Well, despite my protests that I'm a changed man, it looks like I've done it again.  I can't quite believe how "these days bunch up in weeks, collaborate in months against me" (that was aimed at you, Will).  The last month has been a non-stop battery of reading, papers, and arrhythmically placed mid and tri-terms interrupted only by the occasional adventure or trip to the museum... or Southeastern Turkey.  Some time in the last month marked the subconscious shift from "I have all the time in the world, I'll sleep in and see X next week" to the alarming realization that a person who has lost three fingers in a threshing accident could still count the number of weekends I have left in Istanbul on one hand.  Still, I feel that I have juggled school and "the foreign experience" fairly well.  I've hit most of the regions I wanted to, seen the majority of things over two hundred years old in Istanbul, and still somehow managed to maintain my grades.  

I have also been able to clear a looming decision that had been hanging over my head and weighing me down much more than I realized at the time.  The idea of transferring from SPU has been rattling around in my head since spring quarter freshman year and my time abroad has finally given me the break in continuity I needed to get myself out the door.  My crossroads consisted of several options, foremost amongst which was (A) to go back to SPU and continue business as usual, (B) drop out of SPU and transfer somewhere else or (C) finish out the year at Boğaziçi, which has accepted me for another semester.  I had very, very compelling reasons for choosing any one of those options, and none of them, by any means, are bad.  I keep finding myself lamenting to my friends that we are one of the few generations in history to be burdened with the agonizing choice between good and potentially better options.

I chose the middle road.  I will not be going back to SPU, but I will be coming home to Seattle.  SPU is willing to put my scholarships on hold and keep me on the books for up to a full year, so I can return next fall with no penalty (aside from a year of my life) should things not pan out.  The aforementioned things include finding a job and sending out a slew of transfer applications to schools primarily clustered around Seattle, Chicago, and New York.  I will also have the pleasure of living in a mansion with seven of my best friends in Seattle's cultural aorta.  Although I will be sad to leave Istanbul and the dear friends I have made, the quality school whose Byzantine administrative system I've just now begun to sort out, the language whose verbs I can now conjugate in seven tenses, and the pleasures and idiosyncrasies of Turkish culture, it would have been a mistake to stay.  I owe it to myself and to my loved ones in Seattle to come back to them.  Besides, after discovering the disproportionately huge Seattle expatriate community in Istanbul, I've realized that if you stay here any longer than you were originally planning you'll probably never leave.  I'm not quite ready to become a permanent expat.