Corner turned?

Last night Meltem and I went to a small dinner that my university (Yeditepe) was throwing in honor of a visit from Orhan Kayaalp, who is (a) an economics professor at the City University of New York, (b) a personal friend of the rector and vice-rector, and (c) the father of one of my colleagues in the History Department. It was a darn fine occasion. The restaurant where it was held was beautiful, situated on the top floor of the university's Faculty of Dentistry building on swanky Bagdat Caddesi (Baghdad Avenue). It wasn't very big, just a bunch of us from the History Department and a few other friends of Prof. Kayaalp. But it was extremely nice. I got to chat informally with these, my new colleagues, and they are really good people. I got the same feeling from the department meeting we had last week: this is a close-knit department in which everybody genuinely likes each other and there's a strong sense of solidarity. Meltem and I had nice chats left and right, and even discovered mutual interests with some colleagues; for example, the husband of Pinar, the daughter of Prof. Kayaalp and the first person I met in the History Department, is really into walking in the Belgrade Forest (which we did a couple weeks ago and I blogged about here). So we may do a double-date amidst the trees sometime next year. On the whole, it was just a really nice evening and it definitely improved my impression of what working for Yeditepe will be like. I've already been told that the two (yes, two) students who will be in my Islamic Civilization class next semester are real go-getters – 'twill be quite a nice change from the bricks I've been struggling with in my Humanities 101 class this term. So, as the title of this post suggests, I'm hopeful that I've turned a corner as regards work, and that I can look forward to a much better semester in the spring.