Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Working Girl

This is me now:



That's right. A long-shot teaching job worked out and now I have a real job. This heralds the end of my fake job as an Internet content whore (I thought I'd go one level more disparaging than "content farmer," as we're usually referred to by legions of proper freelance writers who've been put out of work). For 15 to 25 bucks a pop, I was pumping out Pulitzer-worthy articles such as "How To Tell If Your Goat Is Pregnant" and "What Is Female Lubricant?" and "Methods Of Hair Removal." I'm a veritable font of random and useless knowledge (unless anyone has a goat you suspect might be pregnant, then maybe it's not so useless). I can also tell you how to help your Maltese through pregnancy and birth, how to get rid of mange naturally, and exactly why Monsanto is evil, how Roundup pesticide will kill you and how Roundup Ready seeds could very well be the death of us all (listen well, Turkey, since you all agreed to allow them in your country). I'm also an armchair organic lawn specialist.

However, if you ever read somewhere how to get rid of ants with essential oils and vinegar, it's complete rubbish and the Internet is a big fat liar. We had an ant invasion shortly before I went to the US, and the essential oils plus the vacuum did nothing. Granted, when I drew a circle around an ant with lemon oil and a Q-tip, the ant didn't go out of the circle for awhile. But eventually it did get out, and then apparently told all its friends that this house was armed only with essential oil and vinegar. I sent BE to the bakkal for the secret illegal poison after we went to Portland.

Okay, so it wasn't a fake job. It was a WAHM job which everyone thinks is fake but isn't really. It's like when your students tell you "My mother is a housewife," when in fact their mother is a tailor or copy editor or something. It was kind of fun, and very low on the human interaction scale. Stranger writes article and sends it in. Money appears in Stranger's Paypal account. Student loans for expensive MA continue to be paid. Stranger splurges on some sweet computer speakers and plane tickets home and weekly groceries. Etc.

Anyway, I'm wrapping my head around the new job, which all came up rather suddenly. Starts next week. We have to find a new flat and fast, since the job is on the other side of the world, in a gorgeous place where empty Soviet-style high-rises and slowly failing or never-opened malls don't dominate the landscape. I'm trying to focus on the moving part to avoid thinking about the working part.

I tried to explain it to LE. I told him I'm a teacher. He was all, "No you're not, Mama. Eda's a teacher. You Mama." and then he had a good laugh. Then I told him we were moving to a new house, and after establishing that Baba and I and the TV would also be in the new house, he got upset because he wants the new house NOW instead of going to bed. Before he fell asleep, he murmured that he would like the house to be big and blue. So maybe he'll be okay with all this and maybe he won't.

Maybe my new job will let me bring him for show and tell.

We'll see what we can do.

13 comments:

UNchecked other said...

Congratulations and bon voyage! You'll do a great jo. From your posts alone, I can tell that you're a fantastic educator: lively and willing to engage in dialogue, as opposed to some who just talk at their students.

I was roughly around LE's age when we moved from the U.S. to Switzerland (and then 2 other countries before the age of 8), and though the move was confusing (where did the nice beach go? why is it cold?), hearing English being spoken by a lot of people really helped. So keep up the Turkish (I assume y'all moving to the U.S.) and some of the routines he's used to. That way he'll know that though things are different, he's safe and everything's okay.

Again, congrats!

Ayak said...

Many congratulations. Good luck with the job and the move xx

Stranger said...

Wow, Hawaii to Switzerland! That must have been an incredible shock. How cool that you can remember it. I'm usually the only person I know who remembers stuff about being LE's age.

Though I wish we were off to some far-flung exotic place, or even to the US, by "other side of the world" I just meant the other side of Istanbul. Still on the Europe side actually, so we're not even changing continents. Istanbul seems bigger than it is because of traffic. Bitten by my own hyperbole...

Thanks for your good wishes, all.

Nomad said...

looking forward to some biting teacher stories!

Briar said...

Congratulations! That's quite a week you have ahead of you. Sometimes I think it can be good to do all major life-changing upheaval in an excruciatingly short period of time. Hell followed by rapid adjustment. Thinking of you

Melissa said...

Congratulations and good luck with the new job! Tell LE he can come visit us, we live in a bright blue house and he is welcome here anytime.

Bulent Murtezaoglu said...

Congratulations. I have what I think is a fairly good guess about where you'll be working. Perhaps you will have more of a chance to meet the kind of people you've always complained about not meeting?

Stranger said...

@ Nomad, I feel like telling some biting teacher stories. I went in for a few hours yesterday (no students yet), and I feel like my world has shrunk to the size of a pea.

@ Briar,I totally agree that it's better to have these life-changing events all at once. Like ripping off bandage and no time to get neurotically worried about anything. I also decided I'm glad I got this whole summer to hang out with LE, without having it hanging over my head that it was all going to end.

@ Melissa, we might just take you up on that. The new place is huge, and a duplex, on the top floor. I keep getting the "Jeffersons" theme song in my head. It has a big guest room with its own bathroom and balcony, so you and yours are more than welcome to stay with us anytime. You too, Briar.

@ Bülent, I think you're probably right. I totally admit to scoping out the folks around the cafes for people to be my new friends.

Vicky, Bursa said...

this is such great news!! I'm so glad you'll be in a better part of Istanbul and will be able to gain a social life back! Good luck with the move and the teaching

Stranger said...

Thanks :) The move is not going so well but I'm thrilled to bits with the social life. I probably seem desperate and talk about LE too much but it's kind of nice being a real grown-up again. Strange too.

00001672 said...

Congrats for the move. Hope the move will bring more positives. Actually I was thinking about socializing projects for foreigners in Turkey. Could I request you to check out www.expatslikeme.com whenever you have the chance?
cheers Cagdas

Stranger said...

Thanks, ÇG. Knock on wood it's all working out very nicely so far (which makes me superstitious, apparently).

Nice work on the blog. One day I have to have time to give it a closer look! Let alone post here...

Adam said...

Hope it's going ok!