Mısır.

Turkish: Corn. Also, strangely, Egypt. As the breadbasket of the ancient world, the word for that country came into many languages as having something to do with grain. We got "Egypt" from the Greeks and Romans, who called the Nile-washed lands from Alexandria south to the Nubian cataracts "Aegyptus." It's strange, incidentally, how country names in English almost never have any semblance to the name that the, you know, actual residents use. China is "Zhong guo", or "The Middle Kingdom." India is "Bharat." Japan is "Nihongo." Greece is "Ellas." And my beloved Turkey's name is just a bastardization of "Türk iye", "land of the Turk."

Whoa, where the hell did that crap come from?

So yeah, anyway, corn. Today whilst purchasing several overpriced books at Borders for my Glorification of Jihad class (you are right if you were betting that this class is a really uplifting and certainly never depressing examination of wonderous beauty), I saw a fun book in the "Local Interest" section. It was a pictoral guide to, get this, Indiana's cornfields. It was called "Corn Country." In vivid color, the book travelled from the industrial north to the hilly (hahahaha) south of the "Crossroads of America" state. I was drawn to it and spent more than a half-hour paging through it, rapt. No, I am not being sarcastic. When I titled this here 'blog, I knew that the majority of my audience would not be drawn from the Midwest, and in the traditions of Orientalism and the anthropological "otherness" that often captivates human minds, I thought: well, there is no corn in Maine. Or New Jersey. (Well, there is some there. But, uh, the rest of the state is more concerned with petrochemical refining and being envious of New York). Or North Carolina. Or Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, China and Vietnam--my far-flung friends. The truth is, the longer I am here, dancing out here in the corn, the more Indiana, and further, the Midwest, grows on me. It's something that I would have never thought for myself. When I first felt it setting in, I was filled with the same icy dread that I imagine patrician Romans felt when they were trundled off in their litters to the Black Sea town of Tomi, filled as it was with other Romans living in governmentally-secured exile. That lasted for about two weeks (aw, come on, Hoosier readers! It was 102 degrees when I got here! Also, flat! Did I mention hot?).

That seems like an eternity ago, though in reality it was but a tender year past. Now, as I drive through the fragrant fields redolent with the fresh smell of earth and the pithy smell of the waving grain, I roll down my window and take it all in. The sky is so big here. I tried to tell Tony (my Midwestern roommate) how strange it still is for me to be able to see so much sky, and to see the horizon like I can here. I've lived in a state that is more than 90% forested for more than a decade. Here, I feel like the sky is going to drop on me: what's holding it up? More than that, I have fallen in love with the Republic of Bloomington and her minions. I find myself thinking how I could see myself living here, in Indiana, for quite some time. My heart beats to the sound of the icy Atlantic crashing on a rock-bound shore 900 miles away, but a small part of me thinks that, just maybe, I've found my place here in the heartland.

Well, at least I am hoping so. Man, how long does a Ph.D. take to get? I'll be the big three-oh before I finish, methinks. *shudder*

Tonight's post is dedicated to the Hoosiers I have come to know and love and who have proven to me time and time again that I made a really, really good choice to come here.

Good night, Indiana.

Domonic (Demir)