Ne Haber?

"Ne Haber?" means "What's the news?" I don't have any terribly interesting stories right now-no more sheep killed or crazy animal parts found in my bag of frozen meat. I have today off from class, which has been nice. I needed a day where I didn't have to conjugate verbs. Our Level 1 class ended yesterday and Level 2 starts tomorrow. One more month of Turkish for old Kate. My good Filipino friend won't be continuing, which is I'm sad about. She was my best friend in the class and made things a lot more fun- not to mention she brought me snacks everyday, Turkish cookies, dried apricots, dried grapes (bigger than raisins), and these amazing pastries from a local bakery. Now during breaks, I might be the only one who sits in the classroom because everyone else will be outside smoking. Do you know there are people in my class who have been smoking since they were 10??! Crazy!

Here's some more "haber" from Ankara....

-elections are coming up here, so there have been lots of rallies (always attended by tons of policeman in blue camouflage with machine guns) and people driving around in vans, giving speeches over a loudspeaker

-Tim's parents are coming for spring break in less than month. We can't wait to have them and show them around Turkey!

-I've been directing an elementary chorus every Tuesday afternoon at Tim's school. I have 13 girls, from 2nd-5th grade. They are a wonderful group-talented and well-behaved! They will give a concert at the school sometime in May.

-I've also been directing the music for a local community theater musical. We rehearse every Tuesday night for 2 hours. The rehearsals are held at the Turkish American Association building. There are elementary kids, ms/hs kids, and adults in involved. The musical will be performed the first weekend in May.

-I currently have 2 piano students and will soon have many more. I've really enjoyed having the time to teach private lessons. I have great students and it's really nice to teach out of our home!

-Tim's schedule continues to be pretty crazy. Soccer is going well, though, he's wondering if there will be enough girls to have a team. He played a little soccer himself last Sunday at the base. Every weekend, the Turkish guards and a couple other Americans get together and play. It was a beautiful day and fun for me to watch them play.

-Tim's given some pretty interesting projects out to his classes of late (I thought they were very creative). His high school geography class did a project where they had to pick 2 European cities and plan the route of how to get from one to the other. They had cross 2 international borders and include 2 stops to eat along the way. I think I want to try some of these routes! I especially liked the route that went through Spain down to Morocco. When they studied South and Central America, they had to plan a vacation to one of the countries in those areas. They had to plan the whole trip- the lodging, the plane tickets, and the itinerary. His 6th grade history class is learning about bartering and trading. They have been split into different groups, each group being given different materials and no one group getting all the materials they need to complete the project. They have to barter and trade with each other to be able to complete the assignment.

-Happy Birthday to both my mom and Tim's dad! They both have birthday's this week!

Well, that's the news from Ankara!!! Iyi gunler (have a good day!)