flooding and bad weather

I am officially sick of rain. Yesterday we got to come home 2 hours early because the Head of Education in Istanbul gave the order to close all schools because of the weather. We are getting TONS of rain. We hoped today would be canceled too but it wasn't. Unfortunately. After we'd been in the bus for a couple minutes this morning it started to DUMP! I've only seen worse weather once in my life. When it started pouring it was like there were 20 or so people dumping buckets non-stop on the windows.

Science Fair

So I finally have something to write about.

Today was a busy day for my family. My younger bro. Kaya went to the doctor's for his in-grown and is having surgery on Tuesday for it. My mom's program for her pre-school class was today, and I was gone all day to a Science Fair at Koç Koleji. (A majorly nice private school, just right outside of Istanbul.)

I left for the house for the science fair at 8:49 and had to be at school at 9:00. I had to run all the way to school which is usually a 25 minute walk. I ran it in 8 minutes exactly. When I got there we left almost immediately and me and my teacher rode for over an hour to there. Once we were there we signed in and set up. Then we waited for an hour. Then we went to the opening excersises. After that we got to go eat lunch in their cafateria which is fancier that a restaurant.

After that we went back to my board and sat there for another hour. My teacher wasn't supposed to be by me the whole time so she left and looked at the other peoples boards and told me that I had a good chance at it.

When the first judge came I told him about my project. (My project was Electrolysis, which means splitting water into hidrojen and oxigen, you can use these to create electricity expecially in cars ect.) It turned out that he was an American and this was one of his favorite subjects and he told me I did a perfect job explaining it and I was able to answer all his questions. My teacher who had come back and was watching me from a ways away told me that she saw him give me full points.

When the second guy came I could tell right away that this guy was bored to death. I expained my project and showed him everything. My project was about using hydrogen, but he kept asking me what oxygens speciltys were? what is the exact way energy is collected from the hydrogen burning etc. So very hard questions which i couldn't answer, so my teacher who was again looking from aways away saw him give me 0's on a third of the project so we thought my chances were toast..

However when the third judge she absolutely loved my project so i thought maybe i had a chance. When we went to the closing ceremonies(i didn't win) they had many mistakes. (each grade, 6,7,8 had 6 winners 3 for 2 subjects) For the 7th grade 3rd place they accidentely gave it to a 6th grader, and for the 8th grade 3rd place they accidentely gave it to a seventh grader, plus they forgot to tell the "model" prizes for the 7 grade.

However when the fixed the mistakes and annouced those too my teacher noticed they forgot to tell the 8th grade 3rd place award so she went up and told them after we left. The lady up there said she completely forgot and asked my teacher if she knew who Yusuf Çakır was so that they could run and give it to them. My teacher called me to the stage and said "he's right here!" So I ended up getting 3rd place after all!!! and I have a trophy sitting in my room to prove it.

Result of the Presentation

I got to do the presentation about U.S. today, and I was told last minute that we were in charge for 80 minutes for each class, we had planned on 40. So I officially talked for more than to 2 1/2 hours and have nearly lost my voice. They all ended up going better than I planned. A lot of people didn't understand of course but there were several who were listening intently and would not stop asking me questions.

After my first presentation, I heard an english teacher tell a different teacher that it sounded like i was trying to advertise both football and country music, i couldn't help laughing so I think they figured out that I heard them.

We were free for the whole day so we didn't have to go to any lessons. (We were presenting for 3/4 of them anyways) but we still did for a little because of exams next week and we didn't want to fall too far behind.

P.S. If you notice a difference in my grammer, you should know that it's because my mom forced me to do it.

Presentation

sorry, been forever since i've posted but i haven't been on the computer much lately.

So last thursday i had to a presentation on the States for a project for school. (Performans ödevi) So i did a project on what i know, and most of them were shocked. they thought that all of u.s. was like New York with all the skyscrapers and such. So i showed them pics of Orem, and other places and stuff and i think they got the idea that u.s. isn't the place where eveeryone are billionaires living in skyscapers or mansions.

Well my teacher liked my project a lot. So now I am going to 2 different classes to do 30 minute presentations about U.S. Then my group (for the "meet turkey" presentation) are going to do the same classes right after each of my presentations for ten minutes. (each lesson is 40 minutes)

After that, i get to go to the High School to do it to the Prep. (hazırlık) class and give them the same presentation following our groups presentation. Only one problem for my with that. That class contains the only people in the entire school that i'm scared of. i mean, come on, i'm a nearly 6 foot tall, 175 pound FORIEGN 8th grader with a lot of muscle(jk), so most people, even high school leave me alone. but the kids i have to present to i met last year, (they were 8th graders) mostly from the basketball team. They were mad that some stupid 7th grader got to play the whole game instead of them and they thought i was the reason they lost. so they hated me and every time i saw them would try to beat me up/swear at me until i left or puched one of them(i wish) but now they've got this other big huge guy with them whose joined their "gang" so now i'm kinda hoping that i get the huge male english teacher that they actually respect instead of some weak/really short female one that can't do anything when the jump me when i walk into the classroom alone.

so i am kinda nervous, wouldn't you be???

Turkish book: "Gazi ve Fikriye"

For Tukish and Social Studies I have to read a book for some upcoming exams. It is called Gazi ve Fikriye. It is about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. (The founder of the "Turkish Republic") I personally vote it one of the most boring books of all time for these reasons.
1. It is all in oldern style tukish so even if I knew turkish, parts of this wouldn't make much sense.
2. It's a romantic book mixed in with a bunch of confusing history.
3. Tons of political talk in it.
4. 290 pages of pure confusness.
And this is just a small list. (i can go on forever-trust me)

My first exam for it is for Turkish on Friday, where 20% of my grade comes from it. Then next Friday I have my Social Studies exam where 50% comes from this book. Right now i am on page 228 and hope to reach at least 257 tonight. So I better go start reading.

Update and "graduation" Pictures

It's been a long time since i last posted so here's an update. On Monday I went with my bro, and two younger sisters to Ryan Millar's volleyball game with my dad. They won! Then after the game Ryan gave us each one of his old jerseys. (later he also gave one to the american boy our age Tyce) Then, because they won, they got to play again the next day. Most of my family went along with the Reynolds but me and my friend (Murat Soysal) had been planing to get together on that day so I went to his house and played DJ Hero with him for 3 hours. (My hand still hurts!!) It was a lot of fun and we're planning for him to come to my house on tuesday.

Then on friday I got the pictures i paid 45 freakin' lira (30 bucks) for. They actually turned out pretty cool. I got a cool little fold-out booklet with the 4 pics that i chose. (they were about the size of the average novel cover) Also i got several copies of each of the pic walled sized. plus the same amount again but they were slightly larger. Plus a DVD with the 30 pics that they took of me and a CD to download the 4 pics that I paid for to the comp. I already posted them as you can see.

Pictures and Doctors

So, today before I went to school I had to wonder for the first time in a couple years, what the heck am I going to where to school today? We were going to have our yearbook pics today. So I finally just grabbed a pair of jeans and a random t-shirt I went to school. Ended up everyone who wore whatever they wanted got a lecture. (Aparrently, the person who told us to wear whatever we wanted was "misinformed.") For the picture we were going to wear a big, official looking graduation uniform. Including the big cap thing. (We are "graduating" out of middle school) Funny thing was that some of the girls spent hundreds of lira on new clothes, hair, and make-up, all down the toilet. So after getting my picture taken I got to go out and choose which pictures I wanted to keep. So I narrowed it down to about 4-5 good ones. Then the lady said what about just keeping these three. So I agreed. Then I went up to the other lady to pay, and the lady says that will be 45 lira. I'm like what the heck! 45 TL for 3 stinkin' pictures. I ended up buying them anyway, but there goes ALL my iTouch money that I've been saving for since before christmas!

Now the doctors part. So towards the end of school today my dad came and picked me up to take me to the doctors for my knees. They've been hurting me since I was 11 and the doctor said that it should by gone by the time I'm thirteen, but now I'm fourteen and it's still not healed. So we went to the doctor here and he said he knew exactly what it was, it's called "Osgood Schlatter's Desease" He said that I should have it for another 5-6 years and that if it's not gone by then I will probably have to have a surgery for them to rebuild my knees. Right now there is absolutely nothing they can do for it, except where some special band when I play sports.

Plus on Saturday I went to the eye doctor and have to get knew glasses.