Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Graffiti: An Improvement

I did a quickie post awhile back about some graffiti I found in my neighborhood, and I'm pleased to say there have been some improvements, sort of.

This was on the same piece of exercise equipment as the last one. It's pretty faded, but I believe it says, "Fuck that." Kudos!



This one is cute.



This last one is understandable, but baffling. Why did someone feel compelled to write this on the slide?

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Apart from the grafiti I have never seen outdoor exercise other than in Beylikduzu but it seems popular. My wife goes to the city council free gym and cultural/educational center in Beylikduzu which is really impressive. In the UK nothing is free now.

31

Stranger said...

They have similar equipment near the ILs in Bahçelievler, but I've only seen it being used as benches or as a kids' play area. The ones near us always have people doing exercise on them. Usually women and older men, but people really put their time into it. I suppose it helps that the equipment is in the shade.

BTW toasty, there's a really good, nice ped at MediLife-- he wanted to give LE some antibiotics, and when I asked for an alternative he was so pleased and said he was sick of people pushing him for antibiotics all the time. We ended up needing them, but at least he took the time to explain why. He also said we should give LE cold drinks for his sore throat. His name is Ishak something. 40YTL to see him, plus we paid another 25 for a blood test. That's less than half of Medicana or Acibadem...

Stranger said...

Where is this free gym?

Unknown said...

The city council sports, culture and educational centre is roughly 5 minutes walk behind Migros shopping centre and a bit to the right. If you walk past Migros into Buyuksehir and sort of walk 5 minutes you will see a huge building with the city council logo. You have to join it and get some kind of ludicrous health cert. The run loads of adult ed courses and beginners English-my wife asked about doing advanced English but they laughed and semi seriously offered her a job teaching English. If you dont go regularly you lose your membership but no doubt another doctors letter will restore it. I cannot remember the acronym for the place but it is something like ISEK.

Thanks for the doctor but my wife is so obsessed with antibiotics that any doctor who doesnt presecribe a Migros bag full of drugs would not be acceptable.

Stranger said...

Sigh.

Aren't those doctor's letters ridiculous? I can understand if they're worried about chronic infectious illness, but the tests needed always involve a stool sample. Eh? You could check my poo today and I could get a parasite next week, but I already have the doctor's okay.

We never did get the state-required tests for LE's school. They said, "You have to. The Ministry of Education requires it," and we said, "It's a stupid waste of money. We won't do it." And somehow it all got left at that.

Anonymous said...

apparently, ISMEK's adult ed. courses, which I heard they offer even pilates and yoga, are in almost every semt / ilce. I don't know the quality of course / classes given, but I heard that ISMEK is free, and a lot of women join it apparently.

Unknown said...

I saw the course catalogue and they have everything from Arabic calligraphy to pastry making. Many of the courses are 40 and 80 hours and obviously designed to get women into empoloyment hence there are a lot of hairdressing and cooking etc.

What school does your son go to Justme? Mine goes to Okyanyys Koleji.

Stranger said...

This IMSEK is definitely worth checking out. I don't know why I never know about this stuff. I could see yabancıs not knowing about it, but Turks never tell me either. Do they think I wouldn't be interested or do they not know themselves? If I read signs about yoga or pilates, I would assume it was too expensive and not for me. If it said it was free, I'd probably stay away just to avoid the crowds.

Toasty, isn't Okyanus a Fetullah school?

I wouldn't mind telling you where LE goes to school, but I'm not really comfortable posting it in a public place, if you know what I mean, especially because there are pictures of him on here. Nothing personal...

Unknown said...

No, Fatih Koleji is religous-Okyanus is definitely capitalist

I never thought about not posting name of school but Okyanus are a chain.

Stranger said...

I'm not sure there's a difference between religious and capitalist... Okyanus are everywhere these days. They're like the Mc School of kolej.

I suppose if someone were really keen to find us for nefarious reasons it wouldn't be that hard, but I don't want to make it too easy for anyone either.

Unknown said...

Okyanus are brilliant at selling. Attractive, young, earnest teachers in white coats, glossy brochures, cool sports gear with logos, spoltess, shiny schools with lots of glam and glitter. When I pick my son up I feel like a gypsy. Not to mention the pretty young mums. My sons teacher looks about 19. Even the security guards are cool.

They really are great at what they do. My son gets breakfast lunch and afternoon snack and we have the menu all printed out exactly with everything bar calories content-all mini borek and we even know who supplies the meat and dairy products. There is a website with a webcam in each class so you can watch your kid on the net.

The school nurse is young, pretty and rings you if you kid has so much as a cough and administers the antiobiotics for you whilst wishing you gecmis olsun every time she sees or calls you. My wife loves it as the school treats you like a VIP.

Just to boast. My son is sinif baskan. AND as my wife pointed out Beylikduzu Emniyet Genel Muduru`s kid is im my sons class and if we have any problems he will help us. He picks his kid up in a police car with flashing lights driven by another officer. He is bowed to curtseyed to and everyone including the cleaner chants hos geldin, efendim. Nobody apart from me finds it all funny.

Still we get a good discount for paying cash and because he is blonde haired and blue eyed and he really likes it there.

Stranger said...

Wow, that school sounds like Medicana Hospital! Do the front receptionists look like flight attendants?

One private school I attended, I think the teachers made the parents feel like they were about to get into trouble and have their knuckles rapped or their off-campus privileges taken away. At the other private school, it was all very egalitarian and hippie, like "Hey, we're all on this fabulous learning journey together, man." I'm wondering if I can ever get my head around Turkish private school before LE starts, just as I wonder how Turkish parents would feel about the second private school I described.

How many kids to a class?

In any case, I'm glad your son seems happy there, and you have every right to brag that he's class president.

Unknown said...

I still have not been to Medicana to look at the girls but it is the same principle-Antik English in Kadikoy used to have a receptionist that was so beautiful we would go in just to gaze at her.
Antik of course were also famous for having the teachers` washing machine in the basement of the building so the teachers would put their washing on whilst they were teaching. I cannot believe how many years I wasted teaching in Ist and all the crap I put up with.

The classes have max 20 kids. I am really impressed with the school-they had a maths festival recently and a sports weekend and they do mad science every month and do not charge extra.