First thing first.... It's my birthday! As I say every year, I am officially old! (well... I think I said that last year, anyways). It's still early , but so far to celebrate I have confirmed the date of my skype interview for the pre-college program I hope to enroll in next year and looked up some interview tips.  Also, homemade lemonade for breakfast. yum. My seventeenth year is off to a great start!

I get the distinct impression I will be going out with my host sister Cemre to celebrate.  It sounds like she's inviting some people from school along, so we'll see how this goes.  Knowing me, I would just as soon be curled up with a good book, but I'm sure I'll have a good time either way.

I laughed today looking at the Facebook greetings I'm getting.  It seems like Turks have very specific greeting for everything. In English, there are a whole variety of things you say when welcoming someone  to your home: "Welcome, come in, nice to see you";  when you give someone a meal: "enjoy your meal, Bon appetite"; and when someone is ill... well you get my drift.  In Turkish, there is a single thing you say for each of these situations: Hos Geldin, Afiyet Olsun, and Gecmis olsun respecively. There are many more examples of this. However, for birthdays this is quite the opposite.  In English we are pretty much limited to "Happy Birthday" and in Turkish there is no set greeting! This explains the "Happy New Years" the president of my rotary club posted (in English). In Turkish, one of the things you might say for birthdays is Mutlu yillar, which translates to Happy New Year! It actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it.



--- On a side note ---

I am entering a contest to try and win a senior photo session from the fabulous Becky Birch-Gutierrez.  If you could click and vote I would appreciate it :-)