Woke up early Sunday and couldn't get back to sleep... and this is the first day I didn't have to get up at all. I did some housekeeping, mostly organizational. Tried out my new coffeemaker and iron. Downloaded some podcasts to ipod, iPad and the new HP and practiced keyboarding.
This afternoon I walked down the hill and headed north along the Bosphorous to the town of Bebek (I guess it' a town, I need to get clear on the way these areas are designated. I live in Arnavutkoy and Bebek is a ten minute walk to the north and Ortakoy is 10 to the south.) Bebek is fashionable; there's a big Starbuck's and lots of upscale restaurants and shops. I passed the Indonesian and Egyptian consulates, both under renovation but impressive looking. Along the Bosphorous there are lots of fishermen, plus people strolling andd jogging. In various spots where there are ladders to get out of the water, there are groups of men and boys swimming. The only women I saw were in t- shirts and capris sitting on picnic blankets. That is until I got to the public park in Bebek where there were some little girls swimming with the boys and a couple of women in bikinis, one of whom was about 8 months pregnant
Sweating profusely and in need of water and a bathroom (the temp was 33 degrees celsius), I did indeed stop at Starbucks. I will not make a habit of this, but I was curious, plus it was right on the Bosphorous and had tables with a view both inside in the ac and outside. I had a cafe latte and bottle of water for 6.25 YTL, about $4.30
I stopped at the Dia grocery store in Arnavutkoy on the way home and bought a bottle of white wine for 7,95 YTL,(about 5.25) including tax. I tasted it tonight and it's fine. Most of the Turkish whites just don't have a lot flavor. This is as good as the stuff at twice the price.
At 5 I headed over to John and Tania's for a tag sale . It was household goods donated by faculty and the proceeds go to the Community Involvement Program. I got a good haul of odds and ends, both practical and pretty. Went down to Arnavutkoy for dinner with Corinne and Layne, but discovered we were in the same place as the Chandlers, Graham, Kristine and Danny, and Metin, who is our IT guy and a sweeter man you will never meet. We joined them and had a great dinner orchestrated by Metin who is a regular. It' s a fish place, so we had fish soup (outstanding), calamari, fish borek, sardines and a sort of casserole with fish, onions and mushrooms, which Metin said was called "fener" something, with fener referring to lighthouse.
With salad and bread (including some excellent cornbread) we each paid 15 lira, about 10 bucks. There are a lot of fish restaurants in Arnavutkoy, but Metin claims this is the best. They don't serve alcohol and apparently the ones that do have much higher prices.
After dinner we strolled over to a gelato place. Apparently the woman who owns it went to school in Italy to learn gelato making and then opened up Girandola Dondurma. I had the incredibly rich cikolata. We walked along the water up to Bebek. There was a big crowd in the park, lots of kids swimming, including girls, though they wore shorts and t-shirts rather than bathing suits. Many families were having picnic iftars, which is the meal eaten after sundown to break the fast. Metin says there's not supposed to be either swimming or picnicking at this park. He thought perhaps security was being lax during Ramazan.
At home I used the screwdrivers I bought at the tag sale to put together the tables I bought at Ikea and arrranged the knickknacks to further settle in. At this point I was wide awake, having gotten a second wind, and I started making calls using Skype. I can call anyone in the US, mobile or landline, for about 2 cents a minute. I've never liked the phone, in part because I seem to get "telephone ear" very easily, so this solution is great, especially when I have so much to tell.
Today is Victory Day, which I looked up just now. It commemorates the last battle in the Turkish War of Independence in 1922, which established the Turkish nation under the leadership of Ataturk, as a secular state following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI. On September 12th there's a referendum on changes to the Constitution. All over town and on Campus there are dozens of flags and huge portraits of Ataturk (even more than usual, which is hard to imagine given that his portrait is everywhere in Turkey) for Victory Day. Down in town there are also billboards and trucks with signs urging either "Evet" or "Hayir" votes on the referendum. The adamantly secular Turks on campus (which seems to be most of them) are definitely "Hayir." Though there are some good changes for protecting and aiding the elderly and children, the secular Turks see the overall effort as an attempt by the ruling Ak Party to undermine the secular character of the government.
After staying up so late last night, I finally really slept in today. This is the first morning where it hasn't been bright blue skies. It's overcast and cooler. After yesterday's walking with sweaty feet and sandals, I ended up with a big blister, so I'm going to take it easy today, study some Turkish and do some reading.
When Sim comes with the camera I'll start posting some pictures.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Day 4 -7
Bıg day Wednesday, wıth 3 hours of tech stuff. (More on that in the teachers' sectıon later.) Another Turkısh lesson. Wıth some free tıme, I changed (as ıf for a run, but I wasn't even kıddıng myself), and walked up the back campus. The fırst 75 yards are so steep that I felt like I needed climbing equipment, but it gets easier. Out the back gate is a neighborhood called Ulus, where there are coffee shops and restaurants, but not nearly as nice as Arnavutkoy, which is down the hill and runs along the Bosphorus, which has more small shops and markets. But that means the tough walk is on the way back. Just a little further than where I walked is a large shopping center called Akmerkez, which I haven't seen yet.The excursion took about 40 minutes, which included some window shopping and a stop to introduce myself to the guards at the back gate.
I took a quick shower and dressed up. With the new teachers and some spouses, who live on or near campus, the headmaster John Chandler and his wife Tania, and various other administrators, a group of about 20, we took a boat up the Bosphorous, under the second bridge, and over to the Asian shore to the home of the president of the trustees, Nina Koprulu. She's an American woman, married to a Turk. `I think she's around my age. She was so down to earth and friendly. And the house, well, it's more than amazing. Here's a link to a New York Times article about the house: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/realestate/greathomes/22gh-istanbul.html
Listening to Nina and our headmaster speak and chatting with another trustee, another American woman married to a Turk, I had the feeling I might be at the best high school in the world.
Thursday a bunch of us were guided by boat, tram and bus to the Grand and Spice Bazaars and the area between them by Tania. She's a terrific guide and took us to a bunch of shops where she's established relationships and consequently we got "Tania lira" prices without bargaining. This was especially valuable at Adnan & Hasan, a wonderful rug place. Tania has brought them so much business over the years that it's like the Robert College home in the bazaar. Cecile and Kaya took a break there so Cecile could nurse and we all (10 of us) ate tosts there while resting. Then a couple of us bought rugs. Yes, I bought a rug. I had no intention of buying, but he pulled one out when Jen and Tyler were doing serious shopping and I really liked it. I've been starved for color in my apartment and the price was fantastic. He made it clear that the prices he was offering was "today only." He always offers RC people good prices and he'll be doing a show at Tania and John's house on campus when the prices will be the "rock bottom" show prices. And they're happy to take back or exchange anything at any time.
Thursday night involved furniture moving. With the new rug as the impetus, I shifted furniture in all the rooms and am very pleased with the result. My living room is quite cozy.
Friday was more information sessions and another Turkish lesson. Then 4-6 was Happy Hour at the alumni club followed by a dish-to-pass potluck/bbq on the Terrace overlooking the Bosphorus.
Since our first full faculty meeting is on Tuesday, the faculty is returning from vacation. It seems like most of them depart for most of the summer. So Friday was a chance to meet a bunch more of my new colleagues.
Today about 12 of us took a small bus, chartered by the school, to Ikea. I bought some more stuff to homeify the apartment. I tried not to buy things that I have coming in my shipment, but some stuff was so cheap (glassware) I bought it anyway. When I got home, I spent a fun time putting things away. Tried to put together the 2 small tables I bought but I need screwdrivers. About 5 I took a walk down the hill and headed south along the Bosphorous. Went to a grocery called Macro, a small version of Wegman's.
Made myself a nice dinner and am going to head to bed pretty soon. Tomorrow and Monday there's not much going on. Monday is an Istanbul holiday, Victory Day. Sim arrives on Tuesday afternoon, and I'm going with the school driver to meet him.
So that's it for now. Shoot any questions you have my way.
I took a quick shower and dressed up. With the new teachers and some spouses, who live on or near campus, the headmaster John Chandler and his wife Tania, and various other administrators, a group of about 20, we took a boat up the Bosphorous, under the second bridge, and over to the Asian shore to the home of the president of the trustees, Nina Koprulu. She's an American woman, married to a Turk. `I think she's around my age. She was so down to earth and friendly. And the house, well, it's more than amazing. Here's a link to a New York Times article about the house: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/realestate/greathomes/22gh-istanbul.html
Listening to Nina and our headmaster speak and chatting with another trustee, another American woman married to a Turk, I had the feeling I might be at the best high school in the world.
Thursday a bunch of us were guided by boat, tram and bus to the Grand and Spice Bazaars and the area between them by Tania. She's a terrific guide and took us to a bunch of shops where she's established relationships and consequently we got "Tania lira" prices without bargaining. This was especially valuable at Adnan & Hasan, a wonderful rug place. Tania has brought them so much business over the years that it's like the Robert College home in the bazaar. Cecile and Kaya took a break there so Cecile could nurse and we all (10 of us) ate tosts there while resting. Then a couple of us bought rugs. Yes, I bought a rug. I had no intention of buying, but he pulled one out when Jen and Tyler were doing serious shopping and I really liked it. I've been starved for color in my apartment and the price was fantastic. He made it clear that the prices he was offering was "today only." He always offers RC people good prices and he'll be doing a show at Tania and John's house on campus when the prices will be the "rock bottom" show prices. And they're happy to take back or exchange anything at any time.
Thursday night involved furniture moving. With the new rug as the impetus, I shifted furniture in all the rooms and am very pleased with the result. My living room is quite cozy.
Friday was more information sessions and another Turkish lesson. Then 4-6 was Happy Hour at the alumni club followed by a dish-to-pass potluck/bbq on the Terrace overlooking the Bosphorus.
Since our first full faculty meeting is on Tuesday, the faculty is returning from vacation. It seems like most of them depart for most of the summer. So Friday was a chance to meet a bunch more of my new colleagues.
Today about 12 of us took a small bus, chartered by the school, to Ikea. I bought some more stuff to homeify the apartment. I tried not to buy things that I have coming in my shipment, but some stuff was so cheap (glassware) I bought it anyway. When I got home, I spent a fun time putting things away. Tried to put together the 2 small tables I bought but I need screwdrivers. About 5 I took a walk down the hill and headed south along the Bosphorous. Went to a grocery called Macro, a small version of Wegman's.
Made myself a nice dinner and am going to head to bed pretty soon. Tomorrow and Monday there's not much going on. Monday is an Istanbul holiday, Victory Day. Sim arrives on Tuesday afternoon, and I'm going with the school driver to meet him.
So that's it for now. Shoot any questions you have my way.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Getting Started
Merhaba! It's evenıng, day number 4 (dört) of my adventure in Istanbul. I'm trying out the blog format because it seems like a good way to convey a lot of information to a lot people in an efficient manner. (Or it will be once I get the hang of it).
Arrived from Ithaca on Saturday afternoon at Ataturk airport, via Newark and Munich. Was picked up by the very cordial John Chandler, headmaster (not who I was expecting. I was looking for a Turkish cabdriver with a sign saying "Lang") He dropped me and luggage at my apartment (more on that later.) I unpacked my 3 bags and within an hour I had a dinner invitation from my sponsor, Jennifer Sertel, a teacher whose been here 20 some odd years, to join her and some students at her house for dinner. After a quick shower (much needed after about 22 hours enroute) I made the 5 minute walk across campus to her house. Great food and very interesting and lively conversation ensued. The students, 3 of the 5 were about to be seniors, were quite interested in Cornell and we discussed topics including the suicide rate and binge drinking, with sidetracks on whether Holden Caulfield was suicidal, what books they had and hadn't liked in their previous English classes and the idiosyncrasies of their teachers.
Sunday I was taken to one of the larger and more upscale (which means about 1/3 the size of Wegman's) supermarkets, a couple of miles away, again by John C. to pick up some essentials. Later that afternoon I took a walk down the hill and did a bit of exploring of Arnavutkoy, the area where we live. ("Koy" means village and "Arnavut" means Albanian, so this is Albanian Village, based on there once having been a community of Albanians here) I was accompanied on this excursion by Cecile and Kaya, my next door neighbors. Cecile is a Canadian English teacher married to a Turk, Cengiz. I haven't met him yet as he's at his family's seaside house. Kaya is their very cute, very good-natured 8 month old. Cecile is lovely and we are going to be working as advisors to the school newspaper "The Bosphorus Chronicle" together. She speaks Turkish very well (she's been here 4 years) and another advantage is that when her husband returns, she'll have access to a car.
Sunday night Cecile, Kaya and I joined other newcomers for another lovely dinner at the Chandlers' house, which has a patio and a view of the Bosphorus. The other folks I've spent a good deal of time with the past few days: Kristine, an English teacher from the Bay Area, and her husband Danny, who is what's called a "trailing spouse"; they're young (about 30, if that?); Corinne, who is a French teacher from Portugal, Layne who identifies as both American and French, but who will be teaching German (and she's now studying both Tibetan and Turkish). All these women are very attractive. And then there's Graham, a 30ish, 6'4" phys. ed. teacher from Dublin, who is great fun, and who spent the first hour of the dinner happily entertaining Kaya while drinking beer and chatting with the rest of us. (He asked me about my children, and when I said I had a 27 year old daughter who was "quite beautiful," he said, "When she commen' oover?")
Monday and today (Tuesday) were pretty full days of information and getting acclimated to the school, the campus, the people, and the neighborhood. I got a brand new HP laptop yesterday. It's impressive but quite challenging for me for a number of reasons: it's a PC and I've always used only Macs; at the same time I'm still very much trying to learn how to use my iPad; I have to learn how to negotiate the school's websites and programs on the new HP; and it has a Turkish keyboard (So if you see lower case "i's" without the dot or upper case ones with it, that's why. It took me a full 5 minutes to figure how to get "@". I was always a hunt and pecker but now I'm a cross-handed fumbler.)
Had a Turkish lesson with the above group (minus Cecile) yesterday afternoon. A very wonderful teacher, Azru. In reviewing the Turkish alphabet, she helped me understand a basic feature of the 2 different kinds of vowels, the i, u, and o with a dot or dots above and those without. The ones without are back vowels, meaning the tongue stays back, and the ones with (the dots) are front vowels, so your tongue presses up against your bottom teeth. But still, even though I've spent a total of 7 weeks in Turkey and have worked some on learning the language, I felt like a baby who knows about 15 words and pretty much nothing about how to put them together.
Last night we had a lovely bbq/picnic on The Terrace, a fairly new very large cobblestone patio overlooking the Bosphorus. It was set up with long tables and some couches and we were served wine and grilled chicken (Tavuk) , veggies (sebze) hamburgers, sucuk (basically hot dogs) and salads, by uniformed waiters, most of whom were fasting for Ramazan (that's the way the Turks spell Ramadan). At 8:00 we watched the sunset over the water and they were rushing to get some food and water, which they hadn't had since 4:37am.
This is my first evening free, following a guided tour of Arnavutkoy and the Tuesday market, by Phil Esposito, the English department chair. Born in rural West Virginia but somehow managed to end up in college at CCNY and then took a break from a Phd. program for 2 years and stayed for over 35, Phil was described by one of the Turkish students I met the other night as "more Turkish than we are."
I cooked some pasta tonight, a makeshift version of carbonara without (siz) meat (et) My utensils are pretty sparse, but I managed something edible. The only other thing I've prepared in my kitchen is coffee (Nescafe, which isn't so bad, I think, if I heat up the milk) and "tost", basically a grilled cheese. I've been sitting in my kitchen working on this blog,sipping some Turkish kirmizi sarap (red wine), first trying to use my new PC, then switching over to the iPad. In both cases, I figure I'm working on several skills I need, the two computers and a bit of the language. My apartment has many advantages: It's fairly large, with 5 rooms, plus a bathroom, lots of closet and shelf space, a large kitchen with a very big pantry, cabinets, counter space, decent-sized fridge, my own washing machine, a nice relatively new bathroom, which also has good cabinet space. I do have a terrace but it has nothing on it, and isn't private or as large as Cecile's which is half a floor above. I'm incredibly well-located for things central to campus: The infirmary is in this building, I can be in my office (which is a good one) or the faculty lounge in about 2 minutes walking time, and I'm a 1 minute walk from Bizimtepe, the alumni club which has a pool and work out room and a bar/restaurant, (where we'll have a TGIF this Friday, two hours of free beer/wine and snacks, followed by a potluck cookout on The Terrace). I can get a 50 % discounted membership to Bizemtepe, which I will investigate (no idea what the price tag will be.)
The downside of my apartment is that the rooms are oddly carved up. I've moved a bit of furniture and will do more when Sim arrives. For those who are planning on visiting, we do have a room with a fold out couch...bigger than a twin but it doesn't quite look like a double. Pretty thin mattress. But there is also a "guest apartment" that we can book;don't know the details, but I will communicate them later.
Our apartment is extremely "beige." I can't wait until my shipment arrives so I can brighten up the place with the few rugs, books and pictures I shipped. I think there are advantages and disadvantages to being where I have only one neighbor. Luckily, she seems like a great one. Sim's gonna have fun with Kaya. (Which means "Rock" in Turkish.)
Tomorrow we start with 3 hours in the computer lab, learning Moodle (it's like Blackboard); Atlas, (for curriculum mapping) and the RCSIS (Robert College student information system.)
We've got another Turkish lesson and in the evening we go by boat to the Asian side of the Bosphorus for dinner at the chair of the board of trustees' house. Not too shabby.
I will be sending individual and maybe some interest- group emails. Let me know ideas you have for categories (certainly I think I might do a special section for the teachers out there.) Also shoot me questions.
Before I left everyone kept asking or stating: "Are you excited?" "You must be so excited!" For awhile I didn't know what I was, then I knew I was definitely not excited; I was just trying to keep nervousness at bay. Now I am a lot of the time excited, still sometimes nervous, often having fun, and sometimes, like now, just pretty tired.
Arrived from Ithaca on Saturday afternoon at Ataturk airport, via Newark and Munich. Was picked up by the very cordial John Chandler, headmaster (not who I was expecting. I was looking for a Turkish cabdriver with a sign saying "Lang") He dropped me and luggage at my apartment (more on that later.) I unpacked my 3 bags and within an hour I had a dinner invitation from my sponsor, Jennifer Sertel, a teacher whose been here 20 some odd years, to join her and some students at her house for dinner. After a quick shower (much needed after about 22 hours enroute) I made the 5 minute walk across campus to her house. Great food and very interesting and lively conversation ensued. The students, 3 of the 5 were about to be seniors, were quite interested in Cornell and we discussed topics including the suicide rate and binge drinking, with sidetracks on whether Holden Caulfield was suicidal, what books they had and hadn't liked in their previous English classes and the idiosyncrasies of their teachers.
Sunday I was taken to one of the larger and more upscale (which means about 1/3 the size of Wegman's) supermarkets, a couple of miles away, again by John C. to pick up some essentials. Later that afternoon I took a walk down the hill and did a bit of exploring of Arnavutkoy, the area where we live. ("Koy" means village and "Arnavut" means Albanian, so this is Albanian Village, based on there once having been a community of Albanians here) I was accompanied on this excursion by Cecile and Kaya, my next door neighbors. Cecile is a Canadian English teacher married to a Turk, Cengiz. I haven't met him yet as he's at his family's seaside house. Kaya is their very cute, very good-natured 8 month old. Cecile is lovely and we are going to be working as advisors to the school newspaper "The Bosphorus Chronicle" together. She speaks Turkish very well (she's been here 4 years) and another advantage is that when her husband returns, she'll have access to a car.
Sunday night Cecile, Kaya and I joined other newcomers for another lovely dinner at the Chandlers' house, which has a patio and a view of the Bosphorus. The other folks I've spent a good deal of time with the past few days: Kristine, an English teacher from the Bay Area, and her husband Danny, who is what's called a "trailing spouse"; they're young (about 30, if that?); Corinne, who is a French teacher from Portugal, Layne who identifies as both American and French, but who will be teaching German (and she's now studying both Tibetan and Turkish). All these women are very attractive. And then there's Graham, a 30ish, 6'4" phys. ed. teacher from Dublin, who is great fun, and who spent the first hour of the dinner happily entertaining Kaya while drinking beer and chatting with the rest of us. (He asked me about my children, and when I said I had a 27 year old daughter who was "quite beautiful," he said, "When she commen' oover?")
Monday and today (Tuesday) were pretty full days of information and getting acclimated to the school, the campus, the people, and the neighborhood. I got a brand new HP laptop yesterday. It's impressive but quite challenging for me for a number of reasons: it's a PC and I've always used only Macs; at the same time I'm still very much trying to learn how to use my iPad; I have to learn how to negotiate the school's websites and programs on the new HP; and it has a Turkish keyboard (So if you see lower case "i's" without the dot or upper case ones with it, that's why. It took me a full 5 minutes to figure how to get "@". I was always a hunt and pecker but now I'm a cross-handed fumbler.)
Had a Turkish lesson with the above group (minus Cecile) yesterday afternoon. A very wonderful teacher, Azru. In reviewing the Turkish alphabet, she helped me understand a basic feature of the 2 different kinds of vowels, the i, u, and o with a dot or dots above and those without. The ones without are back vowels, meaning the tongue stays back, and the ones with (the dots) are front vowels, so your tongue presses up against your bottom teeth. But still, even though I've spent a total of 7 weeks in Turkey and have worked some on learning the language, I felt like a baby who knows about 15 words and pretty much nothing about how to put them together.
Last night we had a lovely bbq/picnic on The Terrace, a fairly new very large cobblestone patio overlooking the Bosphorus. It was set up with long tables and some couches and we were served wine and grilled chicken (Tavuk) , veggies (sebze) hamburgers, sucuk (basically hot dogs) and salads, by uniformed waiters, most of whom were fasting for Ramazan (that's the way the Turks spell Ramadan). At 8:00 we watched the sunset over the water and they were rushing to get some food and water, which they hadn't had since 4:37am.
This is my first evening free, following a guided tour of Arnavutkoy and the Tuesday market, by Phil Esposito, the English department chair. Born in rural West Virginia but somehow managed to end up in college at CCNY and then took a break from a Phd. program for 2 years and stayed for over 35, Phil was described by one of the Turkish students I met the other night as "more Turkish than we are."
I cooked some pasta tonight, a makeshift version of carbonara without (siz) meat (et) My utensils are pretty sparse, but I managed something edible. The only other thing I've prepared in my kitchen is coffee (Nescafe, which isn't so bad, I think, if I heat up the milk) and "tost", basically a grilled cheese. I've been sitting in my kitchen working on this blog,sipping some Turkish kirmizi sarap (red wine), first trying to use my new PC, then switching over to the iPad. In both cases, I figure I'm working on several skills I need, the two computers and a bit of the language. My apartment has many advantages: It's fairly large, with 5 rooms, plus a bathroom, lots of closet and shelf space, a large kitchen with a very big pantry, cabinets, counter space, decent-sized fridge, my own washing machine, a nice relatively new bathroom, which also has good cabinet space. I do have a terrace but it has nothing on it, and isn't private or as large as Cecile's which is half a floor above. I'm incredibly well-located for things central to campus: The infirmary is in this building, I can be in my office (which is a good one) or the faculty lounge in about 2 minutes walking time, and I'm a 1 minute walk from Bizimtepe, the alumni club which has a pool and work out room and a bar/restaurant, (where we'll have a TGIF this Friday, two hours of free beer/wine and snacks, followed by a potluck cookout on The Terrace). I can get a 50 % discounted membership to Bizemtepe, which I will investigate (no idea what the price tag will be.)
The downside of my apartment is that the rooms are oddly carved up. I've moved a bit of furniture and will do more when Sim arrives. For those who are planning on visiting, we do have a room with a fold out couch...bigger than a twin but it doesn't quite look like a double. Pretty thin mattress. But there is also a "guest apartment" that we can book;don't know the details, but I will communicate them later.
Our apartment is extremely "beige." I can't wait until my shipment arrives so I can brighten up the place with the few rugs, books and pictures I shipped. I think there are advantages and disadvantages to being where I have only one neighbor. Luckily, she seems like a great one. Sim's gonna have fun with Kaya. (Which means "Rock" in Turkish.)
Tomorrow we start with 3 hours in the computer lab, learning Moodle (it's like Blackboard); Atlas, (for curriculum mapping) and the RCSIS (Robert College student information system.)
We've got another Turkish lesson and in the evening we go by boat to the Asian side of the Bosphorus for dinner at the chair of the board of trustees' house. Not too shabby.
I will be sending individual and maybe some interest- group emails. Let me know ideas you have for categories (certainly I think I might do a special section for the teachers out there.) Also shoot me questions.
Before I left everyone kept asking or stating: "Are you excited?" "You must be so excited!" For awhile I didn't know what I was, then I knew I was definitely not excited; I was just trying to keep nervousness at bay. Now I am a lot of the time excited, still sometimes nervous, often having fun, and sometimes, like now, just pretty tired.
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