I've been such a crappy blogger lately, I'm sorry. I'll try to write more, I promise!

Here’s the latest news:
Kaan’s nephew has been staying with us for the last few days. Normally I don’t particularly enjoy having guests, but it’s been quite fun. Suat is 17 or 18 and is the son of Kaan’s eldest sister, Zahide. It’s an interesting situation; Suat is one of 13 siblings. It’s certainly a mind-boggling number. Granted, she’s the second wife of Suat’s father and has only given birth to EIGHT of the thirteen, but it’s still a scary number to those of us who think anything over 3 children is a lot. It marks another division between the rural families and the urban families, as I think it also does in the States. Families that come from the country (versus the city) tend to have larger families to aid in farming and whatnot. In the States, I think this also relates in a small part to rural religious conservatism (the Quiverfull-type people). I’m not sure I’m educated enough to make a judgment like that for Turkey, but I reckon there are similar circumstances. Whatever the reasons for this really large household, the situation is interesting to me.

Suat works during the day, so it’s been quiet at home. He comes home just as Kaan leaves for work, usually, so I finally have something to occupy me in the evenings. It’s really nice to have some company after spending most of the day alone. However, we’ve been staying up quite late the last few nights, and it’s really wearing on me. I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy staying up late, but I may try to go to sleep just a little bit earlier from now on. It’s really a drag to sleep most of the day because you were having too much fun hanging out the night before. It’s even more of a drag to not sleep all day but wish you had.


School is continuing. I find more and more that I’m frustrated by the lack of organization here. I have classes that I like (or would potentially like) but still have no clue how they will be graded. I don’t have a syllabus for one class. I have a partial syllabus for another. It’s really crazy. Mid-terms are in two or three weeks, and we don’t have a syllabus? Just ridiculous. On Thursday, my class was cancelled. Of course, since I don’t have internet at home, I couldn’t go check the online page. Luckily, nothing was posted online about a cancelled class. Apparently everyone except three of us knew there was to be no class. We showed up and waited for fifteen minutes before being kicked out of the room. It was really strange and frustrating! At DU, if class is going to be cancelled, we often know in advance. If a last minute cancellation, most teachers have the decency to send someone to post a note on the door. Sure, most of us are rooting for class to be cancelled, waiting for that 15th minute to pass so we can “legally” leave. But somehow it’s easier to root for a class to be cancelled when you aren’t the only one waiting for it to start. It’s so hard to be happy that class is cancelled when you weren’t going to come in the first place, but your sense of responsibility and obligation dragged you out of bed and aaaallllll the way to school.