Granpa Moon Game

    Tonight there is a full moon in the starless night sky of Istanbul. I have to tell his story.

    Full moon has a very special place in our relationship with my boyfriend. We see the "Granpa Moon" (that is how children call him in Turkish) as a protector of our relationship and us personally. It may be because of that he was in the night sky, watching over us, at times when we were really happy and joyful. Every time he smiled upon us at times of happiness, we looked up and thanked him and prayed him to keep protecting our love and asked for more happiness. I know it sounds veeery cheesy, but we are such romantics, that we don`t care how other people would think of us and about our little game of love.

   I have another game to share with you: 

   Granpa Moon Game

   I had this weird game of mine since I was little. I would look at the moon, not just the full moon but every state of moon is important to me, and I would interpret his expression (the moon is a round cute face in my imagination), his emotional state and what he is doing. Some days (or should a say nights), he would be very happy like he has seen an old friend while he was wandering the streets of the old city, or some days he would look sad or sleepy or angry or whatever. I would play that game every time I encounter him in the sky. For example, the other morning, there was a half moon on the morning sky and it looked completely like a juicy slice of melon. I was happy for some minutes.

    After playing many times, I came to realize that what I attributed to be the Granpa`s mood is in fact my mood at the moment. In an unconscious way, I was analyzing myself and than making a judgment about it and than expressing it in a quite implicit way. Granpa Moon was my shrink for long years. I do not recall that I have told anyone about my story with the moon. I taught the game to my boyfriend though. he has been playing with me for some time now. I wonder how he feels while playing. Maybe I will ask next time.

    Although, as human beings, we are capable of being happy over very little details of ordinary life, it is that most of the time we don`t pay attention to our surroundings, small details or very obvious big things around us. I am not saying that everyone can be happy by merely looking at the moon, but why not try playing my game?

Let's Talk About Sex!

    I'm taking a gender studies course on human sexuality this semester. It is the first week of school and I'm doing some reading about the historical aspects of the topic.

    There is a part about the social constructionist view. It summarizes the sexual script discourse of Gagnon and Simon . They basically argue that our perception of our sexuality is a product of our social interactions -or something like that :P-. It is also argued that our sexuality continually reconstructed by experiences both internal and external. Three dimentions are given for sexual scripting (i.e. "the processes of interpretation and negotiation of the layered symbolic meanings by which the self is created" (p. 15)): intrapsychic, interpersonal and cultural.

    Especially the interpersonal dimention captured my attention, for it emphasizes the everyday nature of sexuality. I will quote here:

    "Interpersonal scripting emerges from and is deployed within everyday interaction, not only in negotiating sexual activities but also in talking about sex with others." (p. 16)

    Upon reading above text, I stopped there for a second and reflected upon my personal history. I realized that in the course of past 2-3 years, while growing as a person and developing a Self, I experienced a remarkable change in how I see sexuality and how I conceptualize my own sexuality. Everything related to that change in Self happens gradually and it is not independent of time and space. As I have got more comfortable talking about such matters with others and encountered more people, every one of them with their distinct self and sexuality, the changes I'm experiencing became more liquid, I'm becoming more flexible, yet more solid at the same time.

    I don't know if I'm making any sense to you. Sometimes an urgent need for expression emerges from within. A shortest moment of enlightenment manifests itself through my writing.

    Lastly, I would like to share a random experience I have had yesterday. There was a moment when I saw a part of  myself in another person and it lead me to thinking...

    

    A year ago or so, a friend of mine was giving me advices on how to overcome the negativity of a break-up and forget about the ex-boy/girlfriend. At one point he said that he went through a period of "ruthless unconditional sex" during the process of recovery. I was shocked for a moment, because up until that moment my perception/conception of him was more of a conservative individual. I never thought that there would be such a turning point in my life, both in terms of the quality of our relationship as friends and the realization about my misconceptions of people around me. Moreover, it made a contribution to my view of sexuality as an everyday notion. My friend being so open and open-minded helped me become a better person.

    

    Yesterday, when I was chatting with another friend about sexuality and my problems, I got a comment like "I didn't know that you were such an open person, before we started talking a few months ago." Apparently, he thought of me as a more conservative person.

    Isn't it funny that no one actually knows the other person unless he really talks with the other in an open, unprejudiced and straightforward way?

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References

Jackson S. and Scott,S. (2010). "Conceptualizing Sexuality: From Kinsey to Queer andBeyond," , Chapter 1 in TheorizingSexuality. Maidenhead: Open University Press, pp. 5-23.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_script

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PS. If you think there has been any act of plagiarism throughout the text please warn me about it by e-mail or comment. It would be an unintentional mistake, since I'm still an amateur on writing papers.

Mixed Up: About Work, School and Everything Else

     I`m so sorry that I couldn`t update my blog ever since I`ve started working full-time. As I had expected, working full-time is a pain in the a... I`m content about my job though. Managing social media accounts of our clients is okay. Enough about the job. Let`s talk about fun things.

     I`ve been experimenting with my cooking. Last couple of weekends I tried different recipes. A salad with broccoli and cauliflower and different types of muffins. Although first muffins were complete disaster, I managed to make good ones last night. I will post the recipes very soon. I have taken some photos of my raspberry muffins.

     Tomorrow starts the school!! Omg, I never thought I would be so happy. After working full-time for three weeks, going back to school is like going back to kindergarten. Only problem is that my advisor doesn`t approve my schedule because there one or two hours of conflict with some of my classes. It will be fine though. I`ll take care of it. 

     Another thing about the lost three weeks is that, since I got tired of working working and working, which I think decreased my creativity and effectiveness and a great deal of happiness, I experienced some tense unhappiness and anxiety about my love life. Valentine`s day was both a disappointment and a step forward to healing. I was a bit neurotic that day. I got disappointed because not everything went how I wanted it to. Then I fell again into the deep dark places of my mind and got an acute depression for a short while. 

     Saturday morning I met with a friend from my department who has been of great help to me for the last year. We talked about some teachings of Buddhism and so. I asked for help on how to overcome my negativity and start living in the moment. He gave me a couple of tips:

     1- First, you have to BELIEVE that you will get what you want

     2- Be POSITIVE in your ACTIONS and THOUGHTS

     3- There is a TIME for everything and it`s not in your control, so be PATIENT

     4- IMAGINE yourself as you have what you want

     I didn`t have time to go to the gym for a while. Yesterday morning I could finally do some workout. It would be great if I didn`t wake up this morning to find my body in pain all over. I ran to the living room, which is the biggest room of our flat and started doing some yoga. In approximately 5 minutes I was feeling much better. I am also planning to start taking some yoga classes with my friends. We`ll see how it goes.

     That`s all for today. Recipes will come soon. Hopefully I will read some more books too. I forgot to mention, one of my classes for this semester involves creative writing. I am looking forward to school to begin.