I’m officially experiencing culture shock

Here are my current issues:

1. I’m dissatisfied with certain aspects of my job. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say, at this point in time, I highly doubt I’ll be teaching at this school next year. Will I remain in Turkey, or Ankara, for that matter? That remains to be seen.

2. I hate living in the dorms, especially after waking up this morning, going into the kitchen, and discovering that our kitchen had been used. The trash can was full and there were empty plastic dessert containers on the table. However, I don’t want to pay rent while I’m in Turkey. I’d rather use my paycheck to save money, pay my student loans, and travel.

3. The other American teachers and I opened a Turkish bank account on October 4, but at the writing of this blog, I still don’t have a bank card. Last week, we were informed that our order had been put in. Group 1 will get their cards sometime this week and Group 2 will get them next week. Guess which group I’m in? Yep! Group 2. Awesome. That, dear readers, means that any travel plans I’d like to make for the end of November (ie Russell Brand in Istanbul) will require a) waiting for my card to come in, or b) finding locations around Ankara where I can buy my plane and event tickets and pay cash. Oh, and to top it all off: I’m more of a reactive than proactive person.

4. I sat in my room on a four-day weekend when I should have gone somewhere, even if it was around Ankara. And yet, where am I now on my ½ day? In my room, writing this blog.

5. The school Internet connection stopped working at 4:00 p.m. yesterday. It worked for about two hours this morning and stopped working again. Obviously it is now working since I’m able to post this, but who knows how long this will last?
I’m trying not to take it out on the people around me (ie, my co-workers, my student), but it hasn’t been easy. It’s difficult not to lose my temper when, for instance, 15 minutes into class a student says “Teacher, can I go to bathroom?” This same student was absent in the previous hour and had a 10-minute break just prior to my class. There was your bathroom time right there, Sparky. You can go in your pants for all I care. Or, you can be a big boy and wait until the next 10-minute break.

I have now become elitist in my classroom practices. My room was already set up in a horseshoe shape. But now I have an inner horseshoe and an outer horseshoe, which is what I’ve wanted to do for weeks. The students who are focused and want to work are in the inner horseshoe. The rest are part of the outer horseshoe. I removed some students who were in the inner horseshoe because they just sat there.

None of these issues would be so bad if they came at me one at a time. Instead, they’re all hitting me at the same time, leaving me feeling completely defeated. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to do some emotional eating and maybe later I’ll cry myself to sleep. OOOH, or since I currently have Internet, I can watch the saddest 20 minutes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2. At least then, I can hide behind the movie as the reason for my tears.