Tuesday, March 15th, 2004

Hi hi hi. Thanks for all the birthday emails yesterday, all four of you. Mom, dad, Stephanie and Ben Luginbuhl… you guys are the best. The rest of you are… as I often say in Turkey… “çok bombok.”

I think it’s time for an update on my life plans. My time in Turkey is running short. I know that a scattering of people all around the world are having an at least passable time following my exploits. Unfortunately, all things must pass.

I’m heading back to my main base in Ankara later this week, most probably on Friday. No more Mediterranean for me. İskenderun has been good, but my work here is pretty much finished. When I get back to Ankara, I will spend the week reacquainting myself with old friends and preparing for the CCID visit to Turkey which begins on the 25th.

I’ll be flying to İstanbul, where I will greet a delegation of instructors and administrators from three different community colleges in the USA. My dad will be among them, as CCID is his organization! We’ll spend some time at İstanbul University’s technical college, and see some sights. Then, it’s back to Ankara, with meetings at the American Embassy, with the Turkish Higher Council of Education, and random others that I don’t even know about.

The instructors will be spending their time at the two schools I have worked at: Çankırı and İskenderun. But I’ll be with my dad and another of his colleagues in the capital.

And following this, I will most probably return to the states!

The time has gone so quickly. I feel both horrible and wonderful about returning home. There is a lot that I’ll miss about Turkey. Mostly the friendships I’ve made. There are some cultural things here that make me squirm sometimes, but all in all it’s a wonderful place. I’m already dreading the shock of fitting back into the consumer-driven, materialistic and non-thinking society that I call home. We’ll see what happens. I can always self-medicate…

I really like blogging, so I’ll probably start a new one. I was in a restaurant the other day, and eating all these tasty salads that they just bring out as part of the meal (no cost) and I was thinking… these salads are so nice. But in America, we’d never get them, because most of the customers would probably complain and say “Ewww… what is this stuff? Blah, blah blah.” So we get iceberg lettuce and a few tomatoes. And gross Ranch dressing. What is this stuff?

Salad for the masses.

Then I was thinking about starting a new blog, and I realized that most of what I say is absolutely useless. Just like our unexciting appetizers. So my new blog will be called “Salad for the Masses.” The goal will be to bore you all with the mundane details of my life, such as what music I’m listening to, what board games I’ve played recently, who I think stinks at the moment (whether I’ve met them or not), and whatever else I can think of. You will all be truly bored.

And then maybe you’ll all start eating tastier salads.