School Grind

Hey Ya'll,
      Sorry it's been a while since I posted.
      School has started so now my schedule has picked up even more, and sometimes I forget that I am abroad seeing as I've started to make real friends and get into somewhat of a routine. It's hard to find time to fit in everything I want to do as well as everything I need to do. The first week of classes went smoothly. It was pretty laid back (as it is in the states), mainly going over the syllabus and not lecturing on too important topics seeing as it is still add/drop week. I'm really pumped about my drawing course! We already got a portfolio and list of materials we need to pick up but I'm finding this list to be quite a challenge because there are no art supply stores in Sariyer. Something different about the courses at Koc than the States is that we get field trips! I already know of at least two field trips that I will be taking this semester. One with my drawing class to get inspiration for our final project and the other with my Culture Heritage Management class to a Turkish archaeology site.

In other news, I finally have something to complain about in regards to Turkey...

No body picks up their trash (well that is a generalization).
Its beyond frustrating... especially on campus.
Yes I know they have employees who come around and clean up the tables but they also have a ridiculous amount of tray cabinets, recycling bins, and trash cans for students to use. But there still are always piles of trays left on the tables and trash scattered about. There are huge green posters everywhere in the cafeteria and plastered literally on every tabletop that describe the university's green movement trying to encourage students to use the recycling bins and clean up after themselves. Because if the students don't separate their trash into the recycling bins, it will all end up in the trash seeing as the employees are too busy to be bothered with separating other peoples trash.

And they put their cigarettes out in the flower boxes, poor flowers, poor gardeners. And it seems as if EVERYONE smokes cigarettes here. Even if you don't go near them on a night out, you always come home reeking of them because the smoke fills the city streets.

OK, rant over.