Emails from S. Africa

Happy (almost) New Year, TASPers!

This is exciting: Thanks to the wind and cooler temperatures, we finally have snow in Sidney. I got back to my pre-young adult roots by going sledding last night. It was glorious. The denizens of eastern Montana are now enjoying about half a foot of powder on the ground. I'm going to try to scare up some skis today and hit that. (In the way that you hit McDonald's, rather than in the vernacular sense.)

I'll leave for S. Africa this Tuesday, so long as the storms of Ryan's home don't get in my way. (Have a connecting flight through the ever-treacherous Denver International.) I have toyed with several ways of keeping in touch with everyone. Because I won't have my computer, and I'll be traveling around somewhat regularly, I decided occasional mass emails would be the easiest way to keep updated those who want to be in that state. Cheesy, I know. Maybe even lame. But forgive me. If you can bring yourself to do so, and also want to hear a little bit about my adventures, please email tzoanni@gmail.com with a note to that effect. I'll then add you to the list.

Don't feel any factotal pressure to do so. I know that relatively general, newsy emails can be annoying, and I won't grudge you for feeling as I do. Also, no promises about great regularity. I'll have a better sense of how often I'll be able to get to Internet cafés once I'm in Cape Town (probably about 1-1.5 weeks from today.)

Love (non-eros),
Tyler

On censorship

Sorry to double post, but I was just wondering... can the government censor the internet? I thought I had read an article (but I'm not piggybacking off of anything, I swear) that the Chinese government censors certain websites, and my uncle just told me they can't see certain sites here. Do you guys know anything about this?

Because bottom line: THERE IS NO WIKIPEDIA.

I type in the site and it goes to yahoo: site not found (Chinese version).

Oh no.

Everything's in Chinese! Oh, sweet Beijing...

So yes, I am in Beijing right now. (And there's internet. HALLELUJAH!)

Apparently Blogger is in Chinese, too... all the "post" "comment" "Kathryn said" etc. thingies are in Chinese. It's pretty crazy.

First time in seven years since I've been back--a lot of things have changed, but at the same time, a lot is exactly how I remembered it. One of the most obvious difference between here and the US (well, aside from the freeezing cold...although I guess that's mostly just applicable to Cali) is how people drive. They don't. There seem to be no lanes, no reasons to yield to pedestrians. You edge in here and pop out there, honk a lot, and narrowly brush buses, rickshaws, bicycles, medians... and to add to it all, my aunt's car does not have seatbelts in the back or passenger seat ("Chinese police aren't really strict about that," she assured us). Driving here is quite an adventure!

But there's a great energy here. Everywhere, you see signs proclaiming "Beijing 2008," with the five Olympic rings. The Olympic Village part of the city is alive with building... actually, every part of the city seems to be under construction. There are high rises going up everywhere, shiny glass buildings and squat temporary worker's housing. (All this sends clouds of dust into the air. Coupled with the dust that blows in from the north--like a mini dust bowl of sorts?--the sky is grayish, yellowish lavender, not blue.) I got a glimpse of the Bird's Nest (the stadium that looks like a, surprise surprise, bird's nest) and the aquatic facility that looks like a giant mass of soap bubbles. They're impressive... big, modern-looking structures. People are so proud of hosting the Olympics. They're so excited to show off the "new China" to the world.

Everywhere, there is progress and development, but everywhere, also, there are signs of the huge gap between rich and poor. There are the businessmen clad in suits, driving BMWs, and then the farmers peddling winter vegetables and lugging their rickshaws to market. The hospitals (my aunt works there) look clean and modern enough from the outside: the floors are shiny and disinfected, the traffic is orderly, but doctors and nurses still have a "the hell with you" attitude toward patients, and the restrooms are... not as one would expect.

Maybe, though, the food makes up for all of that. omgggg, it's heavenly.

Okay, well, I'm here until the 2nd, when we move to Nanjing, where I was born and where my grandmother lives. Southern China also does not have heating. People heat there houses (or attempt to) with personal electric heaters, and it is cold cold cold. I don't think I'll have internet access there, but while I do, I'll check my e-mail, and keep connected with the American world, etc.

Much love from the Orient.

We all aren't so lucky....

College Applications are the BANE of my existence.

Thank you, fair TASPers...

Oh most glorious, most noble, dearest Danforth dwellers,
Thank you very much for your kind words and encouraging sentiments. Yes, 'tis true: I have been offered a place to read history at Oriel College. (The University of Oxford is partitioned into 39 colleges, which function more or less like the houses in Hogwarts.) I'm sure any of you could have done it: the History Aptitude Test (aka the entrance exam in disguise) wasn't really that dreadful, and the TASP and CBTA interviews were excellent preparation for the Oxford interview... Whut! This is most exciting. TEL grew up in Oxford, received a first in History from Jesus College, and was a fellow at All Souls. However, I must take the opportunity to add a few disclaimers, as my ever going to Oxford depends on three things:
1. Getting a four on the AP Calculus exam
2. Getting a four on the AP French Literature exam (Considering the fact that my school doesn't offer an official AP French Lit class, this could be a bit tricky.)
3. Persuading Oriel that I really am British or at least persuading them to lower their rather steep price (doubled by the current, desperately unfavorable exchange rate)...
Alas. However, thank you very much for your kind words. Oddly enough, I know exactly how Ryan felt in one of her recent posts: what in the world did I do to deserve this? I can think of at least seventeen more deserving individuals...
Anyway, I do hope everyone else receives similarly joyous news in the coming year. On with the Wash U TASP Revolution!

A Riddle

What's brilliant and british and GOING TO OXFORD?

You get three guesses.
....

And as for you, Miss Alison, don't forget us little people when you're a world famous* professor of awesome.

Geez, woman, you rule my face.




*hey, professors can be famous. Think Noam Chomsky. Yes, that's right, you're Noam Chomsky. minus the anarchy. and the really complex linguistics theories. and the big funny glasses.

Happy Birthday

to our most indignant TASPer, Manasi!! Have a fabulous day filled with joy and all of that.





(bre, I added pictures for you!)

The best, the brightest, my school is famous!

I know I haven't posted in a while, so this link is an attempt to make up for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eygKqRMd94U

This kid goes to my school and is a total celebrity now. It's amusing, really amusing. There's even a facebook group for him, and the best part is he doens't even have a facebook. Well at least he didn't the last time I checked...


Toodles. Have yourself a happy Christmas.

Mutterings on College

So December 15th has come and gone. I've endured the nerve-destructing wait, I've experienced that flash of incredible excitement seeing "Congratulations! Welcome to the Yale Class of 2011" pop up on my screen. I've screamed, I've danced, I've hugged a lot more people than I can remember hugging since the end of TASP.

I'm still pausing to think about it several times a day. I got into Yale. YALE.

It's pretty unbelieveable, I'll start there. Until just about six months ago, I never thought I would apply to any ivy league schools, let alone get in to one. I was never that "type" of kid in high school. I'm smart, but not the smartest. I'm a good writer, but certainly not (anywhere near) the best I know. I'm not full obscure intellectual knowledge and well-versed in the canon of western philosophy, I haven't seen every Fellini movie (or any, if you must know), and I didn't start seventeen clubs for political and social discourse at my school. What did I do to deserve this?

The answer, quite simply, is nothing. I haven't pulled myself through a hard life and succeeded despite of adversities, or even worked my ass off every day of high school for this. I'm just a bright kid with affluent parents who succeeded in exactly the ways expected of her. I got good grades, I won some competitions. SO WHAT?

These things speak very little to me as a person. In some way I suppose they label me as "passionate" or "driven" (or "fucking obsessive," to remove the euphemisms), but they say very little about my personal value. I guess that shouldn't be a shock. Getting into college has nothing to do with your worth as a person. People have been saying this to me forever, I've been thinking it forever. I could rattle off a long list of names of people who are smarter, more interesting, more creative, more "deserving" (whatever that means) of Yale than I am who won't be going there next year. Yet we're led to believe that this is it, this is what matters, on a near daily basis. The first words out of every adult I talk to these days are, "so, where do you want to go to college?"

And YES, I won't lie, it feels damn good that I can now tell people Yale. I'm going to fucking Yale. It's true. People like to hear that. They like to know they can quantify me as smart and hardworking and worthy just based on that one little four letter word. Forget my 32 on the ACT (worse than tons and tons of people who got rejected, if college confidential is any indication). Forget my lackluster academics. Forget the fact that before junior year I did very little outside of school. None of it matters anymore once you can say you got into Yale. My guidance counselor and principal love it because they think it makes them seem more impressive (yeah, guidance counselor, thanks for writing me a letter full of spelling errors and random grammatical mistakes). My dad is intensely proud because his family was working class and he paid his own way through college and now his daughter is going to be a student at arguably the "best" college in the country.

And why not, I guess? We all give value to arbitrary things at some point or another. It just seems so unfair in this case that I just happen to have the skill set for this. I did nothing for it. NOTHING. Really, this whole ivy league thing is a major downer. It makes lots of fantastic people who don't or can't get in feel like losers, and goes straight to the heads of many of those who do. I've watched a lot of my friends get really disheartened because GOD FORBID they only got a 2000 on their SATs or they've only taken one college class or they're only in three clubs. Even for me, it's been a major reason (not that I really need another, I'm a pretty skilled self-deprecate-er) to question myself and everything i do. really, tt's not like getting in makes you anything of a better person, or that Yale is the only place one can get a good education. To think so is utterly ridiculous.

Still, I can't help myself. Despite all this bitterness, I'm excited. Louise Gluck teaches the introductory poetry classes, there are people on the Yale accepted student boards who've started their own record labels and charities, and sorry to be shallow, but the campus is absolutely gorgeous. If i want to, I can be around these people, this place next year. I've been given that option. Sure, I'm lucky, but it's an incredible opportunity I don't want to pass up just because I feel somewhere in the realm of vaguely to ridiculously guilty about it. Yale is no guarantee of anything- success, intellectual growth, etc- those things i have to do on my own. But Yale could be the springboard, and a damn good one at that. I certainly don't think it's the only way to these things, or that there aren't many people Yale turns its nose up who will turn out to be incredible people, but for me, it could just be the right thing.

So that was probably far more than you wanted to know about my thoughts on the college process. But there it is. And I want you to know I believe that you're all incredible people destined for incredible futures. I don't care at all whether or not you go to ivies or whatever (though I'll take this moment to say another congrats to Fuyuo, Tracy, Katharine, and Miranda). You're still some of the best people I think I'll ever know. In fact, my only real fear for college is that the peope I meet won't measure up to all of you.

All the best from your somewhat disillusioned, trying not to be elitist, but secretly somewhat pleased comrade,
Ryan

Happy Birthday, Comrade McClure!

Happy birthday to the wittiest, cleverest Marxist to ever cross scholarly swords with Professor Brown. May the coming year be full of coffee, T. E. Lawrence, strange cults, L. Ron Hubbard, coffee, etc.


P. S. Would a more technologically advanced TASPer be kind enough to help me with the uploading of the traditional photo? My computer has gone on strike.

Judgment Day

I believe if the scream were here, he would say:
ahhhhhh!

post AS SOON AS YOU HEAR. it's a rule. mmkay.

How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Fish.

In the spirit of making time pass more quickly (for all of us waiting for Harvard, Wesleyan, Georgetown, Yale, or Godot) and mercilessly poking fun at everyone else (which I believe is what we WashU TASPers do best), I present to you a game:

How many WashU 06 TASPers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
....

1 to screw in the lightbulb
2 to decide if the light bulb is greater or less than Walter Mondale
1 to be indignant that the lightbulb ever went out in the first place
1 to know everything about the light bulb’s life, so much in fact, that this light bulb can be used as an analogy for just about anything
1 to ask if there are any light bulbs in Montana
1 to compare the screwing in of the light bulb to an eastern European film she once saw. In which every character died.
1 to accidentally flush the lightbulb down the toilet
4 to stay up all night supposedly working on screwing in the light bulb but actually watching videos on youtube and fighting for a better position in Leonel’s top eight.
1 to suggest that lyght bulb, much like womyn, should be spelled with a “y” in protest of the patriarchy that has dominated our society for so long

Please feel free to add to this list, or create your own WashU TASP light bulb jokes.
Oh yes.

(p.s. for Lynn, Spencer, and anyone else amused by such jokes: How many jewish mothers does it take to screw in a light bulb? .... None. I'll just sit here in the dark.

AND one more, from my (rather conservative) friend: How many UN delegates does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two. One to screw in the light bulb and one to blame it on liberal democracy.)


THE END.

(and also, good luck to everyone who applied early to any school. you people rock my face off, and I wish you the best)

Today's Google home page

:)

D is for December

Z is for Zapus hudsonius,
the meadow jumping mouse.
Don’t look for it in winter—
it stays inside its house.

I owe that beautiful lyric to B is For Big Sky Country: A Montana Alphabet. Thank you, Sneed B. Collard III, for writing this masterpiece, which I predict shall soon claim its rightful and much-deserved place in the halls of poetic glory, among the likes of John Milton, T.S. Eliot, and of course Homer. But thank you, TASPers, even more, for that wonderful book. It gave me some joy just in cracking it open in order to find a seasonal line.

While Mr. Zapus hudsonius may spend his winter days in the comfort of his burrow or den or whatever it is that he hides in, us human inhabitants of Montana have better luck. (Take that, circadian rhythms of lower mammals.) We bear the brunt of frigid winds, yard-deep snow drifts, corrosive sidewalk salt, and sometimes slush. Or so I expected before coming home… As it is, I suffered my first day of winter break in near-40 degree weather. This is shameful. No gloves, not hat, no nothing. I could probably get by without socks. Al Gore was right on the money with his Inconvenient Truth: who can go skiing or sledding in this higher-than-freezing nonsense? This is truly inconvenient!

Fall quarter was a good one. Lots of work, but still good. I turned 21, which is something of an important date in one’s life (or so some of my boozing friends tell me). I also gave a bi-quarterly lecture called What Matters to Me, and Why. A professor usually delivers this, so it was quite an honor to be selected. I bring it up only because you TASPers figured into the talk explicitly and implicitly: I talked mostly about communities of value (and got called in a “communitarian” in the Q&A), and our summer was in the back of my mind constantly in preparing for it.

The quarter ended with a bang—a bang of 50 pages of final papers, to be precise—and then I frantically packed and put my belongings into storage. I also had the good fortune to see one of our own, Katharine, for coffee on the Friday before I left. She seemed to be doing just fine, despite the fact that we both found it strange to see one another out of the expected element (TASP). After a 24-hour train ride with a pleasantly minimal number of psychos and crying babies (I even ran into one of my professors), my brother picked me up in North Dakota and we drove back to my town. He was wearing a sweatshirt with “Italia” emblazoned on the chest. I asked him if he’d taken an interest in soccer. He asked why, and I noted that he was wearing a soccer shirt. He denied he was wearing any such thing, so I pointed out the soccer ball print on his left shoulder. He just shook his head at me in response.

So far, I’ve been catching up on emails, fending off as much of my grandmother’s tasty and oh-so-fattening greasy German cooking as I can manage, trying to read, and getting ready for the gamut of my fellow sons and daughters of Sidney to return from college and the big holidays. It’s a tough life… My immediate agenda comprises catching up on John Ford movies with my now-returned Mormon missionary friend (the only close friend yet back in town). He went to save souls in Mexico (and tried half-heartedly to save mine through occasional letters) and now has a slightly Mexican lilt to his English. I find it amusing to hear him speak.

I’ll be kicking around Montana until Jan. 2, when I’ll fly to South Africa. I’ll first be in Johannesburg for about a week, and then I’ll go on to Cape Town, where I’ll remain until the tail end of March. With Cape Town as a base, I intend to do a fair amount of exploring the western cape. On the way back to the States, I’m going to stop in Paris for a week, where I anticipate butchering that silly tongue. (I read and write French well but speak it poorly.) The entire venture will be quite the experience for this country bumpkin, who hasn’t been out of the U.S., except for Canada (which I don’t count since it’s about 1.5 hours from my house). I’ll have irregular but existent email contact, so feel free to drop me line. I can’t promise a speedy response, though I’ll try.

Speaking of contact, some of you should either leave a voice mail when you call and I miss it (ahem, Ruben) or just email me. I’m never sure if you’re calling because you want to have a serious conversation or if you’ve simply selected the wrong contact or have consumed too much Dimetapp cold syrup.

(In advance,) Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/happy secular festive time, etc.! Thinking of you,

Tyler

P.S. And please keep me posted, either through this blog or email (tzoanni@gmail.com), what happens with the college admissions business. Among talented individuals as yourselves, this nonsense is really just a crapshoot. Being accepted is something to celebrate, but being rejected is something to put immediately behind you, without much remorse. Regardless, I want to learn your future plans.

Happiest of birthdays to

our dearest GERARDO!


(I'm not sure if he reads this, actually, but still.)

Also, I was deleting stuff from my flash drive last night, and I found this. Brought memories of a HILARIOUS, wonderful, amazing night. And, if you have yours, you should post it, too!


Here's to you. Happy 19th, Jerry!

***

When Lynn pulled me into an empty dorm room Saturday morning, I was like: what in the world? I soon learned, though, that I was to roast the coolest, palest, El Salvadorian I know: Gerardo Diaz-Bazan.

So I made a list of the top ten things I love about Jerry.

First and foremost, his guns. A little while back, I asked Gerardo whether he had picked up any cool American slang to take home. He immediately replied: oh, yeees – guns. [flex] I think he became quite famous for these guns. At our Ethiopian dinner, Spencer asked Gerardo to show off his famous biceps. With the macho-ist machismo, he ordered: “Shut your eyes, girls. Here.”

The first week, I had an inkling that Gerardo might like soccer. I remember walking into the lounge, half-drunk on race and freedom and slavery, to see the World Cup blaring, and him intensely fixated on the screen, going [hands on head] “Oh nooo. Oh nooo.” I think that was the conception of MANY pick-up soccer games (none of them played with an actual soccer ball, mind you). I could be sure that when we heard a bonk…bonkbonkbonk in the hallway at 2 a.m., Gerardo would be one of the parties involved.

Jerry has a wonderful laugh. Some people laugh like chipmunks on crack, some people laugh silently. Gerry has a laugh something like a lion going through a voice change. It’s so infectious and I have to say, it just makes me happy.

In this class about race, the subject of skin color is often raised. Gerardo’s skin color, though, opens up a whole new order of classification. His color is most accurately described as translucent. His parents call him “Chele,” which means “pale one” in Spanish. When he and Ryan took a photo together at the cheesecake restaurant, it was blinding.

Gerardo also has a special affinity toward women. Or at least women named Jessica Alba. When she was here on campus filming “Bill” in the pool, Gerardo eagerly came to the gym. We watched the filming for a while, but when it was apparent that Jessica wasn’t there, we invited Gerry to go, but he said, in the most earnest way, “Oh nooo, Tracy.” And stayed, nose plastered to the window, for another two hours.

There are many sides to Gerardo. When we switched outfits with our roommates, the TASP community was introduced to a swaggering, cool Rodney…I mean Gerardo dressed in a T-shirt at least twice as big as him and equally loose shorts. First thing in the morning, after he got dressed, he exclaimed, “Oh my goodness. I look like Eminem!” Then, concerned, he asked Rodney…Rodney, will you tell it? [Will a black man beat me?] We could hardly tell the difference between them. Later, in the lunch line, he turned to me and speculated: “Tracy, if I jump, do you think my pants will fall off?” I think we left that experiment…for a later time.

Another quality about Gerardo I really appreciate is his unrivalled ability to hide. Especially
during the game of Sardines, when we had a forty acre area to roam (but no mule…courtesy laugh, courtesy laugh please), Gerardo chooses to climb over a fence and hide in this dumpster receptacle. In the end, he resorted to sticking his head over the fence calling “Taspers! Taspers!” After two days and seven hours, Max and Rodney find him. And the door to the receptacle. If I ever need to run from the police, I’ll have Jerry guide me.

Gerardo always has a bright and enthusiastic attitude during seminar. A particularly memorable incidence: When Professor Brown asked if we were familiar with the perils of white privilege, Gerardo nodded enthusiastically, perhaps not completely understanding. A few days ago, we had a very serious discussion on the implications of racial slurs. Ruben revealed that he had been called the n word before, and Gerardo commented “Ohh, me too.” I think this supportive and exuberant attitude adds greatly to Gerardo’s presence in seminar.

***

Love you all. Am hoping that Stanford/calc/art history/poli sci/various other things don't butcher me this week. Also, I'll let you guys know what happens on Friday. My fingers are crossed for all of us.

TH

I know I just posted

but this is too excellent to wait. For your reading pleasure, Kofi Annan's final speech:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6170089.stm

This relates very well to my pubspeak--human rights, the UN, etc. Enjoy, and feel free to discuss!

of caroling and finals

Greetings, fellow Wash U TASP affiliates.
Our choir concert was today (and tomorrow), and let me tell you, what a joy. I adore choir, I really do, despite the intensely religious nature of our repertoire. The songs we sang:

Tu es Petrus*
The Morning Trumpet*
The Eyes of All Wait upon Thee*
I Will Praise Thee, O Lord*
Christmas Day in the Morning*,%
I Wonder as I Wander*
Carol of the Bells**,#
Deck the Hall**, @

*=religious
**=religious by association
%=not even close to the version you've heard
#=we sing this every single year
@=yes, only one hall

I have my university finals next week (calc II, calc-based physics) which I'm pretty much dreading if only because they're 2 hours long. On the plus side, after finals, I don't have class again until January 22nd. This means that for about a month, I will have my mornings completely free to do whatever I'd like (probably a combination of sleeping in, working on scholarship applications, and tutoring the calc AB students), and will have little to no homework for that time. [good time for any of you to take a trip to Wisconsin...tempting, I know] Don't hate me. I'll be suffering towards the end of April, when I have to prep for both university finals and AP testing...possible in the same week.

Oh, you guys should see Stranger than Fiction--it was really good. Yes, you can trust me on this, even though I didn't like Annie Hall. No seriously, trust me. The Pursuit of Happyness looks amazing too, by the way.

Weather update: We had a high of 8 degrees the other day. Yes, 8. And with the windchill, it was about -20. Makes you really want to visit me, doesn't it?

Alison and Kathryn reunite

Alison is coming to my school tommorow.
I am excited.
That is all.

Fame and fortune

Leonel is on the cover of the New TASP Brochure.
oh yes.

Still, I am indignant (manasi style) that this, our most brochure worthy photograph, does not appear:

I'm going to have to have a word with Telluride Association about this. I mean, look at the composition! the ethnic diversity! it's perfect!

How sweeeeet is this?!

First of all, read Ryan's post, it's much cooler, but I just had to share this:


It was for the senior picture. At first, we were going to do "Let's make sexytime!" from (yep) Borat, but we figured we wanted to get out of high school more than we wanted to, er, make sexytime, and with the re-election of our governator, this slogan was just meant to be.

I'm that tall, weird-looking S, by the way.

Why did constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the turks

Good morning, my TASPly comrades.

I say good morning only for your benefit, of course, since it is evening here in Istanbul.

Yes, that is right. I have seen Friday night. It is dark. I would tell you more, but that might upset fate, so I'll refrain and let you go about your own, slightly delayed Friday unperturbed.

Anyhow, Turkey is incredible, and I find myself thinking, as I often have in the post-TASP universe, that I wish you all were here. (Especially Alison. Ottoman palaces everywhere, Ms. Lawrence. Was T.E. Lawrence ever here? I've been wondering that.)

A few of you have asked me why I'm here, which seems a fair enough class. My dad is teaching a two week law seminar at a university here, and my sister and I came along for the first week. We're staying in dorms on the campus, which looks surprisingly like an American university. None of the women wear the hijab- it's forbidden in schools, even private ones. As soon as you leave the campus, though, it's clear you're in a muslim country. Excepting when I was small and uninterested in this kind of thing, I've never been to a Muslim country. I've never seen women walking down the street with their faces completely covered or thousands of people gathered in a square to protest the visit of the pope. Almost everyone here is Muslim, at least by heritage. It seems that most people are religious also. Five times a day, when there are prayers, they're broadcast from the minurets on the mosques (those pointy tower things) via loudspeaker. Wherever you're standing, you can hear the prayers from several different places at once. That's how close together the mosques are.

In fact, when I first got here, I was surprised by the sheer number of mosques.At any given moment, you can see four or five from where you're standing. Maybe there are just as many churches in the US and I'm just desensitized, I'm not sure. But mosques are way more interesting looking than most churches. Even your normal, everyday neighborhood mosque is domed and elaborate and ancient looking. That's another thing. I forget sometimes living in the US that the rest of the world has so much HISTORY. In Denver if a building is 150 years old, we consider it ancient. Even on the east coast, 400 years is as far back as our civilization goes. But people here barely blink as they tell you the building you're standing next to is 1000 years old. It blows my mind.

Speaking of the pope (which I was, a while ago. shutup, this can be a segue), he is unsurprisingly disliked here, but not as much as you might expect. A couple days ago, a law student took us around Istanbul, and she seemed just as frustrated with conservative muslims as she is with the pope. In her opinion, both groups cast an equally negative light on Turkey in the western world. She's impatient, as I suspect many are, with the islamic world being equated with a kind of backwardness. Unrelated but also interesting- this woman, who is a Phd student, speaks three languages, very intelligent, etc. believes that the Armenian genocide was not a genocide at all, but a military battle whose history has been severely warped. It's a shame of Turkey's of course, to be associated with a genocide. Just a couple of weeks ago when Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish writer, won the Nobel prize for literature, he spoke out against Turkey's silence regarding the Armenian genocide, and now he's pretty unpopular here (totally unrelated parenthetical insertion: i'm reading his book Snow right now and it's well written but way fucking weird. Has anyone read it? I'm not sure if I like it and I need someone to bounce the weirdness off of).

Back to the pope, I was relieved to realize that, radicals aside, the anger here is less directed at christian people as their leaders. The same is true of the president. I actually had someone tell me he didn't realize until he visited the United States that the people were very nice, even if he despised the country's foreign policy. Agreed, good sir, agreed.

Anyway, this post has become strange and rambly, and I need to go get ready for dinner, so I'll leave you. But I'm going to post some pictures later this evening, so check back. I hope everyone is doing well, and if you haven't responded to my email yet, you should!

Over and out from Istanbul (not constantinople).