Welcome to our visual blog for the BUPS/BIS 2009 8th grade Ephesus trip. These photographs, captions and "unphotographs" represent a joint venture in English and art class capturing the experience of the students' final middle school trip at BUPS/BIS. Many still remember and speak fondly of the games at Patalya in 6th grade and the adventures in Cappadocia last year in 7th. This year's experience held the same kind of wonder and memories, all the more poignant since in just a little time they will graduate from the 8th grade. The students have chosen their best landscape, portrait and detail photograph, writing a concise and descriptive caption for one. Using Michael David Murphy's "Unphotographable" as an inspiration, the students also wrought an image in words when its meaning went beyond the pixel.

Even though they will be in the same building next year and have many of the same teachers, high school is a different world. Every assignment and class trip of middle school has been constructed to help the students succeed in this new realm. But, as you will see from the photos of Ephesus and its surrounding areas and as the students realized, the past is never far away, and it's always the foundation for the future.

Thursday

Erim Demirel

This is a picture I did not take of a phenomenal boy of possible Indian origin who was changed each & every day by the hollering sounds that came out of him. The dowdy old hotel tried to accept this situation in its blank walls, falling upon him, almost as if they want to make him go away. It was definitely outrageous for such a small boy to wander around and talk to us, total strangers, but as time showed us what we needed most, friendship, we recognized that he was acting in a strange way like this for his needs, to make new friends.