spilled milk and baklava

Two posts in one day does seem a bit excessive - even to me - but I just can’t help it. Today was probably the best day I’ve had here ever. And it was entirely due to my amazing students.

I wrote the last post during class while my students took their midterms. They all had headphones on for the listening portion of the exam so couldn’t hear me typing away. Instead of making them do a writing exercise after two solid hours of bullshit, I decided to take things in a different direction and had them listen to a Moth recording of Elif Șafak. There’s actually a link from my friend Georgia on my facebook wall to the very same recording, and I would recommend it to anyone. I’ve heard it three times now and it seems to get better each time. Elif Șafak is a pretty controversial Turkish author and though I’ve heard of her a lot, I’ve never actually read any of her work. I was really curious to see if my students would understand the story and what they’d make of it. They’re all very accustomed to my American accent by now, but I had no doubt they’d be able to understand her better. She speaks with this funny British-Turkish accent, and sure enough, seemed perfectly translucent to my lot. It helped that the story was about İstanbul and talked about things they’re familiar with. We laughed a lot, and one of them said that Ms. Șafak is “an enemy of Turkey” though he does find her books “very beautiful.” Hmm. My bankers argued a bit about that, and then taught me the difference between “Inshallah” and “Mashallah.” I learn new things every day. As they were saying their goodbyes, I noticed that Ömer (brown suede jacket) was lingering behind. He gave me the sweetest smile and said “Anya, I want to tell you that I find your class very enjoyable. It’s the best part of my week. I look forward to it so much. Thank you.” I almost started crying. I can honestly say I’ve never received such a meaningful and generous compliment before. If he hadn’t told me an hour before that he doesn’t hug women, I would’ve clobbered him. What a guy. And for the skeptics - I can assure you that he wasn’t trying to get in my pants. He was being sincere. He looks shocked every time I pat him on the back. He isn’t used to being touched by women. (He’s also 24. Holy fuck.)

I pulled myself together when Ömer left and walked downstairs to fill out my paperwork. One of the Turkish teachers I know boomed “how lucky your students are to have such a beautiful, good, smart teacher!” I laughed. He’s always half-heartedly hitting on me. I said “You’ve never even seen me teach.” He said “I don’t have to - I hear what your students say about you. And they are always so happy.” Whether or not that was bullshit, it made me feel pretty good. So good that I didn’t even mind that only 3 of my 10 students in the afternoon class showed up, and one of them was 45 minutes late. He’s a pretty fascinating guy, actually. His English is eerily fluent. Like he might be secretly American doing a very convincing acting job. He used the word “amenable” in his essay, for god’s sake. He’s tall, pretty wide-shouldered, and dead sexy. He has this incredibly tousled hair and he’s always wearing a slightly large pull-over sweater and smelling good. He’s also going into mandatory Turkish military service in two weeks... Anyway. Tonight I got to know him a lot better, and man oh man is he a good flirt.

It took me the twenty minute walk home to realize that Turkey has changed me in a few ways, and probably the biggest is that I’m no longer scared of my own shadow. I don’t shirk from male attention anymore. I have learned how to receive compliments, intense gazes - and yes - I have learned how to flirt. With gusto. With smiles and faint perfume. With a knowing smile. I might even be a little bit sexy in a librarian kind of way? I don’t know. Still up for debate.

Why am I bringing this up? Because after I got home from work, I changed and then met my pre-intermediate class for dinner. I should say now that this was the first time I’ve hung out with any students outside of class, and I should also say that for that I am a complete fool. If I’d started doing it a month ago, I probably wouldn’t be going home next week. For those of you out of the loop (which should be all of you), pre-intermediate for our school basically means they’re one step above total beginner. My class has a hard time speaking in complete sentences, let alone grammatically correct ones. I have a semi-strict “No Turkish” policy in their classroom, by which I mean that every time they exceed Turkish chitchat for more than two minutes I say “No Turkish!” and then give them a mildly dirty look. But they can’t help it. They don’t know enough English to stick to English. Just to clarify, before I continue: this is the class with the men I was having problems with a few months ago. The men who kept looking at me like a piece of meat. So I was pretty nervous about this outing, and I knew it would be Awkward Fest 2011. Which it was, initially. But it also wasn’t. It was also super awesome. Six of them showed up in total and much to my surprise, they all tried so, so hard to speak English with me. They even made a special point of going somewhere vegetarian friendly. We laughed, we told stories. I embarrassed all of them by asking when they were going to get married. We took a few pictures. I joked that two of them should probably start dating. And I noticed that one of them was making a particular effort to talk to me.

Aydın is this very intriguing, pretty quiet guy I privately (and now publicly) refer to as Batman. He always comes to class in a suit - usually black or grey - and he wears these frameless, very thin glasses. When it was still warm he’d ride his motorcycle to school and he’s told me a few times that his favorite movie is “The Crow” and he has a thing for geishas. Ok. Weird. But whatever. Not that weird. He’s 31 and works for a computer company and something about him strikes me as kind of wild. Like he’s a little bit rigid but just waiting for a reason to not be. I don’t know. He’s Batman. Well, today I saw Bruce Wayne. He was wearing jeans and a hoodie for the first time ever with a t-shirt and scarf. Black on black Converse. He drove us to dinner and when I told him nervously that this was the first Turkish car I’d been in other than a taxi, he laughed and said “welcome to hell.” Not in a scary way - in a funny way. When we sat down for dinner he was doing most of the English speaking and he asked me how he could drastically improve his English. I joke a lot with the students and am pretty informal with them in general. In fact, truth be told, I taught that class the word “prostitute” on Thursday night, and I taught my TOEFL class the word “fornicate” on Saturday so I’m probably not earning any awards anytime soon. I decided the time had come to have a little bit of fun with them, so I said, “Aydın, if you really want to learn English fast, you need to find an English girlfriend.” They all roared with laughter. He said without even batting an eyelash, “what about you?”

Uhh... shit? Luckily he followed that with “you’re going home” or something like that and I changed the subject, but it was definitely a little... odd. I’ve noticed that all of my students have started treating me differently since I broke the news about my departure, but none had ventured down that road. Maybe it was seeing him in such different clothes, or maybe it was the fact that he didn’t take his eyes off of me for most of the night. I started thinking “why not?” instead of “oh god don’t even think about it.” I was almost even a little disappointed when the Turkish Stallion of the class, Orhan, showed up and sat down next to me super close. Orhan is a shameless flirt and totally gorgeous. But he knows it. And though the “slim cut Italian suits” he wears (his words, not mine) do fit him like the sexiest glove in the world, they only make him even more high-maintenance. When he arrived, he kind of cut off the Aydın effort. And then he volunteered to drive me home. In his heavily tinted Audi. (Wearing the largest and possibly only Bulgari watch I’ve ever seen.) Much to my surprise, I was a little more disappointed than I was thrilled. I knew Orhan wouldn’t try anything with another person in the car (and thank god Levent was there) but I guess I wanted to spend a little more time with Aydın in his Bruce Wayne state. Hmm.

I got home and told Victoria and Ido about the evening out and, (un)shockingly, Victoria told me to ask Aydın out. (Actually, she told me to text him and ask him what he was doing right then. Which, considering it was 11.00 pm on a Sunday night, would mean booty call in any language.) I’m not really that kind of girl. And I’m certainly not that kind of teacher. I’m a good teacher. I follow the rules. For the most part. I respect the system. I know I can look but I sure as hell can’t touch. Right? Right. So I could barely believe myself when I found I was texting one of the girls whom Aydın had driven home and making up an excuse to get his number from her. Which she did immediately. With a winky face. I may have also texted Aydın and invited him to my little going-away party on Thursday after our last class together. And he may have texted back telling me he would definitely love to come. Oops.

Who is this person? Do you recognize her? I don’t. Yesterday she was crying over spilled milk. Tonight she’s eating baklava.