My time here in Turkey is owed to a silver lining of practicality –academics. After five months spent outside of classrooms, it has been a bit of an adjustment to step back into the routine of university life. While I only have four classes, which take place on Mondays and Wednesdays, this is already proving to be my most educational term of university thus far.

Koc campus, site of so much learning!

The Classes

Basic Turkish 201

I think it would be a bit sad to spend four months living in a country and not attempt to pick up a bit of it’s language. Hence, I am taking this class. So far, we have learnt some simple phrases (hello = merhaba, good bye = güle güle, etc.), how to state our name, age, and where we come from, as well as numbers and a variety of basic objects. It is a difficult language to learn, as it is vastly different from English. The trick I think is to just try and speak it, even if you aren’t completely confident in your grammar or pronunciation. It is better to try and fail, than to not try at all.

Science 107: Energy and the Environment

Simply put, I am enrolled in this introductory level science course because I need three more credits of any science in order to graduate from university. There isn’t much to report so far, other than that scientists agree on global warming being caused by humans and CO2 is pretty much the devil. I think I dozed off during the last lecture.

German III: Intermediate

I have been trying to grasp German for about two years now. I have taken two university classes, and figure it’s best to continue learning it if I want to fulfill the language requirement of my degree. Plus, it’s interesting learning German with Turkish students and hearing them attempt the strong accent. The classes here are quite small, averaging at around 18 students, so you really get to know your fellow classmates and their quirks. There was one guy who left early yesterday because he was too hung-over to continue. I had a hard time figuring this out though, as he insisted on relating this information in garbled German. It was quite the dramatic exit. Prost!

English 335: Narrating the Middle East

I feel at home in an English class. Analyzing, interpreting, reading between the lines, it all brings me great joy. According to the syllabus, we will be studying authors from Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Iran, and Turkey. Discussions so far have been interesting, centering around readership in the Middle East (primarily the educated, higher-income classes), how fiction is capable of articulating a historical narrative, and the points of view of women authors in the Middle East. I spend a solid chunk of every lecture feeling uninformed about Middle Eastern history and politics, but this is motivating to me. It means I’m learning.

An array of Turkish books

Here’s hoping all of these credits transfer back to UBC. Whatever the case, there has been much learning transpiring outside of academia’s constructs. Being able to walk into a Turkish bookstore and browse the selection firsthand, or asking a shop owner in the Grand Bazaar how much something is in stumbling Turkish, these are truly educational experiences that can’t be gained from sitting inside a classroom.