great talks

Last week I was ready to pack my bags and get out of Turkey, I had a countdown and couldnt believe how far away two months seemed to be. As usual my homesickness turned around b/c of some good times with my students and friends. I was getting very frusted with the closeminded, uneducated turks that I seemed to be interacting with. However this weekend, I had a long, really good conversation about many controversial topics with my class. they presented facts and reasons for doing things in their culture. I gave many examples about "what my students told me" and finally one girl was like," well christy those are english time students. we arent all like that." I needed to hear that. I know many times turkish people say things to me just to see if they can get a rise out of me. Most of the time now, i tell them I am not going to comment on their statement but thank you for your opinion. In this situation I coulc calmly express what I would do in the situation and what i've heard they would do in a situation and we could have a civil intellectual conversation. it was awesome. We talked a lot about the role of men and women in relationships, prostitution, treatement of men/women. Marriage, views of sex. problems in society. etc. They just kept going, It was amazing, I had a med student in class who would bring up the medical points to al of these issues. And it was a male dominated class but the one female is a very outspoken one. It was facinating to hear their views on the issues and thier experience with said topics. I was frustrated with turkey b/c i felt like everyone was the same. I couldnt have really great conversations without something offensive being said. They totally changed my mind and made me feel a lot better about things. I also had a class that wasnt coming one day so before i went home i went up to the canteen to see where my one student was.I saw a group of students from a different class and sat and talked with them. Instead of going home, i spent 2 hours in conversation with them, which also was really great. they were very appreciative of my time, THey said"you could have gone home but you stayed and practiced english with us?? that is amazing" THey had no idea that i was actually still getting paid but that didnt matter. It is nice to be appreciated.

It's learning about culture that I will really miss. I am still learning which is why i still really enjoy being here. It will be hard to leave in less than two months...