Air conditioning and window screens. I miss air conditioning and window screens. Most apartments here don’t have ‘em (well rich people do, but my friends and I aren’t rich). Last night I was at a friend’s house, and since it’s summer it was a warm night. So we left the windows open … and a mosquito [...]
Entries from July 2008
July 23, 2008
One year, and counting
Today marks one year since I started at the paper I work for in Turkey. Subhanallah, how time flies! One year on, and everything that’s happened has gone completely differently than I’d expected or planned. Things change so quickly! When I came here my expectations were very different; I thought I’d live in the same place [...]
July 22, 2008
Workin’ with what you’ve got
In international news coverage this week has been the story of a set of twins born in Germany to a German father and Ghanaian mother.
On a Turkish news broadcast this morning, there was a similar headline — but not really. The story? Also about a set of twins, headlined “One of them blonde, one of [...]
July 20, 2008
Niqabi refused French citizenship
When Faiza Silmi applied for French citizenship she was worried that her fluent French was not quite perfect enough or that her Moroccan upbringing would pose a problem.
“I would never have imagined that they would turn me down because of what I choose to wear,” Silmi said, her hazel eyes looking out of the narrow slit [...]
July 18, 2008
Fajr in the secular republic
The muezzin for the mosque closest to my home is completely incomprehensible for the fajr adhan. This is pretty sad, since he’s clearly trying very hard to do a good job. It takes him no less than 10 minutes to get the whole thing out from the (presumably) initial Allahuakbar till the Laa ilaha illa [...]
July 17, 2008
O, IJs…
“…Many people prefer the comfort of fantasy to the harshness of reality. They seem to reason this way: ‘How can I arrange my beliefs so I’ll feel most comfortable?’ rather than arranging them to agree with reality.” [Howard Kahane]
While flipping through the TV channels tonight during dinner, I paused briefly on a entertainment channel that shall [...]
July 6, 2008
Trix are for kids
Sometimes, you just feel silly.
My team at work rotates full weekends off, so basically each of the four of us get one Sunday a month off work (we all get Saturdays off normally, that’s our ‘weekend’). My roommate also works at Today’s, but not in copy editing, so she never gets Sundays off. Anyways, so [...]
July 1, 2008
Yemen plans update
Sooooo…. insha’Allah I will be traveling to Yemen for three weeks during Ramadan to study Arabic at the Yemen Institute for the Arabic Language (YIAL). My flights leave İstanbul on Sept. 6, arriving again on Sept. 28 insha’Allah. Should be quite the experience!
