I meet the President

Tuesday night I met my 2nd roommate, Tuba. She is a post-doc studying human rights. She reviews school textbooks and looks at how the books have changed overtime. I think her topic is fascinating and would love to discuss it for hours and learn more from her, but she doesn't appear too interested in enlightening me.

I can take a staff shuttle to work at 8 or pay for a minibus at another time. I am determined to walk this week. It is not far, maybe it would take me 20 min- but there are no sidewalks. I saw an elderly couple walking the route, so I will try.

After work I go to the gym. They have very nice weight machines. Then I go to dinner. It's not so easy to meet people at dinner. I watch the news and try to figure out if Hillary is Sec. of State already. The other evening I saw this man pass my table, sort of looking for a place to sit- so I motioned to him to join me. I introduced myself and then asked who he was and he replied, 'I'm the president.' So we had a brief talk before he had to return and finish his report.

Wed. eve I went to a concert with the library director. Mercan Dede was the group- 6 musicians playing traditional instruments with some electronic music. A woman preformed the dervish dance- very untraditional. She was fabulous- she had electric lights on her gown! The audience is totally involved- clapping to the music.

Thursday I was suppose to observe on the reference desk, but not much was happening. A class came into the library and the professor was going to give them some database training. I went to observe and introduced myself. Turns out the professor is an Aussie- he was happy to have me do the intruction. It was nice to have some interaction with the students.

Friday I met the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences (the business school is part of this school.) He told me about the programs Koç has with numerous foreign schools. He was surprised to hear about some of the things we do, so it's nice we can really learn from each other. He mentioned they have video conferencing equipment that they don't use - so that's something to explore.

I was taken to lunch by the coordinators of the MBA program in the faculty dining room. We had waiters and a view of the forest. (They tell me we can see the Black Sea from campus, but so far it has been too cloudy.) Özdil was an exchange student in Albany, GA!!! She remembers her roommate reading the bible to her every night. She is as friendly as can be. Her sister is in Atlanta. Her brother-in-law is high up in finance in Coke.

OK- enough about school- let's get to the week-end.