 Hide & Seek
"I like to hide in the places that first come to your mind, but you think it
is not worth it to look there, or you fail to look up."
I am not a pessimist
I am a realist
Who hates the optimist!
Esra Ertör
This week's guest is Esra Ertör who is a senior student in the department of Performing
Arts. The little poem she wrote looked familiar to me. I should confess she is my roommate
and she sent me this message via my email. What a way to begin!
Let's learn more about her in her own words: 
"I started acting in the theater when I was 15. I have worked hard to be an actress
and even though my family did not want me to be an actress, I stood against them for the
first time in my life.
I secretly came to Bilkent and entered the exams. I think that theater is more realistic
than life's reality. There is no disingenuousness, especially for expressionist theater,
the stage is a place for me to be purified. I play different characters than myself. Being
away from disingenuousness, that is why it is sanity for me."
She has had roles in two plays at Bilkent: one as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire
and as Nastia, in The Lower Depths. She has three other upcoming plays next
month. Other than that, when I asked her where she wants to be and what she wants to be,
she of course says that "I should be in the best place and doing the best for me.
Also this is not related to my profession but, I also have a dream of having a place which
sells every kind of tea in the world called TeaBucks."
She continued that for her, life without her freedom is nothing. What she has done in her
life is to set all of her desires free. She has chosen her own life; she adds "I
worked hard to be an actress. I cannot imagine myself in another profession." As a
reader of Aşık Veysel, she said she loves to be on earth compared with people who love
the sea or want to live by the sea. Talking about books, one of the important books in her
life is Paulo Coelho's The Pilgrimage. It has been four months since she read
that book and she says she still thinks about it. What inspired her in the book is the
internal journey that one has and being aware of life. "It taught me to enjoy the
journey towards my goals in my life rather than just being focused on the goals." As
a person who was born in Sivas, and came to Ankara for university, she loves to be here,
except that people are not as natural and helpful here; it is hard to find people who have
goodwill.
The most important thing in her life is her friends, especially here at Bilkent. "My
life in the dormitory is extraordinary! There are many interesting memories I have here.
My roommates are extraordinary. Our saucepan was in A Streetcar Named Desire, our
vegetables and fruits in the fridge are used by my roommate as an object in her Photoshop
projects. I guess we are all popular!"
So as a conclusion, what is her short poem about? She says "I hate to read books with
happy endings and meet people who are very optimistic all of the time, talking about the
flowers, bugs, sun and many other things. Life is difficult and there is pain sometimes.
Optimism is nothing more than being funny. For me I am what I will be given and what the
moment presents me with. So I am a kind of realist; a person who throws away the pink
glasses."
LET 'S PLAY HIDE AND SEEK!
If you want to play the hide and seek game, write a sentence or sentences to introduce
yourself and email me. Then be a guest of this column.
Gülay Acar (COMD/IV)
howtoreachgulay@yahoo.com
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