Ben buradayım!/I am here!

Sorry it's taken me this long to write about this, but I'm on Turkish time. :P Here it goes!

So I left home bright and early on the morning of June 22nd, numb with excitement and anticipation, and headed off to the airport with my parents. After saying goodbye to my mom, my dad, who was also traveling that day for business, came in with me, and graciously came all the way to my gate to say goodbye. After a perfectly uneventful flight to DC, almost the entirety of which I spent journaling, I got off the plane and, after a bit of trouble finding the train to the baggage claim, was greeted by one of the program directors from ACES, our "implementing organization," plus two other Turkey-bound NSLI-Yers named Madeleine and Sophia. After two more named Patrick and Rachel showed up, who were headed to China instead, we got in the shuttle to head over to the hotel, excitedly chatting all the while about our upcoming adventures and all the (many) related hopes and fears.
After arriving at the hotel, we grabbed some lunch, and over the course of that day, leading up to the actual start of the orientation at five. The first part of the orientation was fairly standard. There were two groups of us NSLI-Yers; the 14 of us headed to Turkey, and another 25 heading to Jiaxing, China, which is just outside of Shanghai. The first night of the orientation covered mostly standard protocol of the program (most of it was common sense anyway) - as my now good friend Maddy from Portland, Oregon, said: "Shockingly, running around Bursa at 2 AM drunk and wearing nothing but an American flag isn't a good idea, and it's against program rules to elope, convert religions, or renounce our American citizenship. Bummer, my plans for this trip just went down like a turkey trying to fly." As you can see, she's quite the character (hehehe love you, Maddy ^_^).
The next day included a great deal more of country-specific briefing for both the Turkey and China groups. We were aided in this mainly by Catherine, our resident director, who is American but has lived in Turkey for several years and speaks Turkish fluently, as well as Safa, a representative from ISE World, our "overseas partner organization." We learned a great deal about Turkey as a country, got a half-hour crash course in its language, in which we managed to count to 100 as a group, and even saw a video about Bursa and got super excited to be there. :) And I managed to have a record-breaking conversation of sorts with my amazing new friends Gianna from San Francisco, and Salma from Virginia. We talked a lot at dinner, and then spent much of the rest of the evening chatting in the lobby, talking about our excitement for our experiences, our lives, our hopes, our interests, and much more. We were joined intermittently by my roommate Brendan and our friend Sam from Colorado, and by midnight, we calculated that we had spent a little under seven hours talking together. :) It's nice to find people that can make seven hours just vanish in the blink of an eye, in my opinion.
The next day was the day. A few of my fellow Turkey-bound NSLI-Yers stayed up to see off the China kids at their atrociously early 3:30 AM departure for the airport, but I was not one of them. :P We were (thankfully!) able to ease into our day much more gently; Brendan and I mosied on down to breakfast around 10 or so, and we ate with the others from our group. We were the first down aside from Gianna and Salma, and as the others in our group gradually trickled downstairs from their rooms, carrying their bags, we ate in jittery and ecstatic anticipation, too excited about finally being on our way to taste our food.

At midday, we left for the airport to catch our 4:15 flight to Paris from Dulles Airport. No delays or problems of any kind, fortunately. We reached our gate with an hour and a half to spare until boarding, and after spending most of that time meandering around the airport with Maddy and Safa, I bought myself a vanilla bean frappucino at Starbucks to leave the country with a little slice of Americana, and we then boarded our giant Paris-bound plane (it was a double-decker!) to finally start our grand adventure. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it was the biggest commercial airliner in the world. No big deal.
I was seated on the top level of the plane with Gianna, Salma, and Madeleine, as well as Cat. Almost immediately after take-off, the four of us watched Frozen together, since both Gianna and Madeleine hadn't yet seen it, which was a pretty fun little activity to start off our long trip. :)
We also had a cool conversation with a member of a band called "Barefoot Movement;" they were on their way to play at a concert in the U.S. Embassy in Burkina Faso. After that, I spent a while trying to get a little sleep while listening to music, which didn't really work out well, but some shut-eye is better than no sleep at all, I suppose. After "waking up" from my "nap," I watched the movie Remains of the Day, which was adapted from a book I read in my English class last year, and by the time I was done watching, breakfast was served and we had less than an hour left til landing. Eventually, we gently coasted down through the rosy Parisian sunrise and touched down on French soil.

I'd never been in the Charles de Gaulle Airport before, so it was neat we got to connect there. We were there so early for our 10 AM flight to Istanbul that there was a flight to Tunis at our departing gate that hadn't even left yet! We dumped our stuff there, and wandered around for a few hours, buying ourselves some obligatory airport croissants for breakfast, and then Salma, Gianna, and I wandered down all the way to the end of the terminal and just sat there for almost an hour, talking and watching planes take off. We eventually headed back to the gate, and I spent most of the time left until boarding talking to Maddy about our exchange experiences (she was in Spain for a year!). Once we finally got on the plane, I fell asleep pretty soon after takeoff, as I remember, and in spite of how uncomfortable it was, being a plane, I slept most of that flight away. After waking up just in time for a breathtaking descent over the Bosphorus, we touched down to officially begin our Turkish adventure.
After getting over the initial shock and awe of "HOLY CRAP I'M IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY," I fell asleep once again in the shuttle en route to the hotel (in spite of my head constantly banging against the window throughout the ride). When we finally arrived, we did our best to eat the pizza that they served to us, and most of us headed right back up to our rooms to CRASH.

The next day, we got up feeling rested and somewhat less jet-lagged, ready for our Istanbul city tour! We first headed over to Gülhane Park, which is a park known for being only accessible to sultans back in the Ottoman days, where we stopped in an elegant little restaurant for our first taste of Turkish tea and coffee. Afterwards, we continued on to Sultanahmet, the part of the city where most of the well-known monuments like the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque are located. We unfortunately "didn't have time" to go into the Hagia Sophia, which I was pretty sad (and, to put it colloquially, am still super salty) about, but at least we got to go inside the Blue Mosque - it was absolutely gorgeous both inside and out, with a soothing combination of subtle bluish hues and an elegant air of spiritual grandeur that brought me back to the feelings I experienced visiting the Saladin Citadel in Cairo, in spite of the fact that, as my amusingly sassy new friend Andrea from California put it, "it smelled like barefoot tourist feet." Following that, we breezed quickly through the Spice Bazaar, which apparently is equal to the more hyped Grand Bazaar in all except size, and after that we headed to a lovely neighborhood a little ways away called Ortaköy, where we ate kumpir (baked potato stuffed with various fillings) for dinner, and got a little free time to meet three girls who Safa teaches that are spending the next school year as exchange students in North America, and explore the neighborhood together, getting a chance to have a peak at its small but gorgeous mosque, friendly inhabitants and stray animals, and get an up-close look at both a movie that was being filmed in the vicinity, and a nearby bridge which connects Asia and Europe.

The next day, we woke up early for some more orientation-ing at the hands of a friendly and funny diplomat from the American Consulate in Istanbul, who gave us some great advice and stories about Turkey as well as other countries he had worked in, which was great fun, and then we headed over to the American Consulate itself for an in-person security briefing (we got a good look at the awesome view to be had in the Consulate - it's up on a hill). Afterwards, we headed to a large shopping mall, where we ate lunch and then had some free time, which I spent meandering around the mall with Salma, Gianna, and our friend Ruth from Utah, spending most of it in a bookstore, where I bought a copy of The Fault in Our Stars in Turkish, a CD, and a mini-dictionary. After a few hours, we headed down to the port area to catch our ferry to Bursa; I spent the hour or so we waited to get on the ferry sitting and talking to Maddy on a bench overlooking the sea. Once on the ferry, we spent most of it sleeping, and practicing our Turkish together. Once we got to Bursa, a bus came to get us at the port, and brought us a little ways inland to the Kültürpark, a park located around a small (probably man-made) lake in a lovely natural setting, where we were introduced to our host families at a banquet attended by none other than the mayor of the city!
Meeting my host family was a little awkward at first - knowing as little Turkish as I did on that first night, I was really unable to say much of anything without my host brother Erinç translating for me, but after the minimal yet heartwarming interactions that I was able to have with them, and then seeing how they smiled when I gave them their gifts after we got home, I was able to relax at least some of my worries for a while.
We then got the weekend to spend at home with our families, which was a fun time, to say the least. Erinç has taken me under his wing in all possible ways, and introduced me to a number of his close friends, who have all been extremely sweet and friendly, ask lots of impressively informed questions about the US, and are extremely enthusiastic both to practice their English with me, and to teach me Turkish. That's all there is to say about the weekend, really. It was a super fun time - crazy, fun, and amazing in pretty much all ways possible. :)
Then Pazartesi (Monday) rolled around, and we started our language classes at the TÖMER Center (TÖMER is a cultural organization created by the University of Ankara to promote the teaching of Turkish language and culture to foreigners, as well as the teaching of foreign languages to Turks - it's where all NSLI-Y programs take their language courses in Turkey). We're split into two different classes; I'm with Gianna, Salma, Ruth, our friends Rose from New York and Emily from DC, and Brendan. Our teacher is a very friendly and smart young woman named Yeliz (which has to be one of the most beautiful names I've ever heard before). We've done two days of classes at this point, and we've thankfully started off slow, learning some necessary simplistic, core vocabulary before we dive headfirst into the intricacies of grammar and conjugation. We have classes from 9 am until 1 pm, with a ten-minute break every hour in which we're welcome to go and buy junk food from the canteen downstairs, and then we eat lunch every day in a lokanta (restaurant) just across the street.
Classes have been going pretty well - they're are well paced so far, we're all learning a lot, and it's nice to be able to spend time with the other NSLI-Yers, which is always fun. :) And this morning, I took the metro by myself to the Center for the first time!! :) It's pretty simple - my host family's apartment block is a five-or-so-minute walk from a metro stop, where I take the metro to the center of town and just walk straight (like literally straight) to the TÖMER Center. Today we also went back to Kültürpark after classes, to take part in our "Peer Language Partners" activity, in which all us NSLI-Yers took turns practicing Turkish with each other's host siblings.

Overall, things have been going fantastically so far. Now that I have you guys up to speed as to where I am and what I've been doing, I'll come back to blog about some more general observations and thoughts I'd like to share later this week. For now, I should upload the giant load of pictures to go along with this big long post, do tonight's ödev (homework), and get ready for tomorrow.

(By the way, please excuse the astronomical amount of pictures, but even this hardly does Istanbul any justice.)

Görüşürüz!
-Nico

Pre-takeoff picture, courtesy of Cat. From right to left: Me, Gianna, Madeleine, and Salma.

The Paris Airport, looking pretty good with the sun rising.

From the descent into Istanbul.

The view from my hotel room. 

Our whole group. Standing, from left to right: Safa, Nate, Gianna, Madeleine, Sophia, Rose, Salma, Sam, Cat, and Kat. Sitting, from left to right: Ruth, Andrea, Brendan, me, Maddy, Miles, and Emily. 

The little place where we had our coffee/tea in Gülhane.

More Gülhane.

The Hagia Sophia. 

The Blue Mosque. 

Inside the Blue Mosque. 

Inside the Ortaköy Mosque. 

From the outside.

A friendly stray kedi (cat) that we befriended, chilling out in our shadows. 

Glad I got this one. ^_^

Musings and thoughts on the end of junior year + pre-departure jitters

Hey guys!
Sorry I haven't been able to write for a while now. Life got pretty insanely hectic starting around three weeks ago with the final month of school, which lead into finals week and related ish (for lack of better terminology). It's been a crazy month or so, to say the least. But I've made it out alive, in one piece, and with fairly solid grades to boot. And I'm leaving tomorrow for my gateway orientation in DC!!! So what's not to like? :)

First, some reflections on this past school year:
To put things lightly, it's been one hell of a ride.
On one hand, I was extremely exited to get back to the strong sense of community and school spirit present among my school's student body. If I haven't explained this before, I go to an International Baccalaureate (IB) high school that is formed from a consortium between the various school districts of my county, meaning that every district in the county sends students to our school, and my class in particular will be the school's very first graduating class ever next year. For that reason, we as a class, having been through all of these things together for the very first time, having been the guinea pigs for pretty much everything, and having essentially helped to create the school and its environment/atmosphere from nothing, are very close, and we share a real and genuine camaraderie. Coming back to this welcoming and inclusive environment in which I have very close friends who I love to death was a great relief. I've greatly strengthened all of my friendships that I gained back in freshman year before I went abroad, and I've formed a lot of new ones as well since I got back. I've thrown myself headfirst into the extracurricular activities available at my school, becoming greatly involved in the Everyone's Free Organization I've mentioned before, and my school's Gay-Straight Alliance, as well as helping set the foundations for a Spanish National Honors Society Chapter to begin next year. I've worked hard for my grades, and it's payed off greatly. Overall, as much as I loved and valued my time abroad, it's been great being back here. I have real connections to both my friends and teachers that I know will last a lifetime, and there is honestly no community I'm prouder to be a part of than my graduating class (aside from maybe AFS and the worldwide exchange student community), and in spite of my incurable case of wanderlust, there's honestly nowhere else I'd rather be, and no other group of people with which I'd rather survive the IB. :)
On the other hand, it's been a really rough year at times. The #ibdying exists for a reason. The IB is not easy, and juggling an extremely advanced and demanding workload along with extracurriculars, standardized testing, CAS (150 hours of "Creativity, Action, and Service" that all IB students are required to complete), and miscellaneous other responsibilities of life became quite hellishly stressful at times. I've watched the people close to me struggle to juggle all these things in a way which I didn't know was possible, until descending into madness myself. There have been countless late nights of frantic, frustrated hair-pulling and essay/project writing, of procrastinating on homework with other homework, of desperate measures taken to pass exams and boost grades, always with the heart-stopping pressure of the very real potential consequences for our actions in the form of the college admission process looming over our heads. I for one will be one to admit that there have been many moments of anxious desperation and hopelessness that have been hard to deal with.
But, in spite of all the stresses, pressures, less than ideal scheduling/pacing, and many responsibilities available, I would daresay that we have not only survived our first year of IB, but thrived. In spite of all these pressures and stresses, we've created an inclusive and welcoming environment of diverse, driven, motivated, intelligent, and passionate students who I know will all be doing great and monumental things. We've made it to the other side. We can take a well-deserved break for the summer (though there's still work to be done in the meantime -,-). In spite of all the challenges, I really do love my school. I'm beyond excited for all that which awaits me in my future, but I'm a little scared to only have one year left, for I know that leaving next year is going to tear me apart inside. But overall, I look forward to all the craziness that awaits us in our senior year as well. We'll be back soon enough for another crazy but amazing year.

In the meantime, I LEAVE FOR MY GATEWAY ORIENTATION TOMORROW.
I've neglected to blog about this grand news, but at this point I also happen to have received my Turkish host family information!!! :)
I've got a host mom named Leman, who is a teacher, a host dad named Mustafa, who is a dentist, and one host brother my age named Erinç (eh-reench) who is my age. They live about 15 kilometers from the TÖMER Center where we'll be doing our language courses, so I'll be taking the metro from their house.
I haven't yet had any interactions with them, but they seem really sweet and sent me a super cute family photo, which really made my day. ^_^

I spent pretty much all of today out grabbing some last-minute host family gifts and other miscellaneous things for my trip. I've got everything that I need, and at this point I'd say I'm all packed and ready to go.
It honestly has not felt real until today that I was leaving at all. After a very stressful few weeks leading up to finals, all my energy and concentration was preoccupied with studying and ensuring the highest grades possible in all my pesky classes, and so I had little time to think about my upcoming departure.
Even the days following finals have been full of activity. Two days ago, I had a birthday party with five of my closest friends to belatedly celebrate my 18th birthday back on June 2, which was great fun, and then yesterday I went to my Sardinian AFSer friend Francesca's graduation party in Pinckney (a town a little ways away from Ann Arbor).

And now I am just about as ready as I can be, thinking about the plane that I will board in a little less than ten hours that will carry me away on the next greatest adventure of my young life.
I am undeniably much less prepared this time. I categorize my Turkish as being a step up from nonexistent, but overall pretty pathetic. I know so little of it, and that's more than a little scary. Overall I'm very nervous. But I'm mostly just excited. I'm excited to meet my host family. I'm excited to see Istanbul before we head on to Bursa. I'm excited to blunder through the numerous linguistic screw-ups that are bound to ensue from learning such a different and complicated language. I am excited to taste Turkish food. I am excited to feel my Turkish get better day by day. I am excited to befriend all the other NSLI-Yers. I am excited to be able to throw myself headfirst into another experience in a completely new country.
It's kind of ironic, considering that I ended up connecting in the Istanbul Airport so spontaneously and unexpectedly on my way to Egypt when there was a strike in the Frankfurt Airport (where we were originally supposed to connect; AFS subsequently rerouted us to connect in Istanbul), and this time, Istanbul (or Turkey in general, at any rate) is where I'm destined to go.

All I can say is, I'll do my best to write up a post while I'm in DC. Thank you guys so much for following my adventures. Here's to the next one. I'll see you all on the other side.

-Nico

(^ A relevant song. I reckon I've been taking quite a few chances lately; like going to Egypt for a year with AFS, coming back to my school, throughout the school year, by applying to NSLI-Y, and by choosing to embark on this new adventure, and in preparing for the next years of my life. Don't judge the fact that I've posted the Glee version. xP)

Feminism

Hey everyone!
No NSLI-Y news today, but I decided to make a post about something else which is very relevant to our current events and society, and which I care very much about personally.
That is the issue of feminism and the promotion of women's rights.

I realize I've not explicitly mentioned this so far in any of the posts I've made on this blog, so I wanted to mention the fact that I am a proud and vocal feminist.

First, here are two videos which I'd like to show you, the first being one of my favorite YouTubers, Laci Green, talking about why she herself is a feminist, mainly offering reasons as to why, all of which are most definitely reasons that I too am a feminist. The second is another of her videos, this one instead relating to the specific, recent incident of the shootings at UC Santa Barbara, very relevant to the issue of feminism and misogyny.
(Check out the rest of her channel if you like these vids, she's fantastic!)

And now, I'd like to list a couple of my personal reasons for which I am a feminist which were either not explicitly mentioned in Laci's video or which I just wish to mention for the sake of it.

I'm a feminist because so many westerners have stereotypes of Muslim women and hijabis in particular being "oppressed" or "persecuted" when this is simply not true.

I'm a feminist because harassment is NOT a complement in any way, shape, or form, and because I'm angry that all of the women in my life have had to put up with it for years, and I've witnessed it happen to them with my own eyes.

I'm a feminist because women should make a full dollar to every dollar a man makes, and anyone who thinks otherwise has no place in modern society.

I'm a feminist because misogynistic sexism can also affect men - if they are perceived as effeminate they are seen as "lowering themselves" and they suffer for it; homophobia and misogyny are all too often intertwined. I should know, as I've dealt with this myself.

I'm a feminist because, on that note, transgender women face a huge and disproportionate amount of violence towards them because they are seen as "men lowering themselves" in that exact same way.

I'm a feminist because the traditional gender binary and the gender roles associated with it also have no place in modern society. Because society teaches women it is there responsibility to not get raped, and that it is impossible for men to get raped, which is a load of nonsensical bull.

I'm a feminist because I believe that it is everyone's duty to eliminate rape culture, to create a world where women can be safe everywhere, where "what she was wearing" or "if she was 'asking for it'" never are issues.

I'm a feminist because yes, not all men are "like that," but there are way too many who are, and that needs to stop.

I'm a feminist because things like the Elliot Rodger shooting have become normal occurrences, because the media is victimizing him (and has done so to numerous other rapists) and because anyone who believes he or anyone else like him deserves even the slightest bit of empathy or sympathy needs to, for lack of better terminology, check themselves.

Most of all, I'm a feminist because I believe in a world of complete and total gender equality, and if you do, then, surprise surprise, you are one too.

Thanks for reading guys. :)
-Nico 

Day of Silence, JSA Spring State, the Korean Dinner, and NSLI-Y flights!

Hey guys!
So in addition to talking about some NSLI-Y related news, I'll be discussing a few events which have taken place in the past few weeks that I thought would be nice to write about: Day of Silence, JSA Spring State, the Everyone's Free Annual Korean Dinner (explanations are coming for the confused), and my NSLI-Y plane itinerary.

So on April 23, 2014 (Disclaimer - DOS was officially on April 6, but my school did it on the 23rd instead, as the 6th was over our spring break), I participated in Day of Silence along with the vast majority of the other members of my school's GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance). Day of Silence is explained (quite perfectly, in fact) in the DOS cards which we were given that explained the reason for our silence to others as follows:
"Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling, and harassment. I believe that ending the silence is the first step towards building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today." 
LGBTQIA rights is an issue which I care immensely about, and which I believe is extremely important in our society as it is today. People deserve to be treated with compassion, respect, and humanity regardless of any intrinsic trait, such as race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, creed, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and I would hope that the majority of kind-hearted people on this earth would agree with me.
If you believe in the loving and tolerant values enshrined in the DOS, I encourage you to participate next one, and also to do anything else you can to promote the advancement of LGBTQIA rights in the world and your own community. Thanks for considering.

Then, a few weeks ago, from April 25-27, I had the privilege of attending the JSA Midwest Spring State with my school's JSA chapter in Oakbrook, Illinois. JSA stands for "Junior States of America," and is very accurately described in its own mission statement as follows:

"The mission of the Junior State of America and the Junior Statesmen Foundation (JSA) is to strengthen American democracy by educating and preparing high school students for life-long involvement and responsible leadership in a democratic society.

In the student-run Junior State and at JSA summer schools and summer institutes, participants learn statesmanship as they engage in political discourse. They cultivate democratic leadership skills, challenge one another to think critically, advocate their own opinions, develop respect for opposing views and learn to rise above self-interest to promote the public good."

I had heard quite a lot about the organization from a number of people at my school who are involved, and I had been curious about it since the beginning of this school year, as lately I have been inspired to become more politically active to help advance ideas and causes which I believe in. I made a rather hasty and impromptu decision to attend one of the three annual states (conferences), Spring State, with my chapter. And I can safely say that I made an amazing decision.

Last Friday, my chapter and I were bused along with students from a few other nearby high schools to a hotel in Oakbrook, Illinois, right outside of Chicago, where the state was being held. The conference itself didn't start until the next day, and so we were free to spend much of the afternoon wandering the nearby Oakbrook Center Mall, a large open-air shopping mall located right next to our hotel, just talking and having fun and being the teenagers we are. :P The mall was also pretty good-looking, and there were beautiful fountains that we sat next to talking for a while after dinner, about anything and everything. So that was pleasant. :)

The next day the Spring State and the debates actually started. For anyone who is unfamiliar with JSA, essentially the way that things are set up at states are that there are around seven or eight debate blocks over the two days, and you can go to different debates offered in each block. Each debate has a main pro speaker, a main con speaker, a moderator who oversees the debate, and after the main speakers have finished, spectators are free to volunteer to deliver their own subsequent speeches.
The debates I attended over the course of the weekend included, "resolved, that the promotion of men's rights is currently unnecessary," "resolved, that senatorial filibusters should be abolished," "resolved, that it is futile to intervene in the conflicts of the Middle East," and so on. That night, after all the chapters of attendees performed their so-called "chapter caucus cheers (essentially just chapter cheers), there were a couple of night activities, including a dance and speed dating.
The next day consisted of more debates, the election of the" governors" for next year (my school's chapter president Katharine Wang got voted Midwest governor! :D), and then a closing ceremony. It seemed like it was over in an instant, and the closing ceremony brought out some emotional reactions from a great many seniors who were attending their last state.

As I reflected during the time which I didn't spend sleeping, reading or talking to other people on the bus ride back home, I greatly enjoyed Spring State. I loved the electric atmosphere of constructive political debating, I loved being around so many motivated, informed, intelligent, and like-minded (not to mention well-dressed) people my age, I loved how involved and dedicated everyone who had been involved prior was. I can now safely say that JSA is an organization which I will strive to be part of for what remains of my high school career. I look forward to Fall State and hope to do subsequence for a couple of speeches, and maybe even take up a main speaker role.

I was surprised by this in many ways. In some ways, I took a bit of a chance going to Spring State - I missed two events (an annual fundraiser for my school's music program, and volunteering at an orientation for this area's outgoing American AFSers) that I would have gone to that weekend, and I was very handsomely rewarded for taking that chance. I found an organization that has started to give me a voice. One older JSAer I met who helped lead a workshop for us newbies early on the first day said, "once you find your voice, you will have it forever." I have little experience with public speaking, but thanks to this event I believe I have started to find my voice, and I plan to use it come Fall State. Aside from all this, it was great getting to spend time with all the awesome people in my school's JSA chapter, many of whom I didn't know well beforehand. Point being, Spring State was awesome, and I have now fashioned myself a proud JSAer.

Now, the Korean Dinner.

So I'm a part of a club at my school called the Everyone's Free Organization, which was founded by a classmate of mine, and whose primary mission is to save North Korean refugees, especially orphan children. I've been involved with Everyone's Free since the beginning of this year, and I've enjoyed it immensely, as I feel this is an extremely important cause we are addressing which often doesn't get the right kind of attention in the media. I also have begun to gain a great interest in Korea and Korean language and culture as a result of different events I've attended with Everyone's Free (hence the fact that I changed my second language in my top three NSLI-Y choices from Russian to Korean back in February). 

Back on May 2, we had our Second Annual Korean Dinner, an event for which we ask a number of Korean-owned restaurants and businesses in our area to provide us with donations of food, and use it to cater a dinner complete with Korean entertainment to raise money for the refugees.

This Korean Dinner was particularly special, though. We were honored to have Mr. Shin Dong-Hyuk as our guest speaker, who is the only known example of a person to have been born in one of North Korea's many concentration camps for political dissidents and to have escaped. The book Escape from Camp 14, which I would highly recommend, is written about his escape and his life story.

Several months ago, my friend and classmate John Park, the president and founder of Everyone's Free, emailed Shin Dong-Hyuk to tell him about our organization, and he agreed to come and speak at the Korean Dinner.

I was one of five members of the club to go pick him up at the Detroit Airport. It was absolutely amazing to meet him; I was thoroughly starstruck. The next day at the Korean Dinner, hearing him speak about his various experiences moved me to tears a number of times. For someone who has had to live through the atrocities he has, he has such a positive aura about him. He even very graciously agreed to sign my copy of Escape from Camp 14, which is now something of a prized possession to me.

In any case, the Korean Dinner was an absolutely amazing event which I was glad and honored to have been able to attend.

By the way: if you would like to do me, the rest of the organization, and all the North Korean refugees a huge favor, please consider checking out our website and helping to support our work and/or spread the word. Every bit counts. Thank you. <3

My signed copy! ^_^

Picking Shin Dong-Hyuk up at the airport.

Lastly, last Friday I received my flight itinerary from NSLI-Y!

I won't post a picture of it or write any explicit flight numbers, just for privacy reasons. But the point of the matter is that I leave home on June 22, on a 10 am-or-so United flight out of Detroit, and then will head to DC for the pre-departure orientation. Then on the 24, we will be flying out of Dulles Airport to Turkey. We will fly Air France and be connecting in the Paris Airport for around five hours before catching our connecting flight to Istanbul. The return itinerary is exactly the same, except in reverse. We return on August 11.

I wish we could have flown Turkish Airlines. I flew it on the way to Egypt and really enjoyed it. It's a quality airline, for all those who have any occasion to be flying with them anytime soon. But aside from that, it seems a bit grueling - we arrive in Paris at 5 am local time, and then have five hours to kill in Charles de Gaulle Airport before our connection. And coming back doesn't seem to be any easier - we leave on a 6 am flight out of Istanbul.

It actually greatly resembles my (original) travel itinerary to Egypt that got changed the night of the gateway orientation, which I guess shouldn't surprise me too much since Egypt and Turkey are geographically pretty close to each other.

But the specifics don't matter. The point is that I know now that I'm traveling to Turkey, and when/how it will be happening. And I'm forever fangirling inside for that reason. XD

 That's all for now, folks. I'll be back if I have anymore noteworthy news.

Görüşmek üzere!

-Nico 

I'm obsessing, as you can see.

A blurb

Hey guys! I found this in an exchange student group on Facebook, and thought it was very true, so I wanted to share it with you all.

"Exchange is change.

Rapid, brutal, beautiful, hurtful, colorful, amazing, unexpected, overwhelming and most of all constant change. Change in lifestyle, country, language, friends, parents, houses, school, simply everything. Exchange is realizing that everything they told you beforehand is wrong, but also right in a way. Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are, to having no idea who you are anymore to being someone new. But not entirely new. You are still the person you were before but you jumped into that ice cold lake. You know how it feels like to be on your own. Away from home, with no one you really know. And you find out that you can actually do it.

Exchange is learning to trust.

Trust people, who, at first, are only names on a piece of paper, trust that they want the best for you, that they care. Trust, that you have the strength to endure a year on your own, endure a year of being apart from everything that mattered to you before. Trust that you will have friends. Trust that everything’s going to be alright. And it is seeing this trust being justified.

Exchange is thinking.

All the time. About everything. Thinking about those strange costumes, the strange food, the strange language. About why you’re here and not back home. About how it’s going to be like once you come back home. How that girl/boy is going to react when you see them again. About who’s hanging out where this weekend. At first who’s inviting you at all. And in the end where you’re supposed to go, when you’re invited to ten different things. About how everybody at home is doing. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is. Not only because of home, but also because the TV ads for shows keep confusing you.Thinking about what’s right and what’s wrong. About how stupid or rude you just were to someone without meaning to be. About the point of all this. About the sense of life. About who you want to be, what you want to do. And about when that English essay is due, even though your marks don’t count. About whether you should go home after school, or hang out at someone’s place until midnight. Someone you didn’t even know a few months ago. And about what the hell that guy just said.

Exchange is people.

Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you’re an alien. Those people who are too afraid to talk to you. And those people who actually talk to you. Those people who know your name, even though you have never met them. Those people, who tell you who to stay away from. Those people who talk about you behind your back, those people who make fun of your country. All those people, who aren’t worth your giving a damn. Those people you ignore. And those people who invite you to their homes. Who keep you sane. Who become your friends.

Exchange is music.

New music, weird music, cool music, music you will remember all your life as the soundtrack of your exchange. Music that will make you cry because all those lyrics express exactly how you feel, so far away. Music that will make you feel like you could take on the whole world. And it is music you make. With the most amazing musicians you’ve ever met. And it is site reading a thousand pages just to be part of the school band.

Exchange is uncomfortable.

It’s feeling out of place, like a fifth wheel. It’s talking to people you don’t like. It’s trying to be nice all the time. It’s bugs.. and bears. It’s cold, freezing cold. It’s homesickness, it’s awkward silence and its feeling guilty because you didn’t talk to someone at home. Or feeling guilty because you missed something because you were talking on Skype.

Exchange is great.It’s feeling the connection between you and your host parents grow. It’s hearing your little host brother asking where his big brother is. It’s knowing in which cupboard the peanut butter is. It’s meeting people from all over the world. It’s having a place to stay in almost every country of the world. It’s getting 5 new families. One of them being a huge group of the most awesome teenagers in the world. It’s cooking food from your home country and not messing up. It’s seeing beautiful landscapes that you never knew existed.

Exchange is exchange students.

The most amazing people in the whole wide world. Those people from everywhere who know exactly how you feel and those people who become your absolute best friends even though you only see most of them 3 or 4 times during your year. The people, who take almost an hour to say their final goodbyes to each other. Those people with the jackets full of pins. All over the world.

Exchange is falling in love. With this amazing, wild, beautiful country. And with your home country. Exchange is frustrating. Things you can’t do, things you don’t understand. Things you say, that mean the exact opposite of what you meant to say. Or even worse…Exchange is understanding. Exchange is unbelievable. Exchange is not a year in your life. It’s a life in one year. Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be, and everything you wanted it to be. Exchange is the best year of your life so far. Without a doubt. And it’s also the worst. Without a doubt. Exchange is something you will never forget, something that will always be a part of you. It is something no one back at home will ever truly understand. Exchange is growing up, realizing that everybody is the same, no matter where they’re from. That there are great people and douche bags everywhere. And that it only depends on you how good or bad your day is going to be. Or the whole year. And it is realizing that you can be on your own, that you are an independent person. Finally. And it’s trying to explain that to your parents. Exchange is dancing in the rain for no reason, crying without a reason, laughing at the same time. It’s a turmoil of every emotion possible. Exchange is everything. And exchange is something you can’t understand unless you’ve been through it."     

(A little) New Information!

Herkese Merhaba (Hey everybody)!

I haven't got much to report, but at the beginning of this week I did receive that packet of information from NSLI-Y in the mail. :D

There wasn't a huge amount of new information, but we received two forms to be returned to NSLI-Y/ACES (ACES = American Cultural Exchange Service, our implementing organization), an FAQ sheet which included a tentative itinerary of the summer (more on that in a moment), an FAQ sheet about financial planning and expenses for the trip, a packing list, a list of Turkish language resources to jump-start our language learning before the start of the program, our first Turkish study guides of several to come, and a packet with information about Turkey. 

The tentative itinerary is as follows: 

"Here is a brief timeline of the upcoming summer:

• June 22nd: Students will depart home and arrive in Washington DC for a pre-departure orientation held at the Hampton Inn and Suites Dulles Airport Hotel. 
• June 22nd - 23rd: Pre-departure orientation sessions.
• June 24th: Students and chaperones will depart for Turkey. 
• June 25th: Students and chaperones will arrive in Istanbul and spend two nights there. 
• June 27th: Students and chaperones will travel to Bursa. 
• August 11th: Students and chapereones will return to Washington DC and go directly to their domestic flights home. "

This is quite exiting for two reasons: for one thing, the pre-departure orientation in DC is a day or so longer than I had understood it would be, which is good - some of my friends who are NSLI-Y alumni got to go to their host country's embassy or cultural centers during pre-departure orientations, so I'm hoping we'll get to go places like those. And also, I'm SUPER exited that we'll be spending our first two days after arrival in ISTANBUL. :D I've wanted to see Istanbul for many years; it just looks so beautiful and has so much amazingly rich history, and I can't believe that we'll be there in less than two months! 

Also, apparently there's more to come:

According to the packet, "between now and your departure from home, we will be sending additional program information, including domestic and international flight information, a student handbook, pre-departure orientation details, a tentative program itinerary, culminating project information, and host family details."

I'm looking very forward to all of the above.

Also, I've been meeting up lately with a new friend: a girl named Krista from Dexter, a town about 15 minutes from where I live, also was picked as a finalist for Turkey! She's going with a different group, to Ankara instead of Bursa. But we've been meeting up lately, freaking out about our upcoming adventure and how much we want to skip over April and May to get to June for it.
Hey if you're reading this Krista ^_^ 

That's all for today, I haven't got much else to report for the moment. 

Hoping to be back soon with more exiting news,

Nico 

^And here's another Tarkan song. 

Teen Polyglot Challenge video

Hey guys!

So after having spent the month of March trying to squeeze a bit of Swedish learning into my busy life, I'm starting off my spring break by sharing the video which is both the end product of my month of learning, and also what I've submitted for the contest itself.

Without further ado, here is a video of me speaking in the Swedish I've learned since March 8, 2014. :D

I'm very much a beginner, and would really appreciate it if any Swedish speakers could help correct mistakes I've made in my video.

No news for now other than that, but I'll be back soon. I got an email yesterday from my program coordinator for the NSLI-Y summer program in Bursa, and apparently we'll be getting a packet of information in the mail next week, which I'm super exited for. :)

Det är allt. Hej hej!
(That's all. Bye bye!)

-Nico