First Post!

Merhaba (Hello)!

Thank you all for reading this, wherever you may be and whoever you are. I'm going to take a moment to introduce myself, my name is Greg, I'm a junior at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts where I major in history and minor in sociology. After I graduate, I plan on staying at Clark for 1 extra year to get my masters in teaching. After that, I plan on teaching high school history, at least that's the plan for now. I'm extremely interested in politics and current events as well, so although this blog is meant to chronicle my time in Istanbul, it's very likely that there will be times where I veer off course to comment on things happening around the world.

This semester, from February 5-June 13, I will be studying at Koç University (pronounced "coach" not "coke"), which is outside of Istanbul, Turkey. I decided to study at Koç because I have always been interested in the history of the area, but also because Turkey is such a fascinating country and because I wanted to go somewhere that was both different but not too dangerous (since my parents are paying my tuition, they do get a say in how extreme I go). Also, since they teach in English at Koç, I don't have to worry about not understanding a word the professor is saying; though it is still important that I learn at least some Turkish.

Since I started this blog a week after I arrived, the following post are mostly going to be from memory, I'll update more regularly as time goes on. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!