Day Fifty-Four: Who Touched the Thermostat?

Not to brag, but I'm moving up in the world.  Mürşat, the guy whose desk is across from mine, is out of the office for two days this week, so I got his desk.  That means that 1) for two days, at least, I have a desk instead a table pushed up against someone else's desk and 2) I'm slightly closer to the window and now have a beautiful view of good old Kadir Has.  I haven't heard anything about an increase in salary to go along with this move, but my Turkish is very limited so maybe they mentioned it and I didn't realize it.
Nothing else has really changed, but I have discovered that Ömer, the guy whose desk mine was attached to, is a big fan of Seinfeld and Southpark.  Almost fifteen years after its cancellation, that show is still bringing people together all around the world.
Speaking of which, we received some very nice notes from some anonymous fans in our neighborhood yesterday.  I realize that when you see "anonymous fans" it's easy to read "stalkers," but we're pretty sure they were from the little kids who live in our building because they're always saying "Hello!" when we walk past them on the stairs and the writing on the notes was much more child-like than stalker-like.  One said, "I love you."  I'm assuming that they meant love in the sense of "like," since Turkish only has one word for both, and I'm assuming that they meant "you" in the plural sense.  If not, we can only guess as to whether it was addressed to Jill, Katie, or me.  The other note said, "I hope you do well in school," which was very thoughtful.
Now that Michael Phelps' gold medal streak is over, I thought I'd give everyone an equally exciting streak to follow.  Yesterday marked the second day in a row that I spilled juice on myself.  This time it was orange juice, and luckily it happened during our lunch break and we were close enough to the apartment that I could walk back and change shirts (it's also lucky that I have so many blue shirts).  So far there is no indication that the streak will last another day, but I've only been here for half an hour, so there's a lot of time left.
One last thing: I've learned an important lesson about office life.  Evidently, everyone doesn't always agree on what temperature they want it to be.  The last week and a half has been, among other things, a constant struggle between the two guys in my office and the woman who runs the department over when to use the AC and when to open the windows.  Since this is the Environmental Department, doing both is obviously out of the question, and the door must always be shut if the AC is on (to conserve energy) and open when it's off (to create a wind current).  Every half hour or so, Mürşat, announced or unannounced, will pick up the control for the AC and turn it on and Ömer will shut the windows.  About a half hour later, our supervisor will put on her sweater, and then within the next thirty minutes she will shut off the AC and open the door while Ömer opens the windows.  It's like a slower version of this clip from Family Guy (appropriate for all ages):

I think they've discussed this on occasion, but for the most part it is a silent struggle of the wills, one which is not likely to be resolved in my time here.  Perhaps my presentation could include some sort of proposal of how to solve this crisis, but I'm afraid it looks as though the AC unit will remain the Gaza of this office for the foreseeable future.  I'm just trying not to get involved.  I turn on the AC when I get to work and the second someone else comes in it's entirely their call.  The result is that I'm alternately perfectly comfortable or sweating substantially throughout the day, but it's better than our apartment.