REFLECTION TASK 3 - THE PERSON OF THE YEAR 2015

        

      If I would be a jury member of a committee choosing the person of the year then I would say in a deep sorrow that my candidate would be Aylan Kurdi, the 3 years old innocent immigrant who was trying to go to Europe fleeing from Syria via Bodrum, Turkey on 03rd September, 2015 and tragically their boat aborded and their corpses have been found on the Bodrum seaside.

     This tragic photo slammed our face that we lost our humanity and became helpless and speechless about such a terrible event that is happening just next to us and I am afraid that we - as a nation -  are also guilty about these tragic ends of innocent babies. May God bless them and forgive us for our sins that we could not manage to solve the problems before coming to this point.

     As it is announced many times in social media that if there would be a duck, dolphin or a whale many people would try to sacrifice them to protect and survive them but when the matter is about Syrian or Irakian refugees, immigrants then those volunteer humanistic approaches disappear immediately which makes myself ashamed of being a human.

    I was expecting from all over the world, especially from United Nations that they would play more effective roles about this issue but they - or we - proved that talking a lot does not mean that we do enough things in order to solve this issue.

REFLECTION TASK 2 B - PRESENTATION OF A BOOK / CATALOGUE

      In this reflection task I would like present a book / catalogue to you. ISFILA 2014 Turkish Stamps Catalogue is published by İstanbul Philatelic and Cultural Center Co. in 2014 and it has valuable information about the whole Ottoman and Turkish stamps information during the period of 1863 - 2014 and annually they publish the new version of this catalog. It was prepared by M. Ziya Ağaoğulları and M. Bülent Papuçcuoğlu which is their 7th catalogue of this serie, it has 462 pages and it costs 65 TL.
      At the beginning of the book/ catalogue the publishers have given the explanations in detail about the stamps regarding the group series, issue date, name, perforations, printed quantity of the series, printing process, printing house, illustration of the stamps, catalogue number, denomination value of the stamp, color and if any particularity of the stamp, quantity, color of the overprint / surcharge, etc.
      First Ottoman stamps took place in 1862 and there were only two nominations of 2 and 5 Kurus stamps have been used which is called Tughra first printing postage stamps. On 12th January 1863 Tughra brown color postage due stamps, thin paper have been used and these are the most valuable stamps of Ottoman and Turkish Republic time which worth around 200000 USD.
      It has interesting information about our recent history such as Ottoman postage stamps overprinted by TBMM - Turkish Grand National Assembly Government in 1920 which has been showing that the postage service was ongoing even during the war times. Young Republic and its all new developments or changes in the country's social, economic and cultural life have been represented on the stamps which is a valuable source for academic purposes when you make researches about the recent history of Turkish Republic on 20th century.
      As a collectionist and philatelist I have been always grateful to the publishers of such valuable catalog which is really a must-to-have book about our recent history and contemporary stamps with all details about them. It helped a lot to me in order to arrange and classify my thousands of stamps according to their characteristics and catalog numbers. I like the style and the quality of this precious reference book/catalogue which was and is always useful and informative for me.

REFLECTION TASK 2 - A - AYRANCI ANTİKA PAZARI - ANKARA AYRANCI ANTIQUE BAZAAR

       There are several activities among the antique dealers in all around the world. Auctions and antique bazaars are two examples of these facilities that collectionist people often participate to sell and buy many items in these two joyful environments.

      First Sunday of every month there is a big antique bazaar taking place in Ayrancı district of Ankara that thousands of antique fans coming together in this gathering from previous night till next evening in order to exhibit their goods and make profit of these valuable items that are coming from all over the world. I am fond of visiting this spectacular event every month and bought many items for my collections from there. It is the most important event for myself in each month that I have to go and visit this amazing atmosphere since I can buy many of my missing things for my collections there for a reasonable price.

      I like the soul of this particular event very much and I like to see thousands of things from all over the world and have desire to buy as much as possible in accordance with my budget every month. I like the people who are selling interesting items here and each person has his/her own customers due to their different collections. Comparing to the similar activities in other European countries, Ankara Antique bazaar is much more friendly and the people are here helping to each other and trying to provide new things for the collectionists since they know each other for long years and they follow each other's collections what is missing or which item would be suitable for whom.

       Main problems and challenges that occur here are due to bureaucracy and the common regulations of Ministry and Municipality that the organizator of this event, The Anatolian Association of Antique Dealers and the members of them suffer mainly from above mentioned regulations and bureaucratic problems that prevent them from doing better activities for the sake of antique lovers.

      What should be done is mainly the Ministrial issue that the Law should be changed for these people to increase their productivity and help them to protect and save much more antique items before going abroad from illegal ways.

REFLECTION TASK 1 - A - JOINING TO A METU CLUB

         There are several Student Clubs and Societies performing lots of activities in METU. While I checked the webpage http://www.metu.edu.tr/student-clubs-and-societies I could not find any suitable club for antiques and collections. I would like to apply to the Cultural Affairs Unit in order to facilitate and establish one club dealing with antiques and collectibles.

         Collecting old, antique items is a very old hobby and habit around the world that especially European countries are very famous about collecting very valuable items for centuries. There are many special and private collections about coins, rare books, oil paintings, etc which are on the exhibition in many public and private museums in many different cities.

        I have been collecting many different things such as stamps, coins, old books, pencils, semi precious gemstones, etc. since the age of 6 and it already passed 40 years now in collecting. I am very much pleased to have such a wonderful hobby that I met many experienced collectors all around the world and learned many valuable information about general topics and sometimes about my own collections. I am grateful to them always.

       It would be a pleasure for me also to initiate a social club in METU that dealing with this issue and promoting the idea of collecting valuable items and sharing knowledge about all suitable subtopics of collecting items. Since I am a qualified collector and registered to Anatolian Civilizations Museums as an antique coin collector, I believe that I can provide enough information and experience for anybody who would like to begin collecting things and I can also easily make expertise about anything on these topics.

      I would like to establish one club in this field and I hope to promote awarenes about collecting in general and antique items in particular.

     Best wishes,

MY SCHOOL NETWORK - FEEDBACKS

My School Network is a wonderful application and a learning environment especially for the young students from all around the world. What is nice is that there are numerous English Teachers that are online and helping to improve their language skills and supporting them for their grammar points and sentence structures. I am pleased to be a member of this group and I am trying to help as much as possible pupils from all over the world.