I've been busy

I haven't really been that busy. I've mostly just been adjusting to a constant cycle of self-imposed lifestyle changes. I've been watching my body slowly decompose, in horror, and I've been trying to avoid the reality of it.

What I just wrote sounds extremely dramatic and may or may not be accurate. I haven't contracted leprosy yet and I still go to work everyday. All in all, I'm a survivor.

Anyway, since I haven't been able to be as active as I need to be in order to stay sane and socially appropriate I've taken on some new habits. None of which have won me friends.

a) I listen to podcasts all the time now. I binge on 10-12 per day and as a result I am constantly responding in conversation with non sequiturs that make people feel mildly uncomfortable.
Coworker: Good Morning Kassandra! Do you need help arranging anything for the 5th grade play today?
Me: Actually, I just found out that sociopaths are not without emotions as most people believe, but rather they don't feel fear in particular and therefore need heightened experiences to get their thrills in life. Which is why they murder so much.
Coworker: Oh. My.
Me: Really. The scientists have done pulse rate tests and what not.

b) I've recently been reading an EXORBITANT amount of YA (Young Adult literature) mostly because I can get it for free on my ipad, but also because I really like it. This leads to me ponder questions like, "Do I have a superhuman equivalent out there in this vast universe?"  and "What will my first kiss be like?"

Again, these are conversation topics that my friends get judgy about, but honestly? I think everyone would be a lot happier if could chill the hell out and get a little more involved with their 13 year old selves.

c) I have been exclusively listening to music produced in the 1990's for close to two weeks now. I'm planning a 90's party (everyone I know is welcome to attend) and it's possible that I am losing friends just based on the fact that the party dominates most of my conversation -- if I'm not already in the throes of referencing a TED talk or a 128 page long sci-fi/romance novelette.

You're welcome.

d) In my downtime from the previously listed activities, I am neurotically googling all of my ailments and diagnosing myself with dire prognoses. After I decide upon a frightening disease that I have contracted, I then look up diet changes that I can make to eradicate all problems. Following this, I research a series of recipes and write them all down in my cookbook. This week I plan to make everything with the magic ingredient turmeric. If what I have been reading is correct, I should start feeling better in a month or so.

* I'll write about something cool next time.

Finding Friends in Foça

I recently visited a small seaside town called Foça. You know what I love the most about traveling to new places? You never know who you are going to meet.

On this particular weekend I met two retired gentlemen who were super excited to show off their town. They had both grown up in Foça and knew the area inside and out.

They began by telling my friends and I a list of important facts about Foça:

1) There used to be a Club Med.
2) There is a lot of gossip.
3) There are a lot of cats.
4) There are a lot of crazy people.
5) There are 3 historic windmills -- and would we like to see them?

Of course we wanted to see them.

So we got in their car and took off.

*Side Note: These were not dangerous people. I know that many of you think it might be a really bad idea to get into a stranger's car in a city you know nothing about. But 9 times out of 10, it's COMPLETELY fine. And they had already told us about the important stuff like cats and crazy people so we actually did know quite a bit about the city.

Back to my story. When we got in the car, we KNEW it was going to be an exemplary day because of the song that was playing -- one of the greatest hits from 1991: I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt.Things got wildly out of control for about 120 seconds as we blared the song at top volume with the windows open and our voices yelling.

Our soundtrack for the day continued on in a similar (a.k.a. AWESOME) fashion -- mostly comprised of Monster Ballads from the 80's and one-hit-wonders from the 90's. My two favorite genres.

Look how super funness these guys are!

Other Highlights:

• We found street puppies and we were so happy.

• Our new best friend who was driving us around admitted that he only liked to watch musicals. Namely Flash Dance, Grease and Saturday Night Fever. See, I told you he was harmless. He also made three costume changes throughout the day, each with a dashing scarf to accessorize. He was fabulous.

• We drank cappuccinos which came with chocolate spoons.

• I was gifted with three carnations during dinner. Which was neat because I thought that the manufacturing of carnations had ended in 1993. Do carnations grow in the wild somewhere? Perhaps they grow in a field near Foça.

Hearts.

Puppies!

Ypsilanti nights in Turkey

I went to college in Ypsilanti, Michigan. You've probably never heard of it.

Let me paint you a mental picture of what it was like 12 years ago:
Grey skies
Grey buildings
Graffiti

Blue collared workers
and
An industrial edge of creativity that surged throughout my community of peers.

Here is the most famous monument in Ypsi, the water tower. Can you guess what this icon's nickname is?

My friends from my Ypsi days are still some of the best people that I have ever had the privilege to know. The thing about Ypsilanti from my college years (it's a bit more "souped up" now) was that you needed to make it what you wanted it to be. Some people just took Ypsilanti at face value -- and for all intents and purposes it was a pretty slummy area. But other people had a very different perception. My friends created an Ypsilanti that was a wonderful place to be.

My people cared about music -- both creating and supporting it.

My people cared about politics and having a voice for the masses.

My people cared about the environment and promoting a green lifestyle.

My people cared about community in the most inclusive way -- everyone was always welcome and nurtured and loved.

And my people cared about art. Oh, the art.

College, what a dreamy time in life where everything felt possible and important and beautiful.

Naiveté. As I grew up and moved on in life, some of the virtues that I was so impassioned about from my youth fell away. I started looking at life through the lenses of a "grown up in the real world." While there was still a big piece of my heart that carried around my Ypsi values, I began to forget the feeling of how right everything could be. I became a teacher in a poor district in Appalachia. I had a job where I saw so much sadness in the lives of my students -- sadness that I couldn't fix no matter how much I tried. I worked as hard as I could at a profession that I loved (and then some more at my after work jobs) yet I couldn't get ahead of my bills. I knew I was doing some things right, and I loved many aspects of my social life, but I was tired. And nothing looked like it was going to change. Ever.

Though eventually something did change. I made a choice to move to Turkey. And being here in Turkey, in my new life, makes me feel like I'm my old self. I feel like I'm in college again.

When I say that I feel like I am in college again, I'm not referencing being out of control and capricious -- that's REALLY not the kind of person I am or ever was. I didn't stop being a grown up when I moved away from the United States. I still go to work five days a week, sometimes six. I work from 8 to 5. I direct the lives of 75 children each week on their educational paths. 

No, I'm not saying that I am reclaiming my young 20's and throwing responsibilities into the wind. What I'm referencing is a feeling -- the feeling of life being beautiful again. And things being possible. Anything being possible. My world keeps getting smaller in the best way -- I feel like I can access whatever I need to make the best impact that I can.

I didn't really mean for this to be a reflective blog post at all. I usually save this type of writing for my journal. What spawned all of this was where I found myself last Friday in Izmir. I randomly joined a couple of friends to check out a contemporary art exhibit. And what I found was nothing like what I expected.

While I was taking photos of the art to post later to my blog, I imagined myself writing short and snappy captions about each image and leaving it at that. But the evening ended up creating a much bigger impression on me than I was aware of at the time. I'm certainly not going to get deep with the meaning of each piece that spoke to me within this public forum -- but I've found myself talking about the ideas behind the art that I saw last week a lot in the past few days.

The venue of the show was an old concrete building. The art was a hodgepodge of photography, video, painting, found items, sculpture, textile, and writing - all embedded with a voice of social awareness. The outcome was beautiful and spooky and moving all at once. 

I won't get into the why behind these art displays, just my first impressions. It's more fun that way.

Felted dolls in a web. See what I'm talking about Ypsi people?

Anarchy. And potatoes. Anarchist potatoes.

Found sticks -- this was the only display that had no explanation. But really, the meaning is obvious.
(Just kidding, this shit makes no sense)

An entire series of photos of people who lacked faces.
There was nursery music playing in the background.

This yeti was about 7 feet tall. He was an imposing figure.

Also, I'm pretty sure that every hipster in the entire country was in attendance. Which was kind of hilarious. (In my mind I could hear the hiss of PBR tallboys being cracked open all around me. If you are from the US and have any contact with hipsters whatsoever, you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

Trying to blend with the hipsters. I look like I don't care, right?

Anyway, last weekend I was transported back to a time where this type of environment was my everyday norm. My Ypsi days. I honestly never considered it possible to compare Izmir and Ypsilanti in such a direct way because I always thought that they were eons apart. But they are not. I realize that a place is not simply a physical set of coordinates or anything you might find on a map -- it's more like a feeling that you carry around in your heart.

I am blessed to have so many sweet memories of the places I have traveled to during my limited time on this planet. 

And to Ypsilanti, my first home away from home, I salute you.

Searching for the meaning of life

I've been working on figuring out the meaning of life. Since I don't sleep anymore, I have a lot of time to consider hefty topics --  like what makes life good and what makes life not so good. I like to sit at my kitchen counter in the middle of the night and throw back shots of Ayran while sifting through concepts that may considerably alter the fibers of my life.

SIDENOTE: Ayran is not alcohol, it's a salty yogurt-like beverage with which I am obsessed.

The only drawback to my soul searching is that since I don't sleep anymore, my brain has mostly turned to mush. So my reflections aren't terribly deep.

Here are some of my recent thoughts:

1) The homeless guy I met yesterday seemed pretty happy. He was carrying a dirty, chewed up piece of Styrofoam close to his chest as if it were the holy grail and I'm mostly sure that it had magical powers. I want one.
2) My friend adopted a parakeet on the bus last week. A strange, drunk guy gave the bird to her in a small box. I think she is kind of a hero because she has given this tiny bird a second chance at life. She named him Kuş. That means "bird" in Turkish.
3) I find food like this in the office almost everyday and I eat it. I don't know why I always eat it. But I seem to consistently find a reason.

I not only ate this, I ate it RIGHTEOUSLY while viewing River Dance.
Pretending I was Irish for a moment made it feel OK.
But it wasn't OK.

4) Hypnosis MP3s are addicting! I find that lying in bed and listening to a man talking to my "unconscious mind" is both fascinating and unsettling all at once. The guy that I listen to tries to bully my brain into sleeping, telling is that if it doesn't shut off soon, my body will essentially be destroyed. His methods haven't worked yet (yay me for being resistant to bullying!) --nonetheless, I have purchased hypnosis seshes for "Healthy Relationships", "A Positive Outlook on Life" and "Great Skin." For only $2.99 each, how can I go wrong?
5) I just found out that Tom Cruise has gotten a haircut in Turkey.

Anything can happen in this country. ANYTHING.

I think about other stuff too. Some questions that plague me include:

1) Are my students becoming smarter with my assistance?

2) When will my life resemble that of an adult?

3) How long can I go without coffee?

and

4) Why does my ear keep bleeding?

I'll keep you updated on my epiphanies.

I stopped sleeping

Insomnia has some benefits.

For instance I painted my entire apartment the other day, I began at 4 AM and was finished before 8 in the morning. That made me feel both productive and insane.

It looks really good.

I don't know why I'm in this bout of sleeplessness. This isn't a first for me -- I've experienced periods of insomnia before. But I can usually pinpoint WHY I can't sleep. It's always because something is stressing me out. The problem with this time around is that I don't know what my problem is.

A friend suggested that maybe I just realized that I live in Turkey.
Maybe.

When you stop sleeping for a month you no longer exist in the same reality that you once did.

First of all, everything is harder. You no longer can complete a task without forgetting what's going on. It kind of feels like your brain is melting.
Second, one constantly must remind themselves that any emotion they are feeling is not actually real -- it's just another blip on the brain scan and will disappear quickly. It's best to not get invested in the emotions that coincide with sleeplessness. I've decided to treat insomnia like a form of mental illness.
Third, don't go out in public. You'll find yourself having a limited ability to contribute anything worthwhile to the social scene so instead of being appropriate you will stop conversations to make everyone listen to you sing Usher Raymond's hit from 1997 "Nice and Slow" but with the letters of YOUR name inserted into the song rather than his. And then you will wait for an applause, but people will just look at you in a concerned kind of way.

Like this. People have been looking at me like this.

So I'm trying to make strides to sleep again.

I'm cutting out caffeine, sugar, screen time past 8 PM and naps. (Although I accidentally fell asleep while sitting up yesterday afternoon.) Basically, my life is TERRIBLE right now. All I want to do is eat the entire box of ice cream bars that my neighbors left in my freezer last week. I could give the box back to them, especially since I slide into their front door Kramer style at least once a day, but like I said before: everything is really hard right now. I can't remember to do anything productive or useful ever. So the ice cream stays to tease me.

Wish me luck in sleeping please.
Hearts

a little bit famous

Guess what? Last Wednesday I became a little bit famous. It all started with a message from my friend.

Him: Do you know who Mary Wilson is?

Me: No.

Him: Ever heard of The Supremes?

Me: OhmygodyesIlovethemIgrewuponMotownbecauseI'mfromMichigan!!!!

Him: Mary Wilson is one of The Supremes and will be in Izmir tonight. Wanna go?

Me: Well..........Yes!

Fast-forward to 7:05 that evening. I led a group of friends in a frenzied power walk to a local theater in IZMIR to see a free show featuring my childhood hero. (I know that the title "hero" seems to be a bit of a jump seeing as how I didn't know her name earlier in the day. But stop being judgmental.) 

This is me with my other Michigan friend here in Turkey, pre-show.

She didn't let her crazy show as much as I did but trust me,
on the inside she felt the same way that my face looked on the outside.

My group of friends and I took up most of a row in a tightly packed auditorium -- and we sang and clapped along righteously to every beat that Mary produced. We laughed when Mary got really diva-licious (talking about her man-friends and whatnot) and  I'm pretty sure that a few of us got a bit teary eyed during some of her more sentimental tunes. I just want to say that I really appreciate a 69 and a half year old woman who is still wearing glitter and flaunting her sexual prowess. I also want to mention that the interpreter was so uncomfortable with what she was saying that he intentionally mis-translated. 

About eight songs into it, my Michigan friend (Rachael) gave me a fairly forceful shove and told me to get up. Just a few short moments later, this happened:

I wasn't really sure what was going on. But on my 30th birthday (I won't mention which year that happened) I promised myself that I would "do more stuff" without thinking too deeply about it beforehand. For better or worse. And that's how I ended up on stage with a Motown Legend last week.

Just another random night in Turkey.

Pretty things

People have given me a lot of stuff in my days here on planet earth. One thing I got A LOT of last week were personal requests to watch this ice skating routine to Ginuwine. Why does everyone I know need me to watch this? I'm not sure. But just in case you've never been on Facebook before, here it is:

Now if you were in high school during the second half of the 90's like I was, you were probably singing along to "Pony" up until moment 1:43 in this clip. But I'll tell you something: What homey did right around that time actually shocked me out of my sing-along. And I've been known to sing straight through things like unexpected flash mobs and even the occasional car accident. So hat's off to you weird man in the muscle costume, you were able to shut me up.

There are so many things that people feel I need.

Right before I moved to Izmir one of my besties gave me these:

they are sparkly -  like vampires when they are exposed to sunshine

She didn't explain a thing, she just handed them to me and carried on with her conversation about the high temps in Albuquerque, New Mexico in July. I wear the socks regularly and yell at people if they don't comment on them when I intentionally pull up a pant leg to show them off.

Because that's what gangsta's do. Yell. I think.

I had another friend send me a package with this magnet in it.

In case it's hard to tell, several naked people are holding up a disfigured, bloody woman. In the upper left hand corner it simply says, "Home." 

She made the magnet herself. You just can't find this kind of stuff in Turkey so I'm glad that I have it now.

Here are a few things that my sisters sent me.

Highlights include a pen shaped like a dagger that makes a stabbing noise when used, a felt wool heart blessed by a traveling Indian that gives hugs (Amma), a beer koozie that says, "My therapist thinks I'm cool" and a bag of organic herbs that, to the untrained eye, appear to be drugs.

But the HIGHLIGHT of my life was a gift that was left for me in my classroom. I was surprised to receive it, and I'm still unsure of who the benevolent gift giver was.

The gift was the tooth. I already had the pen.

I found it on accident, but I'm positive that it was left intentionally. It was in one of my classroom drawers. Due to a strange series of events, the contents of my drawer were spilled and amongst all of the normal school supplies that were suddenly littered on my floor I found this tooth. I wrapped it up in a piece of paper and I'm waiting to pass it on to someone special.

Please don't tell anyone, I want it to be a surprise.