Last ones.

Mr. B and Joel jammin' with these awesome blues guys!


Outside Stax Studio....music is great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


On the river boat! Rollin' rollin' rollin' on the river!


Great sign for the students, no?

More...

Students at the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery.


Graceland...we love Elvis!


Sun Studio....I love Johnny Cash!!


Bob and Rob... =)

Expedition America

The students at the "New Found Gap" after two days of hiking in the Smoky's!

Students with Rev. Fred Shuttleworth outside of the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, AL.




Edmund Pettus Bridge...location of Bloody Sunday.


Mr. Blumenthal and Joel playing a little tunes around the campfire!

My mom in the news again..... =)

A summer filled with art

PORTAGE | Andrea Riley has spent some of her summer days getting ready for Christmas.

A media clerk at Crisman Elementary School, Riley participated in a summer ceramics workshop organized by Portage High School art teacher Paula Wiese. During six classes over four weeks, she created a slew of ceramic snowflake ornaments for her Christmas tree. She made a vase and other items, as well.

More than a dozen students and Portage Township Schools staff members participated in the summer session created to give Wiese a chance to finish some work related to a $10,000 grant she received through BP's A+ for Energy program, which helps teachers fund projects promoting energy education and conservation in the classroom.

Students in Wiese's upper-level ceramics class created tabletop fountains that run with solar-powered pumps. She said she was planning to be at the school this summer, anyway, completing her report of the project. She had another reason for firing up the art room's kiln and spinning the pottery wheel into action this summer.

"I didn't get to make my fountain," Wiese said. "That was the most motivating."

Students paid $10 and staff members $30 to learn to make the ceramics. They were allowed to make as many items as they wanted over the class meetings, Wiese said.

"We get to make a lot," said Connie Melton, a home-school adviser at South Haven Elementary School. "She gave us some basic skills, and she let us make whatever we wanted."

Melton took the class with her daughter, 15-year-old Sarah, who will be a freshman at the high school in the fall. Sarah said she liked working with the pottery wheel. Others weren't such fans of the wheel.

"The only thing that was frustrating was the wheel," said Julie Whitten, a fifth-grade teacher at Jones Elementary School. "That pottery wheel is hard work."

Participants in the debut summer workshop already have signed up for next year's class, assuming Wiese gets permission from school administrators to offer it again.

"Any class where people want to be here is successful," Wiese said. "Then, it's easy. They motivate themselves."

(For pictures go to: http://nwi.com/articles/2008/07/09/news/porter_county/doc08d1bcf4573c91d4862574800057fcb9.txt)

Nice full day.

Last night I stayed with Katie and Rick and Katie made some great dinner. And we watched many episodes of "Weeds"...it is really relaxed being there. Katie and Rick are so funny together. =)

I had to leave really early this morning to come back for an eye doctor's appointment, then I went to Portage for another computer class thing for teachers. Then I went to give blood...then I went to Rob and Erin's so Rob could help me pack and make sure I had everything for Monday. I am going to borrow Josh's tent, since I don't have one.

Then I watched "P.S. I love you" which makes me want to fall in love and never leave that man's arms.......oy.

There was a shooting at the US consulate in Istanbul. Article below:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/09/turkey.usconsulate/index.html

Cooking

http://www.turkishcookbook.com/2006/05/eggplant-dish-with-chickpeas.php

I made this eggplant and chickpeas thing. It wasn't perfectly Turkish, I think the eggplants are different here. I know that sounds silly, but they really are. But it still tasted good. Yum!

I bought a car last night.....it's old, but beautiful.

=)

oh.......and I got a new cell phone today..but the same number. =)

4th

Happy 4th of July...

don't get too drunk and blow your fingers off, please...

Fethullah Gülen

From http://www.kamilpasha.com/:

Prospect Magazine has announced that Fethullah Gülen, the leader of an influential Turkey-based global Sufi-oriented Islamic movement, has won the international poll to choose the World’s Most Influential Intellectual. While Gülen and his ideas are widely admired, he also is feared and hated by some in Turkey who see his enormous reach and publishing empire and his well-educated and well-organized followers as threats to Turkey’s secular state and society. The position of women outside the center of power in the Gülen community stands in contrast to Gülen’s teachings about the equality of women.

Here are the Top 10 Influential Intellectuals

1 Fethullah Gülen
2 Muhammad Yunus
3 Yusuf Al-Qaradawi
4 Orhan Pamuk
5 Aitzaz Ahsan
6 Amr Khaled
7 Abdolkarim Soroush
8 Tariq Ramadan
9 Mahmood Mamdani
10 Shirin Ebadi

The Prospect calls Gülen a “modern Ottoman” and his approach “Islam-Lite”:

[He] promotes an open brand of Islamic thought and… is preoccupied with modern science… Unusually for a pious intellectual, he and his movement are at home with technology, markets and multinational business, and especially with modern communications and public relations—which, like a modern televangelist, he uses to attract converts. Like a western celebrity, he carefully manages his public exposure—mostly by restricting interviews to those he can trust.

Many of his converts come from Turkey’s aspirational middle class. As religious freedom comes, falteringly, to Turkey, Gülen reassures his followers that they can combine the statist-nationalist beliefs of Atatürk’s republic with a traditional but flexible Islamic faith. He also reconnects the provincial middle class with the Ottoman traditions that had been caricatured as theocratic by Atatürk and his “Kemalist” heirs. Oliver Leaman, a leading scholar of Islamic philosophy, says that Gülen’s ideas are a product of Turkish history, especially the end of the Ottoman empire and the birth of the republic. He calls Gülen’s approach “Islam-lite.”


Prospect admits that the election of Gülen was the result of active organization of votes by his supporters and the sympathetic Zaman Newspaper:

On 1st May, Zaman—the highest-selling newspaper in Turkey, with a circulation of over 700,000 and a string of international editions—ran a story on its front page alerting its readership to the appearance of Gülen on the Prospect/FP list, and to the fact that we were inviting people to vote. Zaman is known to be close to the Gülen movement, and over the coming weeks the paper made regular reference to the cleric’s appearance on our list. The poll was also noted in other Turkish newspapers, as well as on every single Gülen website, official and unofficial, we were able to find.

The efficiency and discipline of the Fethullahci is legendary—so in retrospect, for them, a poll like ours was simple to hijack. The temptation for Gülen’s followers to elevate their man to the top of a poll organised by two influential western magazines will have been a strong one. In one respect, then, Gülen’s crushing win tells us little about what the world thinks about its intellectuals; it merely exhibits the organisational ability of one movement’s followers. On the other hand, perhaps we can see through Gülen’s victory the emergence of a new kind of intellectual—one whose influence is expressed through a personal network, aided by the internet, rather than publications or institutions.

Other articles:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10263
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10262

I am also going to be the Assistant Swimming Coach......it should be interesting. But the head coach is really good, so I am more an organizer/motivator. Thank goodness. =)

I went to Muncie Sunrise Rotary this morning and I am going to a Rotary dinner tonight. It is two and a half hours away...I thought it was closer. Oh well!!

I made cookies at Kayla's house...her house is so so adorable. I could easily move in. ;-)

Classes

I will be teaching 4 classes of "Geography and the History of the World" and 2 classes of US History!! My room is 224 and there is orange wallpaper...yep, I said orange. =)

But it's a really young department, I think we will all work together and have a lot of fun!!

I am excited!

I am excited about my job. I didn't mean for the last post to sound monotone. It is hard not to have mixed feelings. I left the most beautiful country and many many wonderful loving friends who were really my family. Now I am starting again in the US. It is really difficult at times, not just being with my parents, but American culture in general. I am grateful to be with my family, I am also grateful for a washer and dryer and ice cubes. But the US is so so wasteful, not just gas, but electricity and water. Coming from a country that has to shut off the water to conserve resources, to America, where we all have beautiful green lawns, relaxation fountains, and houses are required to have a street lamp, it's a little shocking.

But that's also why I think it is so important for me to teach in the US, at least for now. I want to help students realize that the world isn't like America. There are places that have nothing, and that's okay. They don't want a $100,000 income, 2.5 children, a three car garage, and a country club membership. Because in some parts of the world, family, friends, and G-d are more important than material possessions and societal status.

Job

I got a job...in America...at Portage High School in Portage, IN. I will be teaching Social Studies...as for what subjects, I am actually not sure...more to follow...

Mettie's 75th birthday party!

The cake...adorable, no?


Our family!


Mosaik pasta I made for the party!! It was perfect, Sevgi would have been proud of me!

Our backyard set up for the festivities!

My birthday.

If you didn't already figure it out from the title..today is my birthday!

Ezan ve Istanbul

Ezanı özlüyorum...I miss the call to prayer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5twelS1JWlg

Tomorrow, my birthday, I will have been home for a week. Everyday gets a little easier. My parents are wonderful, this has nothing to do with them, but life here is so different. I don't have any friends in Chesterton, they are scattered around the world. So I went from being with people 24/7...literally...to no one.

American's lifestyles are different, very consumerist, capitalist, right or wrong...it is different.

Besides my friends in Turkiye...I miss the sound of the call to prayer. It would go off five times a day. The longest in the morning. I didn't go and pray, I'm not Muslim, but I would always slow down, re-center, re-focus, smile, be grateful, etc. Of course, I can do that without a booming call to prayer, but it's easy to forget.

Turkiye'yi cok seviyorum.

Chicago with my mom and Cindy

I like this picture!


My mom!

Liz and Steven got MARRIED!!!

Tri-pod reunited!!

Yum!!

My goodbye "party"

Volkan wrote me two poems...I cried, but it was worth it, they are beautiful.


Beating Ozkan at tavla one last time.


Laughing at Hakan...but I don't know why. =)

Kitten season.


I know this is blurry...but I love my girls...and the view!



With Sevgi's grandma and teyzes!! They are all painters! and so so cute!


Me and Sevgi at the best view in Istanbul.......my last time up the hill.

Futbol games.


Inside the Jewish Museum...


Goodbye Caddebostan Rotary =(


Sevgi and me in front of the Blue Mosque.

Me, Sevgi, and Beria watching the sunset.

SO MANY CHERRIES!!!

We went to Sortie...a really posh club for Safiye's birthday!


On Rumeli Hisari. =)

Weeks behind blogging..

Mandy turned 23!!!!!!!


Sevgi and me at Josh's goodbye.....we're cute.


I love these two boys, Kadir and Sinan. I hope I will see them soon. This have really similar smiles...I love it.


Kiz kulesi at sunset!

Very significant ruling in Turkey:

Court annuls Turkish scarf reform

Turkey's highest court has blocked government moves to allow college students to wear Muslim headscarves.

The Constitutional Court said that a vote by parliament to ease a ban on scarves being worn on campuses violated the constitution's secular principles.

The government argues that a headscarf ban stops many girls being educated.

But much of the secular establishment resisted the move, seeing it as a step towards allowing Islam to figure more largely in Turkish public life.

The ruling, by a panel of 11 judges, could foreshadow the outcome of a separate court case in which the ruling AK Party (AKP) could be banned for anti-secular activities.

Some 71 members of the party, including the prime minister and the president, could also be banned from belonging to a political party for five years.

Power struggle

"It is a historic ruling... It signals that hard times are coming for the AKP," said veteran politician Husamettin Cindoruk.

But a senior party member of the AKP, Bekir Bozdag, said the court had overstepped its jurisdiction.

"This is interfering with both democracy and parliament's legislative authority," he told the AFP news agency.

The headscarf ban is seen by some as one of the cornerstones of the secular state - a symbol of the exclusion of Islam from state activities.

The secularist establishment, which includes the army, courts and universities, is opposed to any reform of the ban.

The AK Party, which was re-elected last year with a convincing 47% of the vote, says it is a matter of personal and religious freedom.

It used its strong presence in parliament to push through a parliamentary amendment in February overturning the ban in universities.

Thursday's court ruling is the latest episode in a power struggle between the establishment and the AK Party, which has its roots in Islamism.

Last year's elections were forced after a constitutional impasse over whether the AKP's Abdullah Gul could be the country's president.

Turkey's chief prosecutor says the AKP is "the focal point of anti-secular activities", and is seeking to have it disbanded.

Birds

Yesterday at Kiz Kulesi, a bird pooed on me! This is the second time I have been pooped on by a bird while in Istanbul.....Turks say that it is lucky. When you tell them, they say you should buy a lottery ticket....so it that's true, I should be a millionaire by now!

Obama!

I am quite pleased about this....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/us/politics/04elect.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss