16th November 2006 – 15:31
The position of my new desk is unique because I am looking at the window while working and all other colleagues in the office are either behind me or beside me. Because there are partitions everywhere in the room, I see nobody when I work. But others can see me easily, even without moving on their chairs. Sometimes I feel as if everybody in the room is watching me when I read news in Turkish. This feeling is not negative. There is no fear in it. Quite the opposite! To imagine that everybody in the room is watching me constantly gives me some sort of “irrational” pleasure. I call it irrational because I could not find a rational explanation for this. It might be the pleasure of “being watched” by others while not knowing that who, when and why! Being watched by strangers and being judged! How many of us can accept the idea of someone watching our dreams? However, this thing simply reminds me “Big Brother” programme on TV. A dozen of young people live in a house and 24 hours of their day are being watched by all TV viewers. They do it for a kind of competition. I am not doing anything to be watched or anything which can attract others’ attention. It is my desk, my computer and my books! I often look at outside from the window. Fu My Hung buildings are just in front of me. They look like five siblings walking hand to hand in an empty land. There are a few trees I can see from this place. Some construction machines are constantly working for the new road. The sky is clear but the white clouds look like splashes of paints on a blue canvas. I used to make pictures from the white spots during my childhood. Mostly the only picture I was getting was an iceberg in Antarctica.
There is also a ruined statue a few kilometres away from the school. It is visible from my window during the day. I can not figure out what it is exactly. It looks like a Buddha statue but why did someone destroy a Buddha statue and leave it in this position? It might also be a statue of a political leader. It is tall and large. There must be some better explanation for its silent stand… It reminds me abandoned historical places in Istanbul or the destroyed Buddha statues in Afghanistan. There is something sad about it because it is so lonely and so big. It can watch everyone and can be watched by everyone. However, no one helps it to recover from the effects of rain or dust. It is definitely old and like many other old things, left to die in its own terms. People rush to life everyday. There is no place for an old statue in the modern life unless it could bring money by attracting tourists. Life in practical sense is also very selective. Those who deserve to live continue the race. Those who are useless are usually left behind.
I started a work routine in recent days. I work until 5 pm and then I write for at least 2 hours. Some evenings J calls me and asks me the time as if she does not know the time. I know I am behaving selfish but this is the only way I can keep going. Beside, she also noticed that I feel more cheerful and happy if I have written a few pages before coming home. I don’t touch computer at home. I try to spend all my evening either talking with her or walking with her in the neighbourhood after the dinner. But in school, I have to force myself very hard to keep going on creative things. Actually, it works quite well. I at least write a half page a day. Next day when I start writing again, I first read previous day’s work and edit it. Then I write another half page. Sometimes it is hard to stop after a half page. In that case I keep writing until I can not write any more.
In the last three days, I even got a new friend. A gecko comes to visit me every evening after 6 pm. On the window, I can see its patties, sometimes falls but then quickly climbs again. It comes to eat the flies and other bugs on the window. Since outside gets darker, bugs stick to the window due to the light inside the room. Then the gecko comes and collects them. Because light inside is so strong and outside it too dark, I can also see my own face on the window as if I am looking at a blurred image. The gecko sometimes seems to walk on my face, climbing my lips, walking on my nose. I even talk with it when I stop writing for a short break. It is a silent but helpful friend. It tells me how I pretend to work while I am actually not working and how I am selfish in terms of my own interests. A silent gecko friend is much better than a talkative human friend sometimes because in the case of gecko I made it talk whenever I need to listen. But in the case of friend, he/she can pull the subject wherever he/he wants and we may end up somewhere I don’t want to go.
By the way, thanks to A., I stopped dreaming about speed publishing of my stories by sending them to a vanity press. A. told me that the money I would pay for the book might be more helpful to buy a little canary and listen to the songs every morning. He was right. I sometimes behave very amateur. I don’t need to beg anyone to get publish my stories because I believe they are good enough to be published in good magazines. The only thing I need is a little bit more patience and enthusiasm to keep myself sending stories to the literary magazines. I already contacted one of the biggest publish houses in Turkey and they gave me an address. After re-editing my stories one last time, I will print them and send to the publish house. I have to do this thing more frequently to increase my chances.
The position of my new desk is unique because I am looking at the window while working and all other colleagues in the office are either behind me or beside me. Because there are partitions everywhere in the room, I see nobody when I work. But others can see me easily, even without moving on their chairs. Sometimes I feel as if everybody in the room is watching me when I read news in Turkish. This feeling is not negative. There is no fear in it. Quite the opposite! To imagine that everybody in the room is watching me constantly gives me some sort of “irrational” pleasure. I call it irrational because I could not find a rational explanation for this. It might be the pleasure of “being watched” by others while not knowing that who, when and why! Being watched by strangers and being judged! How many of us can accept the idea of someone watching our dreams? However, this thing simply reminds me “Big Brother” programme on TV. A dozen of young people live in a house and 24 hours of their day are being watched by all TV viewers. They do it for a kind of competition. I am not doing anything to be watched or anything which can attract others’ attention. It is my desk, my computer and my books! I often look at outside from the window. Fu My Hung buildings are just in front of me. They look like five siblings walking hand to hand in an empty land. There are a few trees I can see from this place. Some construction machines are constantly working for the new road. The sky is clear but the white clouds look like splashes of paints on a blue canvas. I used to make pictures from the white spots during my childhood. Mostly the only picture I was getting was an iceberg in Antarctica.
There is also a ruined statue a few kilometres away from the school. It is visible from my window during the day. I can not figure out what it is exactly. It looks like a Buddha statue but why did someone destroy a Buddha statue and leave it in this position? It might also be a statue of a political leader. It is tall and large. There must be some better explanation for its silent stand… It reminds me abandoned historical places in Istanbul or the destroyed Buddha statues in Afghanistan. There is something sad about it because it is so lonely and so big. It can watch everyone and can be watched by everyone. However, no one helps it to recover from the effects of rain or dust. It is definitely old and like many other old things, left to die in its own terms. People rush to life everyday. There is no place for an old statue in the modern life unless it could bring money by attracting tourists. Life in practical sense is also very selective. Those who deserve to live continue the race. Those who are useless are usually left behind.
I started a work routine in recent days. I work until 5 pm and then I write for at least 2 hours. Some evenings J calls me and asks me the time as if she does not know the time. I know I am behaving selfish but this is the only way I can keep going. Beside, she also noticed that I feel more cheerful and happy if I have written a few pages before coming home. I don’t touch computer at home. I try to spend all my evening either talking with her or walking with her in the neighbourhood after the dinner. But in school, I have to force myself very hard to keep going on creative things. Actually, it works quite well. I at least write a half page a day. Next day when I start writing again, I first read previous day’s work and edit it. Then I write another half page. Sometimes it is hard to stop after a half page. In that case I keep writing until I can not write any more.
In the last three days, I even got a new friend. A gecko comes to visit me every evening after 6 pm. On the window, I can see its patties, sometimes falls but then quickly climbs again. It comes to eat the flies and other bugs on the window. Since outside gets darker, bugs stick to the window due to the light inside the room. Then the gecko comes and collects them. Because light inside is so strong and outside it too dark, I can also see my own face on the window as if I am looking at a blurred image. The gecko sometimes seems to walk on my face, climbing my lips, walking on my nose. I even talk with it when I stop writing for a short break. It is a silent but helpful friend. It tells me how I pretend to work while I am actually not working and how I am selfish in terms of my own interests. A silent gecko friend is much better than a talkative human friend sometimes because in the case of gecko I made it talk whenever I need to listen. But in the case of friend, he/she can pull the subject wherever he/he wants and we may end up somewhere I don’t want to go.
By the way, thanks to A., I stopped dreaming about speed publishing of my stories by sending them to a vanity press. A. told me that the money I would pay for the book might be more helpful to buy a little canary and listen to the songs every morning. He was right. I sometimes behave very amateur. I don’t need to beg anyone to get publish my stories because I believe they are good enough to be published in good magazines. The only thing I need is a little bit more patience and enthusiasm to keep myself sending stories to the literary magazines. I already contacted one of the biggest publish houses in Turkey and they gave me an address. After re-editing my stories one last time, I will print them and send to the publish house. I have to do this thing more frequently to increase my chances.
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