Back in Izmir

Me competing in Uluday-Tutyeli

I feel like this picture but more of a "full throttle towards the dark side".. 

I am back in Izmir. I am so tired since I stayed up two nights: One reading Devlet Ana by Kemal Tahir -beautiful book- and one travelling. I slept on and off most of the time today. 

I was feeling really down for couple of days because of the life I am leading. But then I have to remember I chose this, sometimes it's really hard, but everything comes with a package. This life comes with a lot of travelling and carrying lots of luggages and moving too much. Oh, I just want to be spoiled and be sorry for myself..

.. But of course I should not and will not. Travelling part is really nice. I love it... And I did some practice before I moved my stuff yesterday, it was a short but a nice one. I felt how much tension was built in my muscles only in four days. No yoga today. I would like to start an intensive ashtanga month. Every life needs a center, a yardstick and I guess mine is my yoga practice...

I will be in Istanbul next week. Missed my friends.. Really looking forward to seeing them..

A day off...

My room in Cologne, Germany. In the mirror: Me

I took a day off from my daily routine yesterday.  I was already taking a break from all the written assignments but then 11 pm at night I was getting stressed about “must sleep soon”, and then suddenly realized a day off is a day off also from these things, so I let myself goof around until 5 am. It felt soooo good J

I will also not look at my foreword today. It's done, finished, finito… However I must proof read it. For that I need to be alienated from my work, need to forget the logical connections in the paragraphs and the sentences. So that I can look with another eye. Tomorrow I will read it and send it to my two professors for comments. Oh I am so glad I am done with that. Of course there will be corrections and more editing. But the main work about the translation and everything related to it are finished.

I think we will go to shopping and some archeological site visiting today.

Have a wonderful weekend...

Love, Ozge

Life Coaching for you and for me

That's two of my presents together. My bookmark and my lovely book. I love both of them. Already reading my "I am a Strange Loop" by Hofstadter. He is a very interesting person. I really like the way he writes and thinks.

The Lesson 1 of the life coaching for academics (this is also for me)

Studying

If you planned to study for hours and cannot sit in front of your computer or book, just say that you will spend half an hour on your work. Half an hour is better than nothing, and you almost always will spend more time than that.

Moreover, if you plan to sit for 2 hours or so, you always end up with dawdling on something else in the beginning for  a while. In order to avoid that, program your mind to work/ study and exactly know from where to start in the beginning, before you sit... That's a lifesaver. You can immediately start working.

Applications and jobs

Do not think about the bureaucracy in advance... When the time comes, it will be SO easy. Hence, in the beginning, just think about what you want. Try to imagine yourself after you get in... wherever you like.

When you try to decide what you want to do in life also, try to imagine yourself doing that. If you cannot imagine that, it's even good for a structure to think about what you do after you finished your day with your job, what time you get up, whether you have kids in the house. You might be amazed how these things can make you decide what you want to have as a job in your life..

It feels good to remember these. I hope it works for you guys too...

To be continued...

About Me

I can change my mind about social life ten times a day... Learning too much in too little time tells me not to have strong opinions about things, but that really pisses some people off. And, me, hating conflicts, after being a wild conflicting person for 28 years, is trying to have ideas, opinions about things just not to make people really mad or disappointed in me. Well not true, my PhD thesis is about finding objective truths... So deep down inside I kinda know that there are some absolute truths. Are there? See... On a good day, I spend couple of hours thinking about these things in this way...I don't know maybe I do not... Can I just stop? Please?

Apart from torturing my self as in the above paragraph, I do ashtanga yoga everyday, and love libraries and having the excuse to study when there is a social event that I do not want to join. Was that just too much information?

I want to be good at crafts, especially knitting but I just spend too much time on the internet when I do not study. Well, when I study too. Sigh... I should really stop that. So anyway, I really want to be good at crafts. You can find some of my creations in this blog. Just click the craft label in the labels.. See how organized I am? That's another thing I want to be really good at, organizing. I am obsessed with and never find myself adequately good at it.

Having studied, trained, worked and traveled all my life I have lot's of advices, cannot keep them in and they are just pouring out. If you need any coaching just email me at ozge dot ekin at gmail dot com and let me be the guide, I am really good at it, and I just love guiding. Seriously..

Oz