August 23 – Rez Fest
August 24 – Discover McGill & Street Fest
August 25,26,27 – Science Frosh Mardi Gras
August 28,29 – SSMU Frosh

I just toured around the city with my friends on August 30&31. Signed up for the gym, looked for the buildings where my classes will take place. Tomorrow is the day! Classes begin! After 5 days of laziness of the frosh week!

Name and Establishment

Tarsus American College or sometimes referred as Tarsus American School (Tarsus Amerikan Koleji, Ozel Tarsus Amerikan Lisesi in Turkish) is a private coeducational school located in the historic city of Tarsus, province Mersin, Turkey.

The school was established in 1888 under the name St. Paul’s Institute at Tarsus and was in close contact with the American Board Foundation. It was regarded as one of the missionary schools in Turkey. The school had to endure difficult times in the World War I and ultimately was entitled to be a high school governed by the Turkish Republic in 1928, under an administration led by Mr. Woolworth. After the school began to be governed by the Turkish Republic, it was named Tarsus American College.

Buildings

The symbolic building of the school, Stickler Hall (click here for the picture), was finished construction in 1911. It has been the tallest building of old Tarsus, 21 meters height. After new buildings were constructed in Tarsus in 2000s, Stickler Hall lost this title. Stickler Hall stands out with its high roof reflecting a triangle on every side. Stickler Hall now hosts many classrooms, the Social Sciences and Literature Departments, and an auditorium. Stickler was restored between 1997 and 1999.

As the time went by, Unity Hall, Friendship Hall, Sports Hall, Sadik Pasha Mansion, Centennial Hall, Maynard Hall and lots of accommodation halls were added to the school campus.

Graduation and Diplomas

TAC graduated its first alumni in 1930. I have found the very first diploma given by TAC, this was an old document located in the Administration Building. As you can see in the picture above, this diploma is quite old and those were the times when TAC was regarded as St. Paul’s Institute at Tarsus. The old school motto caught my eye on this diploma: ” And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ ” I searched this sentence, and it seems to be quoted from Bible which reflects that the diploma was given at the times when TAC was a missionary school.

Academics

- TAC started co-ed education in 1979. Alongside 506 boys, there were 35 girls in the student body.
- Once been a part of school life, the boarding section for boys opened in 2002.
- The boarding section for girls was opened in 2008 for the first time.
- TAC began to offer International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme in November 2004.

The Tradition: “the Abi-Abla System”

TAC is one of the two schools which apply this system in Turkey. It is called the Abi-Abla System and the other school that has this tradition in Turkey is Galatasaray High School in Istanbul. This system is not administered by the school administration, it has become a part of school life and is administered by the student body. In this system, there is an enormous respect between the higher classes and the lower classes. For instance, a 9th grader calls a senior as “Abi” (male-brother) or “Abla” (female-sister). Each year, senior classes  become the leaders of this system and they listen to the concerns of students and organize many activities outside school. These activities include dinner meetings (yemek) and other meetings known as çay, çardak and hangar. Each year, a group of senior students is assigned to the lower classes as Abis and Ablas to continue this spirit and organize meetings when needed. Unlike many other schools, TAC students may protest the administration if they really believe that something wrong was done. This is not a typical quality of high school students, but TAC students are mostly loud which make them regarded leaders in their community. For the freedom and free thought it gives, TAC serves the quality of a university life.

This system has been long discussed by the new teachers and administrators; however, as the alumni notice, this system is the main reason behind TAC being a leader school with the motto “Leaders for Turkey, leadership for the world.” Today, many TAC graduates are regarded in their community as leaders and they continued to lead in their future life with what they learned from TAC. Among these graduates, Muhtar Kent is the Global CEO of the Coca-Cola Company, Mehmet Emin Karamehmet is the founder of Turkcell (the biggest mobile company in Turkey), Cengiz Candar, Oral Calislar, Mete Akyol  and Ayse Arman are famous journalists, Istemihan Talay is a former minister and Member of the Parliament and Necati Güler is the former captain of the Turkish National Basketball Team. There are lots of musicians, academicians, researchers and businessmen among TAC alumni. Most of them are the leaders in their industry and they say that they are thankful to TAC for the leadership and community qualities it has earned to them.

It is stated that an Italian seismologist, Giampaolo Giuliani, reported the earthquake a week before it happened, but no one listened to him. Giuliani said that he was silenced by prosecution; moreover, he stated that he was able to foresee the earthquake by looking to the increase in the spreading amount of the radon gases.

The prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, cancelled his trip to Russia and announced mobilization in the country. People who lost their lives in the earthquake are buried by government ceremony. May God have mercy on all those people who lost their lives in the earthquake.

Obama’s plane Air Force I arrived to Ankara Esenboga Airport on April 5th, Sunday night, and he went to hotel that night. On April 6th, Obama’s trip started formally. First of all, he visited Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who is the founder of modern Turkey; therefore, he is appreciated because of this trip since he showed his regard to the modern, secular Turkey and its founder. He left a note to guess notebook of Anitkabir concluding with Ataturk’s famous quote: “Peace in the world, peace in the country.” After that, he visited Abdullah Gul, the president of Turkey; furthermore, he went to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) to make a speech. This speech was the most important speech during his trip, and I watched it live.

In his speech, Obama firstly mentioned that Ataturk’s biggest heritage for the Turkish nation is the democracy and Turkish Republic. In my opinion, this was a terrific start to capture the crowd’s attention and get their admiration. Then he reminded the beginning of the Turkish-American relationship in sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire by mentioning about a story about George Washington and Sultan Abdulmecid. Obama then repeated his support for Turkey to get into European Union. Another topic of his speech was the Turkish-Armenian problem, and he stated that the problems should be faced by facing the history and the truth. This point was one of the few points that the Turkish politicians are not satisfied by Obama’s speech.

There were two times that acclamation raised in the assembly. First of them was when he said that Turkey is a country which gets its beauty from the blend of the East and the West. In this case, he said that he will not be happy to see Turkey to be separated into two parts such as East and West and he is against the secession. Another time that the acclamation raised in the assembly was when he noticed that there are many Muslims in the family of US citizens; furthermore, he is one of them. By saying these, Obama showed his sympathy to Muslims and endeavours to erase the bad image of US for Muslims which has been created by the previous presidents.

On April 7th, today, Obama went to Istanbul to complete his Turkey trip by having a dinner at the Alliance of Civilizations and visiting the historical places such as Sultanahmet Mosque and Hagia Sophia.

In short, Obama is really admired by the Turkish folk at the end of his trip because of his graceful attitudes. He organized little meetings with different people from different socio-economic classes, including the youth, politicians and folk. Again, he showed his leadership to all the world and he is starting to earn a wonderful reputation for the United States by establishing new relationships with every country without any prejudices.

As it can be seen from the chart, the current leading party, Justice and Development Party (AKP), had 38,5% of the votes, whereas the oppositional parties got votes of following percentages:

Republican People’s Party (CHP): 23,2%
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP): 16%
Democratic Society Party (DTP): 5,7%
Felicity Party (SP): 5,2%
Democratic Party (DP): 3,8%

The prime minister and the president of the leading party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stated that they learned their lesson from the decrease of their votes in the local elections. I hope that this elections will help every politician to find the right way to represent the folk and work more to “reach above the modern civilization level” as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk aimed.

Corpses of 5 members of the Great Union Party, including the president of the party Muhsin Yazicioglu, was found 3 days later. The cameraman Ismail Gunes’s corpse was found 2 days later, after his struggle to stay alive.

It was wonderful to see the other politicians offering their condolences to the Muhsin Yazicioglu’s family, even if they shared different political opinions. May God rest all of those people in peace…

In addition, this rate was moving around 1.17 and 1.18 in September 2008; besides, it increased continously since October 2008. January 2 was the alert of this recession in which the rate moved to 1,6424 from 1,5291.

Now, the government is expected to set new investment plans to minimize the effects of this recession on our country.

So, this choice of Obama can be seen as his first step to peace with Muslim countries and USA. In my opinion, Obama is the only leader to end the prejudices of both sides, Muslims and American people. Besides, everything about Obama’s peace establishing plans for Muslim countries will be clarified next month; I’m waiting curiously to see what will happen.

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.