Sunday meeting(!?) and Staff

I have met a lot of the FINAL staff, including the founder, principals, accountants, teachers, technicians, custodians, and others I cannot put label on.  Everyone has been wonderful.   With the Turkish language I have picked up I have made good first impressions on folks. Though, I don’t know if it’s the best plan to use too much Turkish with the staff at school, staff might start talking to me as if I can understand it all – Gulsen advised me this.  I can’t help though trying to learn at least a new word each day.  And once I’ve learned a new word I really try and use it in the real world, rather than mumbling it to myself until I feel confident. 

This last Saturday my school had an all staff meeting. The founder, CEO and another put on a presentation lasting for 3 hours.  Now put yourself in my shoes.  You just had a long night of hanging out with new friends, now you’re sitting in the front row as the CEO is talking.  He is very active in body language and everyone is listening intently.  A few chuckles upraise every once and a while. Gulsen is sitting next to you as a translator.  You know when she is about to translate when she leans into you. After the CEO is done talking the founder of FINAL gets up and begins his presentation.  At this point your eyes are starting to fade. You know there is no possibility to daze off, so you literally start to pinch your arms to stay awake.  You start to think to yourself, “how much longer can this be?”, “there is still another man left to speak and I’m dying to get and move about.”  Just then, Gulsen leans over and whispers in your ear, “how much sleep did you get?” Oh the humanity! 

Let’s fast-forward to after the presentations.

 

Afterwards the a few of the staff members socialized and joked around.  Two male workers at the school, I really enjoy, are Cihan, pronounced Jihan, and Kadir.  Cihan is the vice principal at the secondary level.  He is a character.  I’ve spoken about him before on the blog. (Day 1 he fed me my first taste of Turkish food).  He and I get along very well. I hope to enjoy his company all year long.  Kadir is a bit newer to me, but we have made some big strides in friendship in the past two days.