In the woods... 23 weeks

Communing with nature at the Kocaeli Ormani... Kocaeli Forest Sunday June 25, 2006.

Thanks to the food preparation by Güneş and the fire-tending by Devrim, we enjoyed a tasty Turkish barbecue of köfte and barbecued chicken. With limited utensils like forks (note Dursun's inventive wooden fork) and glasses, we truly felt one with nature. Free from sea-level humidity, we were all able to breathe better for the span of three hours and feel refreshed by the smell of pine trees.

Dursun is done teaching for the summer, so will be a more permanent fixture for the next few months, while we will lose Güneş to her first job in Taxim, Istanbul! I have been an interim English teacher for the last two weeks at Dilko, and will continue for the next three weeks, so I will be occupying half of my Saturday and Sunday explaining collocations, modal verbs, phrasal verbs and idioms to Upper Intermediate students. (help!)

As for the bebek, or Deniz Baby, there is a lot of movement these days which keeps me entertained and mesmerized at night. Even during the day, now, I notice little bumps and kicks which I absolutely love. I have a lot of energy right now... we'll see how long this lasts... but until then, I'll be teaching, working on a new set of drawings/paintings for a pending exhibition in Istanbul, making handbags and catching up on my summer reading, which includes a 'Short History of Byzantium' (ha!), 'Literary Theory', an in-depth look at the Istanbul that was in 'Constantinople', and plenty of fiction to mix in with the history and theory. And of course, studying and practicing Turkish. Sevgiler herkese!

Self-Portrait with Baby and Basil Plants at 22.5 weeks

I can't tell you how difficult it was to get me and my belly into a vertical image! From now on I will let other people take my picture.

22 weeks and Gunes's graduation

22 weeks, or 5 months. 2 weeks.

We went to Bursa on June 19 for Güneş's graduation from Uludağ University, where to the tunes of 'Eye of the Tiger' and 'We Will Rock You', we watched a legion of Turkish business school students graduate. I was happy to note that a majority of the Honors students were women, particularly in Economics.

Out of five or more attempts at a group picture where no one was squinting into the sun, I settled for this one where only a few of us are making strange faces.

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Güneş in her moment of post-graduation glory. My favorite picture.