Get Well Wishes from Afar

It's been quite a week.

After the most amazing recovery from surgery I've ever seen my mom experience, she had some complications that put her back in the hospital for another surgery. With the time difference between Doha and Ontario, it was really hard for me to find out what was going on.

The sister who was present during the return to the hospital has little internet connection, another happened to be on vacation in Mexico, so it fell on the shoulders of the one working 12 days in a row in Edmonton to keep me updated as much as possible. Her updates were thoughtful, and her words reassuring, but it wasn't until I spoke with my father and heard him say that mom was going to be fine that I could relax a little.

My family has been spread apart for years. We're dispersed around the country -and even the globe- most of the time. So it's not unusual for me to be unaware of the day-to-day goings on of any one person's life. I find out after the fact that my sister had a cold or my niece had the flu. But whenever the sickness involved a hospital stay, I've pretty much always been able to travel a few hours to visit. I find it comforting somehow to talk in person with a family member post-operation.

I realized this week that that's not going to be so easy anymore. And I'm still coming to grips with it. Hopefully my family stays healthy from now on because it's much too stressful to know someone is sick but be on the other side of the world!

Learning English Obama-style

The other day I was going through my old teaching files looking for any activities that might help a colleague who is currently teaching advanced listening back home. In my 7 years at Niagara College I can remember only one semester when I did not teach at least one listening class. I loved teaching listening because I love developing materials and listening class relies on finding interesting and level-appropriate clips and then creating learning activities based on them.

I am doing something similar in my current position. I've been released from teaching part time to develop materials for a 'new' course. The major difference between this work and the level 4 listening prep I did back home is that instead of looking for clips that are simply of an adequate interest and linguistic level, all my clips now have to be related - in some way - to the oil industry. So I'm watching videos called "Fractional Distillation," "World Map of Peak Oil Production," and "What are fossil fuels?" It's been quite an education for me, but not quite as interesting as L4 listening at NC was.

Anyway, as I was doing some youtube searching the other day I noticed that no matter how deep into the website I got, I was always a single click away from watching Obama's inauguration address. This led me to think about how if I were still teaching listening in a general English (EAP) context, Obama's speech would be high on my list of videos to use. All the world is interested in the new US president and what he has to say, so the interest criteria is met. In terms of language appropriacy, presidential speeches are clearly spoken and are of a good rhetorical style for listening. Two for two! Unfortunately for me, he's not explaining how oil gets from the ground into your car, so I'll have to pass.

The next day I came across an article in a local daily which shows that apparently the Japanese had this thought long before I did. A book about learning English through the speeches of presidents has been published. So much for being original.

Now if only they'd publish a book about learning English by talking about the composition of crude oil, I'd be all set!

Morning confusion

I've been spoiled. And I can admit it.

Today is Friday. It is one of the two days a week that I don't have to wake up at 5:30 in order to be at work on time. Fridays and Saturdays are the only days I can get up after the sun. I look forward to these days, opening my eyes in a room filled with a warm, natural glow. And this being the desert, every day is like this.

So imagine my confusion when I opened my eyes this morning to a dull, grey light. My mind couldn't process that fact that the clock said 7:28 but there was no yellow hue reflected on the walls. It took me a full three minutes of thinking and looking around to figure out that the clock was not incorrect; it's simply a grey, cloudy day.

It's not a problem - I can handle a cloudy day every now and then (oh the hardships I endure!). I just find it interesting how little time it took for me to get so accustomed to life here that the effects of a few clouds could disorient me so. I wonder if I'll ever get to the place where, like true desert dwellers, I long for a bit of cloud or a drop of rain.

Nah, probably not.

Staying connected without holiday gatherings

Yes, I'm still thinking and writing about Christmas. But in my defense, January is only half way over, and many people still have their decorations up!

Darren and I had a wonderful Christmas this year. We got to explore a country we'd never seen before and meet (or reconnect) with lovely people. We took a break from traditional Christmases - no decorations, no gift exchange, no productions, no TV specials, no family turkey dinners. Actually, our hosts in Ankara did have a Christmas tree and nativity scene set up and we had a lovely ham dinner with them and their friends, but *we* didn't plan anything traditionally Christmas-y.

It was our first Christmas away from our family. Since we've been marreid we've always done some traveling over the Christmas holiday - one year we went to Edmonton to spend time with my sister and her family, and another we went on a roadtrip to Florida. But we always saw our parents and siblings in Ontario when we got back.

It wasn't until I looked through pictures of our various family members' Christmases that I realized just how much I missed it. I'm pretty sure that what, specifically, I missed so much was the gatherings, not the traditions, although I can't be 100% sure about that.

Life doesn't stop, and it's easy to forget about that which you can't see. The immediate becomes the urgent. It also becomes the only. Unless we make an effort to stay connected to those we don't come into contact with throughout the day, those relationships fade away.

I think this is natural and good. Everyone has left something or someone. We've finished school, we've changed jobs, we've moved to different neighbouhoods, cities or countries. Even if these changes are extremely positive, it's always difficult to leave something behind. If we couldn't emotionally detach from things in the past, we'd be unable to cope with the present.

Over the years I've been through a number of (mostly positive) changes. As a result I became realy good at forgetting the past in favour of the present. There are tons of people I wrote to regularly for years and considered good friends whose last names I can't remember now. I'm not saying that's necessarily bad, but it's how it is.

Whether because of my experiences or personality (nature vs nurture), when I move on, I'm likely to truly move on. What this means is that I have to work harder at maintaining important relationships than the average person. I don't naturally think to call up an old friend or send a card to a relative. Instead, I've relied mainly on holiday gatherings to take care of that. But now it's too far for me to join in the special occasion get-togethers.

Darren's not much of a help. He loves reconnecting with people he hasn't seen in years, but he's not very good at maintaining familial ties. I'm actually the one who encourages him to call home on a semi-regular basis. The fact that I do this tells me I'm getting better. I find myself checking facebook more regularly to see if my Edmonton family is still up when I get out of bed on a weekend morning. And I have more regular skype dates with people these days. (Speaking of Skype, I'm so thankful for it!! Talking on the phone is good, but seeing the person while you talk makes turns it into a real visit!)

It will be interesting to see how we end up managing our time when we return to Canada for a visit this summer. There are lots of people we'd like to see spread all over the country. Perhaps we should have a big party - create a special occasion in order to get everyone together. Christmas in August, anyone?

Not so cold...sorry for the misleading post

Since I wrote that post about shivering in Doha, I've been less cold. Yes, the cross-campus walk from the bus to my building at 6:45am in 10 degree weather is chilly, but after that, the day gets beautiful. And since my current schedule allows me to go home while the sun is still shining fairly high in the sky, I've been getting a good dose of the warm.

Yesterday Darren and I took advantage of the lovely weather and spent a few hours at the Corniche reading and relaxing. And in honour of our dear Charles, we took some photos. Darren enjoyed playing around with the effects of the zoom lens, and I even got a chance to use the camera! Here are a few of my favourites:

Darren says we got a lot of nice shots of the same thing. He's right, but it was still fun! And it makes me miss you, Charlie-san!

And hopefully it also makes all our friends and family want to come and visit us next winter!!

Book Fair Musings

Back at the beginning of January, a couple of days after we returned home from Turkey and a couple of days before Darren was a working man again, we attended a book fair.

I guess this has been an annual event for a few years now, held at the Exhibition Centre about 15 minutes from our apartment by car (with no traffic). The venue was huge and it was filled with vendors selling nothing but books.

I'd say about 5% of the stalls had English books, and the majority of these were either textbooks, children's books, or EFL resources. That means over 90% of the books for sale were Arabic. At least among ESL teachers, Arabic speakers are known as good speakers but poor readers. The explanation has something to do with their rich oral culture and heritage. There also seems to be a lack of reading material published in Arabic, so besides the Quran and books that discuss the Quran, there isn't that much to read.

So was I surprised to find the Exhibition centre fairly packed with people shopping for books. And I was even more surprised that Darren and I were among the vast minority in terms of racial background. There were thobes everywhere!

I saw lots of Qataris leaving the fair with bags of books, and even more Qataris in the act of buying books - especially English children's books. As a teacher, I was quite pleased to see so many books being purchased. It's amazing the difference it makes to a person's reading and writing skills as an adult when they grow up in a literacy-rich environment.

As for Darren and I, we didn't really find anything fantastic. But there was a stall that was selling English books at 10QR a piece (about $3CAD). So we each picked up about 4 books - none of which we would have paid full price for, but which looked interesting enough to read. Once we're done we'll add them to the used book stash located in one of the lunch rooms on campus and maybe someone else will enjoy them too. Even if they don't I'm sure we'll get our three bucks' worth.

One of the books Darren selected and has begun to read is called "Why Geese Don't Get Obese...and We Do." It talks about the biological features that animals have in order to live in difficult environmental conditions (like how birds can breathe way up above the clouds where the air is thinner and why dolphins don't get the bends). He's been learning a lot of interesting information and trying to share it with me. Unfortunately, he likes to tell me what he has learned on the bus ride home when I'm in listen-for-main-ideas-only mode. Consequently, I'm not sure the book's as fascinating as he says but perhaps I'll give it a read for myself in the coming months before judging it harshly.

I haven't cracked open any of my book fair purchases; I'm still trying to finish the book I started on the way home from Turkey. And I figure I should read the book I borrowed from a colleague back in September next. But I'm in no rush - we're in Doha until at least December 2011 -- 2 books fairs from now.

Larissa is taking a break from updating her status

Much has been written recently about the way technological advances have changed the way we as humans communicate with and relate to each other. What I've been affected by most recently is the increase in status updating on facebook. (I know I'm behind the times, but I'm not a twitter-er, so I can't comment on that).

When I first joined facebook a couple of years ago I loved rediscovering old friends. Now I use it to keep tabs on my friends. Honestly. There are only a few things I "check" on facebook: my inbox, my notifications, and my friends' statuses.

I have to admit, it's the status feature that is my favourite. I used to find it both annoying and odd that people would advertise their current state in a single line, but I find people are getting more creative and I've gotten hooked. I find out the most random things about my friends and acquaintances because of their status updates. Darren's even worse than me - he has an application that lists all his friends' statuses so he can read them and comment on those he deems comment-worthy (or teasing-worthy, Chrissy!)

I recently discovered - much to my horror - that due to this facebook status checking, I now *think* in statuses. I had this realization while brushing my teeth in our hotel room in Istanbul. I was just standing there, cleaning my teeth as Darren finished up a blog post about the day before. That's it - just standing there, brushing and thinking, "Larissa gets to experience Istanbul twice - once in real life and once through Darren's posts". Yes, I had a thought of myself in the third person. It freaked me out. So I stopped updating my status for a few days.

The same thing happened to me this afternoon as I was walking across campus toward the bus. For the second day in a row I got notification that "personal mail" had just been delivered for me. My personal mail is usually a QNB statement or a Q-Tel bill, but for the second day in a row I received a Christmas card!

After opening the card and reading it, I though "Larissa loves that Christmas just keeps on coming". Yikes! Status thoughts again! I guess it's time for another break from updating.

(But Larissa really does love that Christmas keeps on coming! Thanks for the Christmas cards, everyone!) ;)

Shivering in Doha

I know this sounds crazy to those of you currently living in Canada, but I'm freezing!

Don't be fooled by what you read on theweathernetwork.com. Between noon and 2:00 pm if you find yourself somewhere in the sunshine, it's the perfect weather. But before that sun gets to its highest position in the sky, and as soon as it starts to lower, it gets cold! Every morning when I wake up my first thought is "What clothes do I own that will keep me warm today?"

I was not prepared for this. I gave away almost everything that had long sleeves before coming here, and I brought only two pairs of pants. Needless to say, we've had to do some shopping here. Every time we go to the mall now I come home with a light sweater or some dress pants. The agenda for this weekend includes picking up a wool or felt coat and a sweatshirt hoody.

To combat the cold, I've been drinking a lot of tea. I drink tea when I'm sitting at my desk, when I'm walking to class, when I get home from work, when I'm watching Lost with Darren after dinner. As a result, I'm taking more trips to the bathroom, unfortunately one of the coolest places in our house. :)

Darren and I have it good, though. Because our apartment has south and west-facing windows, we haven't had to take our heater out of its box yet. Some of my colleagues turn on 3 heaters the moment they walk in the door after work or first thing in the morning. But the sun helps to maintain a liveable temperature in our place during the day, and at night I snuggle up with a blanket or a husband. We're very fortunate!!

I do give this warning to any of you considering a move to Doha: bring some warm clothes. My female colleagues are wearing turtle necks under suit jackets, others wear sweaters covered with a wrap/shawl. And I haven't seen a skirt in about 3 weeks. I have a towel in my office (which is supposed to be for when I go swimming) that I use as a lap blanket to keep myself comfortable at my desk.

I don't mean to complain. I actually like the current weather - or I will once I can dress appropriately for it. And before I know it spring will be here and I'll be dealing with heat again. So yes, it's cold, but it's a nice cold. ...Really.

Turkey Highlights

Now that I've got the carpet stuff off my chest, I can sit back and remember some of the highlights from our time in Turkey. Darren and I landed in Istanbul December 18th and spent 12 days exploring the country. We really just got a taste of Turkey, but it was a lovely taste.

In no particular order, I present the higlights from our Turkey 2008 trip:

History
We saw some really, really old stuff on this trip. I saw a statue (the one in the picture) of a man who was a contemporary of Daniel (the lions' den guy), and a rod that may have been around in Abrahamic times. It's hard for my mind to really understand how long ago that was, but I tried.

One of my favourite parts of the trip was visiting the ruins of Ephesus. It was very cool to walk through buildings and down streets that were once inhabited and used by people who lived in the time of Jesus (and even before). Many of the impressive sites (like the library and many columns) were reconstructed and had new concrete parts added to make them fit together just right, but this didn't take away from the experience for me. I'm constantly amazed by the architectural feats created before modern technology. As we walked up the gradual incline to the upper level of the Hagia Sophia, Darren and I marveled at how each piece of building material had to be carried up. Amazing.

Cats
Everywhere we went in Turkey we ran into cats. We started to call them by name such as Street cat, Market cat, Gold shop cat, Ruins cat, Palace cat, Ancient amphitheatre cat, Welcome cat (sitting outside our hotel door). Darren says he's going to make an entire photo album on facebook dedicated to Turkish cats. Usually we just looked at them and took their pictures, but by the end of the trip I started to make friends with the cats that talked to me.

Reuniting with Old Friends
After spending a week alone in Istanbul, Darren and I met up with friends of mine in the airport. Back in the 90s, Hannah-Lee and I worked at summer camp together and became good friends. I was actually one of her bridesmaids eleven years ago. Over the years we've both lived in various places (as diverse as Singapore, Chile, and Turkey) and it wasn't until facebook that we found each other again. Darren had never met Hannah-Lee or her husband Eric, but liked them instantly. It was so nice to get a small glimpse into their lives in Ankara. We saw where they live and work, and met some of their friends and colleagues.

H-L & Eric were so hospitable and generous. They included us in their Christmas celebrations, bringing us to a Christmas Day brunch with their friends and even taking us out to a wonderful Turkish restaurant on Christmas Eve after traveling for over a day to get home from Singapore. I was glad to see how much they love living in Turkey, despite the difficulties that come with living in a foreign land. It was also wonderful to catch up with what has been going on over the years and hear about their possible future plans.

Meeting New Friends
There's often a kind of natural bond between expatriates. We have something in common with each other (the drive to leave our comfortable lives to seek adventure and purpose in another country) that our family and friends at home don't always understand. We met a number of interesting people living in Turkey, and while we didn't get much time to talk, we enjoyed hearing parts of their stories and sharing parts of ours.

We also had the opportunity to have some conversations with Turks. Restaurant servers enjoyed talking to us, since business was slow in the winter. A random man on the street brought us up to a roof where Darren got some gorgeous pictures of Istanbul and told us all about the area (before taking us to his cousin's carpet shop!) One of the employees at the pension we stayed at in Selcuk (near Ephesus) spent hours talking to us about Turkish history, previous guests and his life and family. From my experience, I can confirm the warmth and friendliness of Turkish people.

Culture
Many people (expats in Qatar) say that Qatar has no culture. While I don't completely agree with this, I have a better understanding of where these people are coming from now. While in Turkey we felt like we were truly in a foreign land. In fact, Darren said to me as we ate at a small canteen-like restaurant filled with Turkish men, where we weren't exactly sure what we had ordered until it came, "This is very surreal." This kind of experience seems like it would be much more prevalent in other foreign countries than in our foreign country.

While in Turkey, both Darren and I drank a lot of tea. Darren doesn't usually like hot drinks, but he did very well 'swallowing' Turkish tea, and he even acquired a real liking for apple tea! I personally enjoyed the ritual cup of tea at the end of a meal, even if it was so strong it required two cubes of sugar in the itty bitty tea cups.

Food
We have about 6 Turkish restaurants within walking distance from our apartment. Most of them are just shwarma shops (doner, I guess I should say), but at least one of them has a decent selection of delicious and inexpensive Turkish dishes. But getting the real stuff in the homeland was wonderful. Darren and I each tried new and delicious dishes that we can't get here. I must say, I'm glad we were there in winter because Turkish food is very dense and hardy (hearty?)- good for cold, rainy or snowy days.

Photography
Before we moved to Qatar, we bought a fairly good digital SLR camera. I'm always encouraging Darren to take pictures with it, but he's often reluctant, not wanting to "babysit the camera" while we're out. But this trip he took the camera everywhere we went and got some really nice shots. He also got to try out some of the features of the camera. I like that he's developing this side of his creativity, and I also like having the pictures. I'm the kind of person who likes to have her photo taken, so it works out well.

Relaxation
This trip was very relaxed and low-key. We saw a lot of cool things, and had many wonderful experiences, but we didn't feel rushed at all. Because of the cold weather, most days we spent about 5 hours outside sightseeing, and then we'd return to our hotel room to warm up and rest. Darren would blog, I would read...it was lovely. We found a good balance between seeing the sights and resting.

Snow
As our plane was descending in Ankara, Darren pointed out the window and said to me "Look." I gasped. Snow! I had resigned myself to not see snow for a good while when we decided to move to the Middle East and visit Canada only in the summer. But it was so nice to have a few days when we could hear the crunch of snow beneath our feet. I think the world looks so beautiful covered in white. It was a very nice treat. (I certainly haven't missed it since being back in Doha, though!)

Christmas
This was our first Christmas away from our families. We both called home and talked to our parents and siblings, but we didn't see anyone in person. Darren was rather concerned about spending Christmas alone, so I'm so glad we were able to be with our friends (new and old) for both Christmas eve and day. Hannah-Lee even had a Christmas tree and nativity scene set up so it really felt like Christmas.

There's so much more...
If you're interested in a more detailed description of our time away, I invite you to check out Darren's very thorough (and entertaining) recounting of our trip. It starts here.

As delightful as our vacation was, I must say it's good to be home. Sleeping in my own bed, showering in my own bathroom, snuggling with my hubby on my own couch...these things can't be beat. But Turkey came close.

Remember the Carpets

If you are a regular reader of Darren's blog, then you know about the Turkish carpets we brought home from our recent travels. If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know about the discussions Darren and I have been having lately about reducing our consumption (especially in relation to Christmas, but also more generally). And if you're a thoughtful reader of both of these blogs, then you've probably noted the incongruence between these two things.

It begs the question: What makes two people who are trying to be conscientious consumers, and who had absolutely no intention of purchasing floor coverings (and who even said that to each other as they walked into the shop), spend an embarrassing amount of money on rugs?

A friend in our building suggested that maybe we had let our guard down since we'd been doing so well at buying less. Darren thinks it has something to do with my dislike for disappointing people, even pushy carpet salesmen who have spent an hour showing us rug after rug. I think we might simply have gotten caught up in the moment and not allowed our rational selves to operate in full.

We're usually very good at seeing through advertisers' schemes. We are well aware of the tacit claims made by our culture that our lives will be much improved if only we buy this or that product. But what we weren't familiar with was the Turkish "make friends with the potential customer before trying to sell them a rug" method. I think it caught us off guard. And we were sitting ducks.

Both Darren and I had trouble sleeping the night we bought the rugs, suffering from buyer's remorse. When we got back to Qatar, Darren made a few phone calls to see about cancelling the order. However, the rugs had already been shipped, and the very next day they arrived at our apartment.

Please understand me: I love our new carpets. They are beautiful and make our apartment - which has an institutional quality about it with the high ceilings, concrete floors and drab cement walls - feel more like a home. The one in the living room particularly is so soft and feels wonderful under my feet. It also gives our home a bit of a classy, grown up look, something which is quite appropriate for a couple in their 30s.

The problem is not that we don't like the products themselves. The problem is that:

1. We paid much more than we should have. I expect to be taken advantage of while on vacation, but I wish we had done some more research into carpets before making the purchase. By the end of the trip we felt much more prepared to decide on rugs that would be both functional and good investments. Unfortunately, the purchase had already been made.


2. We acted against our better judgment. This is the point I can't get over. It scares me how easily I can be persuaded.

But at the end of the day, we have two lovely handmade (maybe) Turkish carpets and a very good experience under our belts. Darren and I have vowed to use this as a reminder for the future. When we're in a place where we're being sold something we don't need or can't really afford (or don't want to afford), we will look at each other and recite our new mantra, "Remember the Carpets!"