This genius (points to self) somehow managed to lock herself out of her own computer. So until I figure out how to hack myself (sounds dirrty lolz), I will be forced to use the library computers that have tricky Turkish keyboards with keys like:
this Ş
and this Ğ
and this Ü
and NOT this @, which took me about 9½ minutes to figure out how to type yesterday.
Not much to report from The Most Interesting City On Earth other than being sick in bed for two days, eating an OBSCENE amount of Çokokrem (Turkish Nutella AHMAHGAH), and freezing my ars off STILL.
Although on Saturday night a quest for sushi ended with another nail in the coffin of effective communication with Turkish locals.
After dropping mad Lira on a taxi and gorging our fine selves on some Americanized sake rolls, me and a couple of my main bitties found ourselves lost in the middle of Taksim. It was freezing tits as per usual, and we must have asked everyone in the world who does not speak English how to get to the club we were trying to find. We eventually made it there, but everyone knows how the story of clubbing goes: get groped, hang out in the bathroom for a minute, and then leave because it sucks.
We ended up at (arbitrarily named) bar with our table scooched next to some really nice Turkish dudes from a different university. And then shit got awkward. I´m already infamously dreadful at small talk with English-speaking people, so trying to swap life stories with people who know three phrases in the mother tongue is a giant cosmic joke.
"What your name?" asks Seth Myers (I already forgot all their names. Dude 1 looks kind of like Seth Myers)
"Brittany," I lie.
"Where you from in US?"
"Los Angeles," I partially lie
"How old are you?"
"22." Whatever.
5 minutes later.
"What you say your name was?" asks Gryffindor (wearing maroon and yellow scarf)
"Los Angeles," I yell over the shitty American music that followed me across two continents and an ocean.
We leave the bar and start trekking back down the main street, which is no less crowded at 2:45 am. I start chatting with Dude 3 whom I will affectionately refer to as "Um" because that´s the word he used the most.
Stoner thought interjection: what if we were all like Pokemon and the only word we could use was our own name? My name would be something like "Damn, Son" or "Çokokrem."
Anyway, Um kind of broke my heart because he kept apologizing for his Tarzan English. And I didn't know how to explain to Um that it was okay, because me no speak English good too. I speak a language that some of the smartest people in the world just get lost in: I speak Irony.
One of my biggest challenges in Turkey so far has been trying to recover the bits of my personality that get lost when I can't speak Irony. If I can't use sarcasm and bad puns and cliches and made-up words, who am I?
When someone asks me where I'm from, what I want to say is, "I am but a rugged nomad riding through the desert on a horse with no name," but instead, I have to say "Los Angeles."
When someone asks me what my name is, what I want to say is "Call me Carmen Sandiego, motherf____," but instead, I have to say, "Brittany."
If I had my way, in these Survival Turkish lessons we would be learning how speak in clever metaphors and make references to funny Youtube videos before learning how to ask where someone is from or how old they are. Because you can ask those questions, but after that, the conversation either grinds to a halt or you awkwardly order a chicken wrap because that's the only other thing you know how to say in Turkish.
I guess if I were wise and thoughtful, I would say that it is enlightening and cleansing to discover who you are once all the words are stripped away and you stand there glowing, a mere essence. But I am not feeling wise or thoughtful, so I say
"TAVUK IZGARA DÜRÜM"
Oh and look at this! There is finally pictorial evidence that I´m actually in İstanbul and not just blogging from a padded dungeon!
Oh Snapdragon, they almost had me.
I'm strictly opposed to partying on school nights (or really any nights for that matter), but somehow the erratic trajectory of my life landed me at a house party last night at so and so's apartment in some really hilly part of wherever the crap in Istanbul we are. All was hunky dory until someone had the worst idea in the world to start a rousing game of some-kind-of-liquor pong.
We were told it was CRUCIAL to keep the noise level down, but telling 20 drunk college kids playing some-kind-of-liquor pong to keep the noise level down is like telling the Titanic to duck.
So I was about this much surprised | | when the police rolled up in front of the building on account of several bajillion noise complaints. Thirty seconds later we were hauling ass up the stairs and stashing booze, coats, and shoes wherever we could. We squeezed all 20-something of us into a little loft bedroom upstairs, turned off the lights, and prayed to our various Gods that we wouldn't get thrown into Turkish prison and our decaying carcasses get munched on by Turkish rats.
After a record ten seconds of silence, out of the darkness came an unidentified voice.
"I feel like a Jew."
Because it did kind of feel like we were Jews. A few people did the nose-snort chuckle, but a certain token Jew among us was not amused.
Nor were the token black kids among us amused when our program director asked them why they weren't more excited to eat chicken.
Nor was anyone at all amused when I made the unforgivable error of lumping all Central Americans in with the Mexicans.
(I'M SO SORRY MELI YOU KNOW I KNOW BETTER)
Racism is an extremely delicate subject, and me choosing to talk about it is like handing a newborn to a yeti, but it's something I have been trying for years to understand and talking about it helps.
I'm fortunate enough to have never been a victim of racism or racial humor (that I know of). I've gotten plenty of flack for my religion, but that is something that I can and do choose to withhold if I want. I do, however, have a very racially diverse group of friends that I care for deeply. Hearing them talk about the crap they've gone through is really difficult for me because I feel like there's nothing I could ever say to console or empathize. As a boring lame white person, I will just never understand.
But I did get kicked out of a class today for being an exchange student.
The professor had no intention of offending me, and if anything she just didn't want me to be uncomfortable in a class I couldn't keep up in. But it was still embarrassing to be singled out in front a group of strangers whose language you don't speak and who already have some unfavorable notions about Americans.
Fortunately I blend in pretty damn effortlessly with the Turkish students as long as I keep my stupid American mouth shut, but if anyone tries to talk to me, my stupid American-ness will become stupidly, American-ly obvious. Yesterday I held the door for a girl who proceeded to say something in Turkish at me that I can infer from her tone was something like "What, bitch, you think I can't get the door myself?" When I just shrugged and said "What? Sorry," she just scoffed and rolled her eyes and dipped out in the other direction.
And I'm standing there thinking to myself, "should I really have to apologize for only speaking English at an English medium university?"
And then I'm like, oh...shit son. Moment of Clarity.
NO ONE should have to apologize for being what they are.
I'm obviously in NO WAY being purposefully discriminated against in Turkey. And it's not like after a week here I alla sudden just have this instantaneous "YEAH MAN!" about racism and all its complexities and formalities and definitions. It's just that I've always been "in," and now, I'm so very much "out." And I want to be "in" so badly, but people aren't going to just automatically like me or trust me and my "outwardness." So I hide my outwardness with unprecedented dangerous levels of Bitchface, because I'm like "holy crap I'm so mad at myself for being American right now."
SIGH.
My biggest questions about dealing with different races are still unanswered. Is racism drawing attention to differences, or ignoring them? Am I supposed to treat everyone the same? How am I supposed to be sensitive about racial differences without being totally insensitive?
I feel really aldjfhskdjf talking about it. It is inherently an uncomfortable topic, and when a white person talks about it everyone's guards immediately go up like a mighty fortress.
CAN WE JUST ALL BE FRIENDS PLZ AND IGNORE SKINS AND EAT RAINBOWS AND DANCE A LOT AND MAKE UP SOME NEW LANGUAGE AND ALL LEARN IT TOGETHER?
That would be ideal.
Let's work on that, and on the side I'll keep whippin up these Turkish flashcards like it's my MF occupation.
