My favorite vacation spot – Kaş in the city of Antalya, Turkey – made the list of world’s sexiest beaches.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.concierge.com/ideas/romantic/tours/2515?page=1

Now, I don’t know how a beach could be sexy but Kaş is an awesome place. The beaches and the sea are gorgeous. It is a great diving location. It is close to the mountains so you could go hiking too.

Check out http://turkeytravelplanner.com/ to find out more about travelling to Turkey.

My cell phone sucks so bad, I can’t stand it anymore. Its antenna is broken and falls off once in a while. It fell off again this weekend in front of Macy’s! It was not fun trying to find it on the sidewalk with lots of people walking by. And the place it fell off last week was a dark bar. Luckily, the bar was not crowded as much. I was going to wait until my contract ends with t-mobile in November to get a new cell phone because I brought this on myself by dropping my cellphone into the toilet. But I decided I suffered enough and the opportunity cost of waiting should factor into my decision

Steve Jobs is supposed to announce the 3G iPhone today at Apple’s developer conference in San Francisco. (I always wondered what they talk about in those conferences but never once watched a video of it). It is going to have geotagging, which is great because I love creating Google maps with my favorite restaurants, places to go, etc. Plus, I will not have to carry a digital camera, a music player and a cell phone. It will be so much more compact. I am looking forward to seeing if it lives up to people’s expectations including mine.

If you are a woman, good luck finding a job as a priest or a terrorist.

On Thursday, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a decree against the ordination of female priests. Bishops who perform such ordinations and the women who get them will be automatically excommunicated, which means they will no longer be Catholics. Ordaining a woman priest, or seeking ordination as a woman is now a crime at the same level of laying violent hands on the pope.

This is so not cool! To me, one of the problems with most of the religions is their view of women. Why would I, as a woman, willingly accept that I am a second class citizen? Why do women have to be submissive in the first place? I simply cannot comprehend it, seems immoral and harmful (at least emotionally). Luckily, I am married to the best guy in the world, whom I see as my true partner in life. So, no complaints there.

Also in the news is how Al-Qaida’s stance on women sparked extremist debate.  Basically, al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman Al-Zawahri said in April that the terrorist group does not have women. A woman’s role, he said, is limited to caring for the homes and children of al-Qaida fighters. This is something I would expect him to say of course. What is hilarious is that his remarks have since prompted an outcry from fundamentalist women, who are fighting or pleading for the right to be terrorists. One of the women wrote:  “How many times have I wished I were a man … I felt that my heart was about to explode in my chest…I am powerless.”

Be it being a priest or being a terrorist you are after, it must be frustrating not to be able to do it because of your gender.

Tomorrow (May 3rd) is the next Free Comic Book Day!

Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their stores (taken from http://freecomicbookday.com/).

Here is the store locator to find participating stores: http://freecomicbookday.com/fcbd_locator.asp

I think having good teachers is the biggest factor affecting the quality of education. I’ve had many great teachers throughout my school life who had influenced me positively. I am grateful for what they had taught me. But I think the teacher who made the most positive impact is my father.

My father is not really a teacher but he has taught me a lot. He made me love math. He would sit and play with me and teach me about numbers, addition and stuff. He also inspired a love of books. For a while, he had bought me a new book every Friday. I would get super excited and start reading the new book right away. Getting my hands on a new book still feels good.
     
I love my mom a lot but I feel like I connect with my father in more ways. I think this is also because he was more involved in my education. Over our long conversations, he taught me a lot of things that helped me understand myself and life to some extent. I appreciate those more as I get older.

Here is one of my favorite photos with him:

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Güneş and I went to see an apartment in Park Slope yesterday. We found out about the apartment through his coworker, who is the current tenant.

The apartment was very cute. The living room was smaller than our living room, so at first I was concerned that our stuff would not fit in. But I think we can work that out by getting rid of some of the stuff we have or maybe getting a smaller sofa.

Here is what I liked:

• The bedroom was almost twice the size of our bedroom and it had a nice leafy view of the backyard. It looked very peaceful.
• They had a washer/dryer combo in the bathroom and the bathroom still looked decently roomy.
• There was a small alcove, which they used as a tiny office.  We could do the same or at least use that space for our books and all the electronics stuff Güneş has.

We did not talk to the landlord yet but we are hoping he would not go to the brokers and just rent the apartment to us Then it would make this the easiest apartment search in my life. We’ll see what happens.

I used to put ketchup in my (plain) omelette and make feta cheese & jam sandwiches (kinda like pb&j). Also, when I was in college, I used to go to this cafe and get fried fries in a sandwich. They had a special sauce which was a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise. But I don’t do these anymore. I still surprise some people with my ability to eat desert before, during or after meals though.

In my hometown, some people eat rice with desert on top and put sugar in their pasta. I’m not as crazy.

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I have been the victim of a bad haircut twice. The first one was my fault. I let my little sister cut my bangs! I don’t remember how old we were but I could not be older than 12 and she could not be older than 10. First she cut a little. Then one side was longer and she cut some more. Then the other side was longer and she cut even more. This kept happening for a while and I ended up with very short and badly cut bangs. My mom was very upset and she took me to a salon to fix it. But they could not do a lot to save my hair. That was the only time I had bangs in my life. I wish I had a picture.

The second time happened when I was in high school. I got bored with my hair and wanted to have a more exciting haircut. Big mistake. Somehow I ended up with a very very bad looking mushroom like bob, which was nothing like what I described to the stylist. At the time, I had a huge crush on this guy from school. He was one year ahead of me so I did not get to see him very often. While I was walking back home, I saw him! Unfortunately, he saw me too. It was an awkward situation, me trying to go home as soon as possible and him trying to make conversation like a normal person would do.

I am glad I do not have a photo of that particular haircut. I was convinced that the only way to save my hair was to get a very short haircut. I tried it and it really worked.

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So I went to DC two weeks ago. I loved the subway system. The cars had carpet and nice seats! While we were waiting for the next train, I took a picture of the subway map since I did not have a subway map and I thought it would be useful. But that proved to be a mistake.

Within a minute some security guy popped up and asked me why I took the picture. I told him I took it because I wanted to use it as a reference. Then he asked me “what kind of camera is that?”. I told him it was an ordinary digital camera. He still did not seem satisfied. His next question was “what kind of accent is that?”. Being a nice person, I resisted the urge to say “it is your mom’s accent”. Luckily he left me alone with the taste of harassment in my mouth.

I was more careful with the photos for the rest of the trip, which made me take less photos.

I am definitely a night person. I never liked waking up early and I hate going to bed early. It feels like night completely belongs to me whereas there are things to be done during the day. Plus nighttime is more fun. You can go out, have a nice drink, listen to music and relax.  

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