Exam-taking in Turkey

Since exams are a big part of student life here (as you will see below), and I have now proctored (or as they say here, "invigilated") several of them, I thought I would do a blog entry about them. First off, it is important to understand that the students' presence or absence at univesrity is determined (academically, at least) entirely by one exam, the ÖSS. The ÖSS would be similar to the SAT's, only if the American version was harder, essays and grades didn't count for admissions in the US, and there was a cash prize for scoring well. I say cash prize, because getting a high enough score on the ÖSS gets you a free ride at pretty much any university you choose, including lodging. This has led some people to take the test repeatedly, so they can end up in a high enough bracket to spend a few years going to school for free. So, with this as a fundamental part of the Turkish education system, you can see why the testing itself is taken so seriously.

How seriously? This is the fun part. In BUSEL, students file in for exam days to find their desks about 25 feet away from anyone else's, because they have been spread out to prevent cheating. This liberal use of the classroom and all its corners creates a dilemma for the person monitoring the exam, namely that they are left trying to perch on a radiator or attempting to lean unobtrusively against the wall. But there has to be a way to make their lives harder, right? I know, we'll make it so MORE people have to watch the exam! Yup, 20 students, spread out to approximately the population density of the Dakotas, and you still need at least two people "invigilating". At least this gives the "invigilators" a chance to practice techniques they may have seen in John Cleese's "How to Annoy People". (Whistle "Camptown Racers" next to someone taking an exam the rest of their life depends on some time- high comedy!) Meanwhile, the Heads of Teaching Unit patrol the corridor with mace and attack dogs, in case anyone decides to make a run for it. All I'll say about those situations is: Poor Mehmet, he never had a chance.

And this all happens not once a semester, but six times per semester! In each 8-week course, there are two Course Achievement Tests, one End of Course Assessment, and an American Gladiators-style speaking exam. One of my favorite twists on the whole ordeal is that on main campus, where I invigilated a Faculty Academic English mid-term, you have to present your ID card and sign a sheet of paper. So essentially it's like taking the SAT's... every time you sit an exam. Well, you'll say, at least they have good incentives to study hard around the calendar! On that note, let me just mention that I am typing this in the computer lab, and there are enough people watching YouTube videos around me to single-handedly keep Google stock afloat no matter what the current recession does to the US economy.

BUSEL is in its relative infancy, having been around as an institution only a little over 20 years. Hence, I am optimistic that the reforms to the testing procedure which are mentioned at nearly every staff meeting will eventually help the process orient itself it more towards the learning needs of the students than the security paranoia of the administration. There are lots of smart teachers here who care about making the exams more effective in helping the students, and the students do a good job whining about it themselves. The school is also slow to implement new technology into the process, but once it does that will help as well. In the meantime, be glad that you don't have to undergo an optical scan to sit a final in the US, and that no one walks you to the bathroom.

My Chat with Mike



First off, you may notice a couple new links off to the right, which are actually connected to each other. The first is for Tikkun.org, the website of a Jewish magazine that is the voice for the Network of Spiritual Progressives. The NSP is an inspiring interfaith movement with idealistic-yet-pragmatic goals such as creating a Global Marshall Plan. The NSP lists its Basic Tenets as:


-Foster a New Bottom Line of love, generosity & ecological sensitivity in our economy, education, media, & government.
-Foster a new global consciousness and solidarity.
-Promote awe, radical amazement, gratitude & developing an inner spiritual life.
-Challenge the misuse of God & religion by the Religious Right and religio-phobia on the Left.



I mention all this not just because I am listening to John Coltrane right now (the congregation dedicated to St. John Wil-i-am Coltrane and ordained in the African Orthodox Church is within a few zipcode numbers of the NSP headquarters, the greatest geographical confluence since Jorgensen's and the Waterville Opera House), but also because Will Pasley is applying to be Rabbi Michael Lerner's assistant right now (Rabbi Lerner is chairman and head of the NSP, edits Tikkun- basically he's the man, in a good way).

Rabbi Lerner is the fellow with the glasses and the yarmulkah behind the banner there.

So good luck to Will, that would be an amazing pairing of minds if he were to work with him. I also posted a link to Will's blog, for those of you in the mood for something more philosophically substantial and gramatically unpolished. Just throw me a pity comment once in a while to make me think people are still paying attention to the Dumbledork page.

And just when you thought I couldn't promote those around me any more shamelessly, we get to the more substantial part of the posting: a chat with my brother Mike. The aim here was to see if creating something blog-worthy in a chat or email format was really as easy as Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell made it seem (yes, I just compared us to two of the top five popular non-fiction writers in the country, I will now go a self-imposed month without using the word "humble", or any forms of it, in reference to myself), or if it was as hard as the Trudeau brothers made it seem in the BDH. The results are probably the only thing that has made Click and Clack's parents feel proud in the last 20 years. Enjoy!

7:05 PM me: Merhaba!

7:06 PM Mike: Buongiorno!

me: I just hit "pop out" for this sucker, cause I have some long questions. it's gonna be good. I hope you don't mind if I edit it for entertainment purposes before I post it on my blog

7:07 PM Mike: Not at all, though I might have to file a defamation suit.

me: You don't even have a tie, I'm not worried about your suit. *rimshot*

7:08 PM Mike: Real quick, do you think clemens juiced?

me: Well, we have the excuse of having been children when he left the Red Sox after going 40-39 his last four years here, so we couldn't have suspected anything when he turned BACK into Nolan Ryan versus Little Leaguers, but all the people saying he was just in better shape, or it was the national league hitters? Um.... The last two or three years I have thought he was juicing.

7:12 PM Mike: Well, he certainly did increase his work out intensity, but the telling statistic for me is when he started the season 6-6 with toronto, than was allegedly injected, and finished the season 14-0 with an era well under 3.

7:13 PM And the fact that Pettit admits he did lends a whole lot of validity to Macnamee.

7:14 PM me: I'm not sure why Clemens' word even adds much to the debate, haven't we known he was a scumbag for almost a decade now?

Mike: Yeah, and doesnt he have a whole lot more incentive to lie than his trainer?7:15 PM you know how he claims to have taken B-12? Well, B-12 is well known slang for steroids apparently (see Palmero's game of shadows)

7:16 PM me: Interesting, I did not know that.

Mike: It was so open, the trainers would jokingly call the steroid injections “B12 shots,” and soon the players had picked up on that little code name, too. You’d hear them saying it out loud in front of each other: “I need to go in and get a B12 shot,” a player would say, and everyone would laugh. (Of course, that was the kind of joke you really only made around other steroid users, because obviously they were in the same boat as you. What were they going to do, tell on you? Not hardly.)

7:17 PM me: I knew this chat would be more worthwhile than studying for my history final tomorrow :)

7:36 PM Mike: Ok, this is really more of statement and reaction from you but here it is: since october 18th, major Boston sports teams (Celts, Sox, and Pats for our purposes) have lost only three games.

7:38 PM me: Holy shnikies. I mean, that's a good way into LAST YEAR.

Mike: Do you think its fair to say that we have gone from one of the more tortured fan bases to by far the most privelaged over the last few years? While I love this more than pretty much any other aspect of my life, I dread the time when it will end, because it can't possibly continue at such a rate, it's just not possible.

7:42 PM me: Dude, if you had told me at the beginning of my sophomore year at school that (number of New England sports championships) - (number of quality intimate relationships for Bucky) in 2005-2008 would be 3, I would have punched holes in every condom I could find (that's assuming the Pats go on, knock on wood) (4 if the Celts do too...). As for enjoying sports when the inevitable NE decline comes, I remember being in elementary school and watching the old 49ers and Cowboys games, and that was almost as much fun as any Pats game I've ever watched, if less intense for me as a fan. There will always be good stuff to enjoy for sports. Just be glad you are in the country for it now

Mike: Hahaha.

me: Wait, what time are they playing? I guess that's been decided by now.

Mike: I think saturday at 8

me: D*****! Better than Sunday at 8... I meant to get up and watch them against the Giants but I slept straight through it. I quit! I'm coming home, meet me at the airport.

Mike: Certainly! I should shower first, but I can probably be out to pick you up from your 24 hour plane ride.

Mike: What is your next adventure?

me: At this point, it looks like Greece is the next country. My friend Laura lived there a couple years ago, so I think Mery and I are going with her there in February. First to Thessaloniki, and then down to some other places. We have nine days, so it should be doable on the bus

7:51 PM Mike: As my mid-eastern friend would say... very niiiiice

me: Haha, yeah, I would prefer I think to do it in warmer weather, but there will be lots of places to go in Turkey once it warms up, so I could never get everywhere I want to be anyways.

7:52 PM Mike: Fair enough. What is your next question?

me: Further evidence I had way too much time on my hands this morning/in general in my life: If you had the chance, would you take the two female stars of Godfather I and II, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire, and switch their OTHER famous roles from the 70's? Namely, make Keaton Rocky's sweetheart and put Shire in some Woody Allen movies? Frankly, I get giddy just thinking we might someday have the technology to try this; can you imagine Rocky with a better-looking, more expressive female lead? Or Woody Allen riffing to a squinty, introverted pepper pot who matches his realistic dating field better?

7:56 PM Mike: That's intriguing. I'm not sure anyone else could possibly not react to Sly's emoting on the beach when we learn that he's afraid.

7:57 PM me: True, a unique talent Or we could put Jimmy Fallon in there and watch him crack up while Sly is saying it, followed by his motivation shifting from Micky's death to kicking Fallon's rear... it's not too late to make that happen.

Mike: That i think is the best option.

me: I would probably wet myself if we could get Paulie to walk into Annie Hall halfway through and started bashing Woody Allen against the radiator.

Mike: Or just sub in Mickey for every character except Rocky

me: Including the cheerleaders when he is fighting Hulk Hogan?

8:00 PM Mike: Hell yeah. Wow, i had totally forgotten the scene where he fights Hulk. I need to re-watch those.

me: amen

8:05 PM So Will is reaing a book by Rabbi Michael Lerner called the Left Hand of God, about progressive religion in America, because he might going to work for Rabbi Lerner, which would be awesome.

Mike: check out Glen Davis' (big baby) picture for his profile and try to tell me there has been a worse one. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?playerId=3200

me: I plan on reading it as soon as I am home again.

Mike: I havent heard of Lerner.

8:06 PM me: Any recommendations on religious books you have come across in the last year I should try to find here? Lerner is with the Tikkun network, he spoke at the rally and ecumencial service in DC last January.

8:07 PM Mike: I'll look it up. Most of what i have read have been relatively text bookish, but Genisis by Bill Moyer was good. William James' stuff is a little old at this point, but he was very insightful

8:09 PM me: Sweet, I'll check it out. I'm not taking an MA class here for the spring, so I plan to do different topics on my own each week.

8:11 PM Mike: I'm taking some really intersting religion classes next semester, so i cna send along suggestions from those classes.

8:12 PM me: Excellent, what do you have lined up?

Mike: Religious perspectives on death and Sacred Sound

8:14 PM me: Music class? Death should be interesting too, that is basically where religion came from in the first place.

Mike: Yeah, I'm pumped about it. I have absolutely no idea what sacred sound is, but it sure resonates well.

me: Hey-oh! The Bill Walton podcast was excellent, he is a great talker, not just about sports but about life in general. However, I felt like he made a point that I hear too often amongst people of his/Mom and Dad's generation, which is that things are going downhill today and aren't as good as they were in his day in terms of social justice and societal change. But our generation is making great strides with the Iraq occupation and working on human rights in a variety of ways, with less participation from the over-50 crowd. I wish they would stop bad-mouthing us and start running for local office or re-joining the broader movement for change in different ways. Your thoughts? (And yes, if you're a Pistons fan looking at that Davis photo right now, you feel..ashamed. If you're a C's fan it's just funny)

8:19 PM Mike: I like the idea of the over 50 crowd getting involved again, I think they are in a position to help in the way that they wish their parent's generation had helped them. I think that they are making progress in many ways, but I'm also a little scared of the apathy that i see in many of my peers, and even myself occasionally. It's getting easier and easier for kids to focus on their video games rather than the issues going on in the real world. There is alot of passion, and alot of activism out there. I think that the image of activism in the previous generation might be overstated because it's one of the more notable parts of that period's history.

me: Yeah, disengagement, cynicism, apathy- they are difficult to fight.

8:25 PM Mike: I think it is unfair and a little rediculous of previous generations to claim that we are dropping the ball.

me: Definitely.

8:26 PM me: Can i ask one other favor? Would you go watch the IRONMAN trailer and send me a quick email with how you think it looks and a rating on a scale of 1-10?

Mike: Yeah! I saw an early one for it that was aired at a gamers con and it looked bad ass, but I'll check it out now. Ooooooooh, s***, this is the b****.

8:31 PM me: ?

Mike: That was a positive b****. That looks mucho awesome. I'd put it at around 8.5 -9 for potential.

8:32 PM me: Excellent. Good news. Appreciate the weighing-in.

Mike: No prob. Peace man, I gotta shower and run too, au revoir.

Studying Turkish

4.5 months. 78 street döners. 17 kilograms of glazed of chickpeas. 120 students. 90 degrees difference in temperature extremes. 2 Ankaragücü matches. All ways to measure how long I have been here in Turkey. A busy period, you say. Indeed. So what has suffered in the face of all these new experiences? Frankly, my learning of the Turkish language.

One of my New Year's resolutions (in addition to being more regular about blog entries, replacing my shoulder stands with head stands, not drinking caffeine during the week and listening to more NPR) is to buckle down with the studying, and spend more time outside the two hours of weekly lessons we have outside the school cracking a book (or a loose collection of papers, as the case may be, since I was too cheap to pay the library to bind it when I had it photocopied). I'm not going to lie: one of the top three reasons that I am still hanging tough with the lessons themselves is pure loyalty to Özlem, the fabulous BUSEL Turkish teacher. Yes, she happens to be one of the most beautiful Turkish women I have met here, but she's also one of the most clever and dedicated, given how our numbers have dwindled this course. So we may not have much classroom time dedicated to learning Turkish, but at least it's enjoyable.

On the other hand, there's no advantage for learning a language like living in the country it's
spoken in. For example, anyone who comes to visit will notice the DISTINCT absence of several inches of dust on my floor- obviously I figured out at some point how to ask for a vacuum downstairs (OK, bad example, I still have to look up the word vacuum every time because I foret in between, but probably by June I'll have it memorized). So here I am, able to say "pomegranate" (nar) and "ghetto" (chin-chin), but not make simple comparisons or use the verb "to be able to". I look forward to expanding the repertoire of stock phrases and useful coabulary I use on a regular basis next semester; that's a big part of the goal.

But I also look forward to the sentences I will translate in my workbook, even though they are much less directly useful. That's because, for me, they represent the pure joy of learning a language for its own sake. Few things in the mental realm give me as much pleasure as getting those linguistic synapses to fire, especially when it's the correct ones in the correct order for creating comprehensive (but hey, that's optional, as anyone who has ever heard me try to finish a joke in person knows).

So a Happy New Year to all the dorks out there who join me in such endeavours, and look for another blog entry soon, featuring a new gimmick.