Gaining Weight

When I first heard the hoopla about exchange students gaining weight, and about how Turkish student especially gain due to delicious, saliva-worthy, to kill for, to die for food, I scoffed. Oh yes, I really thought, 'that won't be me, I'll keep control of my senses'. How very little I knew myself. But then, I shall blame it on ignorance of the strength of my tempters- baklava, Turkish chocolate of all kinds, bread like heaven, oh on and on I could go... Focus. When this adventure first began I actually lost 6-7 pounds, needless to say, I have gained it all back. ALL of it, in about 6 days. Oh yes, that is a pound a day. And most of those days, I was fasting. I'm gonna be in for it. I thoroughly abhor blogging. I have 2 blogs, both with 2 posts, but my journal is filling up, though the entries be few and far between. I write a ton, what with scholarship stuff to add to this. Gah, I'm so scared of school. Two days. 2! I'm gonna die... I't's the last day of Bayram, and I saw zero cows getting their throats slit. I have no self control when it comes to food anymore, hopefully the first days of school I'll be too nervous to eat like a pig... eventually I'll get some anecdotes up, but till then, see ya!

How Long Have I Been Here?

This is my first post, and I've been in Turkey for about two weeks. It seems longer, when I think about all the things that have happened so far, I worry that if I start writing I will never be able to stop! That was actually a problem when I first came here, all I would do in my spare time was write write write, I suppose it was my coping method, I'm not really sure. Today is the first day of Bayram, perhaps I should start from here and fill you in as I go along. Heh heh, there's a lot to say. Quick summary of me and how I got here: I'm a 17 year old exchange student on the YES ( Youth Exchange and Study) program in Isparta, Sarkikaragaac, Turkey. Isparta is my region type thing, Sarkikaragaac is my city. It's pronounced Shar-ki-kaar-ach, but my keyboard doesn't have Turkish letters. AAAAAHHHH there's so much to write, so little time... ok. So I spent three... two... days in Washington D.C. for an orientation on being an exchange student ( mini ambassador), very inspiring, then two days... three... in Istanbul (so cool, even if we didn't tour the city) then a plane to Konya (also very cool) and a bus to Sarkikaragaac. It's very dry and mountainous here, but it's beautiful, so beautiful. I'll try to post some pics, and hopefully some vids! I have a mom (Gulsen-((Gool-shen)), a dad (Mustafa), and two bros, one older (Serafettin), and one younger (Oguzhan ((Oz))). They are amazingly kind and patient with me, even though my Turkish is terrible. Things are different here, but not as different as I thought. My town in America and here are very similar in size, so that's pretty comforting ( I was a little frightened of being placed in Ankara or somewhere huge like that).... Agh. I have no more desire to write. I'll try again later. :)