JUST MY IMAGINATION

3 dk okuma süresi Geçen sene yeni yıla kardeşimle birlikte, hastanede hastalara ve nöbetçi sağlık çalışanlarına çikolata  dağıtarak girmiştik. Aslında yıl, pandemi öncesinde de bizim için hüzünlü başlamıştı.  2020 pek çoğumuzun, tekrar hatırlamamak üzere hayatından çıkarmak istediği bir yıl oldu. Dünya çapında ve kişisel yaşantılarımızda sayısız acıya şahitlik ettik, çok fazla insanı kaybettik ve evlerimize kapandık. Kendi açımdan baktığımda ise kayıpların yanında kazanımlarımın da olduğunu gördüğüm bir yıl oldu. Bu yazıyı ilerde dönüp geçmişe baktığımda bu yılda yaptıklarımı hatırlayabilmek adına yazıyorum. Bu senenin en büyük kazanımı benim için şüphesiz, covide yakalanmadan ve akıl sağlığımı da elimden geldiğince koruyarak geçirmek oldu. Bu yıl olan diğer güzel şeyler: dünyalar tatlısı iki yeğenimin gün be gün gelişimine şahitlik ettim, pandemi öncesi birkaç şehir gezdim, Kapadokya'da enfes zaman geçirdim ve bunca sene gitmediğime pişman oldum, onlarca dizi ve film izle...

-7 min read- (includes spoiler)  Seven whole season and four revival episodes, all have finished last night. Before going into this piece, let me say, I adore the Gilmore Girls. I love it, I will rewatch it, and I even dare to say it is almost as good as HIMYM. I needed to clarify this because once I get into the writing, I criticize too much and people get this wrong idea that I hate it. But the truth is just the opposite. Stars Hollow In omnia paratus! Nope, it is not some spell from the Harry Potter. It means, “prepared for all things”. Comes from that creepy club called “the life and death brigade” that runs Logan and his friends. But I think it was not just that. In omnia paratus pretty much summarizes the whole series. Everything runs so fast, everyone is in the everywhere, there’s always hustle and bustle and it seems like people were really ready to do anything, anytime. Gilmore girls are a mother and daughter, living in a little town called Stars Hollow, where pe...

It has been two months since I started my PhD. Well two-ish. So why did I put a title called two-months report? Because I should’ve written this blog post a week ago when it was actually two months. PhD is teaching me something new every single day. It is teaching me that all the knowledge I learned till this very day was just the tip of the iceberg. There is a whole bunch hidden under the sea. There's so much out there to learn. I am telling myself these words every single day: man, I need to study more. But it's not just that. I always thought PhD consist of reading and writing. Well, that's easy: I love reading and I love writing. So what’s to worry? I just never realized that I was skipping whole thinking part. And yes, that thinking process is pretty much the core of your PhD. You have to build a project, like from the zero. And you have to choose every brick very carefully. I have never thought it’s gonna be this difficult. I was a very creative kid. But, not ...

  Well, where to begin? It's been ages after I wrote my previous post here. A lot happened since then.  Three months ago, I was so desperate and tired of waiting. Then something amazing happened. I got my PhD offer in my dream university from the most amazing, kindest and funniest professor ever. It was unbelievable. I did all the paperwork, said goodbye to everyone that I love. Now, here I am, sitting in my cosy room and writing these sentences from 3605 km away. It has been already three weeks. I really cannot believe it. But you know what they say, time flies. Some days were harder than the others. But in the end, I am doing something awesome in somewhere that I always wanted. And I am happy despite everything. I am not sure whether or not I am feeling home yet. It is hard to feel home in such a short time. But at some point, you come to a realization that you need to accept the fact that your home is where your backpack is. About PhD. Well, I had millions of ide...

                                                                 For the last couple of weeks, I've been attending virtual vacation schemes, internships and seminars. At the beginning of quarantine, I had this crazy idea of “gotta be productive in the lockdown”. But by the time, it has passed. Now I am just attending things for the sake of knowledge and pleasure. Living without a school is not my cup of tea. That's why for the last nine months have been quite challenging for me. But with this pandemic, suddenly we all surrounded by online events, courses and seminars which has a huge role for me making quarantine bearable. In this blog post, I want to share the cons of attending virtual events as well as pros. The first advantage is, well it is obvious, being easy to access. I am following events from the United ...

Gözümü acıyorum. Bugün bayram. Ama hiç bayram olmasını istemediğim bir bayram. Evden 3789 km uzaktayım. Etrafımda ailem ya da arkadaşlarım yok. Bayram kahvaltısı hazırlayan ya da beni neşeli şarkılarla uyandıran yok. Üstüne  bir de ertesi gün sınavlar başlıyor. Ne bayram ama! Ailemin de benim kadar mutsuz olduğunu tahmin ettiğim için güç bela kalkıp mutfağa yöneliyorum. Mısır gevreği yediğim günlerin aksine, patates kızartması, yumurta, krep yapıp tek kisilik bir bayram kahvaltısı hazırlıyorum. Hemen bir fotoğraf, aileme gönderiyorum. Maksat onlar börekleri mideye indirirken boğazlarından geçebilsin. Sonra aileyle skype. Herkes de toplanmış maşallah, bir ben eksiğim. Sonra bir saat ağlama seansı. Bu duvarlar hiç mi ses geçirmiyor da kimse odama gelmiyor. Bu böyle olmaz diyorum. Arkadaşlarım kütüphanenin yolunu çoktan tuttu bile. Hızlıca üstümü giyinip sırt çantamı alıyor ve odadan çıkıyorum. Yol üzeri markete uğrayıp bir kutu çikolata alıyorum. Yolda gördüğüm insanlara “ei...

Today i read my master thesis for the first time after i submitted on September. It has been seven months since i haven't read a single word from it. Do you know the feeling of when you study too long on something, put efforts on it days, weeks and months, reach a point that you can't stand seeing it anymore and it gives you a literal vomitous feeling? Yeah, i was pretty much at that point. But today, with that sense comes from out of nowhere, i managed to read my thesis sentence by sentence and i kinda like it. I respected the work that i wrote in the stressful and dark times that i no longer live in the UK and had a lot of distractions. I even have to look at a dictionary several times while reading it. That means i created such a complicated and talented work which i cannot fully understand now. And i proud of myself. Why i am writing this? To show off my work? Hell no. Lately, i have the fear of an upcoming PhD. The thought of “what the heck am i gonna do on the ...

I gotta start studying maritime law again but where to begin? I think rewatching an unsinkable ship to sink might be a good start. Yes, you're right. I am talking about the Titanic. These days i am feeling myself like the violinists who play their music while the ship is sinking. But if the ship is going to sink anyway, why would you panic, right? I don't dare to criticize one of the best movies of all time, obviously. But i must say that i was quite surprised in the end when i realized tears on my eyes. Because i rarely cry on movies and yet, i watched quite a lot of dramatic and romantic movies.  I was abstaining to talk about the movie since it is a very old and wonderful movie. However, i can't see anything holding me back so here we go.  In my opinion, Titanic has, if i am not mistaken, most romantic love story ever. I think that's why i was quite emotional in the end. There were two people who clearly are not suitable for each other but still end up toge...

Why am i writing this blog post? Honestly, i am not sure about the answer. But i do know that this is not a post of how to learn the German language. I think i just wanted to make a note to future myself. I may kind of enjoy reading the journey when i finally became an advanced speaker.  But for now, i suck at it.  Where to begin? My first German learning period started in the second year of high school, i guess. We had a wonderful teacher and this went for two years. For the last year of high school, i learnt nothing like every student who is preparing for the university entrance exam. But in a kind of funny way, when i started university, all my German knowledge has gone. I think the reason behind that is, high school language education is mostly based on grammar information and i didn't support it with books and movies at all. In the second year of university, i bought a German grammar book and had a strict routine which includes waking up at 6 ev...

Warning: This review may contain spoilers. Someone may wonder, why on earth did you watch Lotr trilogy for the first time on your 25s. I mean, isn't it a bit early? First of all, i also watched Harry Potter, for the first time on my 22s. Sue me. Also, we are in quarantine now. I think everything should be acceptable. When i started to watch the movies, i just remembered the reason why i did not watch it earlier. The answer was simply, because of the war scenes. Unfortunately, i do not enjoy the movies when they include so many violence or war scenes. And yet, thank God Lotr has only 8 hours war scenes, out of 9. It could have been 9 hours though, i am not complaining. The first thing that movie made me think is that there are so many similarities going on with Harry Potter. It was very obvious, you can't help it. Both movies have a young boy in the main character who becomes a hero at the end of the movie, both have a male best friend as a side character, both have...

Well, i have waited to finish the whole ten season to write this blog post. And before starting, i must say, unfortunately, i am not a big fan of Friends. It just did not work for me. So if you are gonna hate me for this, maybe you should stop reading. Just saying. Friends is a decent series which made my last three months more bearable. And i should add, it almost made me forget that i am unemployed lol. Even after ten years, with the lack of technology and other opportunities, i must say it is quite successful to made you burst into laughs. But i do have a lot of criticism about it. Especially, if you compare it to HIMYM, i don't know why you wanna do that but if you ever do that, you can see a lot of differences between them. They are two very identical series except they are not. Starting with Ross, oh my God. (with Janice's voice) He is the most antipathetic and annoying character to me. He is not strong enough to stand what he did, unnecessarily jealous and ...