I haven't written anything in soooo long

ok. here goes.

Dear diary...*said in mocking-Samee voice*

It's June! It is HOT. Probably not that hot but yeah, it's hot enough for me to mention it. It has been consistenylu sunny since I got here except for one half day of rain. i could not live in a climate like this. i need diversity. haha. Ok so what have I been doing. Well. the biggest news is that my damn laptop is busted because the backlight on my monitor blew so I can barely see what i'm typing. it's like pitch black unless you tilt the screen to cacth some light. there'd be a great physics experiment here i feel. But yeah, i can't see shit. if there are typos...that's why.

At work, I've been assigned my first REAL task. I am to write up a grant proposal for a 2 day training session Amnesty wants to do with sme of its members teaching them about women's rights and such. The target donor is Mama Cash, some women's NGO from the Netherlands. Because I know nothing about this training, I first sat down with my co-intern and came up with 10 questions we had about the trainings that would be necessary to inclue, such as the methods which will be used in the training, the purpose of the training, it's cost, etc. This was on Monday or Tuesday. But because of the MASSIVE amount of people, I think I'll have to wait until like next week to get the questions answered. until, i have no idea what im doing. getting my comp fixed i hope! On weds we said bye to one of Turkish interns who had been here since jan and that was like a mini mini party. delicious cake though. I stood around while they all spoke turkish and made a discovery: it's only possible to be SO awkward in certain sitations, like when you don't speak a language. cause im standing there listening to what people have to say,nodding, counting how many seconds have passed since my last bite of cake, and im thinking, "ok, this isn't too bad. it's awkward but hey, there's not much more i could do in this situation." i felt good about muself.

what else. I went to the asian side on thursday. That was very fun actually. i met up with craig (prof. borowiak) and we went out for coffee and chitchatted and then had dinner. i like the asian side ore i think cause it's calm. and a lot greener. that's another thing, i miss nature. nature does not exist in Beyoğlu, Istanbul. The only bit of trees i see from my window is a cemetary. depressing. but yeah, the asian side was very nice. im gonna go there again soon i think cause it's mad cheap to go: less than $2 roundtrip on the ferry which is such a beautiful ride. i was coming back during seunset and took a lot of cool pictures.

whaaaaaat elseeeee. oh, i started reading "Black lamb, grey falcon." it's a book about Yugoslavia in the 30s. It's long as hell. something like 1,000+ pages. it's interesting but rebecca west talks too much. and it's full of nationalist Serbs and Croats whom she seems to admire. barf. im still on the croatia part though. Oh, almost forgot, my flat mates cousin and bf/gf (still don't know which one was the cousin) were here for a week and i went out to dinner with them on thurs. it was really nice, we went to this place playing serif konjevic-ish (sorry americans, won't get the reference. it's like...if david hasselhoff singing was considered legit) music. it was pretty good so i had fun.

lastly, i basicaly ran out of money this week. i still owe the landlord $300 for rent and that's all got left in me bank account. dadddddy sent money NOW!! *said in spoiled brat voice* but, i may actually have found a part time job teaching so that may not be a bad thing. im gonna go make stir-fry vegetables and sudzuka now.

thanks for listening!