Looking back

There was so much more I wanted to write about and I'm sorry that I was only able to let you take part in this much, which was - considering the amount of experiences - not enough at all. Yet, this is my last buzzfeedstyled post. 



I am so thankful to everybody, who took part in this experience. No matter if they did good or bad to me, if they spent much time with me or not. All of it together made it what it is. But some moments made it more special than others and I'm gonna share those 11 moments with you! 

11 Tower of the America's 
    I know everybody is sick of towers with platforms to see cities 
    from the top, because you have them everywhere you go as a 
    tourist. But I recommend this one to you, because the platform 
    is an outdoor space, which is unusual. So you can guess how 
    windy it is. Especially when you have such funny people around 
    as I did, you'll have a great time up there! 

10 Museum of natural Science Houston, 3rd floor
    Why did I like it that much? Well, I didn't know how colorful 
    the US used to be. Everybody hears about Indigenous Tribes but             
    how can you tell they were so different from each other? If I      
    could tell how my reincarnation worked, I'd totally say I might         
    have been one of them once. Yeah, weird thoughts, aren't they?      
    Go,experience it, if you have the chance one day! 

09 The Uber Drive from west side to Trinity with a very different   
   lady 
    She was legendary. She ful-
    filled the stereotypical 
    understanding of a black &  
    very strong woman in the US. 
    But sometimes there hides so 
    much more behind what you can 
    see - her story was one 
    of these hidden treasures. 
    

  







  
08 Prassel Hall Rooftop Nights
    Right in the house where I lived, we had a nice balcony with a  
    view on the stars. The German version of Mafia, "Werwolf", was  
    our basic game. I always got killed, even though I have never  
    been the Wolf!    

07 O PHI - Fret Party (thanks to Michael & Jeff!)
    Your Party gave me the feeling that I'm not as far from home as    
    I thought, because the atmosphere was so much more familiar than  
    at any other frat party. Or lets say it was simply more  
    enjoyable. 


06 Graffitipark in Austin

   











05 The Bar at Saint Mary's street - I don't remember the name
   No words.. just a random street with +21Bars(remember, not 18) 

04 The moment of our arrival in San Antonio
    ... which became even more awesome thanks to Backtosch's  
    great taste of music (click on the link). Three of us arrived later    
    than the rest,which was due to some complications but even     
    though we had a long 26-hour trip, this moment was so magic.    
    First impressions & the realization of where we actually were. 


03 The first night I spent in the Painting studio 
    Thanks to Jessica Halonen, the teacher who let me. 
    Thanks to Michael.





02 AcroYoga at the Pearl (thanks to Yara!)
    This must be what they call f
    flying. I love how there was 
    a green spot in-between the 
    industrial buildings, that 
    were turned into little 
    boutique shops. That little 
    green spot would definitely 
    be my place to be on friday 
    nights because random Yoga-
    lovers just meet and do 
    AcroYoga together. The Pearl 
    itself, by the way, is a 
    great place to hang around 
    at. Reminded me of Amsterdam a lot. Also I love this photo: 



01 Tigerfest 
    How fancy can a Masquerade be? This one at least was fancy but 
    cool at the same time, because the area it was at had many
    buildings with rooftops and outdoor-areas that I appreciated a  
    lot. Because when everybody left, my night ended at one of them. 
    I am thankful to have been part of this. Basically AcroYoga and 
    Tigerfest belong together because they were both at the last 
    friday we had. 

Response to Dr. Erin Saltman’s lecture on „ISIS and the right-wing propaganda“

Extremism is a globally observed and discussed issue that we are all faced with, albeit in varying degrees. As Germans, living in Europe, it is highly interesting for us to see how those issues are perceived here because the US is a world leader. The lecture ISIS and European Right-Wing Propaganda by Dr. Erin Saltman offered us a great opportunity to gain an overview, but also induced more dissent than agreement. As people who live closer to the outcomes of extremism, we felt the urge to give our thoughts and experiences a voice.

For us, the main issue of the lecture is the lack of definition and differentiation. Specifically, our concerns were with the terms propaganda and Jihad. What is meant by propaganda? Saltman describes her work as a counter narrative, but does not counter narratives also function as a kind of propaganda? Also, what is meant by the Jihad, especially for a Muslim, and how do extremists interpret the Jihad? One might assume that in this lecture there is a certain opinion covered in research work, but a researcher has the duty to supply his audience with empirical knowledge and data.

We appreciate the deep analysis of the problematics of propaganda from the perspective of media, but we wished that the lecture drew on empirical data that went beyond social media, because that is what helps people to form their opinions independently: real people telling their real experiences. Both of us have their roots in Turkey. In the Kurdish area in the east of Turkey it is no longer an exception that uneducated and disadvantaged young girls and boys are being recruited on the streets. One has to analyze this process to be able to argue against the right-wing propaganda. That’s the only way to understand whether the Islam is responsible for this kind of extremism or whether extremists use Islam. The lecture was supposed to be about ISIS and European Right-Wing Propaganda, but it ended up being mainly about Islamism. In this regard, the title did not match the contents of the lecture. Extremism is working the same way, no matter if right or left winged, what belief, origin or mindset, and the causation and manner of extremism is what we have to pay attention to. A lecture without reflection is not what helps the world to understand reality of the conflict.

In her lecture, Saltman used the term twisted feminism to describe the motivation behind some of the ISIS propaganda. We do not believe that feminism or its twisted version is the basis to allure women to join ISIS. To understand how ISIS-propaganda for women works, we want to ask Dr. Saltman to analyze what kind of emotions these women had when seeing the propaganda advertisements. What motives did they have to be a part of the Islamic State? We did not understand how this can be linked to feminism, because feminism is linked to the freedom of women. On the other side, ISIS is associated with female slavery, which is why we opine that usually women who follow ISIS do not yearn for freedom, but rather romanticize the imagination of being a „Martyrs Wife“ - serving somebody who sacrifices their lives for God. However, Saltman’s hypothesis is not per se wrong, but we need to hear from people themselves (a research on the ground) as opposed to a description of what is clearly visible on social media.

Dr. Saltman did differentiate between Islam and ISIS and it is known that extremism is reality all over the world in every political and/or religious persuasion, but yet questions were left that could have been addressed. For us the most important question is why there is even an opportunity to be extremist within society in the first place. This question, which sure is such a sensitive topic, has to be answered for every sort of extremism in order to maintain peace and freedom in our society, and peace and freedom are not achievements, but responsibilities.

However, we appreciate a lot that there is the aim and motivation to want young students understand what is going on in the world and trying to achieve a change in society, a rapprochement of people. Democracy is only viable when each and every one of us is ready to take responsibility for the whole and our history shows that major changes were not done in brief timespans. Many roads lead to Rome and the important thing is, to start walking…

by Nadin Tanriverdi and Enes Portakalci

WEEK 2 - My highlight: "Astronaut Scott Kelly"

The weekend is up to come and I can't believe how quick time passes. I just slept till 2pm today because I realized, I haven't had enough sleep since Houston. Yesterday, Enes had his 21st birthday and the night before and last night we gathered on my Hall's rooftop - which was kind of a very familiar feeling. The first time since I am here, I felt like if this would be my home, I would feel good, too. So means that I really got used to everybody, doesn't it? At this point I have to thank Olga, Karen, Sara and Mariama because they had such big spirit when organizing everything and they showed me that you don't have to know a person for very long to feel the need to make them happy. Appreciation, girls!

However, it was a very hard week, too. After the lectures on BLM, there was that lecture on ISIS (yes, I know, I still didn't upload mine and Enes' article but I will whenever Dr. Noor corrects our mistakes in language use, cause it's a serious thing you know :P ).

But somehow, the most intereting event this week was last night, when Scott Kelly, the astronaut, who had a one-year mission in space, hold a lecture at Trinity.  I think there were more than three thousand people there and it was great to be in the same room with such a brave person. Even though I did not quite understand, why he didn't tell us what effects this had on his body, both physiologically and emotionally, because that was the actual topic of the lecture. Well he did talk about it for like 5 minutes, but what he rather did: He tried to make us understand that EVERYBODY can do everything, as long as they take the risk to lose other things that might seem essential in their lives. For me, that was pretty important to hear, because I am that kind of "alrounder" who never focusses on one thing and this problem chased me for a long time.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

My second week here in San Antonio started with a trip to a very tough area, as I told you in my last blogpost. The last days, I have very much never been off campus, because there was much going on here, too. What I appreciate a lot about this university is, that almost every day there is lectures on things that are really interesting and in fact important for our society. For example this tuesday, there was one on ISIS and Propaganda (which I am going to write an article on, that's gonna be published in the Trinity Newspaper) and one on the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Basically this week, the BLM-lecture was only on criminality and law in the U.S. in general. We analyzed many statistics that showed how Afro-American people are being treated unequally when it comes to the rate of busts for attended crimes. What I loved was that at the beginning we should write the amount of times that we attended certain crimes and we should answer how often we had to do something with the police. At the end they found out that within one room at our University, there was more than 6000 criminal acts done, but only like every 1 in 50 got punished in some way. Of course we also compared this to the rate of punishments within other, less privileged parts of the society.

Next tuesday, we will hear in certain, what the black lives matter movement is, so this lecture was only a preparation for us but I am quite sure, that it's going to be very special for me.
Until then, I would love you to also read a bit about the BLM-Movement, because it has many similarities to the struggle of my origin, the Kurdish.

WEST SIDE FOLKS

First of all, before starting to tell you more, I want to dedicate Tupac's "Bonnie and Clyde" to this blogpost. So feel free to listen while reading and looking at the Photos.

As everyone knows, Texas is at the border between the two big worlds of the U.S. and Mexico. This means that during times of war, battles or simply due to poverty, many people crossed this border, which leads to Texas being a very diverse State. San Antonio has 2 places that make one feel the complications as well as the beauty that arises, when different cultures come together. I actually loved these two places most, even though people told me it's very dangerous going there.

At first I want to talk about West Side, which Sascha and I visited yesterday because we missed on going there on Sunday when we were in Houston. Look at it on the Map if you like to visit it, too.
When we first arrived at the Art Gallery of Guadalupe, the doors were locked, because the high crime rate just scares the owners. The owner also told us to only visit the area by car and he was trying to at the same time explain to us, why people are so isolated from the rest of the American society when living in ghettos like these. I appreciate our conversation and have deepest respect when people have to live under such bad circumstances and still don't give up on being a good person. To be honest, I don't think that anything could happen during the day anyway. What is so special about this district is, as you might guess, that there are so many Hispanics, Mexicans and Afro-American people living there and the Mexican Culture is known for it's Murals. A very special artist creating this way of art was Diego Rivera. As I understood, the sense of murals is simply to write history on walls, to put down emotions or reflections on current events.

If you want to see more, you should visit this page!

The other part of San Antonio, that you can easily drive from West Side to experience some music and some wonderful and authentic little shops with traditional clothing, souvenirs or likewise, go to

the Market Square where I took these photos:

I hope this blogpost inspired you to as much as you can get to know locals and to try and feel and face lives that might look very strange to you at the beginning, to at some point gain empathy and get rid of prejudices. It's always good to know different positions and to understand history from multiple perspectives other than history books.

THE HOUSTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE

The natural Science museum was amazing! I can recommend going to Houston for that Museum to everybody who visits San Antonio. I think 2 hours are enough time to see everything, except you have special interest in Dinosaurs, in the preservation of petrified wood or in ancient tribes.
If that's the case, you should plan on staying 3 - 4 hours.

Here you can see our wonderful world from another point of view:

THE WAI WAI TRIBE

 QUARTZ AND OTHER MINERALS

 PETRIFIED WOOD

HOUSTON

Last night, we just decided to go to Houston for a night. Staying at an American hotel and eating Domino's Pizza in the Bank Quarter at midnight were of course moments I will never forget, but the highlight I want to share with you in this post was the NASA Space Centre outside the City.

"Some men look at things the way they are and ask why? 

I dream of things that are not and ask why not?"

For me it was incredible how many photos of astronauts I saw. They just live their dreams and barely anybody on earth knows them - they are not famous, they don't shine - they just live for their dreams and for the sake of exploring. The NASA is such a big centre, airforce is such a big business on this world that I have never been involved with at any point of my life. Yes, you hear about Apollo flying to the moon, you see the photos of an arising rocket, but you never actually think about how this whole construct was built, if it didn’t catch your interest from the first moment. But when I was there today, when I saw the Training Hall, that you can see here, I was overwhelmed.

 WOMAN EXCERCISING IN THE UNIVERSE

On the photo right here you can see a woman excercising in the universe. She has to do this because the body of a human needs movement, even when there is no gravity, otherwise the muscles would probably lose a bit of their functionality. What I as a Psychology Student ask myself is, what impact this environment has on a person’s mental health in a long way. I am sure that only very curious, very convinced people can make the decision to become an astronaut. It is probably like the decision to become a pilgrim or to live as an artist just for the art. I know that this comparison might not make sense to some of you, but all of these things have one common aspect: Once you decide you want to go this way, you never step back and you have to sacrifice many things, that normal people couldn't live without. 

Tomorrow, I am going to write something about the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which I took a lot of beautiful photos at. A new week is starting, and I have to be fit until then and get some sleep, so good night to you all!