Last Day of Classes

Last Friday I was in my office slaving away on Age of Empires II (the Mongols just don't know when to stop) when Hassan Hoja, my department head, popped in my room and said, "By the way - your classes are finished next week." Then he threw down a pinch of powder which exploded, and he vanished in the smoke.

I was rather speechless, not because of the smoke (it's the primary mode of travel, after the floo network), but because I had no idea my classes were coming to an end. Neither did my students, when I told them on Monday. I guess that's Turkey. No one really cares for calendars, except to look at the pictures (fluffy cat calendar, I so do not regret buying you in the Russian bazaar downtown).

Another example of the spirit of Turkey, perfectly captured in mundane carbonite - my faculty classes, while two hours on paper, are actually only an hour and a half. The sheet on my door says class is from three to five, but we take a tea break at 3:45 and pick back up at four, finally to leave at 4:45. This is the way I was told to run things, and honestly, I'm really starting to pick up a tea addiction. I start scratching my arms if we push through the break.

But today, we said, why go back to class at all? The tea room is where it's at. LET'S MOVE THIS PARTY.

I'm the blonde one. Murat is the one trying to hide behind the ColaTurk refrigerator.

After Maruf, the head chai-master, took the photo, we passed it around as a group. Mustafa, the man on the front right, looked at it and said, "I am handsome." Then Murat looked at Mustafa's picture and said, "SHINY."

This is all the more impressive when you consider that Murat is the Picasso of languages. An actual transcript from today, when he answered the question - when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

MURAT: Book open, learn much, knowledge and specially beauty. Shepherd.
ME: So, you could say it: "When I was a kid, I wanted to be a shepherd."
MURAT: [pause] Book open, learn much, knowledge...

And even though I still don't know everyone's name, I was comforted in some form by the medical faculty, who, as it turns out, doesn't know each other's names. At first I thought it was just a Turkish practice to refer to everyone as, "my friend." This comes from Bulent, the pudgy pediatrician who dominates our conversations.

BULENT: I agree with the gynecologist.
ASHYE: My name is Ashye.