Surprising everybody with "afiyet olsun"

March 25th, 2002:


The same as every day: Wake up early and come to work. Burak My boss finally appeared and said he could have a meeting with me, but only had free  the time of lunch ... lunch Boss?? This is not time for the meeting ... but I needed to show some things for him to know what to do now. We almost missed lunch but everything worked and we went to the cafeteria together.

When he finished eating he stood up and said "Afiyet olsun" (good appetite) and I replied "eyualah" (this and slang of the ancient Turks to express something positive). When I said that he started laughing out loud because he must have thought "how a Brazilian who is here only two weeks already know this type of slang ??" It was really fun.

At night went to AIESEC to try to wash my clothes and guess what ?? They continued dirty... what a shame there is no place in this city that opens at night to wash clothes !! But I left there to see what they can do for me. Other than that just went to dinner, then home and sleep after a boiling shower!


March 27th, 2002:

Another normal day but some white specks falling from the sky ... SNOW !!!! Wow... but okay, my culture shock is being the weather!!

It should be around 5PM when the weather began to turn, windy and from one hour to another the wind stopped ... and when I look into outside the company ... small white flakes gently falling from the sky ... I did not believe ... I approached the company glass wall to see more closely, completely frozen, not cold, but the fact of seeing snow fall.

Mr Burak, my boss, came into my room and asked me to go outside the company feel the snow... amazing experience ... it looked like a child when get new toy! Ican not describe! Too bad I have no picture, my camera is still without battery.

Speaking of my boss, he appeared again in the office but this time with more time for me ... He brought millions of books ... He thinks I can read it all in 6 months! I will read all that matters, but it has many good things for me to read... will be very useful. At lunchtime some guys from the factory came to talk to me in English ... very cool. The guys talk better than the people in my department who should know English because they are the IT area (Information Technology).

After work I went again to AIESEC and the same ... dirty clothes ... but it seems that tomorrow, Wednesday, they will put to wash !! I expect!!

Kisses thousand very sleepy and no clean clothes !!

March 27th, 2002:


Today I brought my CDs to the office and I was listening Brazilian music ... very good ... heard of "Bonde do Tigrao" and "Vinicius de Moraes," all my CDs ... until my boss appears. He set up a meeting with the guy from marketing area what was good. The guy during the meeting gave good ideas ... for business, not for me. I'll have to work even harder. The guy changed the entire project and I will have to restructure all over again !! We were at that meeting about 2 hours straight and I was already going crazy with the new things that the guy suggested to put in the system. The rest of the day was just digesting all this information.

Leaving the company went to AIESEC wishing my clothes are washed (this're looking Mexican soap opera). Getting there met Nurdan in the hallway and she told me that Mehmet has the store card so I take my clothes tomorrow. But tomorrow???? Tomorrow I will work in shorts and T-shirt. The thing that they got is this: They convinced a laundry to stay open for us, or we will call the guy to open it. We wash our clothes at night and then it closes or leave there and they wash to catch-up the next day . Good idea, but I still have no clean clothes to work ... and now I have not dirty because there are washing!!

Out this mess of clothes, we went to a different place of conventional to update the news. We rolled a very nice chat with Onur about change agent, meaningful work, leadership, trying to change the world, these things ... worth the day! I was exhausted but could not get out of there because the conversation was way too good. Finally someone in this town who has this view !! Around 11PM I went home ... destroyed ... and cold (-1 degree).

Arriving home I didn't even took a bath, went to sleep directly. I'll get in the mood of my dirty clothes :) !!

Here is a picture of my house ... I live on the fifth floor, front. The window with the antenna.

Tomorrow the soap opera continues ... (hopefully the last chapter of the novel "dirty clothes" is today !!)

Kisses to everyone!!
Xand

Next Post: What is falling from sky? Snow!

First day working

March 14, 2002 - Went to Company

Hi everybody!
Today morning I went again to the University to help AIESEC at the presentations and after that, Aysa drove me till the company (Endel) to meet my boss (Mr. Burak) and everything else. The company I will work is far away from the city, inside of an industrial zone, but as there is a company bus, it is ok.


We talked for sometime and I asked him the friday off... as you know, I`m brasilian and friday is not a day to start working... and he accepted... he is a great person :) I liked him a lot at the first day :)
The big problem I will have here is about the language as nobody speaks english, only turkish... the only one who speaks is my boss but I need to get used to his turkish accent. When he speaks slowly it is easy. Besides that, I`m not going to have ICQ but probably MSN messenger... I still don't know, on monday I tell you all.

Now I'm here waiting for the time when the bus leaves to go to AIESEC office and from there, organize my trip to Istanbul where I might to be to my friends again.

That's all for now. Maybe tomorrow I send an e-mail from Istanbul, I don't know yet how it will be.

Kisses and hugs,

March 15, 2002 - First working day

Hi everybody!
As you all can see I didn't go to Istanbul because my friends are not going to be there this weekends, then I decided to come to work. I hope my boss liked it :)
A dam cold early morning.. I woke-up at 6:30 am and almost got frozen when I put my nose out of home. Yesterday I made my bed on the floor using the pads from the sofa. I will take a picture soon. Talking about pictures, I can't find the bateries to my camera here... I think I made a very bad buy... would be better if I had a discman here :)

Mr. Burak (my boss) showed me the process we are going to remodel and if I have some space and time I will do a lot of changes because the actual database works but very bad organized. This is for future.

I have a computer now and as there was a room empty, only with some boxes and old stuffs, I asked to use it. Now I have my own room, with telephone and everything :)

Talking about good things... yesterday I was very sad that my plans to go to Istanbul failed but the AIESEC guys discovered the trainees in Ankara were organizing a pic-nic on saturday and on sunday a small sightseeing at the city. I already bought the bus ticket.. I just don`t know if I`m going there alone or if Claudia (the german trainee) will join me. Sad that the colombian trainee can not join us because she works on saturday.

Some bad news... I can't use ICQ or MSN or Yahoo Messenger... as I see we will need to schedule a time to chat somewhere on the web. Another thing is that I didn't find out how to call to Brasil without pay here, but paying there. The people here only uses mobile and I will expend a lot of money calling them. I hope I can call mobiles from the office.

That's all for now.. I liked very much the job as I'm going to plan, map the process and develop a system to them.

Kisses and I miss you all!

Alex (my name here)