4th October 2006 – 13:18
I have been away from blogging for almost 10 days. It is partly because of heavy work but the real reason is I restarted to write / edit my short stories. This makes me slow in blog keeping business. I should not mind as long as I do write a page per day. It is going well and I think after coming back from Thailand, it will be much easier to write.
The semester is over. I marked all the papers and sent a small sample to Melbourne to be moderated by the course coordinators. It is nice to be free. Yesterday and today, all I have done is working on some challenging math problems and try to focus on next semester’s classes. I already planned my first lesson for Discrete Math and I will complete the plan for Statistics in next two days. Without having a stressful mind, life is so easy and peaceful… I wish it will continue this way next semester.
I read the news in this morning and almost burst into laughter when I saw the news about Turkish guy who hijacked a passenger airplane just to avoid from military service. What a stupid excuse to hijack a plane! This just reminded me what I will do next! May be I should do the same thing to be exempted from military service. The guy says he did this because he is a Catholic and he does not want to serve to a Muslim army. Well, well, well… What else? First, Turkish army can not be considered as a Muslim army. There is no religion in the army. There is no even ideology in Turkish army except for Kemalism which is the main ideology of Turkish Republic. If you say you are a Catholic, nobody will care about your faith. As long as you are a Turkish male citizen, you will be summoned to military service. No matter you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Buddhist. If this guy starts a new fashion, I am afraid we will see the funniest hijackings in the next years. Imagine a man hijacks a plane because he is agnostics and he does not want to serve a Christian army! What about gays! They may ask for exemption from army service too. What about those who are against wars? This never ends!
Today, there is news in the newspaper about ethnic minorities in Vietnam. According to Vietnam News, Ministry of Education offers bilingual education to the ethnic minorities so that they will not forget their own languages while they learn the official language of the country. This might teach something to my country’s stubborn politicians! In Turkey, learning Kurdish has been legalized a few years ago. Then, private courses have been opened. Whenever some small irregularities have been found in the implementation, government closed the courses. It is still an ongoing process in Turkey and the debates are not over yet. Why doesn’t the state school teach Kurdish to the Kurdish people? Isn’t it more under the control? The Kurdish kids can learn both languages at school. They can learn how to appreciate Kurdish and Turkish literatures at the same time. It should not be difficult. Most of the children know nothing about Turkish when they start primary school in Eastern Turkey. Whenever they start learning Turkish, they are also asked to read and write. This makes the life more miserable for them. When they go home, they still speak Kurdish with their parents. Instead of making their life more difficult, state should start bilingual school and special curriculum for these schools. In these schools, students must learn both languages to a certain level. After this certain level, they have to focus on the official language of the country more since the there is no university which offers education in Kurdish. Bilingual Education is one of the best solutions for the Kurdish and other minorities in Turkey. However, Turkey does not admit that there are ethnic minorities in Turkey. According to the constitution, every citizen of Turkey is considered as a Turk (not even a Turkish). This mean there are no Kurds in Turkey, there are no Greeks, there are no Armenians, and there are no Suryanis etc… If Turkey can admit that there are some non-Turkic people in this country, they can start solving the problem.
Actually, I was planning to write on obsessions in my life but the news I saw changed my direction. I am trying to have more self-discipline in these days to get back to fiction writing. The novel I have started a few months ago is still waiting. I will continue writing it and try to finish it before the end of my third semester in this school. I don’t want to promise and make it more stressful for myself but having a target might help me to achieve something which may not look achievable in normal conditions.
I have been away from blogging for almost 10 days. It is partly because of heavy work but the real reason is I restarted to write / edit my short stories. This makes me slow in blog keeping business. I should not mind as long as I do write a page per day. It is going well and I think after coming back from Thailand, it will be much easier to write.
The semester is over. I marked all the papers and sent a small sample to Melbourne to be moderated by the course coordinators. It is nice to be free. Yesterday and today, all I have done is working on some challenging math problems and try to focus on next semester’s classes. I already planned my first lesson for Discrete Math and I will complete the plan for Statistics in next two days. Without having a stressful mind, life is so easy and peaceful… I wish it will continue this way next semester.
I read the news in this morning and almost burst into laughter when I saw the news about Turkish guy who hijacked a passenger airplane just to avoid from military service. What a stupid excuse to hijack a plane! This just reminded me what I will do next! May be I should do the same thing to be exempted from military service. The guy says he did this because he is a Catholic and he does not want to serve to a Muslim army. Well, well, well… What else? First, Turkish army can not be considered as a Muslim army. There is no religion in the army. There is no even ideology in Turkish army except for Kemalism which is the main ideology of Turkish Republic. If you say you are a Catholic, nobody will care about your faith. As long as you are a Turkish male citizen, you will be summoned to military service. No matter you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Buddhist. If this guy starts a new fashion, I am afraid we will see the funniest hijackings in the next years. Imagine a man hijacks a plane because he is agnostics and he does not want to serve a Christian army! What about gays! They may ask for exemption from army service too. What about those who are against wars? This never ends!
Today, there is news in the newspaper about ethnic minorities in Vietnam. According to Vietnam News, Ministry of Education offers bilingual education to the ethnic minorities so that they will not forget their own languages while they learn the official language of the country. This might teach something to my country’s stubborn politicians! In Turkey, learning Kurdish has been legalized a few years ago. Then, private courses have been opened. Whenever some small irregularities have been found in the implementation, government closed the courses. It is still an ongoing process in Turkey and the debates are not over yet. Why doesn’t the state school teach Kurdish to the Kurdish people? Isn’t it more under the control? The Kurdish kids can learn both languages at school. They can learn how to appreciate Kurdish and Turkish literatures at the same time. It should not be difficult. Most of the children know nothing about Turkish when they start primary school in Eastern Turkey. Whenever they start learning Turkish, they are also asked to read and write. This makes the life more miserable for them. When they go home, they still speak Kurdish with their parents. Instead of making their life more difficult, state should start bilingual school and special curriculum for these schools. In these schools, students must learn both languages to a certain level. After this certain level, they have to focus on the official language of the country more since the there is no university which offers education in Kurdish. Bilingual Education is one of the best solutions for the Kurdish and other minorities in Turkey. However, Turkey does not admit that there are ethnic minorities in Turkey. According to the constitution, every citizen of Turkey is considered as a Turk (not even a Turkish). This mean there are no Kurds in Turkey, there are no Greeks, there are no Armenians, and there are no Suryanis etc… If Turkey can admit that there are some non-Turkic people in this country, they can start solving the problem.
Actually, I was planning to write on obsessions in my life but the news I saw changed my direction. I am trying to have more self-discipline in these days to get back to fiction writing. The novel I have started a few months ago is still waiting. I will continue writing it and try to finish it before the end of my third semester in this school. I don’t want to promise and make it more stressful for myself but having a target might help me to achieve something which may not look achievable in normal conditions.
I just read your blog... and you sound better. Less stress, more freedom and ease. Enjoy it. You deserve it.
YanıtlaSilAs you say, there are Turks who are Turks, Turks who are Kurds, Turks who are Laz, etc. I bet if you did a statistically valid sample of the DNA of the Turks who are Turks, you would find variation within that group as great as the variation between Turks and non-Turks. On the macro level, consider just the Turks with blue eyes, or with blond or brown or redish hair. What would it prove? Perhaps that we should start being kind to people who are different from us, because we are different from others. Maybe Turks who are Turks would turn out to be as different from each other as they are from me. Or some tall, bond Swede, or the blackest of Blackmen. Which would mean we have a lot in common with eachother, if we would only recognize it.
Cheers.
Enjoy your vacation.
--Allan
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YanıtlaSil