Love The Blog

Well, this blog thing is useful as it dawned on me. I can actually see what was written before! How miraculous!

Back in Turkey. Began my final year with eight courses. Heavy load, lot to think, little time. Considering an MA (hopefully somewhere in Western Europe), should find scholarships. Got to keep the GPA high for this; especially since my brilliant transcript from the UK isn't included in the CGPA for some reason. Eight courses is not quite the best way to do this, though.

Social life, well, not too bad actually. Lots of exchange students, some friendships, lost chances and bendy intentions (though they tend to bend the wrong way); not everything changed I guess. I wonder if this will go anywhere.

More coming...

Self Quote

Making humanitarian decisions based on nation- or capital-based politics is like practicing medicine according to the taste in cuisine. Not as bad as bad similes though.

Knot

I am feeling like a knot that is trying to undo itself. What kind of proper reasoning suggests you do nothing when you see a girl you like giving you signals, especially when you haven't had sex for months? My kind of reasoning I guess.

Although I am not the god of social life, I guess I had my share of fanciers. Even recently. Let me eliminate the ones that I don't like, not as rudeness, but as a fact. With the rest, no matter how wide and obvious the window they give me is, I always act like a twelve year old. Don't meet new people, if you do don't talk, if you do, run away immediately. I do this.

I'm not sure if it is the fear of rejection or fear of change or fear of losing me (who is, among many other good qualities, a wanker in the end). It's like I'm punishing myself by not enjoying this side of life. I hate imagining myself as an impotent and needy person, but I am now. My judgement is clouded, my body is in a weird state and I'm not as rational as I am used to being.

My neck hurts. More soon...

Double Comeback

So, I went to London.

It was profoundly entertaining. For the first time since I arrived, I found a bar I like (Walkabout by the Waterloo Bridge, close to Embankment tube station). Good music, excellent food, cheap drinks, and if only for this occasion, great people. It was some sort of a get together for a Turkish internet community. I was pretty hooked up on them when I was in Turkey; for certain periods of time they were almost my entire social life, not to mean they were small in extent or unsatisfactory. So anyway, I was surprised that the feeling was identical to those "golden times". We were all smiling our mouths off, dancing and drinking and chatting. People were laid back, relaxed and friendly. As a proof, the night ended at New Cross in one of those friends' dorm room, around 7 am. I'd just met the guy.

All in all, promises were made for another one of these meetings soon, in a week or two. We will see if this one sticks. I mean at least it feels right.

Self-Sabotage

One should be aware of her own tricks on herself. Sometimes our fear of disappointment leads us to a semi-conscious self-destruction, we ruin everything so that it will not look like our faults. I found out that I do it all the time; I do something in a lacking way or don't do it at all because I am afraid of failing. Sometimes I even devise nice coherent trains of thought to convince myself of the bullet-proof blame placing I have put together. It can be difficult to tell between a revelation and self-deception, and one should be watching for both.

Queer

Lesbian and gay studies, and the consequent "Queer Theory" is something that requires and deserves attention. Judith Butler is doubly remarkable. The whole thing should be studied with a not uncriticised awareness of Foucauldian perspectives of power and discourse. Delightful.

Comeback

Well, apparently it has been almost a year. Keeping a diary is something that we pick up quite young I suppose; I've never been a diary type of person. I fail to remember, and eventually fail to see the relevance of, individual events or local conclusions based on individual events. That's me.

Just to keep you up to speed, I'm in England now. I'm an exchange student in University of Essex, close to a miserable little town called Colchester. Colchester is a signifier, and in my case the definition, of the concept of miserable little town. Let me explain myself.

The town is not really ugly. Apparently it has a great deal of history (history as in old things' importance), and looks no different than any English town. People are busy, they pretend that they are living in a mini-London. The general suspense that lack of importance creates is remarkable.

University has been a good change in my life. It has not made me the super-social guy who has been offered scholarships but it has made me relatively more social. The fact that everybody is interesting to the extent that they are from different cultures than mine attracts my attention easily. These affections are plenty yet short-lived. Most of the time my relationship with a person is judged and packed and tucked away long before we go beyond small talk. It's not that I'm too judgmental, it's just that there are only so many remarkably original people even in my little global model of a university, once you are done being amused by the cultural diversity.

The amount and diversity of information accessible for me has increased many fold. I have lightning speed connection, I am in contact with many people from many places around the world that have (most of the time) acceptably many opinions. I am in my sponge mode again, but while that happens I (once again) seem to forget that I am not a by-stander or spectator to my life. I seem to enjoy doing that more and more.

More on that later. Actually, more on everything later. Gotta go and check my other blog.

Cheers.