palabras romanticas

And so, here I am, finally.

I hadn't been in school for so long that I actually forgot how to be a student, forgot that it required pen, paper and an attention span. Trying to focus has been the most difficult for me, but I think I'm slowly getting used to the classroom again. 

The classwork I do outside of the classroom takes up way more time than I imagined, and because I live off-campus, I've only gone to and from classes since they began last week. This weekend I was ill so I stayed in my room and tried to read the Iliad, and I'm exactly where I should be for tomorrow's class although I imagined I would read ahead so that between Tuesday and Thursday I could actually have some time for other work and maybe even dinner at my house table across campus rather than in my room. 

The fact that the dining hall is a 15 minute bus ride from dorm makes a regular diet very difficult but I promise my body that I will do my best- otherwise I get sick so easily. 

I absolutely love my room. I haven't decorated it at all, but it feels like it's mine. I've been spending most of my time alone and I find that I am perfectly comfortable with it-even more comfortable than I would like to admit. Sooner or later I will have to find people to solve math problems with, but other than that between the four classes and a healthy amount of sleep, I feel like I have close to no time at all for other people. 

I applied for a work-study job to work with preschoolers, but it turned out to be strictly on weekdays, so I probably will have weekends free. Sadly, my schedule (which I tried to plan so that I would have time for breakfast in the morning and lunch at noon) only allows me to work 5-6 hours a week which only adds up to half of this quarter's work study. My academic adviser turned out not to be quite as helpful with planning my schedule as I hoped she would be-- to be fair, she was on a tight schedule trying to register all of the first years in three days.

I've felt better that I'd expected to feel since I came to Chicago. I'm taking Bio (core requirement), Calculus (core requirement), Spanish and Greek Thought and Literature (chosen within the core requirement). The classes excite me (less and less as time passes), Chicago is a great city to be in and the people are the nicest- both in the city and in school. The difference in drinking culture doesn't bother me yet, because I have consciously chosen to stay away from any parties involving Greek life. But I've been missing home these past couple of days, probably because I was ill. Interestingly, the images that come to my mind are that of the typical dried-out shrubs found in Aegea-- perhaps because they remind me of September in Cesme: the smell of salt, and faint pink. 

This might also have something to do with the fact that the stories in Greek Thought take place in or around Aegea, and I'm the only one who can actually picture the descriptions of the islands: ever single person in my Greek Thought class is American. It is frustrating because they have much more background on the texts as most of them have read them in highschool, and also because it is clear that they take the 'American' way of thinking for granted-- or that they simply regard me as exotic. Luckily I haven't had a fallout with anybody on this matter yet, because I don't feel I'm ready to take on the responsibility of explaining that some categorizations are not applicable to the rest of the world. However I should also accept that I have caught myself feeling somehow patriotic in classes, such as an unstoppable urge to call them 'archaic' or 'classical' Greeks rather than just 'Greeks'. I hope to overcome that soon.

I still have to look up cm to inch, meter to foot conversions but I'm slowly grasping Fahrenheit. I got used to the taste of milk, and I'm slowly getting used to the taste of the water-I have argued that spring water tastes better than lake water, and the difference of taste between water in New York and water in Chicago has helped my argument-. I miss Erikli. I guess Erikli has something of Bursa in it that I miss as well. 

I am so grateful to have come here after Robert College. I might not be ready for the actual coursework (mainly academic writing), but I feel like RC has prepared me for the system as well as a school outside the US could. I also hear from friends back home (even if they don't spell it out) how anti-climactic university is after RC, and I'm thankful that I am somewhere that will challenge me, even if I don't get to do it all this time. For the fortunate enough, this (the university) is truly the land of opportunities and I don't know yet how I can show my appreciation to the people who have made it possible for me to be here.

Cold weather is creeping in on us. It has been a sharp fall from 72-81 Fahrenheit to 50-70 Fahrenheit, and this is only the beginning.

Take care,

Derya