Time to Say "Adieu"


BY KARDELEN KALA (TRIN/PREP)
kala@ug.bilkent.edu.tr

So here we are, at the very end. It feels abrupt, too soon. I am not ready for it. I don't think I get to say a proper goodbye. That's why I am using this last article for this exact purpose; I need to say goodbye. I don't like it one bit, but I have to do it.

I remember the first day I got here; the day I set foot in the L Building, the School of Applied Languages, for the first day of my French prep year. I was scared as hell. I had no idea what to make of the people around me. I knew a couple of my classmates from the week before, but no one else was familiar. The teachers made me nervous, the way teachers do when you don't yet know them well enough to realize that they are people too. I was sure that I was going to be an outcast. I was going to fail everything. I was going to be miserable. What was I doing there anyway?

Well, I am happy to say that it didn't go that way. Before I came here, I had no idea school could be this much fun.  Being here is intense, and sometimes your mind tricks you, but I have come to realize that I have never felt home like this before. A lot of things factor into this: my love of languages and travel, for example, is what made me come here in the first place. My classmates also helped me a great deal. We are a weird bunch, I must say. We have our fair share of problems, but I think I understand now the reason why people always seem to be nostalgic about their prep year. I will always remember what we have here and now.

Then of course, there are our instructors. I think it's safe to say that this year I have had some of the best teachers I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Before I met them, I had never given presentations in a language I was not comfortable speaking, leave alone actually recording myself doing so. I had never pulled all-nighters willingly and with pleasure just because someone had asked me. I had never learned to see a language as a complete living creature, every aspect of which could be fun and interesting to learn, even though I have always loved languages. I will always be grateful for this and many more.

So here I come once again to an end, without having said half the things I would have liked to say, but isn't that the life of long-winded people like "yours truly" anyway? I genuinely thank everyone who has been with me through this. I also thank you, whoever you are, for reading this. I'll be glad to see you next year, if you would have me, of course. Until then, I say to you my friend, "à bientôt."