The unicorn.

When I was a little kid, my favorite movie in the whole world was the movie "Legend", which stars Tom Cruise more than a decade before he met Nicole Kidman and more than five years before he had his teeth fixed. Man, that mofo could have eaten an apple through a chain-link fence. Anyway, it's a fun story: Two naive youths nearly manage to eff-up the entire world in their youthful, innocent naivite. There are goblins. There is a Dark Lord, played brilliantly by Tim Curry wearing about three metric tons of makeup and prosthetics. And: there are unicorns. The plot of the movie revolves around how Lily, who is a brainless insolent hussy, decides that she wants to touch a unicorn, and in doing so she manages to lure the beast to his doom, while his mate survives and to keep the sun coming up. I used to think that it was the coolest thing ever that they had real, live unicorns on this movie. How fantastic! Where did they come from? How does one catch one, I mean, besides using a spoiled virgin twit? Now, when I watch the movie, I think: my GOD, how quickly would PETA be on those producer's asses for GLUING HORNS on white horses? Bet that it wasn't that fun water-soluable stuff back in the day.

Yeah. Anyway, today the CEUS Department's students hosted the weekly International Coffee Hour at the Leo Dowling International Center. (CEUS, by the way, is the acronym for "C"entral "EU"rasian "S"tudies, pronounced SOOS.) I got a call and an email earlier this week asking if I would be interested in providing some fun materials about Turkey, which, as a few of you may know, is what I study. I came to the Center with my rug, toys, books, magazines, and photos. As I looked around, I saw that most of the contingencies had at least two people: the Mongolia people, the Uzbekistan people, the Tibet people...and then, me. Oh sure, there are Turks in the department, and people who study Turkish language, but, uh, I am the only Turkish Studies major in this entire institution who was not born and raised in Turkey. The other TWO majors in Turkish Studies are my former and current Turkish language instructors, Züleyha hanım and Abbas bey.

Much like the unicorns of my bad B movie, I've been alone here since I arrived in Bloomington. Oh, I don't mean friend-wise; good Lord, that would be ridiculous for me to say. The friends I have here are one of a few reasons why I haven't left yet. No, I mean another American student who would share in my Turkish-learning woes. Someone who would be up with me all night as we worked through papers, impossible translations and endless cups of coffee and Turkish crack-tea. But ah, well. It warrants a certain amount of celebrity, to be sure. Who, at a school that has a student body measured in the tens of thousands, can say that they, and they alone, are the non-native representation of an area study? Now THAT'S a party conversation-starter.

Off to the bliss of Turkish language slumber.

Good night, Indiana.

Dom