watermelon

(i)

my schedule at school is very different during the summer. most university students have left town - so the classes are now filled with older students, professionals, company managers.

teaching older students is sometimes easier, sometimes harder - but it definitely grants me a wider array of topics to pick from: relationships, parenting, work etc.

seemingly, in a class filled with 30somethings and 40somethings there is always a greater variety of perspectives and feelings, expectations, perceptions of society and priorities. oddly, i keep on finding that turkish working women are very different from their european, let alone american counterparts. first of all because usually women here quit work as soon as they start a family and secondly because they appear to be of just two (2) kinds: either very exhausted and silent or very ambitious, arrogant and opinionated.

when i am doing trainings for companies - it is mainly for some big multinational names that have their production lines here in izmir. textile, food, baking products, tyres, spare parts, jeans, tobacco groups - there are legions of factories nested around izmir's airport... and i always enjoy learning about how they work and what kind of working environment they offer.

i also like talking about my students' family life - what they hope for their children, what kind of relationship they have with them.

i often tell myself i am very grateful for this job - what i enjoy best about it is that it keeps my eyes opened on other people's feelings, hopes and opinions. many people i know, especially after having children, seem to live in a kind of one-way lane; never turning their eyes to glance a little bit further and rarely thinking out of their box - and out of their pockets too. so far, somehow i seem to have collected a long list of jobs lacking both career stature and future prospects - but they all have indeed allowed me never to grow up much, which might not be too bad, after all.

(ii)

days are long, full of light and heat and as i write this the wind is blowing fast and dry.

summer is a beautiful season around here and i enjoy being outdoor - as long as i am granted my daily, humongous portion of watermelon.

i could eat myself into a coma with watermelon! and here the slices you get are huge, sweet and as red as blood.

(iii)

got a call from my former boss the other week. it was a lovely surprise and i was smiling from ear to ear + he was in such a good and silly mood that i kept on laughing. i am the type of person that treasures immensely small things like that. i usually go out of my way to stay in touch and to keep in contact in a very personable, sharing, open way. i could spend hours writing emails to friends and receiving news and nice messages from them is perhaps one of the best parts of my daily life. some people seem to have a gift for staying in your heart and living abroad and away often calls for a level of generosity, humour and spontaneity in relationships that few people are able to communicate. but if they do - that is about as special as fresh watermelon in the blazing heat of turkish summer!

Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend

click on link below and select "oxford comma" from playlist (superb!)

Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend

Bill Bryson + Bridget Jones = Kusadasi

I remember reading few years ago The Lost Continent (Travels in Small Town America) by Bill Bryson and finding it extremely amusing - especially when its author dwells on stories of childhood holidays / trips with his family... his father driving them to some remote destination, his mother making sure everyone had a sandwich ready. In the book, Bryson stresses how dreadful and hopeless these holiday attempts always were - with everyone getting tired, irritable and bored out of their mind...and small town america as a glorious backdrop.

The way you travel as a child - I agree with Bryson on this one - somehow stays with you throughout your life. I think of this every time I pack my bag to go somewhere and picture my father and mother quarelling while picking a destination, bickering while loading the car with bags, complaining during the whole trip and having spats all the way through the family break.


My mother had the secret talent of making it impossible to let anyone enjoy anything - she hated packing and usually overpacked, loading bags with useless items; she hated being away from home; she despised pop music being played in the car; she found flaws in any kind of service she was given - at the restaurant, in the hotel room, with any of the staff trying to sedate her. She even insisted on fussying over the fire escape plan posted behind our hotel rooms' doors - she would point to any (alleged) mistake in its english and french translation, much to my embarassment.


She would be short with any hotel staff, especially waiters - something i dreaded and found horrible to say the least.
I found her tedious. Some years later i read somewhere that the way you treat a waiter or a waiteress is exactly how you are going to treat your spouse after ten years of marriage - something i have grown to acknowledge as exceptionally true.


Being doing a lot of packing and travelling recently - hence the childhood memories.

Luckily I am someone who is happy at the mere idea of "going somewhere" - especially if that includes a couple of days spent at the sea. Give me some sun, swimming and plenty of time outdoors and I turn into an enthusiastic 8 year old.




We have been spending few long weekends here and there and I must say the coast close to Izmir is beautiful. The weather keeps on being amazing and it takes very little time from the city to reach lovely spots.


Some of them are less touristy - or, to phrase it better - more popular with the "in crowd" from Istanbul (places like Cesme or Alacati). Others (like Kusadasi, Bodrum and Marmaris) are packed with English tourists - flown in weekly, if not daily, with charter flights.

Just got back from Kusadasi and had a taste of "hols" in a resort populated by mainly Britons and Eastern Europeans. At a first glance it did look like the backstage of a Ken Loach movie - with faces and accents that gave away more geographical and social indications than a very detailed census on the state of the nation. Apart from the beer loving Anglic crowd - there was also a huge number of Eastern Europeans - mainly young couples with two or three kids in tow. The resort was swarming with children and toddlers - you could not help but smile seeing so many tiny people with blonde hair and round faces.



Turkey has quickly become a dream destination for many English families. They come here on crowded crusades helmed by all-inclusive kings like Thomas Cook and love it: it is cheap, beautiful and happy to help with drink binges. A lot of people may well look down at these uncouth, over tatooed, over pierced, over weight and under educated tourists - but to be honest, after sharing some time / sea and pool side with them I am prone to do the opposite.



My mother would certainly cringe at me saying that... But in truth to me they seemed deliriously happy - perhaps in a a bit of a crass, unelegant way... but I am always partial to genuine expressions of happiness seen in others. And English people, I find, have a bit of a talent about that... They somehow never seem to grow up. Give them football, a party with 70's and 80's music, allow them a tan and a nice beach with few extra beers and they will be expressing contempt and joy like children when you give them candy and a new toy.

After all - I must say I have grown to find unbearable the blunt elitarianism of the holiday style now so popular in Europe...with masses of people trying to show off the fact they are travellers - not plain tourists; educated souls, not low-cost faring types; spiritual specimens cultivating eco-friendliness, aware of multiethnicalities and prone to exotic culturalism. I simply think Bruce Chatwin died a long time ago and that most of us grew up and out of childhood holidays closer to the ones Bryson describes so disarmingly well - lacking intellectual acumen perhaps, but with mothers packing sandwiches and fathers angrily cursing behind the wheel.



Also...

While lounging around the tiny pool where my 3 year old was happily splashing about I noticed how relaxed and funny English mothers can be with their little ones. There is something incredibly refreshing and real in how self deprecating and sloppy they accept to be. I could never imagine an Italian mother acting like them - being as sporty and silly as they are.



... back to Izmir now... back to school ... back to the usual swing of things...

looking forward to the next long weekend away...

(and wishing long life to Thomas Cook!! -

as well as to the rather adorable army of bridget-jonesy mums!! never prone to even bothering with the bloody fire escape notice...)

lou

(i)

it is some time after 11 pm and i just got back from a long jog.

the seafront, seen from the top looked like the scene you get when people leave a stadium late at night, after a concert - crowds walking past slowly, street vendors, people stretched on the grass smoking and eating in small, scattered, improvised picnics.

the restaurants and cafes downstairs swarm with people till late - you can hear the chatter and music, the noise of plates and laughters, the waiters calling each other.

if you look and listen for too long you never feel like going to bed and i guess that's what happened tonight.

i came back from my evening class - and headed out straight.

(ii)

today the temperature hit 38 degrees.

the weather is hot and dry: throughout the day you cannot a single cloud, the air does not move, the light blazes on - like a paralysing spray...stopping everything...even the sea... slowing down people, slowing down thoughts.

it is high season for cruises "doing" the mediterranean - so the few passers by around are interestingly clad elderly foreigners, looking like a bizarre contemporary rendition of colonel rommel in the sahara desert.

they sport very (very) purple tans.

street vendors sell cherries and watermelon in every street and some kids dive in the sea by the port - careless of all the dirt, the smell and the fact that the kyoto agreement would be re-written if people realised how oblivious turkey is to any grasp / concept / knowledge of good hygiene practice, let alone environmental awareness.

(iii)

taught a new class tonight. it is an ab initio class - which makes it very hard to actually communicate.

as i entered i could not help but notice that one man sitting to my right looked like the clone of lou ferrigno - the actor who (painted green!) famously played the incredible hulk.

i was so focused on the amazing resemblance that, i must admit, i could not even catch his name when he introduced himself.

but then he started talking about what he does - ......later on he added something about where he comes from etc - and i did manage to take lou ferrigno off my mind.

he works as a surgeon and operates on urology patients.

oddly - he could mumble through the basics like "my name is..." etc - but when it came to giving detailed vocabulary on prostates / bladders and urinary tracts - he was a natural. (which impressed me - but went unnoticed by the rest of the group).

but it was when he said something about his family that i nearly fell off my chair.

he has 4 sisters and 6 brothers.

for a total of 11 siblings!

given such large numbers and to finish off my excited statistics - i asked what they do.

3 are teachers;

2 are policemen;

1 is a security guard;

1 is a butcher;

1 is a farmer;

2 he did not know the english words for.

his father retired from working as a truck driver recently.

"as baby i want be truck driver me too" he added with a polite voice "but my father say to be doctor. so i am doctor".

as i was jogging tonight - i kept on seeing his quiet smile saying that and thought that anywhere else he would have sounded out of time and history - maybe taken to a therapist "to cope"; maybe looked down at as backward or even simple.

i don't know.

when i meet people like him i feel the life and world i come from is a bit spoilt - perhaps a little twisted...and certainly self indulgent.

is that too banal a reaction?

(maybe yes, but still).

i can still hear the noise from 8 floors below, people are still slowly pacing along the sea - but it is time to go to bed now.

i may dream of turning into a green pile of muscles.

hopefully i will be back into bruce banner mode when i wake up tomorrow...

more colins please!

been enjoying some very good summer reads.

read again - and with much enjoyment - alan ayckbourn's play "absent friends".
in my first year of drama in singapore i was actually cast in it as diana, the unhappy and resentful wife of paul.
i loved playing diana - a character who keeps sheepish despite being bossed around...but then goes mental big time.

re-reading "absent friends" - i realised it is perhaps one of the best pieces of writing on friendship with very contemporary references to how twisted and sad relationships can turn, when faulted by envy and mediocrity.

the plot of the play is as follows:

Diana has organised a tea party for Colin, an old friend of her husband Paul. Colin’s fiancé has recently drowned and the aim is to cheer him up with a gathering of old friends Paul, John and Gordon.
Gordon is, typically, ill and his wife Marge turns up instead, while Paul and John are less than enthusiastic about the party.
All this hides deep problems: Paul has had a brief affair with John’s wife Evelyn – who has brought her ("funny looking") baby Wayne to the party and is dismissive of Paul’s love-making; Marge is desperate for a child of her own and has transferred her maternal instincts on to an increasingly dependent and accident-prone Gordon; Diana is desperately unhappy, misses her children who are at boarding school and is bullied by Paul – who she suspects of having a major affair with Evelyn; John is aware of Evelyn’s affair, but is dependent on Paul for employment. Both John and Paul are so uncomfortable with the idea of meeting Colin that they play down their friendship to the point of almost non-existence.
The majority of this emerges before Colin has even arrived and just as matters threaten to erupt, the man himself turns up and everyone awkwardly tries to both be nice to him and to get on with each other.
But all have seriously misjudged Colin, who is seriously happy. He is blissful in the memory of the time he spent with his fiancé; annoyingly happy in fact. His apparent satisfaction with his life, despite his loss, merely highlights the depths to which all those around have sunk and his attempts to sort out their problems merely creates further rifts in the already damaged relationships of the other couples.
Colin is largely oblivious to everything deteriorating around him and finally recalls that Paul once secretly took one of Diana’s handkerchiefs, when they were first in love. Paul reveals he still has it… and uses it to clean the car. Diana, practically at the edge anyway, snaps and pours a jug of cream over him before breaking down in front of everyone, recalling how she longed to be a Canadian Mountie (??) when young. She is sedated and Colin departs, secure in his own memories – leaving all the others isolated and alone.

what i found striking the first times i went through the script and what hit me even more recently is how terribly wicked is the way everyone goes out of their way to show extreme pity for colin - while he is the only "complete" and put-together carachter.
everybody else is a bundle of nerves, total self indulgence and petty frustrations - whereas colin (the only person who experienced real and recent pain first hand)...has a sensitive and quiet grip of himself while remaining an upbeat, sensitive and strong person.

i think people in general do that all the time - they envy and pity without even remotely knowing what your real life and inner thoughts actually are.

and friends are, yes, quite often more absent than friends.

ankara cats' epidemic, 3,025 words and a wife called rapunzel

started teaching a new student last night.
he is a production engineer working in a sundried tomatoes manifacturing company; he is about 35 and looks very much like a starved and shaved version of jeremy irons.
mind you, jeremy irons is rather skinny for starters... so this guy looks kind of terminally ill.

we had a two hour one to one conversation lesson and after about three minutes i realised he was a bit of a basket case.

for the whole two hours he made a point of looking at the wall opposite to where i was sitting - meaning... i was basically speaking to the back of his head. a rare experience, so to speak!

i tried to break the ice with the usual smile and the standard opening "so... it is the first time we meet... can you tell me a little bit about yourself, what you do, what you like to do in your spare time...if there is anything you prefer to talk about..."

the answer to that went on for what felt like too long and i kept on smiling and responding with very quiet... "i see"..."right"..."i understand"..."alright"..."ok"..."of course" - while kind of feeling he was:
1. either pulling my leg
or
2. promising material for some raymond carver-type of short story.

he spoke with a slight stutter and a very narrow accent that made him sound kind of ukranian.
his hands clenched together under the table and his head turned he explained:

"i was born and brought up in izmir. i am a food engineer, my job is very stressful and about quality control. you might think it is interesting but it is not. i like english language. in english i know 3,025 words and i know many idioms. i want you to teach me idioms. i can memorise idioms...-easy for me. i live with my wife. she is a food engineer too. but most importantly i live with my kitty cat, Ada. ada is deaf. she is deaf because she is from ankara. all cats from ankara are deaf. it is a genetic disorder. i suffer from a disorder too. a chemical disorder. that's why i calculate all the time. i need numbers. i make calculations all the time... i cannot live without it... i calculate about the lift, about the birds flying, about the cars passing, about my steps, about my breathing, about the cigarettes i smoke, about my english. i am taking many medications for this. plus...i have obsessive compulsive disorder too.
that's me"

after such a promising start - the first remark i made seem to disappoint him.
"you know, david beckham suffers from o.c.d. too - i read it in elle magazine"

after that - i kind of got some points back in taking an interest in ada...
"i was wondering if really all (all) cats from ankara are, as you were saying - 100% deaf and in 100% of all cases"
to which he responded enthusiastically - staring at his shoes instead of the wall.

when i asked "how did you meet your wife?"
he shot back - "it happened like in the rapunzel fairytale. she was the blonde lady locked in the tower by her father. the prince went to save her by climbing the tower holding onto her hair".
to which - honestly... - this time not even elle magazine could save me.

we still had 15 minutes to go and i made the mistake to say - "any question? any problem so far?" -
he looked at me for the first time in two hours and with a bit of an evil (but very determined) smile he showed me the cover of his blue copybook.
"i cannot go on. i have closed my notepad already. the class MUST finish"...

k story and u story (and some dessert too please)

tonight i came home after class thinking that, sure, on one hand i may be a rather improvised teacher - but, on the other, i do care for my students very much.

to the point that quite often - while listening to them or reading their essays... i cannot help but truly wishing them a happy, full life ahead.

tonight i taught two of my best students - U. and K.; they are two young army officers. teaching them has made me realise the strict and high standards the army has here. their manners, their poise and their english too are flawless. they are outspoken, they know contemporary history backwards, they are up to date with any current affairs event, they want to be posted abroad with nato. they receive training in how to dismantle handgranades and are sent off for days to march up and down in the snow or in some remote village in the east - yet at the same time they are articulate, well read and proper.

they are also disarmingly honest about their private life and hopes for the future.

these are some parts of the two essays they wrote tonight.

(k. - 24)

"we just got back from isparta. we stayed their with forty friends from our unit for few weeks. i am so happy to be back in izmir. all we did in isparta was walking in the mountains. the good thing was that we did a lot of camping, we learnt ho to set a fire and we slept under the trees. the tents we used were stretched from one tree to the other, like a nylon sheet but it was not cold because the sleeping bags kept us warm. every morning, on the nylon cover we would find frost. we ate mainly potatoes and sausages or ready made meals the army gives us. we got sick often, all of us. but it was ok. sometimes however i hope to go back to when i was 14. my family decided for me to attend the academy in another city, far away. i was only 14 and i could not say no. i was so scared when i started high school. all of my friends went to civilian high schools. i wanted to be a doctor, that was my dream even when i was a child. when i left my family i cried so much, but then i got used to it, i had to. i am a soldier now and that will not change. if i could choose a career now... i would say doctor, of course. but also primary school teacher. i love teaching children when they are six or seven, because their mind is shaping and it is sometimes amazing to listen to the things they can say. my primary school class had 75 pupils. i was lucky because my mother taught me how to read and write before. otherwise i would have never learnt anything with so many classmates. our class was very noisy. one day our teacher told me i was good at reading and one boy in the class stood up and came to my desk to spit on my face. i was shocked and complaint to the teacher. the teacher did not say anything and looked at me as if he wanted to say ...i do not have any time for your problems"

(u. - 26)

"i am happy to be back. i missed izmir and we only walked and walked and walked for two months. i am getting married in july, but i am not thinking about it. i think i am not very aware. we have been together for six years and this is what she wants and what our parents want. i would prefer to get married in two years, but of course i cannot say it. but for sure i want to wait another five years before having children. i want to pass the selection to enter nato corps and go abroad. it does not matter where - but i want to learn about other cultures and also about other military cultures. i know one of the topic for the essay is the future. of course you know i do not like our government. but apart from our prime minister, the only thing i would change about the country is our borders. i would add a part of bulgaria, a part of greece and the southern border of turkey should be different. england decided on that and they did not choose right. in the south we have many mountains and there is a big problem with terrorists hiding there. all the mountains should be under turkey, so there would not be a problem with the kurds...

p.s. i am sorry if i ask. but we were so happy when you made tiramisu for us for christmas. it was delicious. we wonder if you can maybe make it again before the end of our course. thank you".