New address

Hello faithful followers.
I will have mail sent to my school again. Here is the address. This is a bit differnet maybe now it wont get lost as much? I am also trying to befriend the office staff so they wont hide my mail in spite of me being a teacher. It is as follows:

English Time
Christy Corso
İstiklal Caddesi
Örs Turistik İş Merkezi No:151
Taksim / Beyoğlu, İstanbul 34300
TURKEY

I know I havent written much lately, but its because nothign spectaculare has been happening. I guess the biggest stuff in my life is hearing about all the drama going on back home. I often think "america has it all together" but when I talk to the people i know in America it seems like thier lives are incredibly stressful and depressing. I am sad i'm not there to be there for people who need it but, maybe that depressing section is out of my life right now, and that is a positive in my mind. I know the moment i come back I will be bombarded with questions about my future, what are you doing, why are you doing it. Dont you have a plan? All those questions present loads of stress. Yes those same questions are asked here but i feel like they arent asked with such a condescending town. "

Side note: Despite the fact that women's rights are pretty different here there are some perks to having men protect us in this culture. I'm sitting at starbucks and some creep starting talking to the girl behind me, from the moment he approached i saw all 3 male employees have an eye on him. they let it last for about 1 full minute and realized it was not wanted conversation and they quickly escorted him out. There is no messing around when it comes to making sure women are comfortable, which is always reassuring! (dad you can rest easy )

on the horizon

After contemplating taking the next flight out of Istanbul, my luck started to change. I think i had finally hit rockMy bottom. I am finally getting settled into what i hope will be permanent housing. I now live with two Turkish girls and a puppy. This puppy was the problem. The day i paid rent they decided to get a puppy, Our apartment is extremely small so I didnt agree that this was the best place to keep a dog. It has started to get better. The girl is doing a good job of taking care of it and is being very respectful. I think that is all i can ask for in this situation.

Job: i've been interviewing at other jobs, but i also have been weighing the pro's and cons . I really want to only be here for 6months and this is the only job that will offer that option. I am on good terms so far with the frustrating head teacher so I assume if she has no reason to hate me, I can go about my job peacefully. Also yesterday at the end of my class, i had three students come up to me and thank me for what i do. they said it was really useful and they were happy i was their teacher. that really changed my mind about jumping ship too. This branch is near failure. I don't have the heart to leave my students that are tryign to learn English. Its not their fault that the management is terrible. They have done nothing wrong to me.

I have been thinking lately a lot of about the captivity that my students and friends are in. they live in a world that is so different than mine. Its frustrating to see. I guess i'll touch on that more in later posts. But now I'm hungry..

second time

I have always tried avoiding doing things a second time due to the fact that its never as good as the first. You hold expectations and you are frustrated when they dont meet your marks. One of my biggest fears about coming back was that this scenario would become true. Things at my school are absolutely madness right now. I have to decide whether i'm going to stick around for 6 months of ridiculousness or bail. I thought last year, English time was about as crazy as it was going to get since apparently it used to be a pretty bad school and we were going throught some transition. However, I was wrong and after the crazy new procedures they are introducing my first thought was to jump ship. It all reality it looks like the majority of the teachers are either sticking out to the end, or also looking for an opening to get out. The sad part is I really like my classes. Granted its only two classes so far and I'm bound to have some bad apples in the bunch, but I like the students. This time around hasnt been the smooth sailing adventure as I thought it was going to be. It has definitely presented a lot of struggles and its only the beginning. However dear readers, it does not mean i hate being here because that is not true, I am still very satisfied with my decision to come back. Its just a little different than I expected.

outside living

Alright, I am semi settled in and feeling like I'm going to be uprooted fairly soon .. again. I have had a bit of a struggle trying to find housing. Nothing is cheap becasue they LOVE to scam foreigners. And the housing i did find, despites its awesomeness I think it will be straining on my eventually since its farther and more expensive. I have had a good welcoming back to Istanbul. I stayed with two friends when i got back who were both very welcoming. The other teachers that were still here were very excited to see me and made me feel at home, which was nice, it even felt that I was more appreciated now than when i left. Hmm interesting!

This past weekend I taught one class, which was good. I enjoyed being back and having something to do. My students were great, the management was of course chaos as usual. Oh its good to be back. I had to get my apartment keys copied yesterday and in the process of asking for directions the man looked at me confused and says "hold on i will call" He then tells me we must wait 5 minutes. we have a very awkward conversation becasue i am pretty rusty on my turkish and he offers me tea, a custom I am very fond of. Then he gest a call and says "ok we can go" He takes me one bock ot the key maker and sits and watches him make the key. Yep he left his shop to come with me (a shop that i couldnt quite figure out how it functions. its looked like old faucets but literally was the size of my closet back at home. Anyways. turkish work ethic. Gotta love it. this whole time i was slightly giggling to myself at the ridiculousness of it all and was happy to be back. Turkey has many quirks. Some are very hard to get used to and some are just plain comical. Anyways, so far its been a good adventure.