire year, depending on which rumors you listen to. And this is in addition to the fact that R. was (is, until he leaves, I think) Director of Graduate Studies for the year. This position is pretty important - just below the chair in terms of determining the direction of the department and curriculum, and totally responsible for most of the grad student programming, as well as advising those students who haven't chosen an official advisor. This position was previously held by my nemesis, the jerk who tried his best to ruin our conference, who will BE FILLING IN FOR R. AS DGS until a suitable replacement can be found (which will be difficult given the fact that it seems like our department is basically hemorrhaging professors - R. was one of only 2 faculty who were even working with students). Sigh.
So this is frustrating, and makes me feel pretty uneasy about the future of my program. Also makes me fantasize about The Bakery, which still needs a great name and a clear focus (Breads? Cakes? Pastries? Granola? Will I sell breakfast, or breakfast and lunch, or coffee, or wine? A cafe/bakery, bakery/deli, or just bakery?). And a business partner. And a big fat business loan. It seems like a ridiculous fantasy most of the time, considering the education I'm getting and my experience with business, but someone pointed out to me the other day that my chances of making it as a German professor are probably about equal to, if not worse than, my chances of making it as a small business owner.
Is it a sign that writing this post makes me want to go try my new pound cake recipe, rather than tackle my new book on film theory? Even though it's already 80 degrees here, and film theory doesn't need me to turn on the oven?

Beating the System

If you know me, you know that I'm cheap. Maybe frugal on my best, splurgiest days. My desire to avoid wasting money, however, often works with my belief that the system is designed to cheat me and my is-it-worth-it system of calculating value to make my life very difficult. For example, parking. Having grown up in a town with more than enough free parking, and having been scandalized when our only parking garage started charging (gasp!) something like $1 per hour, I have a very hard time forking over money for parking now (this is just one of the many reasons I rarely go to the other, pricier side of the river). This is especially difficult on campus, where there is no free parking within a mile of anywhere I ever need to be. When I need to go to the library, or the dentist, or my office, I calculate how many other, better things I could buy with the money I would have to pay to park close to where I'm going (the aforementioned is-it-worth-it system): the spots closest to the dentist, for example cost something like $5 per hour, which is lunch, or half a bottle of cheap wine, or a couple of used books. The cheaper lots cost $3 per hour, which is a gallon of milk. Then there are meters, which almost never works for me, because I have to have quarters, and because one quarter only buys me 12 minutes, which just seems ridiculous. So I park miles from anywhere and hike all over campus, which is how I almost missed my dentist appointment and nearly died of heatstroke yesterday. I've also been known to visit more than one grocery store on the same shopping trip just because I know milk is cheaper at one, but tortillas are cheaper at the other. I have to walk all the way through the farmers market before I can buy anything, to be sure I'm not paying too much for sub-par green onions. Actually, you can apply this routine to almost everything I do, from buying textbooks to shoes to plane tickets. Since it hardly ever works out in my favor (e.g. when I spend so long comparison shopping plane tickets that the fare goes up $200), and I realize that the effort involved in beating the system is usually not worth the money I could save, I've resolved to relax (just a little) about this.
The first test: today, I have to go to campus for an eye appointment. I've been having a lot of trouble with my contacts lately, and they've tried all kinds of different brands and solutions and stuff. If these contacts work, I was planning to take the prescription off the sample cases and order them online for less money than the clinic would charge me. But with my luck recently, I'd probably have my identity stolen from the contact lens website and wind up having to declare bankruptcy just because I didn't want to spend that extra $50. So today, I'm going to just grit my teeth and tell the clinic to order my contacts, and use that extra hour I would have spent trying to order them online doing something more fun, like finding prescription sunglasses. I'll probably even pay for parking (but at a meter, I think - don't want to go too overboard).

Update: these contacts are not working, now there's a new solution and eye drops every two hours. If this doesn't work, the doctor I've been seeing has recommended that I basically give up on contacts altogether. Sigh...
Also, I did not pay for parking, but opted to walk a few extra blocks instead. This is especially good, since I'm going to be paying more for my vision now than ever before. I'm working to be less cheap when it's not productive, but hey - I still have a budget.

I don't get it.

Today at the gym: an infomercial about how to rid your thighs of cellulite, ER reruns, and this Charmin commercial involving a vacuum (paper ad at left - I couldn't find a video online). Now, I was listening to This American Life, so I wasn't paying close attention, and I didn't really catch the connection between the vacuum cleaner and toilet paper. I was so perplexed that I nearly fell off my treadmill. What is this about? The toilet paper is so strong that it's like vacuuming your butt? It's so strong that it won't leave bits of toilet paper on your butt that you'll later have to get a friend to vacuum off?
Note to advertisers everywhere: enough already. Don't you people have focus groups or something to prevent this sort of ridiculousness? Who told you that this would make anyone ever want to buy your product? Do you have such serious digestive problems that you think it would be neat to have toilet paper akin to a vacuum? Maybe you should see a doctor.

I don't get advertising.

Good News, Bad News: Bureaucracy

Good News: I got paid today!
Bad News: I got paid far less than I was expecting.
Good News: Rob loves me and won't let me starve.
Bad News: The U. would probably be happy to see me starve, since it would be less of a financial burden on them. Especially with all the man-hours I'm burning through trying to get ahold of someone who is both willing and able to fix my problem.
Good News: At least the issue is that they withheld too much in taxes, so I probably won't get in trouble with the feds over this.
Bad News: In order to get the correct amount of money, I have to wade through 13 levels of bureaucratic hell.
Good News: I just left a voicemail for someone working in level 10, so hopefully this gets resolved soon.