Blog Post Family Travel

Dad & Mary visit Türkiye

I was fortunate to have my father, Ned, and his wife, Mary, come for a visit early this year during my two week semester break at the end of January. It was the first time for each of them to visit the country I have been calling home for seven years. For my Dad, with two of his children calling Türkiye “home,” I guess it seemed like a good time to make the trek around…

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Blog Post

A new year, a new focus

Tomorrow begins another year. As I shared in my previous post, oftentimes things don’t always go as planned. For 2025 I have selected the word “Value” thanks to a suggestion from my Turkish teacher. As I published the previous post I thought to myself, “hmmm, I guess it is time to think about a new word.” A day or two later my teacher offered up “Value” and I haven’t been able to think of any…

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Voice: Lessons from the Universe

At the end of last year you may recall the reveal of my word for 2024–this was to be the Year of Voice. My intentions were to focus on two aspects of voice: (a) speaking more Turkish and (b) using my authorial voice (doing more writing). My summer plans included staying in a more remote location to do personal writing as well as forcing myself to be amongst villager Turks who speak less English causing…

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