Class!

Hey everyone!
This week was the first week of class here at METU. I was reeeally looking forward to it; it's been like 7 or 8 weeks since my last classes at BU. My classes seem pretty interesting, I've been adding and dropping a few, to get a better schedule with better classes, and I think I'll end up with:
Intensive Turkish
Contemporary Turkey
Political Economy of Globalisation
Human Rights in World Politics
Museology
Intro to Foreign Policy Analysis (I might drop this)
Advanced Communications in IR (I'm probably going to add this)

I've been able to find all of my IR classes pretty easily; it's slightly a pain to walk to the IR building, since it's 2 miles from my dorm and much of the trek entails wading through a good 3 or 4 inches of slush-water, but the building itself is gorgeous, all marble and modern, with really comfortable lecture rooms and seminar rooms. It kind of reminds me of SMG back at BU. My other classes, though, have been interesting. I originally signed up for Rural Sociology, and I spent over an hour trying to find the darn classroom. Never did find it. I asked the Sociology department secretary for help, but she didn't know English, so I asked some random people about the room number, and got 3 different answers as to where it was. I found out later that it was a required course for Socoilogy majors at METU, and that it met twice a week at 9, instead of once, so I dropped it in favor of Museology, which I also got lost trying to find. This time, though, I'd learnt enough Turkish to ask the History Department secretary "Sinif 412 oda nerede?" which is, "what room is class 412 in?"; it didn't help much, though, because the room had a name, not a number. When I finally found room "masada izdemir" (or something like that), it was in the basement of the Library. I still can't believe I found it.
Classes here are a bit different than classes back home. They still have 3 hours of class a week, but instead of having an hour on Monday, one on Wednesday, and one on Friday, for example, they have a big three hour bloc, one day a week. It's kind of nice, as I have no classes on Thursdays or Fridays, so I can travel, shop, or do pretty much anything. 3 hours at a stretch does get a little long, though, so the professors usually give smoke breaks either 2 hours in or 1 and 2 hours in, thank goodness.
I've been fairly relieved at my professors' English ability so far. Although METU is an English-speaking university, most people there, including the professors, are more comfortable in Turkish. I have exchange friends here who had classes where the professor simply couldn't hold class in English when asked to; they had to drop the class. Apparently, that happens more in introductory, required courses. I'm pretty lucky: I walked in to my first class Monday morning, and the professor was new, just in from London, so he speaks perfect British English. My other professors are less fluent, but still really understandable.
Well, that's about all I can update for now,
Take care,
-R