Merhaba!
So I am working at a Turkish news agency now as a proofreader of video news summaries written in English (some reporters write fairly well, others seem to just throw their text into a free translation software). The outfit is called Ihlas News Agency (IHA is the Turkish acronym) and it claims to be the third largest news service behind Reuters and the AP, which I find tough to believe.
The third biggest news agency in the world?
managed to get this position in rather whirlwind fashion. i.e. I was hired on the spot after responding to an ad on craigslist.
There are certain aspects of working here which would considered “perks” in the states but are here normal. Mainly, these are the shuttle bus that I catch near a freeway and the free lunches. The lunches are sort of institutional-style Turkish dishes served by men with masks over their mouths, which makes it seem as if the grub is toxic. Its okay, sort of light and lacking in protein. I split the month with an American woman, so its 15 days, 9 to 6, which includes some Saturdays and/or Sundays. My coworkers are nice. It seems like they are used to a pretty high turnover around here, not too many introductions were had.
It’s interesting to learn so much about news here in Turkey and the region. The stories I have edited have been about boring EU conferences, peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, swine fllu precautions taken in Turkey and the Middle East. Perhaps most distressing story was about a shooting at an engagement party in a Turkish village. Forty-four people were killed.
Meanwhile, I’ve had several interviews with English teaching schools, which is sort of what I expected to be doing. It looks like, for the time being, I will be teaching in the evenings twice a week after working here. The outfit is called English Time. (Their theme song — in my head — is a takeoff on the Flight of the Conchords song “It’s business time,” but “Its ENGLISH Time.” Maybe I can get an in with their marketing people;).
I turned down an offer to be a full time teacher at Berlitz. Something didn’t sit right with me about the school. They changed their tune about a housing allowance, as I told them I found my own place and wouldn’t need to live in one of their places. I read some mediocre posts about them in Dave’s ESL Cafe. The salary is low. I am shooting for a full-time position at this university in Istanbul. I went in for an interview Wednesday and I think it went well. I would be teaching 18-year olds English as part of their “prep” requirements for college. This would start in September.
All in all the thrill of being back has died down, but I am thankful that I have gotten so far here in a short time! Talk soon.
I read about that shooting on NPR… scary!
Is this the clip you mean? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN0oDnoc3-c
Fantastic. Esp when Brett comes out of nowhere for his guitar solo several times.
The business of feeding the employees…. I’ve seen that, but mostly in businesses with white-collar employees in LDCs. I first noticed it in Uganda; I was doing business at a bank, and suddenly liveried waiters started coming by with steam tables on carts, doling out what looked like a fairly balanced and nutritious hot lunch. All the secretaries and clerks continued working while eating.
Yes. Well. At least they do their best to make it balanced. For example, yogurt as a side to accompany a stuffed green pepper with ground lamb. Or a simple side of tomatoes to accompany shredded chicken and rice. there is always soup as well, they are nuts about lentils and pea soup especially
And speaking of foreign news sources… Yesterday, when Michael Jackson dies, CBS Evening News (updated for Pacific time) spent the first 5 minutes on it and Jim Lehrer mentioned it in passing. Turned to BBC (on PBS) and they spent the entire half-hour on it; today I looked at the webpages for Le Figaro (Paris), El Pais (Madrid), ZDF (German TV), Die Welt (Hamburg), BBC and even Hurriyet (‘Stamboul’): ALL of them led with it and made a bigger deal of it than US media. Only Telekanal Rossiya (Moscow) passed…
But this talk about lunch is making me hungry; I think I’ll go have some hot fork.
Mmmm hot fork. Just like old Winston Mannix III used to make.
Not sure what you mean by little US media coverage. NY Times, LA times, cnn.com etc all had almost there entire homepages devoted to it.
Yeah I didn’t mean it was ignored; I was contrasting the 2 broadcast TV treatments: CBS (Western Edition) broadcast spending ‘only’ the first 5 minutes on it, with the BBC World broadcast literally taking up its entire half-hour, even before death was confirmed.with no other news whatsoever. This will annoy MJ fans, but I really found that excessive.