Fufilling a New Year's Resolution in Feburary

Hello Everyone,

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to blog more. From the guilt for being so lazy; to avoid family members asking me about it; to give my life more context than my pictures on facebook; many reasons. Surely if all those people with school/jobs/kids/something other than their daily lives can find the time to blog, I can too. But I’m still a procrastinator, so instead of an update on everything which has happened to me for the past few months, I’m going to start with a list. It’s simple, it doesn’t’ feel like an apology for my sloth, and I think it’s something which should be published later in the exchange year.

It’s been close to six months from when I left, and there are some things I’ve completely forgotten about, like every article clothing I didn’t bring with me. There are things I’ve gone through stages of not wanting at all, then wanting really, really badly, and then not wanting anymore (bacon). But there are some things which I’ve continued to miss, regardless of how quickly I noticed their absence I continue to miss. A lot. Even when I’m not the slightest bit homesick, unhappy or bored.


1) Newspapers. Real newspapers; not in every color of a tabloid. Fat folds of legitimate journalism without soap opera stars or editorials on page one. As much as I want to read the news I'm too much of a snob to go through the labor of translating one.

2) Saturday Night Live

3) The Atlantic Monthly. Luckily, I can read it online without having to pay for it.

4) Tap water

5) Erasers on the ends of pencils

6) Rye Bread and Bagels. I know these are two separate things, but I don’t want to have two food items on this list. I eat far too many super refined carbs here, so I have no right to complain, but I still crave these nonexistent baked goods.

7) Knowing how long it will take my clothes to dry. We don’t use the dryer. Ever. Even when my laundry’s drying inside the apartment instead of on the balcony I still have no idea how long it will be before my clothes are wearable. This has turned my laundry schedule into a crapshoot.

8) Tissue paper being in every bathroom. And the lack thereof is a legitimate excuse to complain. In my school you have to bring your own. Mercifully, they still provide free soap.

9) Grass. I live in a big city. There are tiny parks everywhere, but the grass is either fine, or disgusting. And they’re far too small to convince me I’m not in a big city anymore.

10) Libraries. They don’t have public ones. The bookstores are fantastic, but bookstores don’t throw off that egalitarian feeling of free education and literary growth as a communal endeavor. But maybe that’s just me being spoiled from growing up in a college town.


I think I’m doing well not because my list is short, but because if I was asked to make a similar list of what I will miss about Turkey it would be at least twice as long. And while Number 10 made the list because I’ve continuously wanted it, I don’t miss libraries every day, or even every other day. The list I would make for Turkey would be of things I think about continuously.