I wanted to share this song with you. It is related to my writing about Circassian Exile. It is an elegy about exile. The song is in Circassian language. It is about people's sorrowful memories about the exile. It reflects how much they suffer when they forced to leave their homes and relatives. They leaved their homeland, their family passed away while they were trying to arrive another country. They saw many people died. Many of them couldn't see a land, their ship sank in the middle of nowhere. They suffered too much while struggling to survive. This song reflects all this suffer and loss. I couldn't find the lyrics so probably it would mean nothing to you, but at least you know what it is about. :)

SHEIKH ŞAMİL and CIRCASSIAN EXILE

        SHEIKH ŞAMİL

     

    He is one of the most impressive figures of Caucasian history. Most successful resistance aganist Russian occupation occured under his leadership. His aim was to collect all Caucasians under a roof. He became very successful in a short time. He collected all the Chechens who had been fighting aganist Russians unsystematically. He had about 60.000 equipped soldier aganist Russian army. He secured victory countless times aganist czar eventhough his soldiers were less than Russian's. 

        CIRCASSIAN EXILE

    Czar was determined to invade Caucasus. Russia, which wanted to take control of the Caucasus, made Caucasian Committe hatch a plan aganist Sheikh Şamil in 1838 in Petersburg. According to this plan, one third of the Caucasian people were going to be banished and their lands were going to be given to Russians. Caucasians were getting more and more powerful day by day. After Crimea War ended, czar sended more soldier to Caucasus and became more powerful aganist Sheikh Şamil. Russian soldiers fought aganist Caucasians violently. They were cruel to Caucasian people even to women and children. When Russian had the edge over Caucasians, some tribes struck a deal with czar. When Sheikh Şamil remained with less than a hundred people, he had to surrender in 1859. 

      After Russia defeated Caucasians, they immediately implemented their plan. They announced that the people who didn't leave their home would be exiled to various parts of Russia as captives. For this reason, Caucasians who consider captivity and dependence as most ignominious attitude had to leave their beautiful homeland.

Between 1859-1864, thousands of Caucasian people were forced to leave their homeland. They exiled to many diffirent countries by ships. Most of them perished before they could land. Many ships sank short after they sailed because there were more people than it should have been. Many people froze to death. Many people died because of hunger. 

 



     Circassian Exile is one of the most important events in Caucaus history. This shameful event affected their economic, political, social order in a negative way. One of the most influential effect of this exile, in terms of social structure, is that many Caucasian people sold as slaves or maids.
    WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT DARK DAY....

TRAVELLING

          I think travelling is one of the most difficult parts of being student in another city. Going back your home is really hard especially if your home is away from where you stay. As each student does, I am looking forward to go home when I am in Ankara, but my home is so far away that it is frightening me to travel for eleven hours. I am living in Odemis/ Izmir. From Ankara to Izmir it takes nine hours, then I have to go Odemis for another two hours by bus.

    Going home by bus takes a lot of time. As I said it takes eleven hours and I think it is a real time wasting. But it is not that difficult to go by bus. I go to ASTI half an hour before my bus leaves and wait for a short time. That's it. But because it lasts too much to go home, I am really bored when I go by bus.

      So, I made my decision. This time I chose to go by plane. I thought it would be easier and faster. It was faster, of course, but I am not sure whether it was easier or not. It took an hour to arrive Izmir from Ankara but it was not that easy to arrive airport. Firstly, I had to go to ASTI because my friend and I were going to go from there to airport. I waited there for my friend about an hour. After she came we waited for EGO about half an hour. Then it took about another an hour to arrive airport. But it didn't end, of course. We were there before 11, but our plane was going to take off at 12. After check in etc. finished we waited there again. Eventually we could get in plane and take off. It was really amazing to see Izmir from plane. When we landed, after an hour, I took a deep breathe. It was over eventually :)          

           

                          

    from ''DON'T MAKE A WAVE COMMITEE'' to ''GREENPEACE''

    When it was established in 1970, the purpose of that committee was to stop the second nuclear weapon test. Founders of the committee were Dorothy and Irving Stowe, Marie and Jim Bohlen, Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe and Bob Hunter. Its first managers were Stowe, Bohlen and a student named Paul Cote.

    Bill Darnell, a Canadian ecologist, found a name defining committee's movement aganist nuclear weapon and concerns about planet's future. As they were leaving after the meeting, someone raised two fingers and said ''Peace!'' and Bill said ''Let's make it Green Peace.''. Jim Bohlen's son having trouble with making the two words fit on a lapel button linked them together as new name of the committee: ''GREENPEACE'' ...

     Greenpeace exists because this fragile earth deserves a voice. It needs solutions. It needs change. It needs action.

    Greenpeace is an organization which devotes itself to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace. Greennpeace is present in 40 countries with national or regional offices in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Pacific. Greenpeace organizes activities which are based on ''scientific datas''. 

    Peaceful protests which are staged to bear witness environmental crimes and to pressure on offenders by attracting attention of public opinion are only 'shopwindow' of analyses, reports, all works including discussions with officials.

    Greenpeace is one of the few organizations about environment suggesting plans and making them accept and influencing international agreements.

When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can't eat money...

CONTEXUAL GRAMMAR EXERCISE 1

#1 Our beagle loves to hunt. As soon as someone opens the back door for her, she barrels down porch and stepps the yard instantly.Then she begins running back and forth across the lawn in ecstasy. Her nose cruises the wet grass for smells of cats, rabbits and other presences too subtle for human detection. While sniffing, she spins her tail in quick circles first clockwise then counterclockwise. These two activities always occur together. They seem to propel her along.


#2 The Government Printing Ofiice in Washington D.C., is a source of much useful information despite the fact that few people know about it. The GPO publishes pamphlets and books on a vast number of subject which range from the dangers of X-rays from home TV sets to the identification of mushrooms. About 27,000 publications are offered through the Superintendent of Documents many of which are inexpensive and for some of which there is no charge at all.


#3 There was a man who reaped America's first fortune. His name was John Jacob Astor and he was a lowborn, uneducated German immigrant. He made his living by trading Indian furs. As he never learned to speak English properly, he carried on his business to the end in an accent which was redolent of the Hamburg gutters.

Video Reflection Assignment

    In the video, each student has it's own reason. For example Linxi,the girl from China, chose an American university because of the high grades required by the universites in her country. And she thinks that American schools offer more opportunities for practise. Krishna, Dutch girl, finds American education system better than European systems. She likes that American education system is based on creativity and teamwork. Arata, boy from Japan, says he got  used to study in a foreign country because he had been England and Canada for his high school education.

    They heard about ONU in different ways. Linxi chose the university with the help of an agency in her country. Krishna consulted her grandfather who has been living in USA for 22 years and one of his friend graduated from there recommend the university them so she chose the university. 

    There are some diffirences between American education system and others. For instance, in Japan universities require an entrance system and when students choose their departmant, they can not change it later. In Europe, there is a strict education program. They give students books and planning and that's it. But American education system is more flexible and you have a chance to do more than studying. 

    The cost of living and studying in USA is depend on many factors such as housing, boarding, fees you have to pay and depertmant you studying. It's approximately 30-35 thousand dollars.

    They had some benefits  from living abroad. They found a chance to know America and American culture better. They broke their borders, met new friends from a new country and had chance to experience living in another country.

    They experienced culture shock naturally. Linxi found it strange that in America people wear shorts in winter even when the weather is freezing. Because he live in a close culture in Japan Arata was surprised when he saw that people say what you think directly but he loved it. 

   I would like to have such an experience too but the cost of something like that, living in a diffirent country, being alone there and trying to deal with difficulties by myself frighten me. I would be an incredible opportunity for me to experience such thing. Studying a foreign language in your hometown is really difficult because you speak this language only when you are in lesson. Outside you are speaking your mother tongue so it is in vain to try master the language you learn. So it would be a great chance to improve my language.

love this song