Tag Archives: life

Failing Religion

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It is now school holidays in Turkey which means that Daughter has survived her first term in the Turkish village school.  She has survived classes where no one speaks her language.  She has navigated the social minefields of school life and made friends with kids and teachers alike.  She has gotten in trouble for talking in class, picked a fight to protect a friend and even got called into the principal’s office on one occasion.  She has also received her first Ilkogretim Orgenci Karnesi.  Her Elementary Student Report Card.

How did Daughter do?

You have probably already guessed that I am not only of those mother’s who brag about how wonderful and talented and amazing their child is.  I would rather call a spade a spade.  I will merely say that for a kid who four months ago was coasting along in a suburban school in Sydney she did pretty well.  She got a Certificate for passing the term (which is a good thing apparently).  She received 4’s and 5’s for most subjects (highest is a 5).  She got a 4 in Turkce which is pretty good considering it is not her first language.  The only subject she got a “2” in is Din Kulturu ve anlak bilgisi also known as “Religion”.

Long ago I made the decision to allow Daughter to choose her own religion when she was old enough to make an informed determination.  It is not to me as the parent to force something as important as spirituality on my child.  I always gave her the information when requested.  I took her to Sunday school classes at our local church, arranged for her to meet other Muslim families in our area and even enrolled her in Buddhism classes at Bondi.  We often attended the Hari Krishna Centre at North Sydney (best vegetarian samosa’s around) and I even explained the religion of Jedism (alright so perhaps I made her watch Star Wars with me).  I gave her the tools to learn about spirituality in her own way – and she has.  This is why a double lesson of Din must send her closer to the edge and also explains why she hates her Friday’s so much.

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I have, however, made one suggestion to her –

“Please do not argue with the Din Ogretmeni (Religion Teacher) again about Islam as this causes him to go red in the face and gesticulate in a manner that made your father laugh and made me flinch.  It also means that we do not need to make another trip up to the Principal’s Office on your behalf.  Thank you.”

My Kedi Cat

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My Kedi Cat has lived a few lives since she came into this world.  Her first life was that of a stray.  Part feral, she and her mother lived in a dumpster bin behind a warehouse complex.  Caught they were taken to the Animal Welfare League which was where she began her second life when Daughter and I adopted her New Year’s Eve 2011.  She was a nasty little blighter.  She hated me with a passion.  Daughter and The Turk were accepted as her humans but me – nope – she would bite, scratch, hiss and attack me by throwing herself from the vestibule when I passed by.  I did not call her by her name Kedi (which is Turkish for cat) I called her “that bloody cat that hates me” or “that black cat that hates me” if Daughter was within earshot.  “TBC” for short.

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When we discussed moving to Turkey and taking our fur-friends I have to be honest, I did not want to bring TBC.  There are enough cats in Turkey do we really need to bring one with us?  I argued, I begged, I pleaded but to no avail.  Both The Turk and Daughter (and apparently My Hurley Dog) wanted TBC to come to Turkey too.  So putting aside the extra cost of bringing TBC to Turkey I realised that this particular cat never spends any time indoors.  In fact after we adopted her it only took her a few days before she escaped and lived in the backyard.  This of course is a new problem as we could not let her out of our home in Turkey as those Karaduvar “Kamikazi” cats (have a read about these terrors here or here)  will no doubt kill her on sight.  So what do we do?

You may recall when The Turk arrived in Mersin he immediately instructed builders to extend our balcony and it now wraps its way around the front of our apartment.  It is a good size, certainly not huge, but enough to keep My Hurley Dog and TBC out of trouble and to give them some outdoor area.  It is still not finished yet (we are now onto our second builder – don’t ask) but both My Hurley Dog and TBC spend time out there already in the sunshine, the dog helping the builders and the cat stalking birds and watching the neighbourhood cats.

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I must say that TBC has moved into her third life quite well.  I worried that she would try and escape or suicide off the balcony, but no, she is happy to sit in the sunshine or in front of the heater.  After her initial jetlag (she spent the first two weeks awake all night and sleeping all day) she has now acclimatised and other than a few crazed moments at 3am she is generally quite happy to sleep on my bed or sit with me, as she is doing right now, on my desk as I type my blog or check my emails.

That bloody cat that hates me has morphed into My Kedi Cat that I love.  My mother in law called her a princess and she was rarely wrong about anything.  Yes I agree.  A princess.

Pressing the re-set button

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2014 and so far it has been a fucking shocker.  My thoughts are a little all over the place so please be patient with me over the next few days.  Yes it is 2014.  Yes I have already had my birthday and yes that too blew balls, understandably so under the circumstances, but I need to look forward and not dwell on the first week of 2014.  If I did this then my whole year was going to be a disaster.

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I decided that the best way to put the first week of 2014 behind me and start the year afresh.  Should I make a New Year’s resolution?  Probably not.  I have never done it before so there is probably no reason to start now but what I do need to do is to think about what I actually want to achieve this year.

There’s the usual things like lose weight or be a better person but these sound more like New Year’s Resolutions than something that is substantial to making me a happy person.  I need to look further within myself to what I really want to do.  While dwelling on the meaning of my life I also realised that I need to –

Learn Turkish.  Just enough to get by.  Just enough.

Talk to Daughter.  Teach Daughter.  Listen to Daughter.  Hug Daughter.  Pre-teen angst.  Mood swings.  Negating my authority.  Yikes.  It’s a bitch.  Deep breath Jane, deep breath!

Be more patient with The Turk.  He’s had a tough first week of 2014 also.  Maybe give him a break now and then rather than being on his ass about what he hasn’t done.  Maybe.

Explore my surrounds.  Turkey is not a big country.  It’s smaller than New South Wales and yet I have never delved further than the beaches.    I need to say it.  I need to do it.  Here it comes . . . ROAD TRIP!

Write.  I was chatting to a friend the other day and she gave me some encouragement with my writing.  “Keep blogging,” she said, “I love your stories.”  Thanks Ris but I may need some more nudging from you over the next couple of months as I try and find my voice.

Alright so this list may not give me all the answers to the meaning of my life but it’s a start.

Hold on people.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.