The Christmas celebrating faculty at the school got an early Christmas gift. Our 4-day Christmas holiday got started a day early due to a rare snow day. It was sure a nice way to start the Holiday, my first Christmas away from home, with an extra day off and a transformed white covered Istanbul.
It has been a busy first semester. As mentioned before, the teaching thing is a little easier. It still takes up most of my life and attention here, but I am finding more ways to get away than last year. I went to Santorini for the Kurban Bayram (Islam Slaughter Holiday, when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son). A few weeks later, I flew to Athens to run the marathon for Elise's birthday. We had a terrific time, minus about 5 hours of excruciating pain. Pain aside, it was amazing running the ancient route, from Marathon to Athens. I then flew back to Chicago for Thanksgiving (which happened to fall over the school's fall break) and had a wonderful time with my new nephew Blake and now 1.5 year old Emma. In the end of January, my Aunt Mary will fly out for a Turkey adventure.
The school here does a good job helping us celebrate our American Holiday. For Halloween, the school had a big party in the Great Hall. Since some of our furniture in the Great Hall is rumored to be from Lizzie Borden's house (her aunt was a benefactor of the school), our theme was Lizzie Borden's Halloween. For Christmas, there was a nice celebration for the families. Every year, one of the faculty members is asked to be Santa, who then hands out gifts to the kids. There is spiced wine, caroling, and a big feast for all of us. For Christmas this year, I am trying to find ways to busy myself to not think about being away from home for the first time. Christmas Eve I will skype with my family and open presents together, thousands of miles away (if that makes sense). Christmas morning, I am going with my friend Janelle to a hotel for breakfast. The hotel will be decorated for the Holiday and allow us the most American of breakfasts we can get here. Christmas evening, I have been invited over to the Tutors, my colleagues family's Christmas dinner.
I came here on a two year contract, which will end at the end of this school year. Therefore, a big decision has come my way, due in the next week or two. I have wavered heavily this last month, but right now I am pretty sure I am going to extend it one more year. These negotiations, though, still have not been made so nothing is final. Positives and negatives of this new home have been flying through my head all month. On the positive side, I believe there is much more for me to learn from this school about my profession, that there are many places in this very city still unexplored, that there are many trips I still want to take, and finally some people I have met I am not yet ready to leave. On the negatives side, there are the daily frustrations I have from work, many from the culture of how things are run, similarly there are frustrations and difficulties to living in a foreign land with a foreign language, and finally there is a stress of this job. I know stress is a part of all teaching professions, but I do think this is even more so due to the high emphasis Turks put on mathematics and grades here. Every test both my students and I are stressed out about how they will perform. Yet despite these frustrations, I know that I am not ready to leave. Even in my most fed-up moments, when I was ready to leave, I did not actually take that next step in looking and seeing what can be next. Things feel unfinished here. I don't like leaving without that feeling of accomplishment or finish. I still have so much to learn and do here. I still don't know if teaching math is my thing, but I'm not willing to give it up either. I don't like leaving due to being overwhelmed or too novice at it. I do think I need at least one more year of learning about Istanbul, this job, myself, before I will be ready to move on to the next thing, whatever it is.
It has been a busy first semester. As mentioned before, the teaching thing is a little easier. It still takes up most of my life and attention here, but I am finding more ways to get away than last year. I went to Santorini for the Kurban Bayram (Islam Slaughter Holiday, when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son). A few weeks later, I flew to Athens to run the marathon for Elise's birthday. We had a terrific time, minus about 5 hours of excruciating pain. Pain aside, it was amazing running the ancient route, from Marathon to Athens. I then flew back to Chicago for Thanksgiving (which happened to fall over the school's fall break) and had a wonderful time with my new nephew Blake and now 1.5 year old Emma. In the end of January, my Aunt Mary will fly out for a Turkey adventure.
The school here does a good job helping us celebrate our American Holiday. For Halloween, the school had a big party in the Great Hall. Since some of our furniture in the Great Hall is rumored to be from Lizzie Borden's house (her aunt was a benefactor of the school), our theme was Lizzie Borden's Halloween. For Christmas, there was a nice celebration for the families. Every year, one of the faculty members is asked to be Santa, who then hands out gifts to the kids. There is spiced wine, caroling, and a big feast for all of us. For Christmas this year, I am trying to find ways to busy myself to not think about being away from home for the first time. Christmas Eve I will skype with my family and open presents together, thousands of miles away (if that makes sense). Christmas morning, I am going with my friend Janelle to a hotel for breakfast. The hotel will be decorated for the Holiday and allow us the most American of breakfasts we can get here. Christmas evening, I have been invited over to the Tutors, my colleagues family's Christmas dinner.
I came here on a two year contract, which will end at the end of this school year. Therefore, a big decision has come my way, due in the next week or two. I have wavered heavily this last month, but right now I am pretty sure I am going to extend it one more year. These negotiations, though, still have not been made so nothing is final. Positives and negatives of this new home have been flying through my head all month. On the positive side, I believe there is much more for me to learn from this school about my profession, that there are many places in this very city still unexplored, that there are many trips I still want to take, and finally some people I have met I am not yet ready to leave. On the negatives side, there are the daily frustrations I have from work, many from the culture of how things are run, similarly there are frustrations and difficulties to living in a foreign land with a foreign language, and finally there is a stress of this job. I know stress is a part of all teaching professions, but I do think this is even more so due to the high emphasis Turks put on mathematics and grades here. Every test both my students and I are stressed out about how they will perform. Yet despite these frustrations, I know that I am not ready to leave. Even in my most fed-up moments, when I was ready to leave, I did not actually take that next step in looking and seeing what can be next. Things feel unfinished here. I don't like leaving without that feeling of accomplishment or finish. I still have so much to learn and do here. I still don't know if teaching math is my thing, but I'm not willing to give it up either. I don't like leaving due to being overwhelmed or too novice at it. I do think I need at least one more year of learning about Istanbul, this job, myself, before I will be ready to move on to the next thing, whatever it is.
