small updates

I'll try to be brief in this post; I feel that I have a tendency to be a little over verbose.

Midterm week passed uneventfully. I may have written this already. As I only had one real midterm, I was blessed with a relatively stress-free week. I was pleased to find out yesterday that I had done quite well on the test, so I'm feeling quite gratified. Last week we had a Turkish class "midterm", which was quite easy. I know I missed the spelling of a couple of words, but overall I feel confident that I did the best I could. I believe I'll get that score back on Friday. So overall, I've been able to maintain a level of relative success in school. Of course, we still have finals to overcome; I ought to be careful to not speak too soon.


Our visitor from DU has since come and gone. Jessi and I had a lovely day with her, showing off some of our favorite spots in the city and enjoying a good conversation throughout the day. We ate an early lunch, wandered around Istiklal, showed her the dorms, escorted her to campus, and then visited Sultanahmet. Although we had quite a limited time, I think everyone was satisfied at the end of the day. I, personally, was exhausted! But again, it was such a nice day.


Everyone will be pleased to know that we haven't had any more scorpions. Kaan thought it would be funny to rent the Scorpion King 2 a few days after the incident. I admit that the movie was more successful at making me laugh than renewing my concern for our crusty friend. It's definitely NOT a movie I would recommend anyone seeing. I was positive, after watching the first half hour, that the movie was either a spoof or a soft-core porno. Thankfully it was neither; rather, it was a mildly entertaining, quite silly prequel to the Rock's production.


Kaan's oldest brother came to stay with us for one night, en route to the 'village'. I was being a little anti-social and played the homework card. Luckily, we were able to get to bed quite early and able to avoid too much awkwardness.


And in other news, I've been quite busy making new friends. I've been spending a lot of time with some of the foreigners in my classes, particularly Niels, Jan, and Eleanor. I'm hoping to add a couple of Turkish friends to this mix, but that's going a little more slowly than I'd hoped. However, lately Jessi's been kind enough to bring her friends around, so we both are increasing our interactions with the "locals".


I'm desperately seeking a fitted bedsheet. Apparently they don't exist in Turkey if the bed is bigger than a one-person. My search has brought me to Ikea and Etsy so far. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. It's so annoying to try to tuck the bedsheet into the non-existant bedframe. Every morning I have to remake the bed, starting with the sheet. Since there's nothing to really anchor the sheet, every little move made in the middle of the night slowly pushes the sheet to the floor. So annoying!