the moon is just the sun at night

level 4 weekend mornings

i am the rock of ages, you cannot move i at all

i believe that after a certain amount of time you eventually become yourself.  it's strange to think how we live so much of our lives in misunderstanding and discomfort within ourselves and it seems to me that one day we simply shed our final layers of innocence and become the person we have been designing for so long.  it is really a wonderful feeling to know yourself.  it's good also to spend some time with yourself and ask yourself from time to time where you stand in this world.

a long time ago an old friend told me that i had been trying to lose myself.  he watched my travels from afar and made a great effort to keep me sane when i was wandering through central asia.  i miss that guy.  i miss him and in some ways i miss the person he was writing to.

i've recently been spending an extra amount of time getting to know myself.  some things i've learned have struck me as very surprising while others were very reassuring that the choices i've made in the past have lead me directly to where i am today; all in one piece and a few scars/smile lines to boast my adventures.

i have this really good friend i've gotten to know recently.  i love the depths of our friendship and the self-discovery that has come along with it.  it makes me feel lucky that there are people out there who still see this strange world of sights and sounds with similar eyes.

in some ways i believe that these next few months will draw me deeper into isolation.  i'm truly okay with that.  i look forward to the pictures i'll make and the songs i will surely write.  it's funny to me to think sometimes how dramatically my life could be after only a few months time have passed.  this last year has been really great to me and i've earned sometime to unpack my bags and stretch my arms.  it is, of course, only a matter of time before i begin to lust over maps of unexplored lands and then set my sails to a new course.

There's smoke in my iris
But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids
So I'm ready now (What you ready for?)
I'm ready for life in this city
And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
And
-Aesop rock


i have spent a long time being me and although i somehow have made attempts in the past to believe i don't really exist, it is very true to me that i'm just another mass of star dust among seemingly countless combinations of the same stars.  the universe has an amazing imagination and it favors no one.  the world is quite big too, anyone who says that it is a small world lives in a small world.

i just wanna see some monkeys...

level 4 weekday pm

good luck you guys!  thank you for the wonderful conversations :)

Peter Nalich

kill the radio, listen to the rain fall

maybe i should take my own advice once in a while.

last week i had a nice discussion with my class about society and how people of different cultures go about their day by day lives.  in turkey people work an awful lot.  the average person will be working either five and a half or six days of the week and a day can stretch about nine hours on average, sometimes ten or twelve hours.  they usually have sundays off however it is not uncommon to work on saturdays.  it sounds like a bit too much really.  i can't think of how people could ever squeeze in some family time along with time to pursue their own interests.  when you are teaching this becomes a problem for conversation sometimes because you are trying to get your student to practice speaking and all they tell you about their free time is 'work/sleep'.

on the other hand there are places like spain or argentina where you work essentially as much as a person from the united states however your day can be dramatically cut in half by a siesta.  this lifestyle is quite similar to that of an english teacher abroad because schedules like mine have a five hour gap in the middle.  for years now i've been doing this practice of staying up all night and sleeping in the gap between classes.  i find that i really have two days in one and sometimes my dreams or moods vary dramatically between the two half-days.

right now it is raining.  a good rain.  it started about seventeen seconds after i safely arrived at my front door.  i don't have to wake up early and i'm home alone.  these are the nicest of times, a rare break from the crowded city i live in.  as far as i know there isn't another person for miles from here.

a student told me recently that my blog has been monotone.  i like that.  i like that he is reading it more perhaps.  i'm working right now and it seems like i'm often talking about work even when i'm not working.  i've become consumed but it's good for me to experience this once in a while.  i've been spoiled with traveling and i'm planning a big trip for next year so for now it is very nice to turn that part of my head off for a while.  i always say that traveling using the instinct part of your brain and teaching uses the intellectual side, both of them get foggy after a while if not used for a long time.  i'm in that healthy bridge between the both right now i suppose.

patience.  learning patience is good.  i don't own anything (a few things).  a long long time ago a friend told me to never underestimate the power of simplicity.  she's rooted deeply in my head and so are her words.  after all this time living a simple life i've truly begun to see the benefits of this small piece of advice.

be simple and patient and learn always.

photos that have collected on my ipod over the last six months or so