First Day of School

After not getting much sleep last night, due to my dinner re-visiting me around midnight, I was surprised to wake up ready to start my day at my first alarm. It is about a ten minute walk to our building, a beautiful old building with a large courtyard in the middle where cats hang out.

Just our group and the IMIAD grad students met in the morning with Tarik and the two others (like GTAs) that will be helping teach his studio. We only spent about 20 minutes in our meeting, being introduced to each other, with orders to reconvene at 2:00 pm.

In the meantime, I took Christine, Nick, Adam, Chad to the Kanyon Mall to go to the wonderful supermarket there. I remembered my camera this time but found out you can't take pictures.

After a lunch of buttered pasta, I headed back to studio. Our morning group was met by the third and fourth year Turkish students and Abdullah Erençin, the other Turkish studio professor. Our Auburn group split ourselves between the two professors, Tarik and Professor Erençin. Having had Tarik last semester, I joined Professor Erençin's studio, along with seven of my Auburn classmates and seven Turkish students. We got handouts giving a tentative semester schedule and brief, somewhat vague, project description; we are supposed to be e-mailed more information soon. Professor Erençin is very friendly, and I am excited to be able to have him as a professor. Only four of the seven Turkish students in our studio were there today. They were all very friendly; they bought us all tea and coffee and will take us out for a day to show us around one weekend soon.

After studio let out I walked around the building a bit Christine and Mandy. We looked at all of the projects displayed in the hallways; found a studio, which looked very similar to ours in Auburn, with a large balcony with an amazing view; and realized our school has both traditional and modern W.C.s (see my "Across to Asia" post for a picture of a traditional one). I love our building; such a change from Dudley (Auburn's architecture building). We have tall arched ceilings and white plaster walls.

On the way home we walked by a woman and her two small children that we pass every day. They sit bundled in dirty blankets on the sidewalk accepting change from those who offer. Today the small boy, about three years old, who is usually hugged in his mother's arms, was twirling around in the middle of things, bumping into pedestrians. After passing him, I felt a tiny hand on the back of my leg and turned just as he tugged my water bottle out of the side pocket of my bag. He ran away from me a few steps then turned and grinned as I crouched down with my hand out, gesturing him to give it back. After smiling at me for a second more he handed it back, while his mother, still seated, shouted in Turkish. Only her angry eyes were showing. Her mouth was covered by her headscarf; I'm not sure if she was shouting at the boy or me. Either way it's obvious she's taught her son well; I'm pretty sure the huge grin on his face was because he knew he'd momentarily succeeded in his job.

I'm headed to bed early tonight to catch up on last night's lost sleep. Tomorrow we have one of our two other classes, urban seminar or architectural contexting, at 9:30 am.