Finally feeling productive...

I have now spent a total of 8 days at my internship. I would say that I am pretty much the glue holding this company together, but that would clearly be a lie. As an intern for the past 7 workdays I really haven't done anything for the company because there isn't anything for me to do. If I was going to redo this program I would have come in October because Turkish students don't go back to school until the end of September. Anyways, yesterday I was finally somewhat productive. It was a great feeling. I never thought I would actually be asking for work! Yesterday my boss asked me to work with my roommate Ilhan on a presentation that they will use next week in Singapore and then in Australia. Ilhan speaks English semi well in that I am able to understand him 90% of the time. 10% of the time I understand the words he is saying but not his meaning. He is very entertaining and doesn't have a filter so I enjoy speaking with him because he always has interesting/funny things to say. Two nights ago he told me I sound like an "educated black girl." Now this might be the best compliment that has ever been paid to me, but I couldn't understand what brought him to this conclusion.

Anyways back to the presentation. We spent two hours working and didn't even come close to finishing. He kept arguing with me over every single word. For example, we were trying to define Eduyork's purpose. I wanted to keep using the words "mission" and "goal", but those were not acceptable to him. At one point I suggested using the word "help" because ultimately that is what Eduyork does. The company helps students find jobs in the US. He told me "Eduyork is not a nonprofit and we don't help people." After this I started slowly losing my patience.  I wanted to remind him that I was the native English speaker and to trust me, especially since they would be presenting this to other native English speakers. While it was rather annoying, it got me thinking about the connotation of words. There may be a direct translation for certain words in Turkish, but they don't carry the same connotation as they do in English. It is amazing how people can pack so much meaning into one simple word. I kept thinking about this idea for the rest of the day. As I watched my new favorite Turkish TV show "Kuzey Güney", a Turkish spin off of "Rich Man, Poor Man," I realized there are at least three different ways to say "thank you" in Turkish depending on the situation. They have the simple thanks and thank you, but when you want to thank someone for preparing a meal you have to use a different phrase.  I am sure there are even more ways to say thank you that I haven't even learned. It is confusing at first, but really interesting when you start to think about it. I hope to slowly learn more phrases and to be able to speak basic Turkish. Everyone speaks Turkish at the office and I hear it 24/7 so I think this is a reasonable goal .