Sterotyping 1: The Geek

India, land of great diversity and variety, entices an equally eclectic mixture of visitors. Many who have never travelled beyond the clean, the well organised and the Western cannot fully appreciate the numerous tribes descending upon the Hindu lands year after year, in search of the historical, the religious, the cheap, the illicit.

Partly through chai-quaffing sessions at the local tea stall, partly though conversations in free-fall, I feel both obliged and privileged to educate you in the ways of the subcontinental voyager. It's only fair that I commence with the group of which I am an exemplary member: The Geek.
The Geek is invariably male, and prior to catching his flight from home he has spent months poring over maps, surfing the net, researching books, and has an itinerary that resembles a detailed mini-encyclopaedia. Pragmatic by nature, practical in deed, his backpack contains some or all of the following items; water purifier, mosquito net, compact but impressive medical kit, a small version of the Smithsonian library. He has 1:25000 scale drawings of each region to be covered (marked in yellow highlighter), and about twelve novels.

He will probably possess a sturdy padlock, a portable clothes line, an inflatable travel pillow, a plastic document holder with photocopies of insurance cover and passport, and maybe a downloaded copy of the Indian railways timetable. He has a pocket calculator, a power transformer and a dictaphone.

He would rather carry a hard-cover copy of his favourite novel than a bar of soap. This is the principal reason for his absence of personal hygiene. He wants to stay clean, but finds that shampoo and toothpaste add unnecessary weight to his luggage. His towel has been replaced by a 1500 page tome of 'The Spiritual Sites of India'. In other words, he smells.

When deciding on a room, he takes anything with a chair and desk, forgetting that behind that closed door is a space that can barely be described as a bathroom. He manages to track down an out-of-print book in out-of-the-way hamlets, but can't figure out where to purchase razor blades.

His interaction with other travellers generally requires improving, as he has a nasty habit of entering quickly into conversations with total strangers who are actually just hanging about to score dope. He never manages to get sex while travelling, though this is no change from life at home. A social outcast in his native land, he suffers mild ostracism from others in India because he doesn't appear to have washed for some time. But he is enjoying himself.

To spot, look for the portable library in filthy multi-pocket shorts. Always wears sandals caked in mud. Stares at anything for hours. Will keep talking to you even when you've walked some distance away from him.

Australians least likely in world to take annual leave

This little article appeared on the Sydney Morning Herald website this morning:

Poor little rich country...

According to the Vacation Deprivation survey conducted by Expedia, a company I use on a regular basis to fly me cheaply about the globe. 'Australians are the least likely in the world to take their entitled annual leave', citing financial pressures such as the credit crunch and raised interest rates. Other Australians believe work commitments were holding them back from sun, sea and surf, so the complaint goes.

Bollocks. I've read some crap in my time, and a lot of that has been grace au Sydney Morning Herald, but quite frankly I grow more cynical each day. What does this article actually tell us? Not very much.

Australians are materialistic and pragmatic. They are not deep thinkers and certainly not the philosophical type. We are hardly alone. So typical of a rich, bored nation to cite financial reasons as hindering enjoyment and the ability to take holidays. Like many other nations about the globe, Australians love working because they feel the need to buy useless crap, or perhaps two bits of crap, in different colours, to fill their homes up with pointless rubbish.

How else to you expect to pay for this consumer lifestyle without working harder every year? Australians love sinking thmemselves into debt for their entire lives, paying off houses, cars and successive extensions to properties, and such topics are bandied about freely in conversations to the point that not owning property in Australia is perceived as a disability.

The managing director of Expedia enlightens us further by announcing that 'the image of Australians being laid back and holiday-rich was a thing of the past'. My opinion is that we've never been laid back and never holiday rich. There is no such thing as a laid-back capitalist culture. It's a freakin' contadiction in terms.

The moral is this: if you want to go shopping every weekend for the rest of your life buying stuff you don't need and won't use and wasn't even available a year ago but has now become a necessity to justify the fact that you work your entire life to pay bills and thus by paying a lot of bills you feel very justified, well then go ahead. Feel fulfilled.

How about changing your lifestyle? I take plenty of holidays. I am neither clever nor more intelligent than the average working man. I am neither lazy nor hard-working. I am not under financial pressure because I don't want to buy things. I have no credit crunch.

Funny thing though. When I found the offical Expedia 2008 Vacation Deprivation Survey Results, Australia isn't mentioned anywhere in the document. I looked for past surveys but Australia is a glaring ommission. Austria, yes. Us, no. We don't appear among the contol group.

The report. And Australia doesn't seem to figure in it.

So what am I supposed to think? The Sydney Morning Herald doctors a reputable company's report? A national paper somehow analyses non-existent data and then publishes not only a false article, but one that makes me more arrogant than ever in my belief that I can never return to live in Australia again?

I've contacted the Sydney Morning Herald and hope that they can provide the data I requested. I don't want to believe they would fabricate an article, especially one that clearly plays into my prejudices with gusto.

My moral for living is simple:

Work enough to have time for your friends and yourself

Don't buy crap and get yourself into debt
Take a lot of holidays

In two weeks time I commence ten weeks' holiday. I worked and I now intend to enjoy myself.

Sydney Morning Herald, I await your response.

Rather excited

Wooh-hooh!

Today I completed my University of Technology of Sydney offer acceptance form and in exactly the time it takes the combined Turkish and Australian postal systems to safely navigate my envelope's contents into the hands of a friendly but probably slightly bored paper shuffler, I'll be officially enrolled once again as another pointless member of society who skims off the taxes of hard-working everyday Australians by becoming a student. I'm very excited. Both at the opportunity to study again, at my long opening sentence to this blog entry, and at the chance to stop shaving and arise from bed after others have long scampered from the house with their briefcase.

It's so long to Starbucks and crying into my caffe latte at 8am and buongiorno 'maybe I'll get up now before the sun goes down'. Exhilarating.

There is much to do. Stationary shops, inexplicably along with hardware stores and the Turkish bakkal, hold more than a passing attraction for me. I've forever been mezmerised by locales with floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with a multitude of products in numerous shapes and sizes and ordered in a way that makes me feel safe. Stationary store offer me a sense of security that a roof over my head cannot. I love the the lines of neatly arranged lead pencils, in descending order hardness, from 4B to 2HH. Paper organised by texture, paints by hues, sketch books by size and notebooks by binding. Stationary stores bring order, an oasis in an world of cluttered desks and office disorder. It's easy to draw the same analogy with hardware stores and the infinite possibilities of fixing, fasting, joining and adhering that can be had.

The Turkish bakkal, or deli, corner store or tuck shop a la turquoise provides the same sensory fulfillment. I always return from the local shop with more than the requisite repulsive and ubiquitous un-gratifying long-life milk that remains de rigueur in Istanbul. There is something very attractive about kuruyemiş, the unending variety of fried fruit and nuts that can be had within 500 metres of where you might be positioned in Istanbul. I like regularity and Turkish dried fruit keeps me very regular indeed.

Anyway, I'm off to the closest stationary shop to buy everything that cannot be purloined from work over the next eight days. I have also purchased a new digital voice recorder but it's such an exciting acquisition that it deserves its own blog entry. So more about that later.

I'm off to talk gsm, foolscap and spiral binder.

The beautiful south

I'm in Mamallapuram or Mahabalipuram and have just arrived from Chennai, or Madras. It all depends on who you speak to, or which signs you take notice of.

Whatever the case, the south is a different country.

Mamallapuram is a small village about two hours' drive from India's fourth biggest city. It's a beautiful location, the site of many rock carvings and a couple of extraordinary temples dating from the seventh century. The golden beach is wide and long, and overlooks the Bay of Bengal.
The village sleeps and wakes to the gentle tapping sound of chisel against granite; the sculptors here are known across the world and stalls line the streets advertising their wares. Thousands of statues of every size and shape are lined up for inspection. A garganutan Ganesh reclines next to a eight-foot Shiva behind which peacefully gazes a serene Buddha, and the sculptors are happy for you to sit and stare in amazement as they go about their daily business.

I've come to Mammallapuram with good intentions.

I've checked into my hotel which will be home for the next couple of months. At present I am the only guest, and so have the place to myself. My spacious room sits on the second floor - big double bed, desk with a bookshelf (already full), a very large and very clean bathroom. The outside balcony is enormous and, if I stand on my toes, I can just spot the sea.

I'm now dividing my time between the school and orphanage, helping out where I can and, for the first time in a while, experiencing culture shock. It's going to be huge learning curve, but with countless smiling faces that surround me, I'm settling in quite nicely.

So I'm going to take my leave, and won't be updating the website for some time.

I'm feeling very content, and very relaxed.

See you in a while.

James x

That certain je ne sais quoi

Last night, perched high on a rooftop bar in Beyoğlu, Aslı and I lounged comfortably and talked fondly of favourite lady, Istanbul.

Kebap enjoys hıs Sunday sleep in.

Aslı knows the magic of Istanbul better than most, and if like all Turks she can note the disadvantages, hassle and annoyances of living in this great metropolis, she's also one of the first to say something positive about the place too. She asked me, not for the first time, what it is about Istanbul that keeps me here.

Well, it's not the weather. My only real complaint about Turkey is that winter is too long. As I've written earlier, Istanbul is grey, really grey, in winter. And since weather dictates my mood then I pass long periods of doubt and gloom from November to April.

Many years ago, during a course on Middle French, I read the lines of Chretien de Troyes in Yvain the Knight of the Lion:

Car parole est tote perdue, S' ele n' est de cuer entandue.

To understand something truly you must feel it within your heart. Old French eloquence and my awkward translation aside, Istanbul can only be experienced once you begin to breathe it. And then, I'm afraid, it has you in its hold. Of course, any subject or person for which you have feeling excludes impartiality and most certainly rational thought.

Aslı's question must remain unanswered for the time being since I am incapable of dealing with this city with uncluttered, straight-thinking Cartesian clarity. I intend to come back to the issue when I've been away long enough to view it through different eyes. For now there's no other place I'd rather be. Corny, it's also the truth.

Since the sun shone today I awoke to a flood-lit bedroom. Kebap was happy to continue sleeping while I showered and I dropped him off in the neighbourhood mosque garden while I scouted around for a barber. I bumped in Lieve who lives at the opposite end of the street. As a career diplomat, she's just received news of her new posting to Amman.

We chatted about summer vacation plans, how stunningly beautiful the Teke Peninsula region of Turkey is (see Lycian Way entries from April), about the possible catastrophic development of Kaş and the complete non-Turkishness of Ölüdeniz, among other things. I love summer conversations because work is far from everyone's mind. A little while later and freshly shaved I started a slow walk to Ortakoy. Kepab was courting some cheap little tabby tart under a car as I passed my apartment building, but I left him to it, crossed in front of the mosque and down into Kabataş.

Tomorrow is a national holiday, Gençlik ve Spor Bayramı. Commemorating Mustafa Kemal's landing in Trabzon in 1919 and the beginning of the liberation effort to free Anatolia from foreign rule. Atatürk inaugurated Youth and Sports Day during his first term as the new republic's president. I mention this as the Turks can always be relied upon to unfurl the flag on balconies, display it from windows and indeed drape entire buildings in the Star and Crescent. what must perhaps look like fervent nationalism in to the untrained eye is, in my opinion, a fierce pride in secularism and the founding values of the nation. Kabataş was parading in scarlet and so too were the supporters of Bolu Spor and Eskişehir - Turkish football fans love to wear their team colours and everyone was passed was draped either in red and black or red and white. Apart from the police of course who were more soberly outfitted in blue with riot shield accessories.

After passing the stadium I started the polluted Golden Mile, one of my most frequently walked promenades in Istanbul from Dolmabahçe Sarayı, outpost of the moribund Ottoman Empire, to Beşiktaş, canton of pirate CDs and infernal transport hub. Between the two stretches the long tree lined Dolmabahçe Avenue, a wonderful walk among exhaust fumes. I'm always drawn to this area and yet inwardly berate myself for breathing in what must be an unhealthy quantity of carbon monoxide.

Beşiktaş reached, I moved on to Ortaköy where I browsed the stalls and came away with nothing. I am rarely in the mood to shop for anything other than books and so happily snacked on a almond croissant and slowly made the walk home.

When I arrived back in my neighbourhood, Cihangir, I pondered one of the things that really does keep me here - variation. Istanbul has many problems like all great cities, but the constant unknown, that you'll see some new and refreshing every time you take a walk, the fact that everything seems open for business every hour of the day and the new details you note of the old buildings and mosques. The sea and it changing view depending on the hour and the season.

Most of all, the interaction with Turks. Over the course of the day I experience what casual inquisitive yet respectful familiar friendliness that I've never experienced on this scale in a large conglomeration before. I chatted with my neighbour, a man in the mosque garden, a seller of scarfs on the pavement and played football with some boys in the street. The guys in the supermarket say hello every time I pass, as does Hamza the television repair man on my street and the rustic farmer selling artichokes from the back of his truck.

Kylie, this is my town.

Here, you're a nothing but an hyper-botoxed tourist.

It's a very small gesture and yet perhaps above all else, I love the inhabitants of this city's ability to communicate with a simplicity and genuineness that I'm yet to discover elsewhere.

I feel like I belong here. Which feels rather nice.

Bad habits.

I've a lot of these.

I am unable to quite smoking yet I know it's the filthiest habit around. To the abhorrence of my students I continue to chew and bite my fingernails. I have been known to pick sweets of the floor dropped seconds previously and pop them into my mouth. Perhaps worse still, I refuse to wear deodorant. I own two pairs of socks. And that is not a joke.

An example of people I want to maim.

Yet, if there is one habit I wish to change, it's my aversion to the mobile phone. As a normal 21st century irrational city-dweller, I've succumbed to the mobile era. For many years I adamantly insisted that I would never own the greatest intrusion onto me-time ever thrown into the public sphere. I remember listening to conversations at high volume during morning bus journeys to Central Station in Sydney and wishing I could beat the head of the phone-lover into an unrecognizable bleeding pulp.

Those people who chatted on footpaths while walking no-where in particular, oblivious to the shared public space around them, instilled such violent feelings within me that I needed to seek psychiatric help. I was elbowing anyone who came within range. The mobile phone seemed to make me even more aware of people's ignorance of those around them, bad manners became acceptable, even the cultural norm. Worse still, not having a mobile was perceived as reactionary. I am not a Luddite.

Like all wonderful invention, the arrival of the portable phone should have been a welcome step in the history of telecommunications. Instead, ownership of my cheapo Nokia has only exaggerated my sometime anti-social traits. My monthly expenditure on telephone credit is minimal. I love to talk in person but loathe talking on the phone. Unless, Mum, I'm chatting with you.

Yeah, like I bet that's a meaningful conversation

So whilst I have now owned a mobile since the day I landed in Istanbul, I'm remain unaware of current protocol regarding usage. You see, if I don't feel like answering, I don't. And this, I know, is what can only be defined as a bad habit. It's rude. I know I'm wrong not to answer but I can't.

It's time to explore the fear that dwells deep within me. I hate to disappoint, let down or otherwise be unable to assist someone when the need arises. And for some reason, if someone makes a request to me over the phone, I always reply in the affirmative. This is not healthy.

However, last week something went wrong. One of my closest friends in this fair city rang, and I didn't answer. I didn't even call back. He got angry, and rightly so. My friendship might have been lost and I would've deserved it. And this is why I love the Turks. They crave human contact more than Anglo-Saxons.

I guess this will fall into disputed territory it's got to be said; the Mediterraneans are just better at friendships than I can ever hope to be. I can't source any academic reference here, I'm going on instinct. I can go a month without speaking with my friends. A Turk cannot. And this is something I need to learn. Otherwise, I'm just bring plain rude.

How I perceive the average mobile user. Yes, it's wrong, I know, but then again, is it really?

And so I promise from this day forth:

a. to pick up the phone when it rings
b. to call back as soon as possible if I am unable to pick up
c. to feel free to say no on the phone
d. to keep my Turkish friends because they are good to me

How I still have this many hang ups (now that's a pun) at this age is beyond me.

Better now.

I sincerely love my cat. Having someone to take care of makes me feel less selfish in a life committed to avoiding responsibility and emotional attachment.

Ten days ago I returned home. Nothing unusual there, I return home every day. Well, most nights anyway. By the time I open the apartment door, nine times out of ten Kepab is patiently waiting while I unload my pack and then expects the usual hugging and free under-the-neck-and-scalp-scratching session that ensues.

Kebap makes friends. Or enemies. Not sure. Anyway, social networking.

That particular night he didn't come to the door, nor did he stir when the bedroom light was switched on and I threw off tie, shirt and trousers to change into short, T-shirt and sandals. I picked him up off the bed. He growled deep and low. I dropped him back on the bed and, as is my routine, got out the cafetiere, lit a cigarette and checked for new grey hairs in the hallway mirror. Kepab, I realised while butting out my Winston Light, still hadn't moved from the bed. Something was up.

It took me several minutes to work it out. His tail was injured, possibly broken. A journey followed to visit Alper Bey, my vet of choice because the previous one seemed indifferent to Kepab and my several hundred questions regarding the right choice of cat food for a young street cat. Alper, knowing Kepab to be rather, well, violent and a master of claw-in-the-face martial art tactics when the need arises, excused his inability to take an x-ray on the spot since other staff had left for the day. Kepab is not the kind of cute little cat that sits quietly on a cold steel table in the examination room while a vet sticks a gloved finger in places Pope Leo X enjoyed a tad too much. Kebap is 100% street feline. He don't take crap and he don't like to be touched by strangers. Alper knows this well.

Badly brought up or not, Kebap is my charge and I had to leave him overnight until staff arrived tomorrow and enough hands would be available to hold him down and x-ray his tail. I naturally inquired about his diagnosis and was informed that if the tail were broken there was a high possibility of its amputation. I didn't take the news well and slept badly that night.

Flirtatious behaviour in the mosque gardens. Inappropriate.

The following day I raced to the vet after work. Kepab lay forlorn in his cat basket. Something between Lion King pathos and Isabelle Huppert as Madame Bovary (deathbed scene).
I knew he wasn't happy. Alper had tried to telephone me without luck during the day. To be fair, what would I have known about removing a lesion from a tail anyway? He had carried out what needed to be done and told me that my baby would still be 'drunk' for the next few hours. Do we even have a specific word in English to describe the after effects of a general anesthetic?

Back at the house Kepab appeared less drunk and more just plain pissed off. Certainly in no mood to talk. He went back to the bed. I had ten days' worth of antibiotics to administer. That sounded like a lot of fun. Kepab looked comic and pathetic a la fois with his bandaged tail and purple plastic Elizabethan collar. Kind of like Paris Hilton, though unlike her my cat is not a useless slut.

Now it's Saturday, ten days post-operation. The course of antibiotics has finished and we've angrily revisited a surprisingly calm vet who had changed and re-changed an ungrateful Kepab's bandage. Today is the first day of real, proper summer weather in Istanbul. Kepab and I are in the garden of Cihangir Mosque, affording a wide view of the Bosphorus and making me fall in love once again with this metropolis. Kepab is less interested in watching ferries ply the waters than I am. He enjoys scratching his head against plants more than I do. He enjoys socialising with others of his species. I do not.

We're both happy and relaxed. It's fine time to be in Istanbul.

Kebap a la plastic ruffle. Tres chic, tres aujourd'hui. Le must de Cihangir pour le chat de votre vie.

Words fail me

It's not funny. The longer I remain in this country the more tormented my mother tongue sounds as I attempt to communicate with both native speaker work colleagues and my students of English.

Daily I bemoan the fact that both my written and spoken expression of English worsens. I've gone from having words on the tip of my tongue to an almost complete inability to cough up the mot juste as required. Extracting abstract nouns is now more often than not a chore and, more than usual, I'm avoiding conversations where opinions rather than fact are necessary. I'm tired of hesitating and stalling my interlocutor while I rack my brain to search out the words or phrases needed to complete my sentences and convince the listener that I am not in fact just a near-native speaker. For God's sake, how can this be happening?

Help me, O dear, dear prescriptive grammar

Well, this shouldn't be happening. Of course, we all suffered intermittently from tied tongues. Especially when exhausted it's often difficult to take in, let alone produce a stream of the vernacular. We've all sat through dull, pointless meetings where our train of thought has erred, only to be expected to proffer some learned opinion on a subject discussed for the last half an hour about which we have no idea. This happens to me all the time because I detest meetings. They're rarely necessary, intensely infuriating and to be honest, for the handful of people who clearly enjoy the limelight I'd be happy to let them make all the decisions regarding agenda items.

However, I digress. My complaint revolves around my loss of naturalness, fluency and proficiency when talking about the most everyday subjects. My grammar falters, nouns have disappeared almost entirely from my vocabulary and it might even be that I can no longer use irregular past simple verbs. I gived up.

Naturally, there are those of you out there who would perhaps suggest that no Australian, regardless of education or upbringing, speaks an English worth listening to. I'm often subjected to opinions regarding bad English, lazy English, inferior speech. I'm not a fan of the prescriptive grammarians nor those who think a certain sociolect exists, namely theirs, that is more correct than others.

Bad English (food).

Although most arguments claiming superiority of one English over another usually boils down to what we like to call accent. From the English-speaking arena, those originating from Australia, Birmingham, Liverpool and the Black Country in England, and probably many Southerners from the United States, will have no doubt at time been subjected to or subject of arguments regarding deficient speech that of course doesn't measure up to those bright young things graduating from Oxbridge-upon-Pretense.

Accent aside, I find that Turkish words and grammar are having an immeasurable effect on my speech and writing. I am still yet to master Turkish yet clear progress has been made over the past few months. I have learned reported speech and can form definite clauses. In short, my Turkish is becoming more flexible, more elastic, and is rarely misunderstood. My English is raising eyebrows.

Below are some recent observations.

First, I'm thinking seriously about visiting the Spain and the Portugal during the summer break. I plan to spend a lot of time idling on the beach but then heading over to the Balearic Island to catch up with friends in the Majorca. you get the idea. The use of the definite article, otherwise known as the in English is sometimes difficult to teach and for all but the upper-intermediate learner, cumbersome to employ correctly.

That said, the use of the with geographical place names is straightforward and amounts to learning by rote a few rules. Exceptions are rare. We say I'll visit Germany but I'll travel to the United States. It would be pleasant to sip a mojito on a yacht in the Caribbean but find accommodation on Lake Como. And the rules appear to have slipped out of my head. But I'm still planning to visit the Spain regardless.

A possible birthday present for those who feel the need to offer something

Next in importance is the in-creep of Turklish, a phenomenon itself divisible into the art of inserting Turkish words when English suffices and the mollifying habit of Turkifying English words. Utterances such as yani, o kadar, tamam, evet, hayır, bitti, yok ya and değil mi? have all but wiped out the equivalent so, that's it, ok, yes, no, it's finished, no way, and really? Not that big a deal I suppose but at times it bugs me.

More problematic is Turklish, most noticeable in my miseuse of phrasal verbs and collocations. I often can't remember whether I should open or answer the phone if someone calls and either turn off or close the lights when I exit a room. I'm constantly giving notes to my students after marking tests and they take permission from me to visit the toilet during classtime. I overuse nice and good because in Turkish it's almost impossible to avoid the ubiquitous güzel, an adjective used to cover every possible positive situation in Istanbul. Interesting, good, delicious, pleasant, beautiful, impressive, fascinating among other seems to be shrouded in a halo of güzel-ness. I can't decide whether adjectives are lacking or I have reached saturation point for learning descriptive words.

Obsolete forms are seeping in. Where, whither and whence have all been used in the last month. I am Charlotte Bronte. I am James Hardy. I sound like a twat. Hither and hence are likely to follow.

Bad Turkish (hair and shirt)

But phrasal verbs. That's what I wanted to mention. Turkish has them, and most of them are rendered with etmek and yapmak, to do. I do party, do my work, do my duty, and strangely, in an unusual twist of fate and lingusitcs, do myself. I even confused my head last week but it was understandable since my day had been very crowded in the school.

The list goes on. Adverbs of position confound me greater still. I cannot distinguish between above and on, below and under, behind and between, but I am sincerely over it.

Many moons ago, when I live in Paris, I told a visiting friend that I was interrogating my answering machine from a distance. Some things never change.

And by th way: These people ought to be punched. Hard.

It's all about change

Nice one. Congratulations on your offer to study at the University of Technology of Sydney says my double-sided colour brochure.

Yesterday I received my offer of admission to undertake a Masters in Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Life as I have known it for several years it about to change.

It's over three years since I departed Australia and aside from several temporary bouts of mild homesickness and constant self-flagellation at my inability to adapt to Istanbul's peculiarities, I want to stay. This city has an addictive charm that just will not break.

Thus it had become pressing to view the bigger picture.

Back to school.

I'm no longer young. I've had a checkered career which has kept responsibilities at greater than arm's length but that has perhaps not provided the self-fulfillment of which I currently feel in need. It's time to look up and think sharp. It's time to ponder life's direction. With the horns firmly in my grip, I intend to lead the bull onwards and upwards.

Teaching in Middle School has been the most rewarding experience to date. I hope never to tire of being in a classroom brimming with youthful energy and grinning naughtiness. However, I need to get more serious about what I'm doing and consider how good an educator I really hope to be.

A few months ago I became weary of administration. I realised I was becoming irritable and inflexible when dealing with paperwork, meetings and all the quite unnecessary evils that come with the modern education industry. Often I was at odds with what was being said but felt my opinions were nothing more than poorly thought-out, ill-timed and badly delivered diatribe that rarely did anything to empower me or my colleagues. There is a lot that is frustrating about teaching children. Adults are to blame for all of it.

In brief, if I want to remain in Turkey on a more permanent basis - and I do - then I need to think where I want to be in the next five years. I envisaged my travelling three months a year, working the other nine. I see a little apartment in my neighbourhood for which one day I will hold the title deeds, I'm imagining a summer house on the Mediterranean coast, I see a permanent household staff member.

My first step on the road to comfort is browsing the four-page Distant Student Enrolment Guide. Next, I'm going to have to say goodbye to shirt, tie, regular shaving and an equally reliable regular monthly income as I turn student once again and rely on an income source from private tuition.

There is much to accomplish over the next few weeks. And all of it will push my organisation skills to the limit. No doubt this issue will be featuring with great frequency in my head and on this blog.

I am feeling inspired once again. which is exactly what I needed.

Sunk.

Last year when I was in London I bout a book entitled Overcoming Depression. It was appropriately placed on a shelf and left to gather cat hair and dust.

Twelve months later I've scoured the room but to no avail. I can't locate it. Given the current state of my abode I'll be lucky to find my bed tonight, but still, I'm left feeling somewhat sullen. Something tells me I'm depressed and yet this very train of thought smacks of self-indulgence.

Neither sure whether I owe it to a strict Anglo-Australian upbringing or some other strange twist of personality, I consider depression as something that afflicts others. I don't get downcast and yet find myself at a low ebb. Quite frankly, I feel rubbish.

A multitude of reasons to be content produce themselves: I benefit from a great lifestyle in a magnificent city, I work a mostly fulfilling job, and I know there are people who genuinely care about me. I don't think I'm homesick even if the amount of time I spend poring over sites in Australia via Google Earth suggests otherwise.

There is, however, an increasing amount of anti-social behaviour in my personality. I rarely want to go out and instead prefer the company of my cat to others. Conversations only occasionally hold my interest for the briefest of periods. Books are preferable to people. I sleep long periods. My mood swings are more extreme and more frequent and I quite easily pass a weekend without talking with another soul besides supermarket staff and taxi drivers.

I think I need a swift sharp kick up the Khyber Pass.

Ire

If there's one thing that makes me angry, it's people.

As is my regular Sunday afternoon, I've been browsing the electronic press and came across an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that informs me the Malaysian government is proposing to impose restrictions on women travelling alone outside the country.

The Malaysian ruling party is debating whether or not women should provide written consent from families or employers before being permitted to move outside the country's borders. Apparently there has been a significant number of criminal cases in which female Malaysian nationals have been duped into transporting illegal drugs and at present over one hundred women are lingering in foreign prisons.

The state news agency views this as a move to counteract criminal activity but I smell religious influence. I very much doubt that Malaysia, with a population of highly-educated nationals in a vibrant, dynamic and multi-ethnic society, has any further use for the stunted minds of officials stunted by misogynistic, God-fearing claptrap.

My grandmother, mother, sisters and female friends and colleagues are living proof that the chicks are equal to men in every way except their ability to remember birthdays and every celebration date I manage to forget. I find it incredulous that once again the evil that is religion pervades even further into a society that seemed secular not so very long ago. I was last in Malaysia in 1992 and retain vivid memories gorging on chicken satays in Ipoh and belting out Country and Western ditties in a karaoke bar somewhere in Sitiawan.

I loathe religion. I detest it because I've never seen it's positive side. Whether God exists or not is up to the individual and not the lawmaker. The Western Church may have given us some rather dab painting commissions and extravagant architecture that would have otherwise never seen the light of day, but for religion to continue to interfere with the rights of the individual is unacceptable and, in this day and age, deserving of two hard smacks to either side of the face.

Equally outraged but more eloquent in style are the words of Norhayati Kaprawi, a spokeswoman for Sisters in Islam. She is quoted as saying 'It is totally ridiculous and it's a totally regressive proposal with regards to women's right to movement'. I agree.

That written permission is going to halt the transportation of A-class drugs across transnational boundaries...

God, if you really existed you wouldn't have made the human race so stupid.

And if I were a Malaysian woman I'd be after someone's head.

Another quiet day in my favourite city.

When the sun shines in Istanbul my mood becomes as warm as a Turkish bath. And although I generally work on Wednesday, the nervous ruling AKP party had, like their predecessors, preempted social uprising during May Day and sealed off the centre of the European side of the city by the early hours of this morning. School was therefore out of the question since commuting from the Taksim district where I live was supposedly unfeasible.

According to the media, 66 schools were closed in affected areas and much public transport closed down. In particular, all transport leading to Taksim Square was suspended for fear of allowing large numbers of demonstrators to gather. Enough riot police were present to fill a football stadium along with many amoured vehicles, a number of which were fitted with water cannons.

You need to understand that successive Turkish governments have been loathe to allow public demonstrations in Taksim Square since 1977 when a score of people were killed. Since the armed forces coup d'etat in 1980 permission has not been forthcoming for any demonstration, although from time to time I've seen gatherings, all of them peaceful and all attended by a gargantuan contingent of police.

So I spent the early afternoon playing improvised volleyball with a security guard at a neighbourhood mansion on my street corner, checking on the multitude of new feline arrivals in the area and sharing chocolate with Mert, a six year old happy not be be at primary school for the day.

Helicopters began to circle over head and the sounds of protesters came floating down the street. Several hundred moved slowly into view and managed to advance a hundred metres up the main thoroughfare of Cihangir before being blockaded by Robocops. It all seemed relatively peaceful though the crowd slowly dissipated and people moved silently on their way.

Half an hour later I decided to head to the local Carrefour supermarket. Arriving on Sıraselviler Street, a new scene opened up to me. Evidently, events had transpired less harmoniously here. Scattered across the street were the remains of heavy concrete pot planters, strewn in every direction. The pepper gas began to sting my eyes and I'm assuming that water cannons had also been used since rivulets of scarlet were running down the gutters. All bar my barber had closed for business and people sat aimlessly. Police everywhere, yet no real tension in the air.

Or at least it seemed like that to me. Often it's hard to comprehend events that take place in your adopted home since you haven't enough history in the place to fully understand what's going on. It reminded me of how the media reported several bombings in Istanbul last year of which I remained unaware until I read about them on the BBC website the day following the events. How a city can be rendered unsafe by a biased media that makes your family and friends wonder why you're living in such a dangerous place. Istanbul is so large that events can happen here to which I am oblivious for days on end. And yet it always feels so safe to me.

It also brought to mind the uncovering in Austria of a man who purportedly kept his daughter hostage in a caller for the past twenty-four years. How something so insidious and terrible can be kept hidden for so long, and yet now the country's chancellor is calling for an 'rebranding' campaign. It's easy for us to judge the entire nation by one shocking event so that we can quickly distance ourselves from the 'others' who might have implicitly allowed this to happen. I feel sorry for those people held captive as I feel sorry for the Austrian people as a whole. I hope we can all reserve our judgments and eventually realise that this crime was committed by an insane individual who could be found in any one of a number of places on the planet. And that this outrage doesn't taint the Austrian people as a whole.

Besides, I've a personal reason for not wanting hostility towards the heir-apparent of the Hapsburg dynasty. In Turkish, like in so many languages, Austria/Austrian and Australia/Australian are oft confused. I don't need that now.

Turkey still has bigger problems to face than allowing a full democracy to operate and therefore allow demonstrations during May Day in the heart of its biggest metropolis. A reported released on 29 April regarding Freedom of the Press summarises that the country still has a long way to until it allows its journalists to write openly and freely, and indeed in certain respects perhaps the situation has even worsened since changes to the penal code were introduced in 2005.

I hope very much to see a government elected one day that is worthy of the people in this wonderfully complex country which I choose to call home. And maybe there will be a time when demonstrations no longer bring out en masse pepper gas and water cannons.

Motivation, where art thou?

This is what presents itself to me when I open my grammar book this evening:

As in the case of embedded statements, the main verb in embedded speech is söyle-. In indirect imperatives, similar to the other indirect speech structures, the embedded verb is marked with the nominalising, possessive and case suffixes. The nominalising suffix in indirect imperatives is -MA. The embedded subject is marked wıth the genitive and the verb with the agreeing possessive suffixes.

I'm not trying to be clever here. And I'm certainly not trying to show you how impressive my knowledge of Turkish is after two and a half years. What the above tells you is how to change:

Read my letter

into:

He told me to read his letter.

While it may actually be pointless to expound further, you have no doubt understood that at times my motivation for learning Turkish wavers.

Recently I've been reading literature on second language acquisition. As I teach students from different ages groups with varying reasons for learning English, individual differences in second language learning is becoming more important to me. Plenty of research has already been done on learner characteristics and I seem to possess many of those that fit 'the good language learner'.

I'm willing to make mistakes, will try to get a message across even if knowledge is lacking and constantly look for patterns in the language. I enjoy grammar exercises, have good academic skills, confidence and analyse my own speech and that of others. My personality characteristics are favorable to language learning. I can be extroverted and am not afraid of taking risks in a learning environment.

But then we come to motivation. Research describes two important factors for learning languages. The first is the learner's communicative needs. Well, living in Turkey, I need this language. I want, desire and ache to speak the most major of the Altaic tongues. I genuinely want to remain in Istanbul; I want nothing more than to solve my every need without resorting to a translator, and my ego is so large and brittle that I am repelled by the idea of the idle, can't-be-arsed expatriate who relies solely on English, local staff and a healthy bank balance to meets his or her needs.

The second factor affecting motivation is the learner's attitude towards the second language community. I love Turks. I choose to live here. I have a large contingent of amiable, garrulous Turkish friends. Anatolian history is vast and one of paths into it is through Turkish.

You would think my motivation endless.

For me the problem is that the period between studying new grammar to incorporating it into spoken language is, well, long. There's got to be a better way to study Turkish but unfortunately private lessons and courses out out of bounds for two reasons.

First, I'm one of the really, really irritating students who always moan that the teacher is unqualified, boring, unable to impart knowledge clearly, disinterested in the class... I'm not a good boy in the classroom. Secondly, my choice to teach full time in a school and then offer private English lessons out-of-hours means that, four days out of five, my free time starts after 8pm. Actually, there's a third reason. I like to learn in the comfort of my own room with Internet, reference books, fresh coffee, my cat within reach. Perhaps an issue related to my age.

This reads like a complaint but it's not. There is much to be thankful for. Back on 1 November 1928, the current 29 letter alphabet replaced the Ottoman Turkish script with the Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, one of Atatürk's reforms for which the non-Turk should be grateful too. As an extension of the Latin alphabet and under the initiative of the first president of the Turkish Republic, the language was completely overhauled and today, although I may moan endlessly about laborious grammar conventions and innumerable suffixes, at least I'm not required to adopt another script.

As I am with Arabic, which, with foolhardiness, I commenced in earnest two weeks' ago. To date, I have made very little headway. However, I like my new calligraphy pen set. And at present I seem to have ample motivation to learn the countless permutations of letters.

Hopefully it will endure.

Ilk bahar geliyor

I am loving the spring sunshine. The neighbours celebrated its arrival by promptly cutting down the sole tree providing shade to our kitchen and afterwards cementing half of their garden.

However, the positive spin on this is that Kebap and I now have a uninterrupted view of the Cihangir Mosque from the larger of the apartment's two balconies. The wisteria's looking fine too.

Well, tomorrow it's ANZAC Day and the multitude Australians and New Zealanders in town last week have disappeared further south and, as I write, are undoubtedly stirring from their hotel beds in the Dardanelles to begin the bus journey that will take them to the Gelibolu Peninsula National Park. The first of the Memorial Services will take place in a few hours and thousands of Antipodeans will remember, lest they forget, the sacrifice that so many made and will continue to make as long as we still feel the need as a species to conquer each other, take what doesn't belong to us and kill someone who might otherwise be our neighbour.

After visiting Lone Pine and other sites last year I was often moved to tears. I know it's naive to suggest that we can live in a world without war. There are simply too many evil and self-serving governments on the planet who stand to lose their sanctimonious idealogical raison d'etre if they don't possess an 'other' whose sole function is to relegate us to history. Or so they would have us believe. Get them before they get us. I've not naive enough to believe that anything is ever going to change.

However, it's paradoxical that I now find myself on the soil of a friendly country and that was seemingly our enemy not so long ago.

I hope those who visit Gallipoli over the upcoming days will find it the humbling experience that I underwent.

Below is an unsourced quote by Paul Rodrigues that I found on the Net:

Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography.

And you have to admit that these days, even the average Westerner can find Baghdad on the map.

The Lycian Way: Day 7 and a half

My cat snoozes on my bad as I watch the light fade fast under another day of grey cloud in Istanbul. It's hard to believe that a week previous Damon and I had just completed between eighty to ninety kilometres across, over, under, around, through, past, in between, out of and beyond the most glorious stretch of coastline aged with scattered ruins, replete with rambling forests, oozing fields bursting with spring colour and offering to us a sights that had finally, after two years in Turkey, supplied the nec plus ultra of Mediterranean landscape.

The trip had ended in Üçağız and we were completely out of cash. We used our last 6 YTL to board a dolmuş to Demre. Nothing could have been more unsightly to us than this town brimming with the ugliest grey concrete tower blocks of which Turkey is so fond. I slipped my sunglasses on hoping to guard myself from so much hideousness. After seven days among nature it felt wrong to come back to this so suddenly.

And that was it. By ten o'clock that evening Damon's head was squishing a Toblerone bar into the table in the waiting lounge at Dalaman as he gave up the fight to remain awake. We'd dozed in and out of slumber for most of the afternoon on the boardwalk in Fethiye and all I wanted now was a) to see my cat, and b) to uncake the grime from my body. I did both somewhere around midnight, though not at the same time.

Although I've learned that my store of adjectives remains well below that needed to describe the people and places we visited, I have wonderful memories and images that I hope shall bring me back here once again. The whole week simply reinforced the fact that quite possibly, I'm never coming home.

Damn, ten more weeks of school until the summer vacation starts.

The Lycian Way: Day 7

Our bodies were weary and the air hung heavy with the smell of putrefaction.

Even after I opened the tent flap, nothing seem to improve the quality of air. Whatever today had in store for us, it was sure gonna need to involve cleansing. Although it seemed to me humorous that I had worn the same underpants for an entire week, at this point there might have been health risks to consider. More crucial was the following day's return flight to Istanbul. I couldn't quite imagine what I might smell like within the closed compressed environment of a plane. Strangely arousing.

Today was to be a round trip. From Üçağız we planned to it easily across low ground to Aperlai, a small Lycian settlement perched on mountainside and running into a shallow bay. The classic Mediterranean ending to our trip. and since we would return to our departure point later that day, Onur at the local restaurant kindly less us store several kilograms of unneeded items so we could trek with a lighter weight on our backs.

It was all straightforward. We walked briskly for about three hours, spotting sheep, donkeys, horses, goats, cow and camels along the way.

By the time we arrived at Aperlai the wind had increased and clouds now blocked the sun. The waters of the bay, still inviting, looked cold and refreshing. Lycian graves sat in shallow waters, as they do in several parts of this area. I assume sea levels rose but have never bothered to search for the reason. In fact, after a week of moving through the area it seemed the very first time in eons that, while travelling, I hadn't really done any research whatsoever on the places I would come across. I had been fairly ill-informed about the region's history the entire stretch of the journey and yet it was definitely one of the moments of holiday memories.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

So... Freezing water. Two filthy boys. One Reality Show. Not really, just no choice here. It was time for the big wash. At the risk of hypothermia and unlimited sea urchin needles entering sensitive areas. It took 3.78 minutes for me to enter the water up to my thighs. for a male, entering freezing water using the step by step approach becomes ineffective at this point. You need to simply dive in. More easily said than done. Damon counted, I dived and had the fastest, most efficient and soapless wash in my life. I've seen pictures of Russian cutting holes in the ice at the height of winter and plunging into the dark murky depths. I always put this down to a lack of pleasures available under the Soviet Regime but now have the personal empirical evidence to show that below zero temperatures certainly make you aware of your living status. However, it does shrink your weener.

Another exploration of Lycian building was in evidence everywhere from the edge of the bay, sprawling up the hill and possibly onto is ridge. A little more of the same as Apollonia but here the proximity of the sea made it extra special. I felt disappointed the sun didn't shine down on the whole scene but nature is capricious and global warming is my way of saying make winters shorter, you with me?

And that, unfortunately, was more or less the end of our journey. At 5pm we knew the sun would get home before us so we donned our packs once more and returned a toute vitesse to Üçağız. I think we celebrated with a beer. Damon definitely did as I have photographic evidence. I simply can't remember anything but wanting to climb into bed.

The Lycian Way: Day 6

I knew this would happen. I return to Istanbul and an entire week runs out before I've finished my holiday memoirs. Rather crap at time management, I never seem to improve what has evidently become the bane of my life. It all just slips away so fast and compounds the feeling that I never complete the task at hand.

Anyway, my favourite day on the trip.

Not the most beautiful scenery and certainly not the best weather we experienced on our journey, however, our penultimate day on the trail was the most varied and interesting. And close to twelve hours of walking. I was feeling fit.

We arose at the crack of dawn, ate something for breakfast that must have been instantly forgettable because I can't remember what is was. Undoubtedly fruit. I know I drank only water because it was to be the first challenge of the day. to find some more of the stuff. Until this point, we had merely glanced at markings on the map that showed the locations of various cisterns and natural springs, however today we were certainly going to need to find some as we intended to make it hydrated and headache-free to a small village, Kılıçlı, by sundown.

We set off and up a hill where we found a large signpost showing the way forward. A large white house with makeshift garage was our first sing of life and within moment Damon located the cistern. we were then at odds whether to knock on the door and request water. In these parts we doubted the inhabitants rose early. Why get out of bed at all when you don't have to deal with incessant traffic and your obligations are limited to watching peacefully over some languid livestock. Of course, I'm wrong. These people had quite likely arisen hours previous and by now were many furlongs away tending to goats high up on the ridge.

Extracting water from the cistern require the kind of lateral thinking of which I remain in short supply. However, given the urgency of our situation it was indeed amazing at what we achieved using a small two handled pot, some old string and elbow grease. Ten minutes and a few failed attempts behind us, we managed to fill at capture at least three litres and I felt rather proud the event had gone so well.

The nest few hours were spent collecting another dog, idling among the usual olive groves, scrambling over rocky outcrops and travelling through gentle pine. Bracken and small scratchy bushes were a feature of the day and on several occasions we needed to stop to check we were indeed headed in the right direction.

Eventually we came into a almond orchard and met with Bayram Bey. Who I thought initially was going to shoot one of us dead for meat and keep the other as a sexual plaything. Unlike most Turks, Bayram was not garrulous. He liked to stare at us a lot. A lot. I felt the taste of fear and an impromptu and imperfect rendition of Deliverance involuntarily played in my head. I wasn't ready to squeal like a pig.

Like all Turks, Bayram was hospitable to a fault and invited us in for tea. His house was as ramshackle as you could possible imagine but had a particular to it even though I couldn't imagine what exactly life would be like in such an abode. We drank a few cups of tea and Bayram offered us water from his tank, which he needs to collect from the nearest village every now and then since rainfall has presumably dropped in the parts in the recent past. Bayram had a puppy called Aslan, Lion, that could have killed damon or I with a single jump to the throat. Deliverance involuntarily re-played in my head.

We were accompanied to the tractor path that crossed one of Bayram's fields and pointed in the direction of the nearest village, Boğazcık. We greeted a few builders and refused the offer of lodgings from a woman who appeared from nowhere and then disappeared equally mysteriously, as we set our bearings to Appollonia.

Appollonia. At the foot of a hill we unyoked our burdens and climbed backpack free to a view and ruined Hellenistic city atop a scree-covered hill. The ancient sure loved to build a) on steep slopes, and b) way above sea-level. I have really good calf muscles to prove it.

We found a theatre amidst the undergrowth and Damon performed a sparkling RADA-inspired version on Aristophanes. I took photos and cheered him on until finding my own niche among the collapsed Byzantine church where I delivered a fire-and-brimstone sermon from a tree-cum-pulpit. It was all very thespian but I suddenly remembered that I necessarily hate all actors for the pretentious jerks they are and more importantly the suns rays were no longer warming my aching cadaverous body.

We slid down the slopes, got back into the yoke and took off towards a village that time and perhaps even Turkey, forgot.

Backtracking a kilometre or more, we came upon a large bull emitting a large sound that gave a largely uncomfortable feeling in my pants. An grumpy 900kg bovine is not to be tampered with, especially when it clearly does not want that green piece of string around its horn to be tied to a lamp post. It looked irascible and sounded damn well annoyed. Damon and I spent approximately three minutes wondering whether the big scary bull was going to flee, mount the cow, or worse, mount us. A completely calm couple sat there gently coaxing the animal that was going to kill us into its leash. Jesus, have you seen the hooves on a bull? I choose to sat afar.

Animal chained, we moved on into the village proper, except there wasn't one. Man, this place was small. I loved the stone houses but hated the feeling that this was the sort of town people think are full of gentle welcoming village folk but in fact one of the barns contain acid bath holding the remains of previous intruders. Don't blame me, I do originate from a scary town. I come from a very spooky place indeed. Still, not that it left any psychological damage.

Provisions had diminished rapidly after a day's energetic use of muscles, and I called out to a man who was staring at his wife who was staring at us. Luckily for us he turned out to be the owner of the town store. Of course, if can can call a room covered in dust and stacked high with only fifteen different flavoured varieties of Pop-Cakes and Cola a shop, then were in for a rather large spree.

Being American, I assumed for Damon this was virtually a health food store because he promptly stashed a lot of things in individual single serve sized packets into a medium-sized plastic bag. When I started to cry the owner went back into his house next door and brought two loaves of bread. I stopped weeping. Damon was grinning about his new diet of Pop-Cakes. Turks loves this kind of crap. It's cheap. It's completely void of nutrition. None of this can ever be good for you. It was all cheap and let's face it, we had no other choice.

On the shopkeepers advice, we could pitch our tent and sleep anywhere we wanted. I wanted to stay out of range of both aminals and people who might like to eat other people. We effortlessly avoided more big fat and scary things making loud noises and made our way out of town. Spotting a great, wide and green field that might give us shelter and offer at least a 400m unobstructed view in every direction, I felt safer that we weren't going to be eaten.

Murat Bey kindly allowed us to rest in his field, and his obese, food-munching son waddled his way in front, signalling us to follow. Mustafa was about 24 years and 24 stone. The kind of man who spends his whole life ogling woman who never want to marry him. Still, we were males and so his only interest was to help us clear the field of the 857 rocks that might cause discomfort while sleeping. Mustafa gave up after the third stone but we carried out while he proffered all manner of information about the area.

Very helpful he was too, when, after unpacking the tent he informed us public transport didn't make it far. Without explaining the entire thing which would take too long... Damon I ended up riding in Mustafa's mate's car to the next town of Üçağız later that evening for the tidy amount of too much cash. In fact, Mustafa was wily and had, by exaggerating the distance and difficulty of the journey between his town and our next destination, organised him and his buddy enough beer money to ensure he'd be hassling poor, unsuspecting females for a long time to come. God, how can any young man allow himself to get a belly so big that he looks pregnant? Disgusting.

So, we were in Üçağız and our tent still needed to be pitched. I'm fairly sure we ended up sleeping in someone's extended garden, though in these parts they don't seem to worry about that kind of thing so much.

I will say, however, that at this point in the journey, Damon and I were no longer smelling very nice.

It might even be fair to say Mustafa just didn't want us reeking in his fields.