Petek Taykan
Out Of Comfort Zone
Hello everyvone,
My name is Petek, I am 22 years old and I am a Molecular Biologist. As soon as I graduated from university, I wanted to make a big difference in my life and I got involved in the ESC project. Since I devoted myself to my profession and school, I was far from social activities.
Before starting my master's degree; I wanted to find myself, gain new hobbies, learn new languages and see cultures. As a person who can express herself very well, I unfortunately have a hard time because my English is not enough. This is a big obstacle for me because I love to talk and communicate. I am trying to learn English. If we talk about the city, this is a small, sweet and historic town. People are very colorful and helpful.
I just came to this city, it was my first abroad experience in my life. This journey that I made alone, without knowing the language, is highly appreciated. But no lie, very difficult. I don't want to give up because nothing in life is easy. I have big goals and I took the biggest step towards these goals. My luck is having a great coordinator. He shows me great patience, I feel it. Going out of the comfort zone is a great courage and I showed this courage. But if you want to live in a dream city and have goals, you have to make sacrifices.
This was my first blog, I will write at the end of this year again only YES PETEK YOU ACHIEVE THIS! I want to say :)
see you on the next blog, have a nice day…
ESC
I'm halfway through this project. Looking back, I marvel at how fast time flies. I started a new life from scratch in another country, learned their language and adapted. I believe I did a very good job in 5 months. I haven't been able to do all the things I want to do yet. There are many reasons for this, including weather conditions and inadequate facilities. Even though I stumbled on this road alone, I'm proud of what I've done. Joining this project has taught me life. Maybe it gave me a life experience that I would never have learned in college. After coming to this project, I realized that I had chosen a project for myself. The biggest thing missing in my life was my hobbies and this project gave me maximum activity.
TURKİSH CLUB
We started the Turkish club on January 5, 2022. This club was especially important to me. Because it was my first presentation where I addressed people in a different language.
Although I am very used to speaking in public, it was really exciting to introduce your culture and country to people in a different language. Another surprise for me was that 2 people knew Turkish at a really good level. Participants were very motivated and willing to learn Turkish.
That's why I wanted to devote some of our time to Turkish lessons. If people are so eager and motivated, why not? I develop a different idea about this club every day and I really try to spend our time nice, quality and fun.
First Time Ice Skating
Today I had the opportunity to do an activity that I always wanted to do and never had the opportunity to do. Ice skating has always been a sport that interested me, I especially admired ice skating dancers. Tried this for the first time today, deciding it's much harder than it looks.
People were very professional unlike me. I was also very surprised that older people, especially men, were interested in it. Some mothers were skating with their children, I encountered very sweet sights. I had a very difficult time standing and once I fell, it was a very difficult and painful experience.
5 DAYS OAT
Since I was in Romania as a volunteer, I had to attend a compulsory 5-day training. Due to covid, our training took place online. There were participants from various countries such as France, Jordan, Turkey, Italy and Spain. The training was very colorful as our trainers Diana Bere and Dani Prisacariu are high-energy, positive and fun people.
On the first day, everyone introduced themselves and talked about what they did in the project. I presented my own video, which explains my project comprehensively.
The video was highly appreciated. Since Dani is also a life coach, we started our second day with meditation. I can say that it was my favorite day, I felt very relaxed and peaceful. I needed this.
Ping Pong Diaries
I have never played games such as table tennis because I did not have time for games, sports and different activities due to my busy work and university pace, and this was a big deficiency for me. In addition, the fact that these activities were very expensive in my country was another problem.
Because of my love for dance, I could only go to dance class by sacrificing my sleep. In this city and within the scope of this project, we play various games such as table tennis and badminton, and we do this regularly 2 times a week. It's a huge privilege for me, people here have made it a way of life.
Beauties of Bucharest
I took a break from office work and took a little getaway to Bucharest for the weekend. Going to a city with big malls, cafes, lots of people and of course traffic made me feel at home. I've been living in Targu for about 3 weeks and I'm not used to living in a small city. I realized that I missed the crowd and the noise. I loved the big buildings, historical buildings, big restaurants and nightlife in Bucharest. It reminded me of Mersin. I found Turkish restaurants and met Turks at the end of 3 weeks. I did not expect that I would be so happy to meet the citizens of my own country.