All posts by z.akca

Final Blog Post

Uncategorized

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/this-is-fine-meme.jpg

This meme represents how I’ve been dealing with everything since I started college here at Baruch. Being away from family and friends has been hard and new friendships (although they aren’t hard to find) make me anxious and I don’t know how to act around people. This is a new environment and I’m trying to really be okay and get used to everything but sometimes I feel “just fine”. Which actually isn’t fine at all…

PS: I wrote this about 3 days ago and I forgot to post it, sorry for the late post.

Lost and Found

Uncategorized

Istanbul… That’s where I’m from, a gorgeous, exotic city. You can sit at the coast of the Bosphorus and breath in the city. Close your eyes, and just listen. Become one with it. In that way, the city is often romanticized by authors, poets, painters. Once the capital of a great empire. When you are born there, you are automatically expected to carry the burden of history. Why would it be a burden, most would ask. I could talk about social oppression of women, the way female students are viewed but these are all out there. There isn’t much to say about them, nothing I could elaborate. It is a burden because it requires all citizens to put on a brave face, carry elegance along with them anywhere. Yet, most believe their brave faces will be enough so they do not hold the elegance. With all the hustle and bustle of the chaos of the city, lately I had forgotten who I was, who I wanted to be.

Believe it or not, the city most of you are dying to visit one day, became my cage, as I tried to fit in each and every day. Coming here, to New York City, was my rescue. My acceptance letter was my savior. I’ve been here only two months, and I can feel it. I feel more confident. I feel like I have found myself. I now belong somewhere. Here, I’m not pushed around or seen as the awkward girl in the corner. Here, I’m as out there as I want to be, here I can be whoever I want to and I’ve only begun to discover who I am. There is more to come, and everything coming my way can only be better. And you know what I will embrace what I was, the lost girl who didn’t belong and build on it all in the pursuit of becoming someone the world will remember. That’s what we all want after all, to be remembered… Not only by our families and friends but also by those strangers on the other side of the world…

Istanbul on a clear day

A World Where Roses Bloom

Blog Post 1

I’m a person with many interests and desires in life, this shows mostly in the music I listen to. Music to me is a way of expressing myself, a way of cheering myself up, and it’s mostly the reason I I have an emotional connection with most songs I usually listen to. What you see, is a small portion of what I would listen to everyday.

As an international student, I sometimes need a reminder of home, of memories and friends and the first four songs in my playlist represent a part of those reminders. These used to be our go to songs with my best friends, we’d listen to them every time we got together. We were so obsessed that even when we went out we would make the places we were regulars at to play the songs we wanted to and they often did. Especially, Escape by Jack Johnson became “our song” with my best friend and now I play it to feel as if she was around and sometimes this even helps me cope with a bad day.

The next three songs are my go to “feeling good” songs, if I’m feeling down or just tired these songs always seem to put a smile on my face. Any song by Ed Sheeran is a perfect example of this, but I put in I’m a mess because the melody is soothing and even though it’s a song about being confused, it somehow makes me feel better.

The last four songs (including Feeling Good by Nina Simone which is a part of the above category too), are those I like to sing. La Vie en Rose has recently been my favourite because it is a cute story to tell since it is a story of a woman in love. A little fall of rain on the other hand, is from my favourite musical “les miserables” and the second biggest song of my favourite character, Eponine. My dream is to be her on stage one day.

And finally, thank you for the music (originally by ABBA but this cover speaks to me more),as the songs says I’ve been singing since I can remember. Music is the biggest aspect of my life and it is personal and emotional for me, even movie scores are moving and meaningful if listened to with a calm ear. Overall, music is my life and my whole library is a long and detailed soundtrack of my life.