Description Of The Day

ZEE: She’s a 19 year-old girl, suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. She is a quick-tempered, disorganized, untidy but clean girl. Although she tries to make others believe that she is a  liberal, in fact she is traditional. She has a strong sense of personal ethics. She can’t keep abreast of all innovations immediately. She suffers from insomnia at nights so she watches films when she can’t sleep. She’s addicted to cigarettes, but doesn’t drink alcohol. She’s passionately fond of her father and she has a tattoo showing her father’s date of birth on her leg. But she doesn’t show this to her father. She doesn’t answer telephone calls. Most of the time she rings it off before the other person speaks.

HALUK: He is Zee’s 78 year-old father. He lives in Turkey. He is a childish man. He still watches the cartoon Tom & Jerry every morning. He’s trying to keep up with technology in order to prove that he isn’t old. He’s not a narrow minded man; on the contrary, he’s innovative in the same way as young people and thinks in the same way with them. The fact that he  ZEE was born to him in his old age makes him care for her very much. Though he knows that his daughter loves him, he also wants affection from her. He calls her daughter at least ten times a day.

HILARY ZANETICH: She is the closest friend of ZEE. She was born in New Jersey. She is blond, tall and plump. She doesn’t mind her physical appearance, except at nights when she goes out. She wears the same clothes at school everyday. She’s quite a flexible and a positive person. Although she believes that ZEE is a hypochondriac and crazy, she loves her very much.

All the time she says that their friendship has improved her character in many ways. Her flexibility makes HILARY extremely funny. The fact that she never minds anything sometimes gets her into trouble. The first person that ZEE asks about America is HILARY. However, as Hilary’s general knowledge is not sufficient, she calls her mother each time after Hilary’s answers.

YAMAN GAZIOGLU: He is the closest Turkish boy friend of ZEE. He is very keen on girls, especially American blond girls. His most noticeable feature is that while he is speaking English, he applies direct translations from Turkish. For that reason, he usually talks about what ZEE can understand. (He translates Turkish idioms into English, but they make sense to no one except for ZEE.)

Turkey is against America.

As images of Turkey come from the international map, ZEE explains about Turkish people and the general features of Turkey  that have been left behind. When the camera-shot moves away from Turkey and starts to approach America, we see luxury shops, automobiles, and elite people shopping and having dinner in Merrick Park, where Zee lives. Following these images, the camera is slowly directed to Zee’s bedroom. Meanwhile, we grasp from Zee’s words that she wants to be far away from her American life style even for only one day.

Starting the day.

The first place we meet Zee is her bedroom. Cigarette ends at the bedside of Zee, burying her head in her pillow, a great many dresses on the floor and DVDs draw our attention. A film is already on the TV with low volume. There are pictures of her father and his letters to her on the walls. Her father’s call wakes Zee up. Her father, whose computer has already been locked, calls Zee to ask for her help. However, he doesn’t listen to what ZEE says and does what he wants.

Zee, fed up with her father’s advice and warnings, hangs the phone up. Meanwhile she is called again by Blockbuster so that she will return the DVDs she rented from them. As she can’t go on sleeping, she calls the hairdresser to have her hair done. But she can’t have an appointment since a customer has sued  the hairdresser. Extremely disappointed Zee deals with her hair by herself, gets dressed and goes out.

Traffic monster.

While she is driving slowly towards school  listening to music at the highest volume, she almost runs into an car trying to overtake a slower vehicle. She has to swerve to the right and runs into the garden of a house. She immediately looks at the number plate of the automobile and,  shaking  all over,  calls the police.  But the police cannot help Zee as neither she nor her car is injured. They say to her, that’s life.

4) Accusation

Zee goes to her French lesson with a Turkish friend and her teacher makes them get out of the class. The teacher tells Zee that she will punish her and expel her from school as Zee helped a friend with his homework. Zee explains to her teacher that she’s still trying to get used to American school system, adding that in Turkey helping one’s friends with their homework is not considered such a bad thing. After that, the teacher excuses Zee by pointing out that she mustn’t do it again.

5) For those buying one, the second is free of charge.

Zee goes shopping with her American friend Hilary in their one and a half hour break. The salesman tries to persuade her by saying that if she buys two more underclothes from Victoria Secret shopping center, a freezer will be given to her free of charge. The attitude of the salesman makes Zee angry.

6) Post- it

When Zee comes back to school, she can’t find a parking place in the enclosed car-park of the school, so she has no chance out of parking on the meters. But she has no coins at that moment and she knows that her automobile will be towed away if she parks there as she hasn’t paid the fines she already has. She first hesitates but decides to park her car there as soon as she realizes that she’ll be late for her class. She gets out of  her car and  writes the following note on a post-it, putting it on the parking meter; “I’m sorry, but I have no coins. PLEASE DO NOT PULL MY AUTO AWAY, I WILL BE BACK WITHIN TWO HOURS.”  She then sticks it on the windshield.