...and to answer the question i asked at the end of the last post: i met someone and it's looking good. touch wood!

rediscovering a long forgotten old post

i found something that i wrote aaaaages ago, in another blog. Tuesday, December 16, 2008 to be exact. wow, how time passes by. here goes:

culture

so i found someone who studies turkology. i have a new austrian friend now. she is quite calm, friendly, she looks a bit shy but she is so much fun to hang out with. during our first meeting we spoke in german mostly. she didn't want to speak turkish but she listened as i spoke very slowly and clearly and understood most of the things i said. we sat in a cafe for hours and talked about cultural differences, the turks in austria, istanbul, her time in turkey and a lot of other stuff.

during our second meeting i encouraged her a bit more to speak turkish and told her it's ok to make mistakes, like a teacher. then i reminded her of the many mistakes i make while speaking german. i can understand her concerns, i had the same during my first days here. i used to try to speak as correct as possible, i was always thinking during sentences and panicing thinking i bore people cause i'm speaking so slowly. now i just speak and make mistakes. so after the pep talk, she started speaking turkish and she is pretty good at it, although she doesn't think so. she was so cute while speaking turkish that i wanted to squeeze her cheeks, but of course i didn't (i think it's only acceptable in my culture to squeeze the cheeks of someone who is older than 5).

it was a very interesting and cool experience for me cause i don't know any other people who are learning turkish. i have an austrian friend who lives in turkey but her turkish is great, i don't pretty much teach her anything and she doesn't need to practice with me since there are a lot of turkish speakers around her. so i really enjoyed teaching my new friend new words and answering her questions about why she can't use that word there and stuff. i also really enjoyed talking about turkey with a "foreigner", who actually knows a lot about it for a change. i'm not saying everybody's supposed to know a lot about turkey, but it gets pretty boring when others ask weird things about my country ("you can't study there right, that's why you came here to study... right? hey wait!") or judge something in the past without actually knowing something about it. she knows about the culture, the music, the history, politics, the comedians even. these were very interesting to discuss with an austrian. we are going to go to a turkish comics exhibition sometime this week.

i really like observing cultural differences. i also wonder why there are so many of them. why are the people more touchy kissy in the east? why are they more distant in the west? i found it very funny whenever steph (english friend) had a culture shock with me. like when she made cute faces, i couldn't help but squeeze her cheeks and then she would remind me that she's not 4. once she was lying on the bed as i was about to make some tea. i asked if she wanted some too, while rubbing her tummy and she answered by letting me know that she's not a dog :)

the biggest cultural shock i had here was probably when my ex asked me to pay for his coffee reminding me that he lent me 2 euros earlier. he said something like "could you pay for my coffee so that we can be even?" now i'm not expecting to fight over the bill with the boyfriend, trying to pay for my drink, like i would have to do in turkey, but it was quite shocking to find out that he was keeping tracks on whatever small coins he gave me for something and expecting me to pay back so that "we can be even". being even is pretty important in austria. so yeah even though i found it shocking, i did as he said.

i wonder if i can be with an austrian guy again, in spite of all the cultural differences.

warning

if someone doesn't get me outta here soon, i will start writing awful poetry out of melancholy and boredom. just sayin'.

"you should learn to care less", my dad said. hmm this will take a while.

i'm somewhere in the south of turkey. spending family time at my parents' summerhouse aka retirementville, where the stars are brighter and life is simpler. the place is full of grandparents and grandchildren. it's like there is a "coolness gap" in between. i used to have sooo much fun here, till i was like 17. i had friends. we would sit by the sea and talk and laugh for hours. a few of these people are gonna drop by for a few days next week. looking forward to that. till then i will keep not socializing, swimming in the sea, reading lots of books and spending time with my family.

till he was 38, jack nicholson thought his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister. just like eric clapton, although he found out about the truth much earlier, when he was 9.  how do you get over something like that? how do you deal with life, knowing that the most basic things you believed to be true without questioning, were actually lies?

they do this open air movie night thing here, where this one guy brings his projection device and shows films on the wall of the little market. i watched "the iron lady" last week. it was the most depressing film i had seen in a while. made me think of how lonely people get when they get old. even the walk i took afterwards didn't help. right now, i need happy films. happy happy films.

i miss singing. i make music with two lovely people in vienna, but not as often as i would like to. gotta find a way to do that regularly. we only do covers at the moment. here:

where, you may ask. in patrick's room, on his bed. hence the name. i'm the one that sings the second verse.

sunny hugs from the south.

this is me right now. i am obviously not your freud.


hello. i know i haven't written in a while. it just felt like i didn't have anything exciting going on in my life that i would like to share with the rest of the world... or with the 3 people who read my blog. and i was being lazy. i still am, by the way. i'm in istanbul at the moment. it's like 800 degrees and i spend my days lying around in my apartment or in my friends' apartments and we go out to do something once the weather has cooled down a bit. i can't complain really, my last days in vienna were full of uni stress, so it feels good to chill for a bit.

a very dear american friend of mine is coming to istanbul to visit me next week. really looking forward to that.  we wanna go to the south of turkey at some point as well. beautiful beaches, wonderful scenery and night life. can't wait! i gotta study for my exams in september at some stage, buuuut idon'treallywannatalkaboutthatatthemoment.

it's weird to be back home, sometimes. everybody's talking about marriage and stuff. i don't even remember what it's like to be in a relationship.

my brother was playing this star wars game on playstation last night (force unleashed 2) and i was watching him and making comments ("don't go there, you came from that door", "you have to jump on that thing first to get to that bridge", "watch out for that stormtrooper behind you"... etc).  he said "does it ever occur to you, that we still do the same things we did 20 years ago?" "haha yes" i said, "now use force lightning on that robot". well at least some things stay the same... for another while.

"it always feels like i'm waiting for something"

so i realized that i hadn't written anything about vienna in a while. this blog is listed as an expat blog about life in vienna in the expat blogs website, so i might as well.

vienna is fine. rainy but not so cold. but it's not all spring like, like it was in march.

i think they are closing down the international development studies at the university of vienna, so students have been protesting and occupying auditoriums of the main building since thursday. a lot of courses have been cancelled at the moment because they can't go into the auditoriums. oh and the library is also closed. i'm supposed to take a book back on monday so i don't know how that's gonna work out.

i went out and got pretty drunk last night. well in my defense, it was friday! i met up with a friend and his friends. after having downed bottles of magners in the most popular irish pub in vienna, we went to this bar called "traveler's shack". i hadn't been there before, it was full of "foreigners". people were dancing on stuff. it was a lot of fun, i wanna go there again.

models feat. the moderator

mimie took me to a designer awards event a few days ago. she wrote my name on the list so that i could go inside the VIP area, stand around with the high society of vienna, watch the fashion show while drinking free wine and enjoying complimentary asian food. it was such a highlight for my life, since normally the most VIP place i go to is the library. and even that is closed now!! anywhooo.. after the show, the models came and hung around. they were all soo young, around 20, unlike most of the guests. i had wine and a mini catch up session with lovely mimie.

there is a busy week ahead of me. yikes!!

depressive post

i'm going through a rough patch. i have difficulty motivating myself into doing something constructive and concentrating on doing it. i just feel like i drag myself from one place to another because of various necessities. i doubt myself, my future, my sanity. i have been caught up in these depressive/negative thought patterns, which i have been trying to avoid by distracting myself, like nothing actually really matters in the end and everyone you love dies. it's been like that ever since i lost my grandma (exactly 3 months ago) and it makes it really difficult for me to concentrate on my studies and have hopes for the future. "what's the point?" i keep asking myself. it's like adolescence all over again. the idea of losing my parents makes me wanna run and hide, though you can't really run away from time. so my body gives psychosomatic reactions, which makes matters only worse.

i just need some peace. 

"The truth is a tree if you start shaking it"

loving the new nada surf album "the stars are indifferent to astronomy" and i can't believe i didn't know about it till today! the sincere and deep lyrics, calm guitars, the soft voice of matthew caws... it's everything i would expect from a nada surf album. it makes me wanna cuddle with nada surf all night and get up in the morning to prepare breakfast for them. i don't like preparing breakfast at all. they are THAT good.

gotta love nada surf

"clusters of people talking
secretly to each other
in a bar, you cannot talk openly to anyone you don't already know.
4 year olds, they have got the right idea:
they jump the line and hit it on the nose.
when we sit and we get quiet,
then we look and see who's home.
across the way there are 80 windows we can see,
it's christmas time and they all have the same tree
you tell me the patterns you already see
i wonder if they see us in our bed.
you said you like the one with the father who always eats with his son.
i like the rows of lights because they keep me calm.
i feel far away from you. so what else is new?
the moon is closer to the sun than i am to anyone."

"So I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun"

i'm in istanbul to visit my friends and family. i feel like i spend my life between two countries, between two homes to both of which i only partly belong. can't complain actually, it just feels a bit weird when you think about it. maybe it's not THAT bad to not identify oneself 100% with a place, when it comes to moving on. if you eventually want to move on, that is. ah i'm just being weird because i'm turning 28 at the end of this week. BAH!

dating shows

hello blogsters.

i've been watching a lot of stupid dating shows recently. it's a good way of letting your brain take some time off, since you won't be needing it much whilst watching. my brain goes on holidays to a sunny beach when i watch these shows. i highly recommend it if you come home with too much in your mind and you need a break.

take me out: this one is originally an australian show, but the aussie version is a bit boring, which is weird because i think aussies are so much fun. anyways, i've watched a lot of episodes of the irish one. there is one guy, 30 girls who have a light each and the guy is trying to impress the girls. the girls who are turned off by the guy as he speaks (or sings, which is almost never a good idea in this show) turn their light off. in the end, the guy picks one of the remaining girls and takes her out on a date - if there are any girls left, that is. here are my impressions about the irish one:

• a lot of girls reject a guy just because he is from cork. one girl even said "i don't want to go 'sorry??' every two seconds", whereas even i could understand him.
• some girls reject a guy because he is from the same town, saying they need a break from that circle (what?!) and some girls reject a guy because they are from different cities, saying they can't be bothered with the distance.
• when a fit girl is picked to go on a date with the contestant, she must be replaced with a very fat one in the next episode.
• when asked what they want in a man, some girls answer "just a pulse".
• guys define trashy looking girls who wear waaay too much make up as "gorgeous".
• sometimes a girl turns off her light because she has already dated the guy before entering the show or she is friends with someone who has (seriously, is ireland THAT small?!)
• if he is into sports, a lot of girls turn their lights off saying they don't like sports and that he wouldn't have time for her if he did a lot of sports. (huh?!?)
• i really like the host, ray foley.

dating in the dark: this one was created in netherlands. i have watched some episodes of the us, uk and australia versions.  there are guys and girls staying in different parts of a house and they have dates in a light tight room. in the end they have to decide who they want to see in the light and if they like what they see, they go to the balcony and hope that the other one shows up. then they either meet the other one in the balcony and leave the house together or watch the other one leave OR (even better) watch the other one leave with another contestant. 

• the contestants in "take me out" are more light hearted than those in dating in the dark. they just wanna go on a date and have fun, whereas the dating in the dark people always say that they are there to find true love. some guys even say "i want to meet the mother of my children...in the dark".
• some contestants are very good looking and they say they want to do this, because they are tired of being judged based on their good looks only. (pshhh give me a break)
• i find it very entertaining when they get along very well and make out in the dark and then see each other and go "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!". some girls say very big things, like "omg i'm like totally in love, this is the real deal" but they change their minds when they see the person.
• another thing that i find entertaining is when they come back from the date and the guy says "yeah it went pretty well, we hit it off, i think she enjoyed it too, i wanna date her again" and the girl says "WHAT.WAS.THAT?"
• what i have learnt from this experiment: love may be seeing impaired but it definitely isn't blind. just kidding, i knew this all along.

the bachelor: it's fake. that's all you should know. here is an awesome parody from "thank god you're here", which is an awesome improvisation show from australia.

friends will be friends

today i heard another nice quote from a friend of mine at the metro:

-he is not my type. he looks like he would order his steak raw
-how does one look like that?!
-i don't know... he is very skinny, he has long hair and... he just does, ok?

i love my friends.

back in vienna. it's been a while actually, but i've been busy with visa stress and intensive partying. stupid visa.

i was at the metro with one of my flatmates yesterday. this tall blonde guy entered the train.

me: well hello there cute guy
flatmate: where?
me: over there. i think he is an 8.
flatmate: naaah... i'd say 5.
me: you call this a 5?! what kind of guys do you hang out with?!
flatmate: i don't know, i'm just not that into the whole "wild canadian forest man" look
me: there is such a look?
flatmate: nah i just came up with it
me: why canadian?
flatmate: i don't know
me: why forest man?
flatmate: he has a beard.

i live with interesting people.

speaking of wild canadians, we went to the "city and colour" concert last night. it was pretty amazing.



i did not make this video. dallas green (the lead singer) was saying that people are sometimes so busy trying to capture the moment that they forget to enjoy it. which is true actually, but then again it's good to have something to remember the night by. so i'm glad that someone bothered to make a video or two.

gotta love the weird signs

being a huge fan of weird signs, this website is my personal heaven:

http://www.happyplace.com/4042/most-absurd-warnings-and-product-disclaimers

i came back to istanbul from the south of turkey today. i had to do a 12 hour long bus trip, which was not a lot of fun, so i'm glad that's over. i did, however, have a lot of fun in the south of turkey with one of my best friends. hanging out at the beach during day and hitting the night life later was awesome. sometimes i get this feeling that life should be all about boat trips and nights out. then life itself gets in the way and i get distracted.

i'm going back to austria in about a week. funny how that foreign country feels like a second home to me and i miss it when i'm away.

downloading a shit load of albums at the moment. need new music!! been listening to a lot of electro stuff lately. i like them as long as they have a melody and a bit of a humanity in it, so that it doesn't sound like i'm listening to robots practicing s&m.

i was watching this film called "mr nobody" on the bus, but turned out they didn't have all of it (weird). it was cut towards the end. gotta find it and watch the rest, it seems like a very good movie. jared leto is starring. i also watched "love happens" on the bus and i suggest they change the title with "nothing happens". you should do better stuff, jennifer aniston. i really like jennifer aniston, although she plays rachel in every single movie.

oh and adam sandler's "oh look at me i'm a guy. i'm funny and stuff , get a load of me. i would make a great dad but i'm just a bit confused, you gotta get into my head a little. oh well i'm just a guy" character, which he plays in every single movie, makes me wanna spank his mouth with a size 47 plastic slipper.

warm hugs from a very warm country

erin go bragh!!

i went to ireland with a friend, spent a week there and celebrated st patrick's day in dublin. we also went to some small towns near dublin (dun laoghaire and howth) and saw some beautiful scenery. we were actually planning on going to some other cities including galway, but things didn't go according to plan. looks like i'm gonna have to go back! i had an amazing time there, the people i met were so nice and friendly. i love the fact that shop owners or bartenders go "hey how are you?" or "hi, you ok there?" instead of a plain "bitte", like they do in vienna.

we spent 4 nights with an irish family, so we pretty much had the ultimate irish experience :) when we failed to sort out the accommodation for those nights because of a change in plans, an internet friend of mine whom i've been chatting with for like 5 years now, invited me and my friend to stay with him and his family. it was so nice of him especially given the fact that we had never actually met in person. i don't know what we would have done without him. i have lots of great memories; like his dad getting everyone drunk on dinner table, singing irish folk songs, chilling at home with him and his sisters, his mom cooking delicious irish dishes, his dad teaching us gaelic words and expressions, which we were very excited and curious about, while the children rolled their eyes :) they made us feel really welcome and they treated us like one of their own.

i really enjoyed the st patrick's day parade. i had never seen a parade before. the streets were full of people in green. dublin was crawling with tourists throughout the whole week. actually, there weren't many irish in the bars or on the streets. either they evacuated the city or they were hiding in a tourist free zone somewhere.

i have to say that i was very surprised by the fact that most bars in dublin close at midnight during the week. there was one tourist bar with unbelievably expensive drinks which was open till 2. the first time we were in a bar in dublin and the lights started flickering to call last orders (at midnight!!), i thought there was something wrong with the lighting. that might be the reason why half of ireland is in vienna. the other half should get their asses over here too, we need more irish.

nearly all of my friends here told me to bring a cute irish guy back with me but i'm afraid that mission has failed. "ps i love you" gives you false expectations. i mean even that ugly neurotic bitch can find a cute irish guy to kill merely by nagging the living hell out of him and yet my friend and i went home empty handed. oh well, maybe next time.

i can't summarize my entire trip or upload all of the photos here, but i can say that i love the country, had a great time and i'm looking forward to seeing more of it.




a place near the kilmainham gaol


the liffey


tourism office


no caption necessary


traditional irish folk music


st patrick's day parade!

phone conversation with my dad :)

-Hello

-Hello dad!! How are you this fine day?

-I’m fine thanks, how are you? You sound awfully cheerful, what happened? Are you getting married or something? (what?!)

-No, I got the visa dad, I’m going to Ireland for a week! Actually now that you mention it, I might as well just get married there and never come back.

-Oh no don’t do that, their economy is doomed! They’re going down! First Greece and now Ireland. (so THAT's the reason why i shouldn't get married to a random person during my one week trip in ireland)

- I don’t care! Irish people are so cool and I get along well with them. Besides, if I get married to one, I can live and work there or anywhere in Europe. No more visa hassle. Imagine that!

- *Sigh* I’m handing the phone over to your mom.

super-bureaucratize me!

austrian bureaucracy is probably worse than the turkish one. and trust me, the turkish one is pretty bad.

if you are a non-EU citizen moving to austria, you have a lot of fun ahead of you. enjoy! (enthusiastic tap on the shoulder). you have to extend your visa every year, which means you have to get up at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, go to that visa place in the middle of nowhere, take a number and pace in the corridor for hours with other people and crying children, only to find out that you have one document missing. they are very creative about that one document. just because you extended your visa with specific documents last year, doesn't mean that they don't want to see a different one this time. one that they never mentioned before. like that time when they suddenly decided that they wanted a signed document from one of my flatmates which states that i live with them. because the official document that stated my address and the rent contract wasn't enough. they also wanted it to state till when i could stay there. there was no such deadline but they said there had to be a date there, so i wrote 2030.

during that joyful time of the year when i have to extend my visa, i have to go to the insurance place to get some documents. last time i went there, i realized that the address on the paper was my old address. i told that to the lovely lady behind the desk and she asked me if i came here to change my address before. they have this very useful online service, with the help of which you can change your details by entering your name and insurance number, so i told her i changed it online. that's when she raised her head and looked at me for the first time. she gave me such a look that not only did i die a little inside but i also (for one second) wondered if she was blind. then i quickly realized that having sight could be important if one has to deal with paperwork for a living. with 20 people waiting behind me, she took the liberty to tell me off while burning my soul with her eyes:

- do you know how many people there are in vienna?
+ i don't know... more than a million?
- 2 million. what do you think would happen if all of them tried to change their details online?
+ ... (she actually waited for an answer)
- there would be chaos!
+ why do you have that online service, then?! it says on your website that i can do it online.
- it doesn't work that way, you have to come here in person.
+ well i didn't know about that. you could have just told me so, you don't have to be so unfriendly!
- i am not unfriendly. you try dealing with so many people every day and let's see how friendly you will be.
- i would but it's not my job.

and then she gave a fatal error and had to be restarted. all of the unsaved data was lost.

i really don't like it when officers tell you off as if you were a kid just because they are frustrated with their jobs and i'm pretty sure they come a little behind those desks every time they come up with a snappy answer.

bureaucracy = waiting, moody officers, papers, more papers, paper-cuts and stamps. i envy the popularity of stamps in this country. if bureaucracy was an american high school, stamps would be dating the cheerleading captain. when i was applying for a student visa here, they wanted me to get every single document i brought from turkey stamped with this special, international stamp which states that the document is same as the original. because all the documents had to be original documents and they still wanted that stamp on them, i had to persuade some officers in istanbul to stamp the back of my high school and university diplomas. yes, they wanted to see my high school diploma too. "so you're a college graduate, well done, but did you go to high school?"

i keep hearing that they want to see people's birth certificates, because an ID or a passport wouldn't prove that you were actually born and not made in a laboratory or abandoned by aliens. i wonder when they will ask for mine. maybe next time i apply for a visa extension, they'll decide that they want to see that... translated, stamped with 38743892 stamps, brought there by my parents and the doctor who delivered me.

my favorite form of bureaucracy is however probably the one i have to go through so that i can get a tourist visa. "what?! you have to get a visa to go abroad for a few days?!" my friends say. as the owner of a turkish passport, which is as useful as a pokemon sticker book, i can assure you that i have to get a visa if i intend to go abroad for a few minutes (except for some countries). now that i live abroad, i don't need to get a visa for EU countries (except for england and ireland). i've been to england once. i had to fill a 12 page long application form with supporting documents - things that prove that i'm not a criminal and that i have money and that i didn't steal that money and 398298392 documents about my family, who weren't even going etc. when i finally got the visa and went to england, i had to persuade this guy behind some desk that i was good enough to enter his country. i'm not even talking about passport control, this was right after i got off the plane. at least he wasn't unfriendly. he asked me some questions and then wanted to see my return tickets. he kindly informed me that they were in turkish. apparently buying things from turkey can cause that. i pointed out that the dates were in numbers. he let me go.

sooo my dear friends in london, this is why i haven't come to visit you yet. BUT going to london is one of my new year's resolutions. it's actually the only one i came up with so far. and dublin: as soon as i find someone to go with (and get a visa), YOU'RE NEXT.

little monsters

so yeah work can be tiring. especially if you don't get paid for it.

i thought this was going to be more about patients and therapy sessions, but turns out it's mostly about helping immigrant turkish children with their homework and playing with them after they're done. it's the playing part that i find difficult.

i don't want to play dodgeball or uno with kids! or with anyone, for that matter.

i've never been a huge fan of kids, to be honest. i like the quiet cute ones (rare piece) whose cheeks i can squeeze and who i can talk to for a bit until i give them back or put them where i found them. this "giving them back when i want" thing is important, which is a luxury i don't have at work.

and they're not quiet. oh no.

i have to persuade them to do their homework and not run around and to let me help them with the stuff they don't understand.

yesterday, i found out the first rule of helping them when they tell me they don't understand what they're supposed to do. so apparently, before i start explaining, i have to ask "have you read the question?" because they usually don't and just expect you to do it for them so that they don't have to. they know how to wrap you around their finger. i have a lot to learn from them.

i think they like me though, for some reason. i like them too, even if they drive me crazy sometimes. so there's progress.

i have to come up with ideas, educational and fun things i can do with them once they're done with the homework, so that i don't just play uno with them and do something useful. so that i can actually help.

although i only want to work with adults once i start working for real, i still think i can learn a lot from this. i'm learning how to be patient, how to set boundaries and how to find alternative solutions to problems. at least i'm trying.

teacher: so kids, there's only 3 of you left, wanna go home half an hour early?
kids: nooo
me: ah come on, let's go home. there's nothing left to do, anyway.
kids: nooo! (happily realizing that they found a button to push)
me: alright then if you don't go home now, it means we'll stay here and read all episodes of star wars till the end. oh look what we have here! episode one.
boy: cool i love star wars!
me: great! so you can read it for us. it's in german and i'll make you translate every sentence to turkish to see if you understood.
kids: have a nice weekend!! *road runner effect*
me: you too!


i had an interesting conversation with one of the teachers yesterday, right before i left:

- have a nice weekend. don't talk to strangers and don't go with them, even if they offer you sweets.
- even if they're good looking?
- ?!
- ok, especially if they're good looking.


next week, i'm starting to observe therapy sessions with a patient regularly. YES!

kids

i started working in an organization as an intern today. a team of psychologists, psychotherapists, pedagogues, teachers help immigrants integrate. i helped some immigrant children with their homework today. it felt good to be able to do something for people instead of sitting at home calculating test statistics for hours and studying test theory, although i have no intention whatsoever to construct a test. even working with noisy kids is better than that.


8 year old girl: are you married?
me: no
8 year old girl: i don't want to get married
me: why not?
8 year old girl: i don't like marriage. men drink, drink, drink and then they beat their wives up. i see it on tv all the time.
me: is that what happens at home?
8 year old girl: no. daddy doesn't drink. he doesn't beat anyone up either.
me: see? there are some nice men out there as well
8 year old girl: yeah but that's daddy.


they said that i could also join some counseling sessions, as long as the patients are ok with it. i'm really looking forward to that.

ah screw this, i want it to be summer all the time.