I wanted to chronicle something about the last week. Friday, December 21st was the day that supposedly the Mayan calendar ended (
even though this supposedly isn't true) along with the world. This was a big deal in Turkey and the talk of my students and co-workers the past couple weeks. Şirince, a Turkish village on the Mediterranean, was somehow prophesied to be a "safe" haven and
saw its population swell as a result.
Tom Cruise was even rumored to be coming.
On Thursday, one of the 4th grade teachers had an "Apocalypse" (Kıyamet Günü) party and several students promised not to be in school on Friday. Indeed, Friday's attendance in my classes was the lowest all year.
One of the local malls had a clever marketing scheme around the day. This poster reads "The apocalypse is happening at Kentpark Mall! 110% (off)" The fine print says "100% Kentpark Mall, 10% off all purchases over 100 lira." Clever!
When I got to school on Friday I was reminded that we still had until about 1:20pm local time before the apocalypse was supposed to happen (times for each city were tweeted out quite a bit). Thankfully, the world didn't end while I was with my 2nd grade class. But the low attendance made it one of the most well-behaved classes of the semester.
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