i cant believe its weekend!

from wednesday 03:41am: Caddebostan seaside was fun. 27C which was nicely cool compared to daytime and we had wine and snacks and whatnot. good times. there was Senni, Melisa, Emi, Tuncay, Mehlika and Nilla and her friend came later and i wonder if i forgot anyone?

im wondering in how many places am i online at the same time? FB, G talk, messenger... sometimes skype too. what else has a chat option?

G+ is actually annoying me as sending a private message is so hard. or perhaps its a matter of getting used to.

i got a message from Gürkan, in FB, i had added him cos we were contacts in deviantART but to be honest i have no recollection of that anymore. anyway, he messaged me the other day cos hed noticed that im in turkey. we exchanged a couple messages and thought it would be nice to meet. i was about to delay it, but then he signed in at a cafe on Istiklal, near my workplace so i said he could come over here to meet up. so he did and turns out he is cool and there is a website project i might be able to work on as a freelancer. yay for networking!

ugh now im getting tired for not sleeping enough last night.

i am feeling philantropic today and reading about Changemakers and Kiva.org and so on. microloans at Kiva start at 25$ which is not much... and 'kiva' means 'nice' in finnish. i read Bill Gates is supporting a project to invent the toilet again -one that could be used in areas where water is less than available. im now thinking that me and doctor should do something in our local community, i dont know what though. food seems like the most obvious thing. although round where we live, even the street dogs are fat. but surely someone somewhere could use some help. hmm. also, why isnt there (maybe there is but i dont know?) a non-profit school that would teach english to those who cant afford good schools round here? it wouldnt require much, a space and volunteer teachers. istanbul is full of english teachers so its not too optimist to think that a few might be interested.

speaking of 'local community', Hürriyet Daily News reported on the results of World Values Survey that was carried out in Turkey as well. Basically the results say that conservatism is on the rise. i think i could have guessed that, AKP winning the elections was a sign of it. specifically, the results revealed that

• 23% of population think it is ok for man to marry more than 1 woman (10% in earlier survey in 1996) (note: polygyny is illegal in Turkey)
• 84% of people don't like the idea of having gay neighbors
• 44% think that restaurants should be closed during Ramadan (39% in 1997 poll)
• 60% of participants (women and men) said women should obey men
• 33% (!!!!!) of respondents said that some women deserve to be beaten by their husbands (19% in 1996 poll)
• 70% said that children might be damaged if their mother works outside home

also, 6 out of 10 respondents said that feel that turks should involve more religious facts in their lives instead of science. the survey results showed that men and women alike support male dominance :(

im not very happy with this!

on positive news, Turkey's chief cleric disapproves of violence against women

Turkey is amazing in that there are these contrasts... lots of shit, bureaucracy and injustice, but also so much warmth and opportunities.

since i was out on wednesday im definitely staying in tonight. also i am doing some work for Arttu's company, tonight is a good time for that. some website testing stuff :)

tomorrow or sunday then, well, there is a festival of some sort at the Bilgi university, http://www.sundaysky.net/en/default.html Tuncay studied there and knows what this is about. so maybe some of us are going there during the weekend.

i read that Prince found his danish bass player from MySpace. i find it incredible that someone is still using MySpace. in fact, i find it incredible that anyone ever did. setting up a profile, ok, but what would u actually DO with it? a bloody ugly thing, full of spam...

*listening to Prince's Little Red Corvette*