Today is Moving Day

We’re moving from the 12th floor to the first floor. I’ll try to give the Readers Digest version of why we’re moving, but brevity has never been my strong suit. I blame my mother.

Since day 1, Jessi has been unhappy about the gender segregation of faculty members. The male teachers are in the boy block, we’re in the girl block. My viewpoint was, “Hey, we all chose to move to a secular Islamic country; this is what happens and we will not be placed in the same building on the same floor, whether we’re faculty or not.”

Carly wasn’t thrilled about the living arrangements once she realized that we were put on the same floor as students. She was told in her interview, “You will be away from students.” Clearly, there was some miscommunication. My viewpoint was, “Live and let live. We’re living here rent-free, and the students on our floor are graduate students anyway, so we won’t live on the same floor as the students we see in our classroom from day to day. Plus, we have our own living spaces and are only sharing the kitchen, so I’m good.” I should point out, though, that I recall being told “Faculty will be on the same floor,” which I took to imply, “ONLY faculty will be on the same floor.” However, that could have been my error, so I didn’t feel the need to bring it up.

My deal-breaker happened last week. On Monday night at 7, Carly was going into the kitchen to cook her dinner so that we could eat together and watch Gilmore Girls in my room. (Bonus news: One of my officemates informed me of a free Turkish site that has a bunch of American TV shows on it, Gilmore Girls being one of them. YAY!) The grad students were already in there, cooking dinner, and had commandeered the majority of the stove space, leaving one small burner in the back of the stove available. That made it awkward as they had to sort of do-si-do around each other.

The next night, at 5:30, I thought I’d beat the dinner rush and get in there to wash my breakfast dishes. (Yeah I’m that disgusting and hadn’t washed them that morning.) The kitchen had already been commandeered by this point. Now I found myself wondering, “Exactly how long does it take them to cook dinner? Jeez!”

Carly and I went out for dinner and drinks with Jacob and his girlfriend on Wednesday night, so the kitchen space was a non-issue. Thursday, though, was my half-day. I thought about going into the kitchen to cook my dinner at 3 pm but 1) I was inexplicably wiped out and took a two-hour nap and 2) I don’t want to have to cook dinner in the middle of the afternoon just so that I can have some oven space.

By this point, Carly had already set things in motion by sending a professionally-worded-but-pointed email to the powers that be to let them know that we were unhappy about the situation. Last night, when I returned home from my outing with my coworkers, Jessi informed me “we’re moving tomorrow.” My immediate thought was “CRAP! I had planned to do nothing tomorrow!”

I’m all moved in now, and I’ve put most of my things away. There are a few things I’ll miss about my former room: the counter space in the bathroom and the view of the Ankara skyline. Our new accommodations are on the guest floor, for parents of students and people staying here a brief time. Our new rooms are disabled-friendly and has a lovely view of the parking lot/drive way where taxis drop us off. I have a pine tree right outside my window; I’ll think of Christmas. At least I’ll hopefully have more access to the kitchen. Plus, the morning commute won’t be as bad. I started leaving my room at 7:55 if I planned on hitting Starbucks before starting work at 8:30. I made the mistake of leaving at 8:10 last week and the elevator stopped on
every single floor to pick up students on their way to school. No Café Mocha for me that morning.

Upon closer inspection, however, the first-floor kitchen has one small two-handled pot and that’s it. There was plenty of cookware on the 12th floor, but I don’t know if that stuff had been brought by the girls who live there, so I didn’t want to touch any of it. But if I’m going to have eggs, I’ll need a small frying pan. If I want to cook pasta sauce, I’m going to need something larger than a small saucepan.

I try to sooth myself by singing an appropriate line from one of my least favorite songs from Guns N’ Roses, one of my all-time favorite bands(it’s the whistling solo Axl does in the song; I find it lame and I can’t bear it.)

Said woman take it slow and things will be just fine
You and I'll just use a little patience.