Anonymous

Sometimes, my heart gets filled with grudge; with sorrow and anger. I feel the taste of my anger on my tongue. A feeling of suspicion falls onto my heart, like dirt on white! At that moment, I open up all the books, photos, notes and memories that reminds you, to remember who I am. Remembering is a secret prayer for me.

I was just a lifeless decoration on your cold walls, before her light hit me. I was only a dusty violin foreign to its sound, before she hit my chords with her string. I would become a lifeless decoration if she built walls again.

I see vineyards, orchards, trees in her hands. I see waters as broad as oceans, as lucid as oceans. I see my paradise in her hands. I take my rests under the trees in her hands. You cannot see any of these.
I know who I am; yet does she know that she is my sunlight? If she doesn't, let her not know.

I am a piece of spark twirling around the fire. I am a unicorn whose wings melts as it flies towards sun; and whose heart get frozen if starts to fall down. I am me. Her twirling spark, her slave, her fellow.. We found each other on a road we started from different locations towards different destinations; and lost each other on battle fields. We passed not cities, roads, seasons; but our lives.

I turn around and look at the past, everyting has past. What's left is only love; I keep reminding myself again and again. I do it because, I want to make sure I will be saying her name when death hits me in my last seconds of life.

Muhtesem Yuzyil | The Magnificent Century

Healthcare vs. Immigrant Cure

I do not like politics; I don’t like being in it, I don’t like talking about it I don’t like people in it. Yet, this time I am so tempted, and feeling like forced to talk about it. If you have a look at my previous blogs, there are no words for politics; it is all some stories and random fairy tales.

There are two things that are occupying the US media’s agenda: Affordable healthcare act and immigration reform. For most people neither of them worth a word. People take their sides already and keep following what their leader says “it is true”. Those two issues are not really closely related to each other; yet, I am concerned with both as an immigrant who was never been offered healthcare benefits.

What is the new healthcare system bringing to people actually. Main purpose is to have everyone get health insurance. Starting with the new year everyone have to have health insurance by law. Otherwise, you will be getting a penalty. So actually, law says, you don’t have option not to buy insurance. Reason is: Any time an uninsured person is hospitalized, and they cannot afford to pay bills; the bills are paid from other tax-payers pocket, which is a lie as this people bills are not cancelled somehow. They have to go to court defend themselves for not being able to pay the bill and find programs to help them pay it. Those programs are government supported – taxpayers’ money – programs and aims to help people who are having financial troubles.

Overall, this affordable care is actually some innovation for US people. People here do not have any idea how bad the health care system is in the US compared to EU. Employers have no responsibility over taking act on their employees insurance. Even after the new system starts it will not be even close to the systems in EU. I am from a different country, which is not a part of EU, but takes provisions of EU and makes regulations per EU standards. The healthcare system has been much better than here even before any of the standards of EU started to become provision. Just an example: Having and employee in  Turkey not being insured by its employer, is same as having an undocumented immigrant working for you in US, with similar consequences for employer side. Employee has no responsibility on his / her insurance plan payments; it is completely employer responsibility and it includes retirement plan. So, the new healthcare act, aka Obamacare is something Americans will actually like in long term. It is a government plan, in which government will take action where people do not have enough income to pay for their insurance needs, supporting the premiums. However, it is still not fair to make it mandatory to have insurance. People should have some options in a country where such things are not really cheap. I have a problem with the reason behind its being mandatory – If someone is hospitalized and cannot pay the bill, it is paid from other tax payers’ pocket.

I am not a US citizen; I am a “legal immigrant” whose application is still (!) in progress. And at the time of the application, you see an item in one of the papers you sign – Intending immigrant cannot apply for any government benefits, support etc. until the process is completed. I already DO NOT WANT TO have any support from government. I prefer to work, make my own money and living support my family. But, while something is being legal another thing is becoming illegal with another law. Is there a way out? NO! Because, all immigrants are technically 2^nd class people here. Please, people do not get offended; no matter how much respect I receive from many people that I know through my job or my social life; I still do not feel like just like anyone else. Somehow, people make you feel like you are not from here, and you need to stay in your own shell. You do not feel safe against government, unless you have a lawyer who will be talking for you. Government will not step back from abusing you till you spend money on a lawyer. Yes, this makes me clearly feel like, the amount of the justice you will get is equal to amount of the money you have, same as it is for health: the amount of health care you will get is about the amount of money you have, same as education: the quality of the school you are going is related to amount of the money your parents have as much as your brightness. There is no equality of opportunities in this country, just like many other countries. Difference is, here it is so obvious that there is no way you cannot feel it.

There have been rumors about the undocumented immigrants for a while now. Believe it or not, this country needs these people. Even though it is not formally said, I do not see many American citizen over the age of 30 - 35 doing landscaping, working at restaurants, being a bouncer, etc. Everyone is running after their career somehow, and those businesses are being run by people who use people unmercifully. There is so much benefits of having illegal immigrants for both employers and government. For the employers, they have people who most of the time cannot say no to their unfair working conditions because of their status. And they provide a good deal of workforce for the cheapest price they can get. For government, having those people here, there is no need to think about how to have work done, in which citizens have no interest. Have some illegal do it and leave it alone. If they complain, deport them; a fair way of slavery. No matter how much government is losing on unpaid taxes from their income; government is making a lot from having them do so much work.

When I was reading this I laughed. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/us/obama-calls-for-quick-action-on-immigration-and-so-does-a-heckler.html?_r=0 Mr. President mentioned in his reply that, people who work here undocumented are fearful of deportation and this affects their performance! If they are legal and don’t have to think about deportation they can help economy more working more efficiently. Really???? I can accept all other explanations but not this! Do you really not have any idea how those people are working their ass off? And you expect them work harder after giving them legal status? Where is being humanitarian?? Are these people not human beings in your eyes? Why would you accept someone sit around and feed them with food stamps,  help them with unemployment support, and provide cheap housing for them WHILE EXPECTING THOSE HARD WORKING PEOPLE WORK HARDER because they are given a chance!? They will be working hard no matter what you expect them to do; they are not used to be lazy anyways. But, how about some reform about educating people on being as productive as they can be? We are talking about almost 12 million people. No-one can ignore the workforce here. Somehow, those people have to be legalized.  But those, who want to keep them as cheap labor, who do not want them go to school and get better jobs, who have lost their humanity, will continue to resist against the reform.

I have so many friends who are born here. I am not writing all those to be offensive against anyone. I am just trying to make you get out of your shell and look around, the world is not as small as you think it to be. http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat

I feel like I am hearing some radicals asking, “hey dude, if you don’t like so many things here, why are you trying to live here?” “go home!”

Those people will not change, just ignore them. I am a world citizen.

I Saw You

Someone told me that she caught me talking to air as if there was someone in front of me. I don’t believe this is true. It is true that I do not have many friends. It is true that I even named the sofa, table, fridge, pillow in the bed; but that does not necessarily mean I am talking to air. Every day, when I step in the house I say hi to Gokhan; any time I sit on the sofa I talk to my friend Reilly. Every night before I go to bed, I say good night to Rivka. I see them, I talk to them, and they talk to me. Sometimes I see them talking to other people speaking in a different language; I don’t understand what they say, but when I ask them they translate for me. I am glad I have all these friends around me. The only thing I don’t like is when I cook for them, or make a drink for them, they eat or drink with me; but in the mornings I see their plates and glasses full. It makes me sad. And I don’t know how come they go to their work before me. I am such and early bird, but I never see them in the mornings.

I don’t believe in ghost stories. I believe that people who dies still walks around us, but we don’t recognize them. They don’t attempt to bother us. They live in their world with us. When we die we can also see them; how I know, at some point I got close to dying too. At the point I saw them, and they talked to me. It was so crowded that I could hardly walk around them. A lot many more than our world. Somehow, no one is bothering each other there. They never fight; it looks like they do not have feelings. But it is cute, I met so many people there, whom I never saw in my life where we cannot see them. It is also so funny that you can make fun of this world’s people while they cannot see you. I hear this world's people talking about some metaphysical world. Maybe that is where I was at, at that point.

I saw Rivka yesterday in a in my work place, there was some party. She did not want to talk to me. She told the crowd “Hi guys, I love you all.” I ignored because she did not want to talk to me at first. Why would she not? We always had talked at home. Felt weird. Later she said, “I love him too.” pointing at me. “But he doesn’t like me anymore.” I don’t know how she ended up thinking this way; I don’t understand why she thought so. Weird. I turned my face to her, she smiled then. But then she called me with my brother’s name. C’mon now, you know me for a long time! You cannot be confused about my name, you don’t even know my brother in person.

Anyways, I left the party early; went home. None had arrived yet, I fell asleep. Then I am at work again, after waking up. Well, at least Reilly is swimming laps here at work. I can talk to her after. Maybe we go to movies after work. 

OLKAN (English)

I had a friend named Olkan when I was in middle school. We shared the same desk for about two years. I was thinking, what is Olkan, what kind of a name is this; I never heard it before. He was not local to the area. I was thinking maybe in their neighborhood there are different names unlike ours. As our friendship progressed, I found out that his name was intended to be Volkan, but the registrar officer for his birth certificate omitted the “V” in his name and he happened to have his name as Olkan. I also did not have a friend named Volkan till then either’ it was hard to call him Volkan after all those times I called him Olkan. I asked him “Would you want me call you Volkan?”. He said “no, even my dad calls me Olkan now.” I was happy, he would continue to be Olkan, I didn’t have to make a change.

We had a nice friendship throughout the middle school. He taught me a lot, and I did same to him. When compared to me, he was more of a mischievous kind of a child. His lessons were not very good either. He used to teach me slang language; Olkan is the one who made me get used to cursing when I was a child. We used to study curse word pronunciation when we had break at school; I used to have so much hard time pronouncing curse words, I was not used to saying them. I started with very basic level, like “shoot, crap, bad man” even these were hard for me to say. Through the time I got used to it to a point that I was starting my each sentence “f.cking …..” when I was at the school. When I get to home I was becoming this calm and obedient Elvan. I did not curse even once outside the school somehow.

I have always been a good student in primary, secondary, middle school; even in high school. It was in such a way that a certificate of appreciation at the end of the semester was shame for me, I should have got merit certificate each time. Sometimes, I used to help Olkan study. I wasn’t a very smart student but I think I was above average. I never studied throughout my school life. If I put together all my study time together till I started college, all can equal to the time I studied for university entrance exam – if we actually call that “studying”. But anyways, while Olkan was teaching me “the real life” I was trying to explain him that he could be like me too. I don’t really know what it means “to be like me” really, cuz I was not really doing anything to be me. But, just like I needed to practice curse pronunciation in order to talk like him; he needed to struggle to get good grades or become an obedient boy. Throughout time we both changed. One day, I was climbing down the fire exit in school and I fell. I cursed immediately; when I lifted my head I saw my favorite teacher in the school. I wish I had not lifted my head. I wanted to curl up and die because of how ashamed I was. He did not say anything; he would never expect me to say anything close to this. He held my hand and helped me stand up. I walked to my class embarrassed. I couldn’t talk to anyone. Olkan asked me after the class: “What’s wrong with you? You are not talking at all.” I said, “I will not talk to you anymore, I have turned foul-mouthed kid because of you!” He said, “you have turned into a f.cking swearer; you cuss more than I do! But, you cannot stop talking to me because of that.” We made a deal: Neither of us would curse anymore; if we did our friendship would be over. I think that was one of the best things that our friendship gave him. Welcome to non-abusive world.

I think it was the second or last year in the middle school, end of the first semester. We had a new principal. For the first time in my life I was getting the highest grades in Math, 5 out of 5. We had a new Math teacher, Nilufer Kanburoglu. She hated her name being misspelled or pronounced incorrectly. That was the first thing she had thought us in the first lesson. Even now, I am paying full attention into writing her name correctly, feeling like she will come out of nowhere and yell at me.  Anyways, it was the end of the semester and our teacher was handing out report cards. She handed merits, then appreciation certificates first; she did not call my name. I was thinking something is wrong, my eyes were teary. I pulled my courage together, and asked my teacher: “Don’t I have a certificate?” in the middle of my sentence I tears roll down my cheeks. My teacher also looked surprised; how come I didn’t have a certificate. She looked at my report card and turned to me: “But you failed math sweetheart.” I can’t hold it anymore, I started crying loud. “How come!?” Teacher handed out the reports while trying to consult me. And I am trying to explain how I did good in the exams. She first tried to avoid dealing with it, thinking I might be wrong. Then she took me to the principal’s office. I explained that I got high grades on Math it is not possible for me to fail it. He laughed at me and said: “Sure it is like that.” Obviously he thought I was lying. As I kept insisting on it, he called our math teacher. She did not remember my grade but she was sure that I did not fail. The principal asked for permission to open her cabinet to check it in her notebook. After she approved they opened it and they brought in the notebook. They checked it, it turned out that I was telling the truth. An administrative mistake; they have entered numbers incorrectly while registering grades in central system. My school number was 1267, Olkan’s number was 1276. In the class list and in the teachers notebook, we were listed consecutively. So, they confused my math grade with Olkan, gave him my grade, his to me. Principal told me that they could not print a new report and a merit certificate immediately, but they would give me one sometime in second semester. (I still did not get it.) I was insisting that I could not show those reports to my family, they would be disappointed. He hand wrote my grade over and  initialed it, and said they would believe me. I was angry; thinking “they would not believe; this is exactly what Olkan does every semester before going home!” So I asked him, if you could call my dad and explain him what happened. He said “no.”

I told my dad what happened with tears in my eyes. He said, don’t worry buddy, such thing sometimes happens. (I translated this to Olkan’s talk in my mind: Sh.t happens.) Come and help me with this. The worst report card day passed like this.

Winter break was over and we were back at the school. We were talking with Olkan.

“How was your winter break?”

“It was fine.”

“You know what happened? I failed math, but somehow our teacher graded me with 5 and I passed. My parents were so happy.”

I smiled, did not say anything. Someone’s sorrow could be someone else’s happiness sometimes.

We don’t even have a photo with Olkan.. Oh well, at the time people did not carry their cameras in their pockets..

OLKAN

Olkan diye bir arkadaşım vardı orta okuldayken. Sıra arkadaşımdı, yanlış değilsem iki yıl aynı sırayı paylaştık. Olkan da neymiş nasıl bir isimdir diye düşünürdüm; duymamıştım daha önce. Çocuk bizim oralı değildi. Önceleri belki, de onların yörede böyle bir isim vardır diye düşünmüştüm. Arkadaşlık ileriedikçe öğrendim; meğer nüfus memuru kaydını yaparken ‘V’ harfini yazmayı unutmuş, herifin adı Olkan diye kalmış. O zamana kadar Volkan diye bir arkadaşım da olmamıştı, söylemesi zor geldi onca zaman Olkan diye çağırdıktan sonra. Sordum, ‘Seni bundan sonra Volkan diye çağırayım mı?’ diye. ‘Yok’ dedi; ‘babam bile Olkan diye çağırıyor.’ Sevinmiştim, Olkan yine Olkan olarak kalacaktı.

Güzel bir arkadaşlığımız oldu orta okul boyunca. O bana çok şey öğretti; ben de ona.. O bana göre daha bi fırlama, o dönem itibarı ile dersleri iyi olmayan bir arkadaştı.  Bana sokak dili öğretirdi, ağzımı küfretmeye alıştıran adamdır Olkan. Tenefüs aralarında küfür telaffuzu çalışırdık mesela; o kadar zorlanırdım, o kadar alışkın değildim küfürlü konuşmamaya. Fıkradaki Zeki Müren gibi ‘al sana pis düşman’ diyerek başladım o bile zor gelmişti. Zamanla geliştirdim tabi kendimi; okulda her cümlenin sonuna ekliyordum bir amk. Eve gelince sus pus tabi, uysal ağırbaşlı Elvan oluveriyordum. Her nasılsa bir kere bile ağzımdan kaçırmadım küfrü okul dışında. İlkokul ortaokul ve hatta lisede dersleri iyi olan bir öğrenci oldum hep. Öyle ki, teşekkür belgesi bir utanç sebebi idi benim için. Her dönem sonunda verilen takdir olmalı idi bana. Olkan’a ders çalıştırırdım bazen. Çok zeki değildim ama,  ortalamanın üstünde bir öğrenci idim sanırsam. Okul hayatım boyunca oturup ders çalışmışlığım yoktur benim. Sanırım hepsini toplasak, liseden sonraki bir yıllık arada sınava hazırlık için yaptığım çalışmaya (ona da hazırlanmak denirse tabi) denk gelir tüm okul hayatımın ders çalışma saatleri. Nihayetinde, Olkan bana biraz gerçek hayat öğretirken ben ona ben de ona benim gibi olabileceğini anlatmaya çalışırdım. Benim gibi olmak da neyse artık, çünkü ben ben olmak için çaba sarfetmiyordum. Ama aynen benim küfürlü konuşmak için alıştırmaya ihtiyacım olduğu gibi onun da iyi notlar almak, uslu çocuk olmak için alıştırmaya ihtiyacı vardı. Zamanla, ikimiz de değişiyorduk. Günün birinde acil çıkış merdivenlerinden inerken ayağım kaydı düştüm. Hemen yapıştırdım küfürü; kafamı kaldırdım başımın ucunda en sevdiğim öğretmenlerimden biri. Keşke kafamı kaldırmayayadım, yerin dibine girdim. Girsem gam yemezdim desem daha da doğru olur belki de. Hiçbir şey söylemedi, benden beklenmezdi tabi öyle bir laf. Elimden tuttu, yerden kaldırdı. Başımı öne eğip sınıfıma yürüdüm. Utancımdan kimse ile konuşamadım, o dersten sonra Olkan bana sordu. ‘Oğlum neyin var la? Hiç konuşmuyon amk.’ ‘Senle artık konuşmucam, senin yüzünden küfürbaz oldum.’ dedim. ‘Amk, sen de çok küfürbaz oldun; benden çok küfrediyon.’ dedi. Ama olmaz, niye benle konuşmuyorsun diye tutturdu. Bir anlaşma yaptık. İkimiz de küfretmeyecektik ondan sonra. Sanırım, arkadaşlığımızın ona kattığı güzel şeylerden biri de bu olsa gerek. Küfürsüz tribünlere hoş geldiniz.

Orta ikinin ikinci ya da son sınıfın ilk döneminin sonu olsa gerek. Müdürümüz yeni değişmiş. İlk defa Matematik dersinden üç sınavda da 5 alarak (notlarım da 85, 85, 85) 5 alıyorum. Yeni Matematik öğretmenimiz var, Nilüfer Kanburoğlu. İsminin yanlış söylenmesinden ya da yazılmasından nefret eder. İlk derste ilk öğrettiği şey, ismi konusundaki hassasiyeti. Şimdi bile yanlış yazmamak için azami gayret gösterdim, bir yerden çıkıp kızacakmış gibi geliyor. Karne dağıtılıyor; sınıf öğretmenimiz (ismini şimdi hatırlayamadım) önce belgeleri dağıtıyor. Takdirler bitti, ismim yok; teşekkürler bitti, ismim yok. Bir terslik var diyorum, yaşlar gözlerimin kenarına gelmiş. Cesaretimi toplayıp öğretmene soruyorum: ‘Benim belgem yok mu?’. Cümlemin orta yerinde boğazım düğümleniyor, gözümden yaş düşüyor. Öğretmenim de şaşırıyor, nasıl olmuş da belge almamışım ben. Karneme bakıyor, ‘ama yavrum matematikten zayıf almışsın’. Kendimi daha fazla tutamıyorum, ağlamaya başlamışım. Öğretmenim bana teselli vermeye çalışırken karneleri dağıtıyor. Sonrasında ben de derdimi anlatmaya çalışıyorum. Öğretmen de bell ki bir an önce tatiline çıkmak istiyor olacak ki geçiştirmeye çalışıyor. Müdüre gidiyoruz; anlatıyorum, ‘karnemde zayıf var ama ben 5 almıştım’ o da önce ‘tabi tabi öyledir’ deyip gülüyor. Beni ailesinden kaçmaya çalışan çocuklardan sanıyorlar belli ki. Israrlarım üzerine Nilüfer öğretmeni arıyorlar. Öğretmen de notumu tam olarak hatırlamıyor ama zayıf almadıgımdan emin.  Müdür öğretmenin dolabını açmak için izin istiyor, ve sonrasında not defteri geliyor. Bakıyorlar, doğru söylüyormuşum. Müdüriyet hatası; notları yanlış girmişler sisteme. Benim okul numaram 1267, Olkan ise 1276. Yoklama sırasında ve öğretmenin not defterinde alt alta isimlerimiz. Benim notumu ona onunkini bana yazmişlar. Müdür hemen karne ve takdir belgesi basamayacaklarını söylüyor. İkinci dönem bi ara karne ve Takdir belgeni vereceğiz diyorlar. (Hala almadım) Bense ‘ama ben bu karneyi nasıl gösteririm aileme’ diyorum. Karne almadan gitmem diyorum. Neden sonra, müdür karneme imzasını atarak notu elle değiştiriyor. Kızıyorum tabi. ‘Buna kim inanır; Olkan bunu her dönem kendi yapıyor eve gitmeden önce!’. Babamı arayıp telefonla söylemesini istiyorum. O da sağolsun(!) olmaz diyor.

Babama ağlayarak anlattım olanları. Olur böyle şeyler yavrum dedi. Başımı sıvazlayıp hadi gel bana yardım et dedi. Hayatımın en berbat karne gününü böylece atlatmış oldum.

Tatil bitti, okula döndük. Olkan’la muhabbet ediyoruz.

‘Nasıldı la tatilin?’

‘İyi İşte..’

‘Ne oldu biliyor musun? Ben matematikten zayıf aldım, öğretmen 5 vermiş. Bizimkiler çok sevindi.’

Gülümsedim, bir şey söylemedim. Kiminin üzüntüsü kiminin sevinci oluyormuş.

Olkan’la bi fotografımız bile yok ya la.. Eskiden herkes cebinde makine ile dolaşmıyordu tabi..