December has been a slow month for blogging. It’s been both busy (4 new hours a week of teaching medical school professors) and a bit melancholy. For the first time in my 21 Christmases, I was quite happy that this one has passed. I spent a lot of December worrying about how it would be to not be with my family in a place that does not celebrate the holiday.* In the end, it was fine. Korey, Elizabeth, Emily and I had a nice little gift exchange at the ski lodge in the evening, I had many conversations with my co-workers all day about why I care about Christmas at all and taught a Christmas lesson to my students. I used vocabulary from Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” song. Afterwards, they had to write what they wanted for a hypothetical Christmas, write their sentence on an ornament-shaped piece of paper and tape it to the board in the shape of a Christmas tree. (Here is where I admit that some of the silly crafts I did as an RA have real life application.) Their answers were creative and enlightening, one of my favorite activities I’ve done this year. Here are some examples.
I want for Christmas many things: car, money, everything.
All I want for Christmas is GRADUATION.
I want for Christmas: health, money and love.
I ask people to be good at Christmas.
I would like a red car.
All I want for Christmas is to win the lottery.
Anything. I like myself.
All I want for Christmas is to see my family and success.
All I want for Christmas is to go to the bar, listen to live music. No sleep.
I want calm and to be with my family.
Peace, success, health.
No war! (with two fingers for peace drawing)
All I want for Christmas is happiness, new work, a lot of money, very good exam, hot weather!
I want a robot that does my complete business. (My favorite!)
All I want for Christmas is to become in love!
To be awesome!
Family, health, money, tranquility, happy, prosperity, affair, graduation.
All I want for Christmas is “Accomplishment.”
I will go to mosque and I will make prayer to God for all of people.
All I want for Christmas is “LUCKY”.
All I want for Christmas is to learn and speak English :).
Prestige!
I want to be with my Angelina Jolie.
All I want for Christmas is an old, sweet Volkswagon Beetle.
I could go on and on. I hope you had a great Christmas. Iyi Yıller! Happy New Year! Three more weeks of teaching and then a five week break, hopefully another entry will come before then.
Some of my favorites with their Christmas tree.
Helin, Helen Marie, Hüriye and Gülşah.
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| A message written on the board by Caner during our break. He wrote the scores of the last two Pistons games and "Be happy Helen M.S.B." |
My lovable Tourism students.
*Side note: There is a strange misunderstanding in Turkey about Christmas and New Year’s. Because New Year’s is a state holiday here and the malls and certain shop displays have been infiltrated with Western Christmas symbols, many believe that the state holiday on January 1st is also Christmas in the West. I’ve give up trying to explain to my students that it’s actually December 25th because they have been hearing that it is a week later their entire lives. Instead, I just say, “In America, we celebrate Christmas on the 25th.” This mix-up lends to a lot of strange replies when I ask people how they celebrate New Year’s. “I don’t celebrate that holiday, I’m Muslim.” Oh man.
