Little Ones!!

Last week Raven (from CIEE) told me that she knew of someone who was looking for an English "tutor" for her two-year-old daughter and thought of asking me if I was interested. Of course I was interested, but when I called the woman (Rahel) said she already had someone to tutor. However, a couple days ago Rahel called me and said that it might not be working out with the other tutor and she wanted me to come by just to talk. Her daughter (Kayla) is SO. CUTE. Chipmunk cheeks, Bambi eyes,... the works. Plus she waddle-runs around yelling in Turkish. Rahel basically just wants me to have playtime with her where I speak lots and lots of English so she can get used to the sound. It's still not clear whether or not I'll actually be working with them; Rahel has to decide between me and the other girl. I was supposed to go for the first time this morning, but as I was getting ready Sydney (CIEE) told me that she had been stomach-sick the previous day. Ever since Ivy got sick at the end of the trip, lots of other people have as well. It's probably not food poisoning at this point. It's probably a stomach flu. A pretty nasty one, too. I called Rahel and told her about the situation and we decided it was probably better for me not to be around Kayla for the time being; I don't know if a two-year-old could handle that.

I'm not sure if I'll be working with Rahel and Kayla, but while I was at their house interviewing Rahel told me that the neighbor across the hall was also interested in an English tutor for her seven-year-old. I went over and met them and ended up "tutoring" Zeynep for an hour. The mom is so nice. She kept saying that she wanted me to be like a second daughter and was getting all excited saying that I could give lessons to herself and her husband and tutor Zeynep in piano and herself on the computer.... I might be spending a lot of time there. I already went for two hours yesterday night. And Zeynep is absolutely wonderful. We really just play around. She has some cards with pictures and the English words underneath and she has a white board that we've been using a lot. She's incredibly polite and when I thank her for things she indicates that she's the one to be saying thank you. And she gave me a sticker yesterday!!

After hanging out with Zeynep, I met up with some of my CIEE friends in Sariyer. From there we went to Taksim for the opening of a bar dedicated to Erasmus (another study abroad program) students. It was crowded and there was no dancing. So no-go. We left and went to another bar just because it was cheap, but it was also boring and we spent way too long there. It was nice, though, to get to know two girls Deniz (which means "sea") and Shahrzad (yup, like the story) a little bit better. Then we went to another club with really great music and I was having such a good time and ten minutes into one of my homegirls decided she had to go home. :P I was in a funky spot cause she insisted she could go home alone and really didn't want to make other people leave, but I really didn't want her to go alone. I understand how she felt, but I wasn't about to let her go. It's probably better that we got back a bit earlier anyway.

I miss everyone at home a lot!! It's so weird thinking about a month ago and how different everything felt. Lots of love!!!