Birthday Bulletin

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming on adventures in Antalya to bring you this special Birthday Bulletin:

No, not my cake

Two days ago, on November 14th, I achieved the ripe old age of 22. Haha, yes, I know. Ripe old whatever. However, a lot has happened to me in the past year and I've personally grown and changed in amazing ways, courtesy of the Big Guy Upstairs, and so I actually do feel a lot older than before. Also, if you think about it, your 21st birthday is wrapped up in the hooplah of legally being able to drink, and aforesaid hooplah isn't actually very grown-up at all, is it? That's a more childish perspective on age in many ways, to view it in terms of legal milestones, particularly as focusing on those things often gets in the way of seeing growing older in terms of physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development. Well, not this time for me, friends! This birthday I actually considered the past year, not just what is to come.

Last year, I spent my birthday in Philadelphia with the Sweet Briar Model United Nations team, speaking French a lot with one Caroline King (THAT'S RIGHT, CALLED OUT!) and patting my underage friends on the head as I sipped a frozen margarita. This year I was...in Turkey! What's that? Yes, I'm in Turkey. Seriously, now, go catch up on the blog!

So my birthday festivities actually began on November 13th, when I met with my small Trabzon fellowship group for Sunday worship and sharing. I asked John to come with me to a pastane (pastry shop) in the city center to help me buy a cake before catching my ride. Really, John provided more moral support than anything else, because I ordered the cake all by myself, but I appreciated his presence. I'm sure that I absorbed some of his awesome Turkish skillz (yes, note the 'z') just standing next to him. Thanks, John! Cake purchased, I headed to fellowship and dropped it off in the kitchen without explaining what it was for...mostly because my Turkish was not advanced enough for me to explain to Halime, the mother and wife of the family in whose house we meet. I had told Jean and Jim, a retired British couple who live in Trabzon and are a big part of the fellowship and sometimes like my personal translators (sorry, guys...I'm learning!), that it was my birthday the next day, though, and they must have told everyone else. Because after dinner and worship and sharing, they shut off all of the lights and walked in with the cake, two lit candles dancing on top. They sang Happy Birthday to me in both Turkish and English, and then I blew out the candles, really quite moved at how sweet they were to do all of this. Then Halime explained that they hadn't known it was my birthday, but they wanted to give me a present, and handed me a beautiful brown scarf with beading. Being the emotional kid that I am, I got a little misty-eyed.

Our fellowship times on Sundays are always involved affairs, with lots of eating both before and after worship and reading Scripture/sharing what God has shown us this week. We're talking four hours on average. That final hour and a half we all spent stuffing our faces with my cake and a delicious apple/pear crumble that had already been planned for the menu. I got that serious "tick that's about to pop" feeling. I swear, the best food I eat here is in that house.

But enough about food. Onto the big day itself. So, one of the wonders of living in a foreign country while the majority of your friends and family live in different time zones is that your birthday "begins" at 12:00 AM in your time zone...but doesn't end until the next 12:00 AM back home...and since I was born at 5:43 PM in Walnut Creek, California, that crucial midnight that marks the end was in Pacific time. So that's a 34 hour birthday. Whoa!

That morning, I woke up and read my birthday cards. I know...how blessed was I to have birthday cards in Turkey! Two of them, from my mom and dad and my Aunt Anne, had been sent along with Ali's parents, who were conveniently in town visiting. The other was from my dear friend Kayt Colburn, who sent a series of cards and letters on my trip with me that I am to open on set days. Each card made me cry and laugh (there go those emotions again...) and set the tone for a great day. 

Now, this day was also the date for the administration of my first-ever major test: a midterm exam for my American Culture and Literature class. I had written it before I even left for the bayram, but, having no printer or any idea where to get the phantom "free copying" available to faculty, I ate a quick breakfast and ran down to the building where many of my colleagues have their offices. There, I found Nilgün, one of the first people on campus to ever show Ali and me around, who is a PhD candidate in English Drama and a fellow instructor. She cleans her office on Mondays, and was wiping off her desk when I sheepishly knocked and entered, requesting whatever help she could provide me so that I would have the right materials for my exam. Well, Nilgün, sweet soul that she is, let me borrow her flash drive and print off a copy of the exam and then walked with me to the department secretary (who does not speak any English) to help me figure out where to get copies made. The secretary recruited a research assistant who escorted me to a place I would have never found on my own (that seems like an overarching characteristic of many things here, but, hey, it's an adventure!), and I got my free copies!

The exam itself was at 1:00, and it seemed to go pretty well. Of course, now I have a ton of short essays to read. Yeah, I'm beginning that grading today. I understand now why it takes professors so long to get things back! After a few your eyes just glaze over...

Oh man, that just made me think of donuts. I miss donuts.

But, anyway, post-exam, I was asked by Ali Bey to come to his office to fill out some paperwork. As he also requested, I texted John and Ali to let them know to show up, receiving no response from Ali and a text back from John that he had "already taken care of it." Resigning myself to going it alone, I went to Ali Bey's office and sat waiting for him to show up. Fifteen minutes later, he called my cell phone to let me know he was on his way. Five minutes after that, he called again to ask me to meet him outside of the building. I went outside only to receive another call from Ali Bey, in which he told me that he could see me, and could I come meet him in front of the school of foreign languages. Finally, I met up with him in front of the right building and we went inside, looking for John and Ali so that they could fill out the paperwork, too. We went to John's office first, but when we knocked there wasn't any response. Ali Bey knocked on Elif Hanim's office door next to John's, presumably to find out if she had seen John. But, then, Ali Bey said, "Kathryn, could you just go inside, please?" He pointed to John's office.

"But, wait, I thought he wasn't in there..." Nevertheless, I turned the doorknob, assuming maybe his roommates had just been silent and could help us find him, only to find...

"SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

BAHHHHHH!!!! John, that sneaky kid, bought a cake right after I bought mine the day before and then organized a small surprise party! All of Ali's office-mates were there, as was my student/friend Burcu, our instructor friend Mustafa, and Elif Hanim. Oh, and Ali, of course, who grinned and asked if I had enjoyed her radio silence. And here I had just assumed she was being a lazy texter.

The cake was shaped like a ladybug (unfortunately John and Ali and Burcu have all the pictures, but I'm sure I'll have access to them at some point) and was pretty delicious. Ali's office-mates gave me this amazingly tacky snowglobe with a resin hamsi (anchovy) inside with a soccer ball at its feet (er...tail?) and a traditional Turkish instrument in its hands (fins). It lights up and has a little ballerina skirt around the base. SO AWESOME! Elif Hanim gave me a shoebox that she had decorated herself, which was really lovely, and I used it to store the scarf Ali had brought me from her bayram spent in Paris.

But this is the best part, and the punchline of the entire day: there actually was paperwork we had to fill out. Gotta love Turkey.

Ali and I met her parents in the lobby of our hotel/home after that and discussed dinner plans because her parents graciously wanted to take me out for a birthday meal. Promising to meet them in just a little bit, I went to my 7:00 PM exam, assuming that I could leave the exam in the hands of the research assistant who was supposed to be helping me and then go to dinner since it was, after all, my birthday. Unfortunately, the research assistant never showed up...so I pulled a Sweet Briar and created a sign-out sheet and appointed a student to bring the exams to my office once everyone was finished. Adventures in the Turkish honor system. Having now read some of those exams, I can tell you that, at least in the classroom, there didn't seem to be any honor issues. But memorizing SparkNotes in anticipation of certain ballpark questions and then regurgitating that onto the page (not even answering the questions I asked)...that might be an issue. Over fifteen students did something like that...yeah, trying to decide how to deal with it.

But I left, praying that these college kids could be responsible and honest (and that it was okay for me to administer an exam this way...not that anyone ever tells me how things are supposed to be; I always either have to ask or am told "It's up to you. Whatever you want." Ah, native speaker "magic"...), and went to join Ali, her parents, and John at the bus stop, from which we walked down to Forum and a restaurant in the parking lot called Suleyman. We had been to the attached bar to see some traditional Turkish music before, but only John had been to the restaurant. I got to eat lots of Kuymak, some delicious mezes, some chicken sauteed dish, and had a glass of wine...everything was excellent. Then we three ETAs said goodnight to Ali's parents and walked back to campus, whereupon I Skyped my mother.

Along with the birthday cards, my mom sent a few small packages with Ali's parents that I was to open while Skypeing. The first bundle contained some waterproof gloves and ear warmers--absolute necessities for me this time of year, especially if I want to learn to ski! The next was the world's smallest artificial Christmas tree and a tiny wreath, and the other package contained ornaments for the tree, including one with a picture of my family at the Biltmore House last year. Yeah, uh, talk about waterworks. I sat there sobbing for a while. So, as soon as Thanksgiving is over, like a good American I will decorate my little tree and plug it in for some Christmas spirit. I can't wait.

In addition to all of these wonderful happenings (well, let's call the exams neutral but note that they're not killing the day's GPA), I also received a staggering number of birthday wishes on facebook, in email, and in other messages. I am truly, truly blessed with wonderful family and friends, and I can't thank EVERYONE enough for what they did to make my 22nd birthday, my first big grown-up birthday, a day I'll never forget.

We now return you to your regular blog schedule. Coming up next: the Antalya adventure concludes!