My blog success disappears (!).

I have had an uneventful 2-week period. Things have been all right. I am reading intensively. That gives me real patience to continue. Now that I am left alone, apart from my basic duties, I keep reading whenever I find opportunity.

1. So much "phatic talk"

2. So much focus on sexuality. Phatic talk mostly turns around sexuality. What can you expect?

3. The "tick" problem.  Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever is a tangible problem here. We have to be careful.

Anyway, let me go back. Damn!

My dear readers, I am sorry for all the pessimistic writing recently. I could not help it. Despite my optimism it did not work for better until very recently. I can now declare that despite the failure in my transfer request I am doing much better!  This new turn of events happened after reaching the lowest point here. One morning I fainted. I remember fainting once when I was in primary school. I haven't had any issue like that before. Sleeplessness, stress and blood pressure finally worked on me. After staying 3-4 hours in the hospital, I came back and my life got better gradually.

In fact, my life had gotten better after being cleared off from the office work- not any more subject to continous exposure to stressful officials. My life had become simpler: Doing 5 or 6 hours of watch duty in a small prison next to our barracks. Daily exercises- Particularly the morning session plus pre-lunch and pre-dinner sessions. Daily morning cleaning duties. In order to sleep enough, I go to bed at 8:30 pm so that I can do my night watch easily.

Officials like privates to do constant work and this does not leave much time for rest. However, I am now basically exempted from any extra work - don't ask what extra work is; officials can always find extra work for privates like pulling grass, painting, cleaning again and again- This leaves me enough time to do readings! I have been reading all my life and I chose Sociology in my undergraduate program just to read more and this was the first time I could not read for such a long time. Now that I am back to regular reading, I feel really better. I now take routine exercises for my own bodily benefit. Officials are not pushy any more and I am still doing lower scores than my 10 year younger mates but I certainly show betterment in scores.

From time to time, I am sent to patrolling duties, we roam through villages. So far I was in night patrols, so I haven't seen villages in daylight but I hear it is fancy to walk through villages. I was once sent to a patrol that would transfer two inmates from one prison to another. This was a more stressful task as you might guess. Speaking of the prison, ours is a small one and contains small time inmates. There has never been an escape attempt. This makes my watch duty less stressful. There are always two privates and one sergeant in the watch. I wait in the back cabin and sometimes pace up and down in my designated area. I will write a story about passing 3 hour-session there:) Well, since this duty is not particularly stressful- in fact prison guard duty is under normal conditions a very stressful duty- my duty sometimes turns out to be idyllic. The prison has a big garden and the sergeants mostly do some kind of horticultural work while privates climb trees and collect cherries. or sit down and read newspapers which are all of course forbidden normally. A few days ago, something on my helmet. It was a white mulberry. Since then I spend sometime collecting and eating mulberries.

There is virtually no pastime activity which is a constant complain. Our table-tennis has just been removed. TV set is only used my officials at the moment. No more news watching. There are backgammon sets and even a small chess set. as you might guess, chess is not a favorite pastime activity for many kids but I still played some and chess remains to be only sport I am good at. I suspect backgammon sets will be removed soon. So what can 20-21 year-old kids do? If they find any time, they wrestle. There is something Freudian in these constant bodily encounters, but i won't speculate about that.

Cell phone usage is forbidden but when night comes, people use it in the ward and officials probably are aware of that. So I will have to listen to boys talking to their wives or lovers or watch them wrestling. My station is a place for "exiled ones". Many privates have criminal records or psychological problems. This never became a problem for me though. I am more used to work or encounter with these types though some of them are harder cases than I ever met. Most of the privates are Kurdish by the way. As far as I know this is a general policy. Sending Easterners to the western regions and vice versa.

Let me hope to bring more good news next time. Next week we will be subject to an Auditing by the Regional Command Headquarters. That's hopefully the last hard phase before I am released in mid-September.  Thank you for all your support and good wishes.

Erkan's Contact Info.

Please write responsibly as all received material supervised here:)

J. Er  Erkan Saka
İlçe Jandarma  Komutanlığı
TOSYA/KASTAMONU 37200
 
telefon: 0366 313 1032

It was a very upsetting night. Beşiktaş became the  champion and I could not feel happy because of the conditions I was in.

I find myself in the best internet cafe of the town in this Saturday morning and relying on fizy.org I try to relax in listening to Lamb of God and Manowar. These are what I chose for this session. Nothing special... But particularly Manowar sounds very good, makes me feel better right now. This is the one day 9-17 break in 2 weeks. Other stations have weekly breaks but ours only in 2 weeks. [Now I move to listening to "Running Wild".] [finally Meshuggah, before I leave, before I post...]

Unfortunately, nothing much changed since the last break. They are so unpredictable that you cannot routinize my experience. In fact, there have been some changes. Yesterday, I was fired my my office work because the office was not tidy enough. Now, I will be totally an ordinary soldier. I will have at least 6 hours of watch duties. There are probably lots of cleaning tasks and of course patroling duties. That's all right. I was just too stressful in the office work, always subject to officials' watch and warnings. Not to mention insults by some.

I am still waiting for a transfer with diminishing hopes. Well, I have lost motivation to write. Let's hope for a better post next time.

p.s. I received a card from Kathrine (Jensen) and a letter from Prof. Nezih Erdoğan! These were sweet, they made my day. Let's pray for a good transfer and I will post my address again.

First, the extensive study of the Persian blogosphere which the project released last year, Mapping Iran's Online Public, has been supplemented by an interactive interface for exploring an updated blogosphere map. This updated map includes translations of a small sampling of representative blog posts and provides a handy visual companion to the study. Links:

* Mapping Iran's Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere, April 2008 (English and Persian versions available): http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2008/Mapping_Irans_Online_Public

* "Mapping Change in the Iranian Blogosphere," February 2009: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/idblog/2009/02/12/mapping-change-in-the-iranian-blogosphere/

* Mapping Iran's Online Public: Interactive blogosphere map, June 2009: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2008/Mapping_Irans_Online_Public/interactive_blogosphere_map

 

Beşiktaş hopes to emulate the victorious ’spirit of 2003’

I just wanted to let you know that Arte TV channel just launched a special interactive platform '27 et Moi' for the forthcoming European elections : it is in French and German but some of the participants speak English. The basic idea for Arte is to struggle abstention. The platform is pretty well done, since you can watch and comment new videos each day, posted by 27 different correspondants. The idea is to know how is the campaign is taking place in their countries. The profiles are really different : like student, a housewive, a businessman, a retired man...There are also 'Q&A' game, typically like how resistant condoms actually are or what is the link between zucchini and the EU ?...

28 days of beginner's training ended yesterday and we were relocated to stations where we will stay for the rest of our military service. Hopefully until September 17...Not all together of course. Every station got 2-3 friends.  

Our last days were really enjoyable. After washing the lunch dishes...

This is my first and last photo with a real gun. I have to assure you that I am not as happy as I look here. And I don't think this is the right way to handle a gun:)

I arrived the station last night. The commander on duty and fellow privates welcomed me and three other friends really friendly and sincerely. Still, here comes another start. Another state to get familiar with. We will meet with the highest official in charge on Monday and from then on my real time begins... Today until 5 pm I am free but then not until 15 days later...

The commander on duty immediately appointed me as a clerk (yazıcı), that does not exclude me from other military duties but I will have fewer watch duties and in fact I will be the one who will prepare the watch lists. The dark side is that clerks are continously under the watch of officials... Well, let's see what happens. After two weeks of relative comfort and familiarization, I am back to alienation mood and this blog, gmail and facebook accounts become the only signs that I indeed had a life before and hopefully I will have that my life back one day...

The next important date is May 9. That is when we will finish our beginner drills and we will be sent to stations where we will be stationed until the very end. That is, September 18.  I will probably become a sergeant after May 9. After May 9, when I have my permanent address here, I will announce and then I will be expecting your cards and chocolate (from Claudia). Probably May 9 will be the next time when I can be online.

This weekend was a time of exploration. The hotel I stay in is fine, İdrisoğlu hotel, right at the center of town. Good wireless, and good service in general. Relatively cheap. We have discovered a good place where we can watch the soccer games and play cards. We have discovered at least one good restaurant to take our guests...

Kastamonu itself is a good town to visit. In fact, we had visited this place, I, Çetin and his wife, Sündüz,  4 years ago, passed through this town, after spending the whole day, we had moved to İnebolu in our Black Sea trip. Residents are hospitable and the town is quite historical and with four local dailies. It is also near to famous Safranbolu. half an hour from the town center.

I am not supposed to write about military life itself, and so please forgive me for not giving details here. Just for general observations related to me: This is probably the best place for the mandatory service to take place.  Still the service life is hard to swallow. Just to give you an idea: the films that would best describe the service life is not the action packed war movies but Holocaust movies, that focus on concentration camps. for instance scenes from Bent (1997) came to my mind (not something special- it was one of the latest movies I watched, it was easier to remember). Maybe Full Metal Jacket (1987) could also be relevant here.

What makes life bearable is all people in my division (nearly 100 people) are college graduates and 5-monthers. There are no stealing or bad intentions. People are very helpful and sincere. I am the third oldest guy there but many looks older than I am. There are nearly 20 high school teachers and two university lecturer (including me). I believe I already made some life long friends.

Gradually, long-termers (15 months serving citizens with no college education and in average 20-years olders) began to treat us really good. First they were angry because we were short-termers, but gradually they liked us especially when they observed us going down under intensive training.

What makes life also bearable is that our superiors are extremely gentle. That doesn't mean they favor us in training but they respect us, they never insulted us, or they never used corporal punishment. I wish in peace time military service, there could be more civilian elements. You are shut off from your previous life in such a drastic manner that only comrade solidarity back in there can partially cure. I am told that after the Oath, there will be relaxation. And particularly after May 9, life will become really easier.

Right now, I have no problem going back in. I know I can do it. I am already used to it. See you -hopefully- on May 9 and don't forget me here! 

Our division gets ready to start the Oath Ceremony. 

Oath takes place on the flag and the gun (We use AK-47 machines guns a.k.a. Kalashnikov)

I am 33 and still my parents have to come to get permission for the weekend leave. Military rules. Now they are gone, I stay in a hotel until Sunday afternoon. Then I my duty resumes. 

to be continued. 

My dear friend, Can Avcı, will take care of the comments section; will approve your valuable comments from time to time... 

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Kastamonu is a western Black Sea town, 7 hours away from Istanbul..

That's what I am going to do:

This is from Kastamonu gendarmarie station...