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Masukiye: Ottoman Rulers’ Evasive Destination For Love

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Masukiye and Kartepe are the possible destinations for weekend holiday. First, I would like to answer your probable questions about transportation. The distance between Istanbul and Masukiye is 128 km and it will be approximately one hour 45 minutes to drive. If you want to go by bus, you may use Efe Tour and get off Halkevi station. After, you should transfer to bus 261 and you are at Maşukiye in 25 minutes. As Maşukiye is next to Sapanca Lake and Kartepe, it will be logical decision to explore new places for one day. Also, you may optionally camp out or stay university practice hotel at affordable price.

It’s name comes from “Maşukköy”. Because of Masukiye’s original name, it was visited a lot for honeymoon and selected girls for Ottoman harem. Also, it’s vegetation is like Black Sea and you will notice the freshness when you smell out. Maşukiye looks like an oil painting because there are all features in an oil painting such as hedges, frame houses, valleys, swings, mountains. All streets of the town are named as different flowers’ name and most of the frame houses are used as restaurants and hotels.

 Sapanca

From Masukiye to Sapanca, it will last 15 minutes by car. You can have a breakfast in cafes, drink your coffee or walk near Sapanca Lake. There is an another option to hire a pedalo.

What to do?

If you go in spring, you should see the cherry orchard. Also, the flowers of cherries would be a great background for you.

There are many bike hire points. You can hire ATV or motorbike and take a nature tour.

It can be good activity to go skiing to Kartepe if you visit the Maşukiye in winter.

You can make a barbecue, play paintball and swing in the forest or visit one of Masukiye’s beautiful highlands.

What to eat?

As there are many different kind of fish farms, it is impossible to run across any of them. I suggest you to eat tile fish under the shade of trees.

One more thing to taste is absolutely cheese. Maşukiye is known as Cherkes and smoked cheese because of Cherkes population. These types of cheese are rested 3 days and serviced with the village bread prepared with sourdough. By the way, I want to remind you to enjoy the harmony of cheese and red wine😉

Interesting Facts Behind a Cup of Starbucks Coffee

Reading Time: 3 minutes

We can all agree that Starbucks is the leading coffee company both in our country, of course after than Mahmood Coffee:), and in the world. Some of you have traditional flavours like fresh filter coffee or distinctive flavours like caramel macchiato. As coffee choices may change and vary person to person, some crazy-cool facts abut that coffee brand stay there for all of us. Here is the list, enjoy it! (By the way, my favourite one is not here, it is Hot Chocolate Milano by Caffe Nero.)

1) The prices are not same at every country. The cheapest one is at New Delhi, India. The most expensive one is at Oslo, Norway.

2)Starbucks spends more money on healthcare insurance for its employees than on coffee beans. They offer health insurance to all employees including part time.

3) The company annually uses a whooping 352 million litres of milk. That equals to 155 olympic pools!

4) Starbucks was the name of the first-mate of the whale-ship Pequod, the ship in Moby Dick.

5) The brand’s logo has been updated 4 times since it was founded.

6) Starbucks uses 2.3 billion paper cups per-year. It means one-third of the world’s population.

7) The new Starbucks trenta cup is bigger than your stomach.

8) On average, two new stores have opened every day since 1987.

9) Founders of Starbucks were about to name as “Cargo House” until one of advertising agency mentioned that beginning with ‘st’ were powerful ones.

10) The profit margin in China where company opened first stores is more than any other countries.

This article was published first in Yıldız Kalemlik.

Sessizliğin Sesi Demonstration

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Sign language helps to bridge between people with hearing impairment and those who can hear or not. By using hand gestures and symbols, sign language is an effective way of interacting with the world.

Each gesture or sign has different meaning or message that we can infer directly or indirectly. Also, in terms of career, public and private institutions are looking for people  qualified with sign language apart from English.

Bakırköy Municipality every year organises sign language courses that people from every age can participate. This year again a demonstration after course was holded. As some students from our university accomplished their courses and gain right to take place in choir.

As an Yıldız Technical University Foreign Language Teaching Department Representation, we were in performance centre and had chance to make communicate with some bureaucrats.

Here is the event video, Enjoy it!

Un-Art Project Closing Speech

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Everything starts with a story. I met via diabetes Adnan Baskan who I called ‘godfather’ and I got into act about disabilities. It is resulted with this project. My name is Emin Altun, her name is Elif Tepeören and our sign language translator is Arzu Senol. We are undergraduate in Yıldız Technical University our department ıs English Language Teaching.

Our project’s name is composed of two words: unite and art. It is called Un-Art. Our project’s starting date is 1 September 2016 and expiration date is 21 April 2017. Like Olshansky says pictures are our first words. So we believed that drawing and painting studies can rehabilitate individuals. In total 40 pieces of work were produced including basic drawing studies, paintings and puzzles tables of Istanbul’s silhouette. During the project we enhanced our research with  educative videos, trips, cinemas, rhythm courses. At end of the project, partıcıpants’ communication, abstract thinking, self expression and psychomotor skills are improved. According to Gesell Development and Bender Gestalt Tests, students’ fine motor muscles and psychomotor skills showed improvement about 26.8 percent. We achieved our goal that is support of wheelchair and under-pad. In the meantime, thanks to the project association’s annual lunches were provided.

In terms of the limitations, because of technical and attendance problems we couldn’t organise additional courses as part of project. With the equipments we bought we realised that people with disabilities can be educated and employed. In spite of our limitations about time and space we provided camera training for our next project.

For their supports, I express my gratitude to our presidents of association Alev Yorgancı and Adnan Saygılı, Enader family, Ups Turkey staff, Şişli Mayorship, our painting teacher Serpil Antep, teacher of mentally handıcapped Özlem Yıldız, my friends who are ın Foreign Language Department in YTU, our values and of course our faithful mothers. I’d like to finish my speech with a quote of Sartre: “Obedient child surrenders, incompatible child takes risk; obedient child reinforces, the other carry out experiments. Rebels preserve the world to continue to riot and potentials change the world.

Thank you…

Herşey hikayeyle başlar. Ben de diyabetle manevi babam dediğim Adnan Başkanla tanıştım ve engelliler alanında faaliyet göstermeye başladım, sonucunda böyle bir proje çıktı. İsmim Emin Altun, arkadaşım Elif Tepeören ve işaret dili tercümanımız Arzu Şenol. Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi ingilizce öğretmenliği lisans öğrencisiyiz. 

Projemizin ismi sponsor firmanın ilk harfiyle başlıyor birleştirmek anlamına gelen “unite” ve sanat anlamına gelen “art” kelimelerinin birleşimiyle un-art meydana geldi. Projemizin başlangıç tarihi 1 Eylül 2016 bitiş tarihi 21 Nisan 2017’dir. Olshansky’nin dediği gibi resimler bizim ilk kelimelerimizdir. Burdan yola çıkarak çizim ve resim çalışmalarının bireyleri rehabilite edebileceğine inandık. Temel çizim çalışmaları, tablo ve İstanbul silüetli yapboz tablo olarak aşamalı eğitimlerle toplamda 40 parça eserimiz ortaya çıktı. Proje boyunca eğitici videolar, gezi, sinema, ritim kursu gibi etkinliklerle araştırmamızı zenginleştirdik. Proje sonunda katılımcılarda iletişim, soyut düşünme, kendini ifade etme ve psikomotor becerileri gelişti. Gesell Gelişim ve Bender Gestalt test sonuçlarına göre de öğrencilerin ince motor kasları ve psikomotor becerilerindeki gelişimi 26,8% olarak tespit ettik. Hedeflediğimiz tekerlekli sandalye ve hasta bezi yardımını gerçekleştirdik. Aynı zamanda proje sayesinde derneğin 1 yıllık öğle yemeği ihtiyacı karşılanmıştır.

Sınırlılık başlığı altında teknik ve katılım problemlerinden dolayı proje içerisinde ek kurslar düzenleyemedik. Aldığımız ekipmanlarla medya alanında engellilerin de daha fazla olabileceğini ve eğitilip istihdam artırılabileceğini farkettik. İmkan ve zaman kısıtlılığımız olmasına rağmen bir sonraki projemiz için kamera eğitimleri verdik. 

Bu sürece desteklerinden dolayı dernek başkanlarım Alev Yorgancı ve Adnan Saygılı’ya, Enader ailesine, Ups Türkiye ekibine, şişli belediye başkanlığına, resim öğretmenimiz Serpil Antep’e, zihinsel engelliler öğretmenimiz Özlem Yıldız’a, YTÜ Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Bölümü’ndeki arkadaşlarıma, tüm değerlerimize ve tabii ki vefakar annelerimize teşekkürlerimi sunuyorum. Konuşmamı Sartre’ın sözüyle bitiriyorum: “Yumuşak başlı çocuk teslim olur, uyumsuz çocuk kendini tehlikeye atar; yumuşak başlı çocuk pekiştirir, diğeri deneyler yapar. Asiler dünyaya isyan etmeyi sürdürebilmek için onu aynı şekilde korur, potansiyeller ise dünyayı değiştirir. 

Teşekkürler…

UTOPIA Exhibition // Emre Ezelli

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Inaugurated on April 6, Utopia exhibition will last for fourteen days at -1 Gallery, Adahan Istanbul Hotel. Emre Ezelli, who graduated from fine arts faculty as a sculptor, reinterprets cave paintings in Mountain Beşparmak known as Latmos in ancient times with the rusty and metallic materials. His descriptive works are full of woman, family, fertility and human, not hunting, wildlife and violence as the earlier times (France Lacroix).

In this solo exhibition, there are few pieces from special collections like the tree of life. His aim with the work “Couples” is to illustrate the coherence of opposites and optical illusions. In the other room, the work “Community” will be waiting for you to describe the different types of worlds and the relationships between them. In the last room, a mini cave room from Latmos will welcome you. The entrance to the room is forbidden yet when you look into it, you feel a sense of being on time travel. The show is coherent with the mystical air of -1 Gallery. Dim lights of gallery gives the minimal statues chance to manifest themselves.

opening day
the most known cave room in Latmos
“Sürekli merakım intiharımı engelliyordu.”

All in all, here is my favorite sculpture. Stay tuned for my blog post about that!