Student' discovery, meeting with Prof. Sirman....
December 11, 2004
Thanks Hutain for offering me a ride. I guess Ertan or Ayhan will be angry if I don't ask them for a ride from the airport:) But Hutain, we should this time realize the dinner event! You and your wife would invite me for a dinner! And Nahal, I wish I could come to Washington. Next time, dear!
So I have been in my office since late morning: 1) Grading, which is still not done. 2) Working on a few corrections in my weekly report on EU funded project news in Turkey. 3) Emailing 4) Flirting through MSN messenger 5) Learning the benefits of my new Google account! So i have become one of the cool people who have a gmail account. But I am satisfied with my existing accounts. So you will not receive a notification on email address change. 6) newspaper archiving. 7) I reconfirmed my ticket booking.
I am really excited about this trip. I hope I will not have any problems related to visa issues.
On the evening of Dec 9, I had a very nice experience but I will let you know about it later. I cannot guess what that will lead to right now...
Besiktas defeated Kayseri with a literally last minute goal. I am happy.
It is 6 pm, a Saturday evening. But I will have to work on my AAA presentation. I have to finish grading and I should do a little bit reading. I have skipped reading regularly recently. This annoys me. I haven't even watched a movie in the last 3 days! Maybe tonight I can add Nolte's 'under fire' to my list of tasks... I guess I will not have a very playful saturday night....
Tomorrow I am invited to sunday family breakfast event:)
Posted by erkan at December 11, 2004 06:09 PMPosted to Habitus
You are very welcome Erkan. Consider our dinner deal done. When will you be going back to the city "full of Muslims" (Isl�mbol), remember?
December 08, 2004
Dec 16-25
Under normal conditions, I will arrive to Houston on Dec 16. I am going to Atlanta in my presentation day. My long distance flight is booked but I have to look for a plane ticker btw Houston-Atlanta...
I have been working on my AAA presentation. Hopefully, it will be ready by the time I leave Houston:)
I am excited to see people in Houston, I missed you all! Unfortunately, i won't be able to see most of my regular blog followers, but I will be closer!!
I take this AAA trip as an opportunity to freshen up and start a new beginning in my fieldwork.
Posted by erkan at December 8, 2004 02:21 PMPosted to Habitus
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Call me at my mobile at 832 368 8947. My home number is 713 741 7550. Let me know if you will be needing someone to pick you up at the airport or if you need help with anything. I will be staying in Houston during the winter break.
Posted by: Hut�n at December 8, 2004 03:07 PMDec 16 is the day that the EU will respond to Turkey, right?! Wow, how symbolic for you then to be flying on that day! It's also the day I will start my FREE housesitting for my boss's neighbours, a famous chef couple (the same I was housesitting for in the summer) and their ruthless haunter cat, Four Socks. After I had already reluctantly accepted to do this for them, I got another house and pet sitting offer for 100$ a day and a fridge full of food (ironically the chef couple never have food in the fridge. probably because everything is at the restaurant and they detest cooking at home). sigh. I'm missing 700$ just like that. How did I get so unlucky? but maybe this is better because the other family have a dog and I've never been in charge of one. I know a dog that haunts squirrels. Dreadful. Okay, I don't know how all this relates to your Dec 16 flight back to the US. I'll miss you in Houston.
Posted by: nahal at December 11, 2004 02:31 AMI probably mean 'hunt' and not 'haunt', but I'm not sure. One of them, I know, is what ghosts do, and bad memories. I mean the other one. Hey, btw, my boss told me this funny story about when she had just come to the US and she had mice in the house, so she called pest control, but her accent was so thick and she did not pronounce 'mouse' properly, so the woman did not understand what she wanted. Finally she had to say: do you watch Tom and Jerry? Okay, not Tom the Cat, the other one! And that's how the pest control people understood her problem: Jerry!
December 07, 2004
Kebap celebration
I have decided to have a party-like dinner at the end of the semester with my 3rd year students to celebrate the liberation from the MED 391 course. This is not certain yet but I had coffee with a group of students and talked about where to go and maybe we will have dinner at the Kebap place in Aksaray where Eric and Julie had some delicious food...
Posted by erkan at December 7, 2004 01:14 PMPosted to Habitus
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Thank you so much for mentioning the blog! We love you too Erkan! By the way, you mentioning kebab made me hungry... Any suggestions of good Turkish food around Houston?
Posted by: Hut�n at December 7, 2004 10:21 PMIstanbul grill is all right. And I heard that there is another Turkish restaurant in Rice Village that was opened after I left. Ask Ebru if that one is reliable.
See you soon man, I will probably in Houston on Dec 16!
December 06, 2004
Students' discovery
So some of my clever students discovered this blog. Should i censor myself? I guess I should find some nicknames for the people I am talking about. But as long as those three cute and clever buddies from the management of performing arts department are the only ones to read the blog, I am not that anxious.
I could finally screen the movie 'veronica guerin' today. Last week we could not display subtitles and students could not understand the movie. But I suspect some of the still did not understand the movie despite the English subtitles. A female student asked my what 'cunt' meant etc...
So i had done overtime work staying in the campus until 8 pm. But I love to spend time with my students so it was not a big deal. Oh I mean both students. I don't know the reason exactly but I feel great sympathy for my first year students. Maybe because my twins, my brother and sister are just two years younger than these and they are the joy of my life...
I lost my office key so i spent at least an hour to duplicate it...Now i have 3 copies:(
I had lunch with Pinar Kur, a professor and a well-known novelist and also a translator, and her TAs, Ayse and Cigdem. Kur has recently translated a McEwan novel and I told her how I admire his novels. I am glad she did not mention her own novels, because i did not read them at all..
Ayse is a philosophy graduate and she accepted my invitation to discuss Anti-Oedipus. As soon as I finish the book, I and Ozge are thinking of a discussion session and I have begun to think we should invite more people to the session.
So at the night of December 6, i am watching a Turkish film, doing some grading, reading a chapter on news and public space, working on my AAA presentation and i feel fine...
Oh finally, Hutain has a blog, too.. :
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~hhm/ir
December 05, 2004
Sirman meeting
I am in my office on a Sunday evening. I have just finished my last 'invigilation' work for the midterm season. The room supervisor was my Chair here. So I learnt that she had a double date last night and she liked the candidate:) I told her about my Friday fiasco forgetting the fact she probably knows her. She was quite determined to help me but i guess i don't need help right now... Ana, don't worry about me and please have a good day tomorrow! I feel really fine now and I am daydreaming about my big academic successes in future!
At noon I had my much expected meeting with Prof. Sirman. I was prepared to do my talk but Prof Sirman disarmed me at the very first encounter: 'Oh Erkan, I was expecting you yesterday, I have waited you for a long time...Now I am working on some Women's something association...' But she offered me coffee and we still chattted for two hours. I am quite sure I did not misunderstood the meeting day... So this weekend consists of three unrealized meetings (at least in their proper meaning). Last night I and Ozge (Columbia anthropology) would go to a reggea concert but her grandmother got sick and she had to leave the town to see her. I have already told my Friday failure.
Anyway, I think that two hour chat was still productive.
1) Sirman reminded me not to ignore lower level journalists. 'these are what they, the editors, have. Production occurs in both ways'.
2) Traditional 'alaylı' journalists disappear in the conglomeration days. [Alaylı means whose education is not journalism but one who learnt journalism in practice] These guys had strict rules about what journalistic work ment but they are replaced by whom? That's a good ethnographic question. Because although that kind of 'alayli' journalists disapper and replaced by journalism students, higher echelons of journalism, editors, emerge as a new wave of 'alayli'. H�rriyet's and Radikal's chief editors - these are the first to come to my mind- did not have a journalism diploma... We decided that tracing journalist biographies would be productive...
3) She was reproachful because I did not want a recommendation letter from her for my SSRC application. She has a close friend who is in the selection committee and since she had already supervised my previous thesis blah blah blah...
4) I learnt that she played basketball at Besiktas's girls' team for 10 years!! now my generalization is reinforced. Most of the cool Turkish women support Besiktas:)
5) Sirman reminded me that she assigns a chapter from my master thesis in her introduction to sociology class...
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