I have been recently working on the information about my school in Wikipedia. Even though I have came to an end with my high school life, the journey of Tarsus American College has just begun for me since the taste of its traditions and spirit flourishes with graduation and never ends. I have been reading about school’s history for a long time and now that I am graduating from high school, I believe that this is the time for me to share some authentic facts and unique documents about my school which has a history of 122 years, Tarsus American College in Turkey.

The last year of my high school education started this week on Monday. As the followers of the school tradition, we came into school with t-shirts, flag and poster that I have designed. Additionally, I received the Guner Baykal Award which is given for the first time to the student with the highest honor points. That was me last year; therefore, I won a ticket to New York as a prize. In short, everything went fine this week; I hope it will also on following days.

From March 4 to March 8, I attended the Community Service & Learning Conference which was held in Lisbon, Portugal. It was an awesome organization; moreover, I visited a mental hospital for the first time in my life. The people in there were not different than an ordinary people by their actions. “They are just like one of us… They are learning maths and creating new things which are being sold later.” as I mentioned in my speech group presentation. The most impressive things that I saw in there were the couples. Some of the patients were living as couples; furthermore, these couples cared about each other. For instance, one was giving the crayons while the other was painting. These people were amazing; my predictions were extremely false about these people because they were not different than ordinary people.

After visiting the mental hospital, our team leaders led us to take a city tour in Lisbon. Buildings were amazing, people were respectful, meals were good, so what could you expect more? In addition, nights of Cascais were wonderful too. By the way, Portuguese culture gives their teenagers more freedom comparing to many other countries. You can go into every night club that you wish to if you are over 16.

My Portuguese friends, thank you all for your hospitality and wish to see you in Turkey soon.