Over a Milestone

I am writing today Post #101 and I see it as another daisy on a carpet of happy flowers, just like in today's picture, which is growing to celebrate my blog. This is a relative milestone, at which I celebrate the strength of not giving up writing for lack of time or inspiration. When you move to a new culture, hemisphere, medical system, education system and language, the way cars turn, kids greet you, and you flip an electric switch, first there is a shock time, when you cannot write. Then there is a time when events settle like coffee grounds in a good Turkish coffee cup. They settle and you can talk about them, about how change feels every day. In nine days we also celebrate the third anniversary of our move to Oz. On the time curve, the steep passing of days, weeks, months and now years, overwhelmed me, because in the beginning time felt motionless. I recall every day, with the weather and the interactions with people to find a house, to buy a car and to get a job. Three years was a time I could not think about back then, and if I did, most likely I would have thought about it as a time when I'd be back to the US. Somewhere, anywhere... But time healed the shock of change and friends here and everywhere in the world helped smoothen my adaptation. We discovered the best parts of Oz and indulged in the most beautiful experiences it has to offer. I think I remain a globe-trotter and an eternally pleased foreigner, so you'll read blogs for a lot longer than you expect... Thank you everyone for reading my posts, there is no better reward than sharing an experience with friends and readers.

Olympic Games (Part 4)

Somehow I will link this post to the picture, which says (in a way!) "Annoy the bored!" The way Olympic Games and this graffiti connect is through the theme, which I think says "do something different, so I know you are thinking and it will wake me up from boredom." Maybe I used too many words to say it, but with these games and the apparent effort athletes put into all sports, nobody in the world should be bored. Everyone should be inspired! Australians are still whinging (yes, unlike Americans who "whine," Aussies "whinge"; I don’t even think this word is in Merriam-Webster) about their lack of high performance and low number of gold medals in these games. The wound is made worse, it's almost bleeding, by the poms (Brits) and kiwis (New Zeelanders) who have shown a better level of competitivity. I am not sure if Aussies are so laid back, they became "bored" even with the hard work, or this was just an unfortunate circumstance, an unbeatable level of performance. However, the exaggerated confidence of some Aussie athletes who seemed to picture themselves wearing the gold medals before they even left Oz was off-putting. I was not annoyed, but bored by it...

School Levels

In line with everything else Aussie, school standards are not so well defined and levels of knowledge required of students are not shared with the students and their parents. You guessed already that I had the parent-teacher conference today! I will explain now what I mean by these obscure levels of knowledge. There are normally two years in one level, for example, Fifth and Sixth Grades, which are called Year Five and Year Six here, are part of Level Four. In general, students learn new things in the first year and deepen their knowledge in the second year of the level. But how much Math and what level of vocabulary and reading are set for this level, who knows? I always ask what is required for a kid to know at the end of Year 5 or at the end of the first semester of Year 5, but I, as a parent, cannot be told. Another important issue I discovered today is that the average is a C, is what you are expected. Above that are B and then A, but when I asked what my daughter should know to get an A next semester, I could only be told that she has to be at least one year ahead in her knowledge, as if time is what measures it. So my daughter's A in reading (she is in the middle of Year 5) means that she reads at the level expected of a Year 6 student at the end of the first semester. My question is really about how can a parent motivate a kid (yes, I am that kind of parent) to achieve "more" when the kid doesn't and cannot know WHAT to achieve to get there... It's not explained anywhere and the school does not disclose any of that information. (Sigh) In the picture, what I imagine a Year 5 butcher bird looks like, but I may be wrong. Anyway, this little bird liked our tree and like other birds, just posed for me for a long time...

Kookaburra on My Fence

I came home after a long day of work and went outside just to water the flowers. I had the feeling someone was watching me, when I noticed a kookaburra sitting on our fence. It did not get scared by my walking around, it just looked at me with the sort of indifference I would look at a magpie. Meanwhile, I got so excited to see it, I mean I've waited for this bird to come for the entire three years since we moved to Australia! I wanted to jump and scream, run and pet the blue feathers, and just fly with it! I love kookaburras! The laughing kookaburra is not only a gorgeous member of the kingfisher family with a laughing call, but also an incredibly docile and friendly bird. This one sat on the fence while I got closer and closer to it, and it did not move even when I got at one arm's length from it shooting pictures (such as the one below). With its short punk hair and two vividly black eyes attached to the sides of its beak, this kookaburra truly seemed to want to chat with me. It is still difficult for me to believe that I live in a big city (in a suburb, ok, but quite close to the center) and so many wild birds and animals visit my garden.

Olympic Games (Part 3)

So many events I haven't seen from these Olympic Games, even if Foxtel (cable) is transmitting events on at least six channels! Most events are shown first live and then recorded, as we are nine hours ahead of London. I cannot believe how spoiled, yet unpleased I can be with the fact that I have a huge number of opportunitites to see a lot of events. But I am unpleased with the fact that due to the time difference (nobody's fault!), I hear in the news who wins these events, which spoils the entire thing. I rarely keep the desire to see a match or a race whose result I already know. Yet, I would have been so grateful to have the chance to see at least live or recorded events thirty years ago, when I grew up watching a few events, and even those censored to fit the world of a dictator. I also don't understand why there is this hyper-reaction to the fact that Australia's count of medals is extremely low. Is it disapointment with athletes who are not performing at their level or with athletes who were expected to be at a higher level? Back to recorded events. They are shown during the day for those like me who do not wake up to watch medal ceremonies at 2-3AM. Instead, I record on Foxtel the live events. When I watch them the next morning and evening, I find that the recordings have pieces of other sports events than what I recorded, or for very long minutes they show a stadium filling up or a podium getting pulled in for a ceremony. I guess nobody found a better use of that TV time, but at least I can fast-forward (Bolt-style, up to 30x normal speed) and skip these slow times. In the mood for Olympic celebration now? Here is another picture of a blooming wattle tree. It seems more like fireworks than blooming tree to me...

Vulnerability of an Eternal Foreigner

I am in the middle of a personal debate about the theme of my blog. As post 100 is fast approaching and I am content to have written at a steady pace for as many days, I am trying to decide what I want to do with this blog. So far, I achieved my goal of developing a writing habit. But should I carry on and filter the material periodically so I can prepare a book in parallel? It would be a book about my attempts to adaptation into yet another new country. I am a professional foreigner with an addiction to adventure, but also a committed writer who searches for a theme or a stable ground. Being a foreigner makes me feel vulnerable. I need to learn new words, get accustomed to new behaviors and stop judging the present based on past experiences. But I am not so young and I do experience a sort of rigidity, I forget to be tolerant, oh, and I struggle... And you see it in this blog, where I point out things that seem just routine to others, from other countries or those who have never been foreigners for more than a holiday, and then I realize that and I feel guilty for pointing out things that are "normal". But for me it's always the point of view, like with the flower in today's picture. From my perspective, the flower stands out on a creamy green background. From the flower's perspective, it stands among her own kind... Should I continue writing for a few more years, like in a properly set-up experiment, and then see how adapted I am, how less vulnerable and how much "at home" I feel? Would that tome of words make a good book (possibly) or just a therapeutic cycle?

Parents and Sports

I meet parents at the tennis tournaments all the time, but only few times was I lucky to encounter friendly ones who taught their kids to applaude a good shot from their opponent and to congratulate her at the end of the match. Few parents come to the matches to support their kid, most come to support a dream of theirs or an ambition imposed on their child. Too often I see parents I have to hide from. They do not greet anyone, they yell at the kids on the court when they are not supposed to interfere, they coach kids in their native language (when different from English) during a match, or they directly tell kids terrible, disrespectful things right there on the court. One father yelled at his daughter not to shake hands with my daughter at the end of the match. In a complete lack of respect and reasonable understanding of the game, another couple once applauded and cheered their daughter at every unforced error my daughter made. What do these parents think they teach their kids? Is this how tomorrow's athletes are being educated by their parents? Is this true in every sport? In every country? Not only is tennis by definition a lonely sport, but today I felt that it is a socially difficult sport. The ball in my picture expresses this loneliness.