Opinions

Columnist Okşan Alpdemir, Signing Out

Dear Bilkent University,

Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and life seems to have fast-forwarded on me! I feel like I just arrived yesterday and my stay here is already at an end. Exchange students are finishing up and flying home left and right. I will be flying home on December 31st, arriving in California just in time to celebrate the New Year with my much-missed family.

The months I spent here were life-changing, so allow me to reflect out loud on a few things:  I will never forget the exhilaration I felt while leading the Marmaris Cumhuriyet Bayram parade with my long-lost cousins and their motorcycle gang. I will also never forget surviving the thunder-and-lightening-and-pouring-rain catastrophe which was the ESN Bilkent trip to Kaş. Before that trip, I had never before waded through a flood (my mind was repeating the words "Oh no no no toilets alaturka") or swum in an ocean during a fierce storm. Photos of the disastrous boat ride we idiotically embarked upon still make me feel slightly seasick.

I will never forget climbing up a mountain in Kapadokya, only to realize about halfway up that it was made of sandstone. My friends and I slid down on our behinds because the rock was crumbling apart in our hands. We went on day-long hikes through beautiful valleys with fresh apples and grapes for the picking. I got to swim in the Black Sea in Amasra and wander the historic streets of Bursa. I won't forget how I was serenaded by the singer at the Veli Bar in Bodrum and how he rescued my friend and I from unwanted attention… Only to become the unwanted attention!

As for Istanbul, what didn't I experience there! I met Leyla Umar and plan on stopping by her house this summer for tea on her balcony. I reconnected with more long-lost family members, including Selçuk Yöntem, who has a very cute smile in person. I went to an MFÖ concert and was caught unawares on TV at a Galatasaray game (which got me busted… I told my uncle I was "too sick" to stay with him for Kurban Bayram but he is a Galatasaray fan. So, of course he was watching the game and at half-time I received a phone call along the lines of "You little ****!!"). In İstanbul I experienced my first hamam. Not to mention I tried all sorts of food, like balık ekmek and fried clams.

Then there was Ankara where I got to raid my babaanne's closet and snag ball gowns from the 50's and 70's, saw Verdi's Aida at the opera house, and made some wonderful, unforgettable lifetime friends. And of course, I had the pleasure of taking classes from great professors and was a part of Bilkent News.

It is almost surreal how much I have changed in this short time. Experience can really impact an individual and influence their mindset. I am almost a completely different person from the girl who left California six months ago.

Being abroad rekindled my devotion to studying international relations and sociology. It relit my determination to succeed and surpass expectations. It made me much more tolerant, as well as much more opinionated and critical - however that worked out. I'm much more organized, assertive, and brave, as well as self-reliant. There is a huge difference between being self-reliant on your home campus and being self-reliant out in the world, for example, if you misplace your baggage or act shady in an airport you're in deep doo-doo.

I have changed, I have learned, I have experienced. I have developed and fully matured. This trip has been a real transition. Where I once had the idea that I was capable, I now have full faith in my capabilities, I know for a fact that I can achieve whichever goal I pursue. It is one thing to say it and one thing to feel it. I feel it now.

I only wish I could stay longer. I will miss the calls to prayer, particularly the early morning ones  at around 4:30. They always felt the holiest to me for some reason, perhaps because the entire city is quiet and calm, yet sparkling with lights. I will miss the simitçi in the morning. I will miss frequenting Flamingo as well as all of the bars on Bestekar with my friends.

I will miss the talkative and ever-curious taxi drivers I encounter on a daily basis. I will also miss iskender kebap and Magnum double chocolate ice cream bars. Thank you, Bilkent University, for providing me with a priceless adventure of a semester. I hope to see you very soon. I'm going to try to get out of Spring Quarter classes early so I can come experience Mayfest!

Love, Okşan

P.S. If anyone is interested in keeping in touch or plans on coming to California, feel free to email me at osalpdemir@ucdavis.edu (since my Bilkent email will expire) or add me on Facebook at Shawna Alpdemir.

Cheerio!

By Okşan Alpdemir (IR/III)
alpdemir@ug.bilkent.edu.tr