I have read other exchange students’ blogs and I realized that many of them describe what a typical weekday is like. I know that this is very late in my stay to do this, but I have had a change in schedule as of this week. Therefore, it seemed like an appropriate time to write a post about it :)
7:30-8:15 – I wake up and get ready for school. Luckily I have a uniform so it is pretty easy to pick out what I want to wear that day. The only choices I have are skirt or pants, or what sweater do I want to wear?
8:16-8:22ish – Walk to school… it is pretty close as you can see
8:30-12:05 – Classes at Atatürk Anadolu Lisesi. I have 4 classes in the morning before lunch with breaks in between.
12:05-1:00 – Eat lunch with my class. After this I used to return to class, but now I don’t because our schedule changed
2:00-5:00 – TÖMER (my Turkish language classes). We used to go from 4-7pm which was really hard because it was after a full day of classes at school and we would be exhausted. We changed it so that it was earlier and this would be like our school.
5:00-6:00 – Relax at home with my host sisters before my host mom comes home
6:00-7:00 – My host mom comes home, prepares dinner and we eat
7:00-10:00 – Watch the TV show that is on that night, always a soap opera with my family. Multiple times a week relatives or neighbors come over to visit, or we go to their houses.
10:00-11:00 – I try to be in bed at 10, but sometimes I watch the end of the TV shows or read in bed before falling asleep. Most of the time I am asleep by 11, which is good.
Now, with our TÖMER classes being earlier in the day, we will get to rest more in the evenings. Also, I will be able to go running outside when the weather gets warmer. We were all looking forward to be able to working out more since we have noticeably gained weight now. It isn’t truly a bad thing, but we would rather work out more. Before, there was just no time to do anything, but now luckily we will have a few more hours to do things before it gets dark out, including hang out with our Turkish classmates sometimes, which we were never able to do before. Unfortunately, we won’t be in class with our Turkish friends in the afternoons, but this schedule just makes us happier :).
Another update in my life is that I have started an Ebru course with the other Americans. Ebru is a type of traditional Turkish art. Using utensils, oil-based paints are sprinkled on a water tank leaving the water looking almost marbled. A piece of paper is put onto the water and when taken off the oil paints stick to the paper. For more information look here:
http://www.hicabigulgen.com/
