baby steps

I came to Starbucks this morning to work on my Turkish. First I was looking at my notebook and thinking, hm that isnt my handwriting, and I realized that I had left it on the kitchen table and one of my roommates had corrected it for me. At first i was taken aback thinking, woah now they know how many errors I make, then i realized how nice it was of them to do that. I have so many good resources at my disposal that I have not taken advantage of. I started working through Mike's language book when I finally had an ah-ha moment. It was all making sense. I could actually understand the book and the questions, then there were finally some pages that didnt have the answers on them, so i starting working on them myself, and i realized that I actually understood it! I'm getting somewhere with my turkish.

Last night my new level one students invited me out to live music after class. I invited Brandon to come with, which was kind of my english security, since they were level one's. the night was actually really fun. I asked them to practice turkish with me, and they did, they taught me new things and one of the girls kept asking me to translate to brandon since he doesnt know anything. I was impressed when i could get the general message across. Then some funny things happened. We were sitting and the guitarist was going on break, the two girls we were with yelled to the waiter to put on american music since there were americans here. Brandon and i just looked at each other and were like "are they serious" Sure enough some american top 20's started playing a few minutes later and we just burst out laughing. Then they were having us request songs for the guitarist to play.... first off. music here isnt like music in the USA, probably the only song they would know is hotel california, and we couldnt bear hear that song again, so I wrote down the one Turkish pop star that everyone knows. and what do you know,, he played it! My students got me up dancing which was really fun too. I like nightlife culture here. Its not fun if you arent with turks though. I'm happy that my students are so welcoming, they love that we will come out with them. and for me, it makes the days go by with some excitement.

I think it was in my last post that I mentioned I missed my guitar and playing music, Well, wednesday when i walked in the door after my night class I hear a classical guitar being played, A smile crept upon my face (living with musicians has its benefit- bettina just brought her classical guitar from Germany) I walk farther in and Bulent is playing. I came out and sat with them, and he was asking for requests and for us to sing. Then they passed it to me, and forced me to play, I was veryyyyy bad since i hadnt played in a while but it was nice, and a very good atmosphere to play in. Then while bettina was playing I had told her that I was really happy to play, since i had been missing it.SHe was liek why didnt you say anything!! bulent walks out iwth an acoustic guitar and said, here i'm going to find new strings for this and you can play whenever you want! It hasnt acutally happened but the fact that htey are trying makes me so happy. I have stumbled upon great roommates,and a great situation here in Turkey. That just goes to show that God is watching out for me. I hear about other peoples experiences and am thankful for what i have, No matter how homesick i get , or frustrated with school i get, I realize that I am actally learning a lot, and have it pretty good here.