Log #7
- Taha Altar Çağ
- 1 gün önce
- 10 dakikada okunur
Unfortunately, this blog entry will begin with some sad news.
Prof. Mehmet Tekin Yürür, a retired professor of structural geology at Hacettepe University, sadly passed away two weeks ago. He retired after giving his last lecture, a structural geology course in the 2022 summer school that I also took. I have never met anyone who needed slides or other teaching materials so little. With just a marker, using his hands, relying solely on intuition and imagination, he was able to convey these not-so-easy-to-understand topics with incredible efficiency. He was also a great intellectual. You could talk to him about anything, truly, there were no limits. He was a avid reader. He was also a very good researcher and a very good person. He was always there for his students whenever they needed him. Sadly, we lost him to cancer. Otherwise, he was in very good health. After his retirement from the uni., he had left most of the books from his office in the hallway for students to take. By chance, I was the first to hear about this, and I took everything I thought was important and interesting. There were many French books, of course, because he was a geologist with a doctorate from the Sorbonne. Before Sorbonne, he completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Istanbul Technical University (ITU). I am truly very saddened by his loss, I will miss him, and I must confess that I am not someone who experiences such feelings very often. Goodbye, Professor...
Geological Congress and Ankara
I spent last week in Ankara for the 78th Geological Congress of Türkiye. I was there to give a presentation, but of course, the presentation was just an excuse. I wanted to see Ankara... I wanted to spend time with my friends and professors. And I did, and how! I didn't even sleep an average of 4 hours a week (at least according to my smartwatch, but that's also how I felt). The first two days after arriving in Ankara, the weather was very cold, and it even snowed in some places. Just before going to Ankara, the weather in Göttingen was relatively warm. I experienced a sudden transition from warm to cold, and this cold wave in Ankara didn't last long; temperatures suddenly rose above 20 degrees Celsius, and of course, I got sick as a result. I wasn't in very good condition when I gave the presentation, but thankfully my voice was fine, and I was able to give the speech. Although people said they liked it, no questions were asked, and that really bothered me. One of the reasons for this was that the session where I gave my presentation wasn't actually ideal for this topic. Although I don't find the congress bad overall, due to the fact that the scientific culture in Türkiye hasn't fully developed yet, and more importantly, because of the problems we have with international communication, the congress is still not where we expect or aim to be. I hope it will reach that point someday. As every year, the first two days of the congress were very crowded, and although the number of participants decreased afterwards (I'm referring to those who came to listen, of course), the participation seemed relatively high until the last day. The MTA campus is a really nice and pleasant place, and as I do every year, I took home many books and maps from MTA publications :D. In addition, I bought a ton of books from Dost Bookstore on Karanfil Street, which is a must-have for me. Because I'm constantly bored when I'm alone at home, and I thought I needed to keep myself busy with something, even if just to pass the time. Although I generally read a lot, I don't read anything just for the sake of reading; I consider it a waste of time as long as I am not actually learning something out of it, something that could be useful. Lately I just decided I change this a bit, so I will dive in to more diverse topics than usual. As soon as I entered the bookstore, my eyes fell on a book featuring Nazım Hikmet. I soon realized it was a photo-novel biography of Nazım Hikmet. I truly love Nazım. His poems have always been there for me during the most difficult moments of my life. Even though I don't generally like poetry, Nazım has a unique aura about him. I know very few people who look at life with such optimism and are so humanist, but no one else portrays these feelings as skillfully as Nazım. Generally, the books I read fall within a very narrow category; I mostly enjoy reading things directly or indirectly related to science. This time, I deviated a bit and diversified the topics. As a result, I bought so many books that I ended up needing another suitcase.So I can bring all the books :D. One of the books I'm currently reading is "Mind your Mindset" (but for some reason the Turkish translation is something like "The Brain That Tells Itself Stories"). Honestly, it's a bit difficult to explain the book's plot; I'm not really sure how to do it. However, it mostly talks about how and why our brains create stories and how they use them as a defense mechanism.
My immediate interest in this book stems from my increased attention to my mental health lately. The past year has been incredibly difficult for me mentally. Initially, I didn't pay much attention to my problems, thinking they were related to my environment, which of course played a significant role. However, despite changing my environment (I'm referring to moving to Germany), my mental state didn't improve significantly (in fact, it got worse), leading me to suspect the problem might be physical, and I believe it was. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I discovered I have a significant iron deficiency. While over a month of taking supplements has completely eliminated the excessive negative thoughts and brain fog, I realized that physical improvement is meaningless without mental support. Therefore, I had to make some radical decisions, such as drastically reducing my screen time. I was spending too much time on my phone, a cheap source of dopamine, so I started by limiting that. In addition, I decided to dedicate more time to my hobbies and read much more. My goals are mostly focused on increasing my concentration span and genuinely enjoying the activities I do. Although I have ADHD, I hate to see it as a mask or excuse, and I almost never mention it. Because attention span and its quality are things that can be improved and changed. The brain is a highly plastic organ, after all. Depression is relatively easy to treat when you have the right perspective; I just need to be patient. Going through this phase of depression was good for me in a way. I generally saw myself as someone lacking in various emotions, mostly making decisions based on logic and rationality, and I attributed my general dissatisfaction and inability to enjoy life "easily" like normal people, to my inability to process emotions. I realized that wasn't quite the case. I understood how emotional I can be and how much I can enjoy and love people under the right conditions. Although the feelings wasn't ultimately reciprocated, and as a result I was left devastated and almost traumatic, I'm somewhat happy that I was able to experience these feelings. Experiences like these give me a better reference point for what changes I need to make in my life later on.
Fall of the comic-era?
While in Ankara, I visited a few of my favorite comic book stores in town to reminisce about my past routines and experience some positive nostalgia. For a few years now, I've been more or less aware of a trend: manga are gradually replacing conventional comics as we understand them. Naturally, comic book stores and the events or social environments they offer are also being reshaped within this framework. What bothers me is not that the superhero comics we're used to are less popular; it's that in the past, it was possible to access a significant number of works by independent authors alongside them. As I write this, I feel like a boomer complaining about the new generation. I don't have a problem with manga in general; I personally don't enjoy reading them, but not due to the concept of manga itself. However, the manga available on the market somehow seems far from diverse. It gives the impression of a sector dominated by a few major series. And these few major manga series, like any manga, can have hundreds of issues. As someone who has been collecting comics since a very young age, meaning someone who enjoys not only reading but also collecting, this situation incredibly bothers me. Because it makes collecting almost impossible. Only if you spend huge amounts of money, and if you're lucky, you can then collect all the issues of your favorite series. I know there are many manga that are very short and produced by independent authors, consisting of only a few volumes, but the problem is that, unlike comics, these kinds of works have a much harder time establishing themselves and becoming mainstream in the manga world. Another criticism I have about the manga world is that the writers and artists seem to repeat themselves too much. Almost every anime I watch and every manga I read has very strange, unusual stories, sometimes bordering on fantasy. This creativity, or rather, this excessiveness in concept, makes them interesting and "original," but technically, most works are carbon copies of each other, in my opinion. They constantly release learned and profitable things. On the other hand, in publications that are predominantly products of the Western world, which we can call conventional comics, individual originality is much more sharply evident. However, we are unfortunately faced with a competitive environment where quantity trumps quality. As a result, the comic book stores I was exposed to in my childhood have now officially transformed into manga stores.
Village Institues, oh come on!
While in Ankara, I came across the latest issue of the magazine "Edebiyatist" in one of the bookstores I visited, because its main topic was "Village Institutes." These institutes, established in Türkiye in the 1940s, were not only institutions that trained teachers; they were also a highly unique educational model that combined education with production, where students gained both academic and practical skills. Students from villages were trained for their villages, acquiring skills in a wide range of fields from agriculture to art. One of the most important figures behind this project was Hasan Ali Yücel, the Minister of National Education at the time. Despite its short lifespan, the village institutes remain one of the most thought-provoking and debated experiences in Türkiye's educational history. My maternal grandfather was also a 1948 graduate of the Cılavuz Village Institute in Kars province. If you don't know, my maternal hometown is Kars-Ardahan. My maternal family, who could be described as Karapapak Turks, a kind of Azeri, lived within the borders of present-day Georgia until the proclamation of the Republic. I know we still have some relatives in Tbilisi today, but unfortunately I don't have any contact with any of them. As a result, they largely lived a village life until they migrated to Ankara in the 1970s. I don't know if my grandfather was the first generation in my family to learn to read and write, but they seem to be the first generation to receive formal education. However, it's not really possible to talk about serious formal education outside of Istanbul during the Ottoman period. My grandfather – whom I never met – was, as far as I can tell, a very avid reader and writer. It's not hard to deduce this just by looking at the number and quality of the books he left us. I also know that he was a very fervent leftist and even got into trouble because of it at times. My maternal side of the family is more inclined towards careers requiring more civil service, such as academia and/or teaching. The occupational distribution generally consists of teachers, civil servants, and academics. And intuitively, I feel that my grandfather's background as a village institute graduate had a significant influence on this inclination. Anyone you talk to who has family members who graduated from these institutes will paint a very positive picture. This isn't entirely wrong; I would question the sanity of anyone who criticizes this serious educational initiative undertaken in the early years of the Republic, or who opposes it for whatever reason. However, despite all this, everything written or said about village institutes should be approached with some caution. Why? Because while what is written or said is generally true, I believe there is some exaggeration. For example, Türkiye's inability to industrialize quickly, the problems we experience in urbanization, or the economic stagnation in rural areas are constantly linked to the closure and inability to continue these institutes. I might agree to a certain extent regarding the rural economy, but in every discussion, including this one, the closure of the village institutes is portrayed as a doomsday scenario, creating the perception that if they had continued, everything would have progressed smoothly, and we would have become a highly civilized and educated society. What I really want to emphasize here is not the educational concept itself, but the numbers. Because, in my opinion, what's truly important, what deserves attention, is not the education provided in these village institutes, but rather how widespread formal education has become.
Year | Literacy rate |
1940 | %24,5 |
2008 | %91,8 |
2023 | %97,6 |
2024 | %97,8 |
I asked ChatGPT about literacy rates in Türkiye over the years. I won't bother checking the numbers given for a blog post I'm writing so hastily, as they largely match the rates I've read and know beforehand. Here we're talking about a country where the literacy rate has only just reached 90% as we enter the 21st century. So, what about the high school graduation rates?
Year | Secondary education (high school) and above |
2008 | %26,5 |
2023 | %48,3 |
2024 | %49,4 |
The table above shows high school graduates. To summarize very briefly, I frankly find many of the discussions about the history and current quality of education in Türkiye to be pointless. For a society where the literacy rate was less than 10% when the Republic was newly established (1923), I think we have progressed quite well in such a short time. In fact, I believe that many of the problems we face today stem from our inability to keep up with the extremely rapid changes and developments in both economic and educational terms. When it comes to the education of the entire society, I think the discussions should no longer be limited to very narrow concepts like village institutes.
First depiction of a volcano in human history?
If you visit the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, take some time to look at this drawing from Çatalhöyük, dating back to 6000 BC. Because, as far as we know, it's not only the first depiction of a volcano, but also the first known city plan in history. The fact that people 8000 years ago were already adapted to thinking from a bird's-eye view and could create such a drawing is amazing, and for us geologists, it's also a fascinating piece to study because it's possibly the first ever drawn volcano :D. I once joked with a classmate who was quite talented at drawing that these people were her "ancient versions" :D. And it's true. I recommend saving whatever you write or draw; someone might pick it up and put it in a museum 8000 years from now ;).
MEME OF THE DAY
this time I couldn't find one lol.
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