Alper Üngör

...From

 
like a mare's head reaching for the Mediterranean
     this  country  is ours.
wrists drenched in blood, teeth clenched, feet bare
   and soil smooth as a silken carpet
this hell, this paradise is ours.

                         Nazim Hikmet

I was born in a little Anatolian town named Niksar and enjoyed my childhood there. Niksar is a historical town in the Black Sea region of Turkey. At the time (about one thousand years ago) it was the capital of an Anatolian kingdom, Danismends, and it hosted one of the first madrasahs in Turkey. Today, there is not even a single college (or a good high school for that matter) in Niksar. The town also bears the name of a famous mineral water.

My journey for better education started when I was 11; I moved to Samsun, a relatively bigger town by the Black Sea. I spent seven years at Samsun Anatolian high school, a.k.a. Samsun Colllege.

Then I moved to Ankara, capital town of Turkey. I studied Computer Science at the Middle East Technical University (METU). I loved being at METU; so I stayed there for a few years more as a teaching assistant in Computer Science. Meanwhile I got an MBA.

My next stop was Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, somewhere in upstate New York. I stayed there a little more than a year and got my MS degree in Computer Science.

Finally, I moved to Urbana-Champaign to study further. Here in this little midwestern town I spend my time mostly studying, enjoying friends, playing badminton, racquetball, and soccer, going to Krannert, Espresso, and Borders, walking or X-country skiing with Tasha, watching movies (did you know that you can borrow very good movies from the Urbana free library) and reading.

Alper Üngör June 2002