I’m so not a fan of computer games. It takes so long to get good at a computer game, and then once you’re good at it, you’re addicted. Well, truthfully, I don’t speak from a lot of experience – just endless late nights playing Tetris in the college days. I just don’t trust myself to learn a game and then be able to use sound judgement in wise use of time once I know how to play.

Mehmet, (aka Mr. PlayStation) on the other hand, is a whiz at computer games. His experience includes countless cold winter nights at Internet cafes in Istanbul playing football/soccer. Game… after game… after game. I remember watching him and his cousin Volkan in the back room at the Internet cafe I used to visit – two wooden stools in front of a huge TV, and the game moving so fast, I couldn’t follow. I don’t get it. How do you know who to pass to? And how does that player know you’re going to pass to him? And how do you kick hard or soft or left, right… and do it so fast! The ball just flew from player to player, lots of dribbling and passing and fouling and kicking and then BAM – GOAL! I don’t get it – just a bit too fast for me.

Once in awhile Mehmet goes down to Jonathon’s apartment to play PS2 with some of the British guys I teach with. But the other day he said, ‘Find a game we can play together online’. So I follow the Yahoo Games link and come across a site called miniclip games’. I scroll through the list of online games… ahh, this is more my thing: Monkey Lander, Samurai Sam, Base Jumping – these kind of games sound interesting to me.

Oh, mini-golf! Mehmet likes watching golf on TV and has never played mini-golf (one of the many things I hope to get to introduce him to one day in Canada). “This’ll be fun”, I say.

And it’s all I hope for: simple, low-skill, low-tech. He’s much better than me at anything requiring logic or physics, so my ball often bounces off the edge and comes back to me because I didn’t angle it right. But once in awhile I make a great shot. Even got a hole -in-one. “So lucky,” he grumbles. “Lucky or SKILLEDDDD” I laugh, as I give him a purple nurple. “Skilled, skilled!” he cries. In the end, he wins the game.

Ooooo, then I find Hockey Showdown! Mehmet thinks hockey is hilarious – he’s never been exposed to it firsthand either, never even been on ice skates. “It’s great,” I always tell him. “We’ll go to a game in Toronto one day.”

Inwardly I am gleefully grinning because I know I’ll benefit from my years table hockey at home, floor hockey at college, and air hockey with friends at Toronto pubs. Okay Mr. “ATHLETE”, bring it.

Just a one-player game, unfortunately, and he plays first, choosing to be USA playing against the computer (Canada). He laughs at the ice and the players, the lines and the refs – it’s all so unfamiliar to him. The whistle shows the start of the ‘game’ and the cheers and chanting start from the stands. And then… huh? Pass… pass… pass… deke… bodycheck… SCORE! “Tweeeet” – ref drops puck… pass… pass… SCORE! USA 2 – Canada 0. What? How does he know how to play? But bah. Of course! it’s the same as playing online football – just the superficial differences (such as the colour of the ice vs the grass, for example) – all the other moves are similar! A pass is a pass, stick or no stick. No fair – it’s not like this in real life!. Mehmet plays three periods and wins with little effort.


Yeah okay, MY turn. Wait, W = pass/shoot, Q = body check, arrows = move forward, backward, etc, spacebar = select nearest player… wha—? I don’t get it. Wait, what are the buttons again? I don’t remember. Oh – TWEEET! Game begins. SCORE! USA 1 – Canada 0. Where’s the puck? Oh the goalie has it. What do I do now? How do I shoot? One sec… SCORE! They scored again!

Hmmm. Alright, so halfway through the first period I was losing 8-0, much to Mehmet’s delight. “I thought you were Canadian!” he laughs. Grr. I need to book a gym and find some hockey sticks.

Give me a stick… a ball… I’ll show him.

I’ve been colouring my hair reddish for almost 20 years. Red is fun! But red fades – and with all the sun and swimming here in the tropics, bad things are happening.

So I went to Salon du Mehmet and asked my consultant for advice. He agreed – we need to go dark.

So today I went dark. Now I fit in with the locals.

I’m so glad we live in an age where we can colour our hair, or otherwise I’d be all grey for sure (thank you, genes). L’Oreal, I love you!

Well, it’s been five days now since my surgery. It went well! I am so thankful for the great care at the hospital. Now I know what private health care is all about! I am thankful for such comprehensive health insurance through work too. There’s lots to be thankful for. Here, some pictures. Not for the squeamish!

We’ve seen the flyers for ‘Canadian Pizza’, and I’d been wanting to try it for a long time. What the heck is ‘Canadian’ pizza? The Poutine special? Maple syrup topping? Then my friend Katrina informed me that in the Middle East there are apparently a lot of ‘Canadian Pizza’ companies because the locals don’t want to support American chains. So to show they are not American pizza, when chains pop up, they are eager to brand themselves as Canadian. I doubt many (if any!) of them actually hail from the True North, and I think it’s quite funny, because now the locals think Canadians are famous for pizza! There are lots of Middle Easterners who come to Malaysia to study, work, and travel – so I guess that’s how the whole Canadian pizza thing started up here too.

Mehmet grumbled, “Canada sucks,” as he struggled to eat the leftovers the next day. Yeah, it was definitely the worst pizza we’ve ever had.

The good – About a month ago there was a job advertised at work. Clare, one of the managers, is going on maternity leave at the end of May for six months, and her position was open for application. Two other teachers applied along with myself. I am currently the ICT Co-ordinator, which is a post between teaching and management. Applying for jobs at our company is a nightmare – the application process is scary, incredibly thorough, and usually very competitive. Interviews are enough to make you pee your pants! But I gritted my teeth and did it – and got the job! It’s bittersweet for me – I really like the job I currently have – training teachers on the technology we use, helping them blend technology into their teaching. But the new post will be exciting too – Operations Manager for the Adult students at our centre – about 2000 students! The experience is what is most valuable for me – I’m always up for a new challenge. I feel really thankful too; another teacher said to me, “It must be comforting to know that your previous experience is valued”. I went from directing and managing back to teaching when I joined this company. So yes, in just over a year I’m back into the management saddle, and excited about it. Anyway, it’s still almost three months before that starts.

The bad – My knee really was causing me pain, so I went to see an orthopaedist. What a beautiful clinic and great doctor! He could feel by moving my knee from the outside that it was ‘rough in there’ and requested x-rays and an MRI on my knee. Within a couple hours it was all done. They gave me the x-rays and MRI film in an envelope and on a CD, and I saw the doctor again. He took out his plastic knee model and told me what was happening in there. The previous surgery ‘was done well for 15 years ago, but we have much better methods now’. He showed me how the angle where they drilled the hole before is causing my knee to be unstable. In addition, the meniscus (cushioning between leg bones at the knee) is likely torn, causing the locking that has been a problem the last few years. His concern was that if I waited any longer, I may have that bad experience of the knee locking again, but it might not unlock the next time, and “then you’re in big trouble.” That made sense, since that is almost what happened on the street the other day. It was horrific.

And so – the bad news is that I was right – it does all need to be redone. But not all bad, because the sports medicine centre where it will be done is of high repute, and so clean and modern; I really like the doctor too. At over $10,000 CDN in cost for the surgery and physiotherapy, most of it will hopefully be covered by my work’s health insurance. I’ve submitted the request for pre-approval and am hoping to hear soon so that in less than a month I can be in there for the surgery.

I asked the doctor, “So, if I decide to go ahead with the surgery, how much notice will you need?”. He paused thoughtfully and said, “Well, I don’t think I can do it tomorrow.” How different from the waiting periods I’ve experienced in Canada! So this is what private healthcare is like.

Anyone else really interested in anatomy? I know Joan will get into this at least. It’s the ACL (see below) that was totally torn that fateful day on the ski hill.


The ugly:

Actually this is more like the cool.Check out the huge staples in my knee. No wonder it gets sore there sometimes! Now they use screws that dissolve into the body over time.

And so, a month from now, I may be lying here on the sofa, nauseous from the anaesthetic, my swollen, sore leg in a huge splint. Bored, depressed, sleepless, and moaning to a long-suffering spouse.

But the thought of once again being able to skate, ski, jump from rock to rock at the beach, all that stuff… wheee! Bring it on!

Scalpel please.

Fourteen years ago, my friend Krista and I were skiing at Lake Placid, New York, and I twisted my knee. Tore my ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament), and had to get knee surgery. It was awful… I was sick for days from the anesthetic, and I got really depressed for awhile. I had had the image of using my time ‘off’ to read, watch TV, do crafts, etc (that was before Internet!), but instead I felt groggy and depressed, not to mention being in so much pain from my leg which was in a huge splint. Bah. I had a great doctor in Toronto – the surgeon for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the National Figure Skating Team, actually – and got a year of physiotherapy at the Sports Clinic there. I got a custom-made knee brace. I got good care, and none of it cost me a cent either, yay Canada! But I blew it…instead of staying on crutches for the complete six weeks, I started taking steps on it and then just flat out walking before they had given me permission to do so. And I paid the price. Since then, it’s not been good, even though they said it would be completely healed.

I can definitely not ski, can’t skate or rollerblade, can’t play sports like soccer or tennis/badminton. Trekking up or down hill is difficult. Jumping rock to rock at a beach or jumping off a low wall/high step – stuff like that is usually painful. Not that I’m hugely athletic, but it does limit me. And all these years in Asia, I so wanted to learn a martial art.

The worst part is that about 6 times in the last 3 years the knee has ‘popped out’. It’s not a ball and socket like the elbow, so it’s not really popping out of it’s socket, but it must be popping through the ‘repaired’ ligament, because it’s definitely something snapping. Thankfully each time Mehmet has helped me put it ‘back in’. I would sit on the floor with my leg straight out, and he twisted my foot till the knee snapped back. It was always in Istanbul, and it happened just from something simple, like getting up the ‘wrong way’ after sitting on the floor. One time I called him from his work to please come, I was in so much pain and really needed his help because I couldn’t snap it back myself. When he arrived, I had to drag myself on the floor from the bedroom to the door to let him in, because any weight on it was unbearable. A terrible memory!

Anyway, although I still am limited in my activities in Malaysia, the knee hasn’t snapped out or anything.

Till yesterday, that is. I was just getting into a taxi after work, and as I put my first leg into the car, the leg on the ground just turned in a funny way and although I didn’t feel pain, I knew something was up. I didn’t have space in front of me to stretch out my leg, so I turned and stretched it to my right at the front of the seat. Owwwwwwwch! It was so painful, and then I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand when I got out of the taxi.

I called Mehmet. Please be home please be home.

“Hello?”

“Hi honey, listen… I’m in the taxi on the way home and I just twisted my knee. Can you meet me at the apartment entrance? I can’t get out of the taxi by myself – I really need your help.”

“Oh no… yes, of course. I’ll be down there.”

So in just a few minutes I was in front of the apartment building, and he was there waiting. He came to the door and I leaned on him, but couldn’t put ANY weight on my leg. “I can’t walk. I can’t move.” I said. We stood there, me on one foot, leaning on him, deciding what to do. I couldn’t hop either, because any movement, even some bouncing, hurt! I was in so much pain and knew that if I got on his back or if he carried me in his arms it would really hurt my leg, the jostling or him holding it. What to do, what to do! I couldn’t even make it to the sidewalk. I knew I had to just sit down there on the street and let him try to turn my leg back in. Poor Mehmet – he hates drawing attention, and there the security guards were standing and watching, curious pedestrians were looking from the sidewalk, not to mention the construction guys on all floors of the building project next to us. He was good, didn’t pay any attention to them.

So there we were on the street, me wincing in pain, him twisting my sandalled foot… first to the right, then the left. It wasn’t working! It just caused more pain. The tears were ready to come, I just didn’t know what to do. Go to the hospital? “Let me carry you upstairs” he said, and then picked me up -ouch ouch my leg- and carried me to our flat. At least there we were in privacy.

I sat on the kitchen floor, pulled up my pant leg, and we saw my knee was already swelling. He lifted my foot and I yelped – why so much pain! He put my foot down, then twisted it again while I held it straight… slowly, carefully… further, further. Nothing, just more pain. Finally I decided to twist my knee the opposite way that he twisted my foot. And finally – snap! Done.

I could then walk and move my leg, but the knee was still swollen and sore, so I sat for the evening with ice on it.

I really need to get the surgery again – I knew this years ago, but it was never really an option for me over the last years – what, take almost 2 months off work? In countries where I’d have to pay for the surgery? Even if I went to Canada, I’d have to be there for 3 months before before my medical coverage would kick in again to pay for it. Bah!

Knee surgery has to be high up on the ‘to do’ list upon our return to Canada.

I’ve heard it happens sometimes in Europe – a special campaign where you get free seats on budget airlines; pay only tax. Maybe it happens back home now too. But I’ve not seen it in the website of the budget airline ’round these parts: Air Asia. So I was quite delighted to see the reference to it yesterday.

Both Mehmet and I want to see as much of Malaysia as we can this year (and anywhere else in Asia too). Who knows if we’ll ever be back at this side of the globe. And one place he really wants to visit is the highly recommended island of Langkawi. I checked, and sure enough, there were still some free seats left to Langkawi. Squeeee!

And now, seats booked, a four-day, three-night trip planned to Langkawi for my break at the end of March. Exciting! In case you’re wondering how much the tax was, it came out to about $50 for the two of us, return flights. How’s THAT? We know we can find cheap accommodation too. So, little hut by the beach, freshly grilled satay and a cold, cold drink. We love the beach – the countdown is on.

Every global traveller knows about culture shock – about being in an environment which is totally foreign, about not being able to communicate with shop-keepers, taxi drivers, waiters, etc. About being shocked by new smells, sights and sounds. And being a resident is SO much different than being a tourist. My first week in Korea I felt that shock – and was overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all. I watched Tracy – a Canadian co-worker who had been there for months already – in amazement as she ordered dishes for all of us one lunchtime in Korean with such speed and confidence!

“Do you really feel comfortable in this environment?” I asked her. “Oh yes,” she replied, “I totally feel at home here!” Wow. I knew I’d never feel comfortable in that alien environment. But sure enough, a couple months later it was me, happily and comfortably hopping in and out of cabs, ordering food in Korean, and not thinking twice about all the newness around me.

That was 1996, twelve years ago. Since then, I’ve experienced some mild culture shock, but never like that. Now I can’t get enough of the differences. Mehmet thinks I’m nuts, and when we come across an unbearable stench in the street, he rolls his eyes and says, “I know, it’s an adventure, right?” Right! I like being surprised and shocked, delighted and even disgusted. It keeps me thankful to be in new environments.

What nobody ever prepared me for was reverse culture shock. After my year in Korea I flew back into Toronto via Detroit. In the two-hour stopover there, I wandered around the airport and thought for sure there was a convention for fat people or something. Why was everyone so big? I was so shocked.

Then Toronto. I won’t ever forget the feeling of walking downtown with some friends upon my return. I had to sit down after 100 metres or so because I felt so overwhelmed. In my own city! Everything was so big. The cars, the streets, the trees, the buildings, the people! English was all around me and it made me feel disoriented. Shops had an enormous selection of products and everywhere I went, the once-familiar seemed so different. After only a year, so strange!

Rebecca, a co-worker who had spent several years in Asia teaching and travelling, told me it took her a couple years to feel comfortable back in Canada on her return. “Asia’s another world”, she said.

I think about all this often, and keep trying to mentally prepare myself for going back to Canada. I know it will be difficult, in ways that only those who have spent years overseas can appreciate. I feel comfortable here, in the life as a foreigner. English teachers have a very unique lifestyle. We have to live on much less than we did back home. We also have adventures and experiences that teach us huge lessons and mold us in ways that are difficult to explain.

Bill Bryson, the popular author of “A Short History of Nearly Everything” also wrote a book entitled “I’m a Stranger Here Myself“, notes on his experience moving back to America with a foreign wife and four kids, after twenty years away. It’s a delightful description of the challenges and thrills of going back ‘home’. He starts the book with his own quote: “There are three things you can’t do in life. You can’t beat the phone company, you can’t make a waiter see you until he is ready to see you, and you can’t go home again.” Of course throughout the book he reassesses number three, and I’ve been enjoying his account.

If Mehmet gets his papers from Canada, this will be the year he and I go to Canada. Sometimes I bemoan the fact that my adventures will end. But it will be fun to see my country through new eyes – that’s an adventure too, no?

Well, we’ve been here in Thailand for five days now. We’ve seen some gorgeous islands and beaches on a boat trip. Even though it is technically the rainy season, we haven’t had rain once! The weather has been perfect.

We took a boat trip to Phi-Phi island; here’s a photo from there:

The bad news is that I got food poisoning on the boat trip. They served us lunch and I had the chicken, which Mehmet didn’t – so that must have done it! Bah! I got so sick on the boat ride back (nothing like food poisoning and seasickness combined!), and that one hour on the boat seemed to take forever.

By the time we docked, I just made it over to the other side of the pier in time to hurl over the edge into the water. Nice!

So for the last two days I have been spending my time in bed and in the washroom. My ribs feel like they are all bruised – all of my organs are threatening to come out with the heaving, since my stomach has long ago been emptied of food.

But this evening I finally feel a bit better, and hopefully we can enjoy the rest of our time here!

Sometimes it takes more than a modicum of self-discipline to pull our feet outside when we have free time. Both Mehmet and I like nature and nature walks, but when it’s over 30 degrees and very humid Every.Single.Day, it’s just not as enjoyable as pulling on a light jacket and boots and walking somewhere in a four-season country.

But there are some nice parks in KL – the Bird Park, the Butterfly Park, Lake Gardens, and more. About a 20-minute walk from our home is the KL tower (kind of like CN Tower in Toronto), and at the base is a small nature park with trails. We’ve been there before, and wanted to take my friend/co-worker/neighbour Katrina along. “You’ll love the wild monkeys,” I said, “it’s the best part. There’s even one that has spikey white hair. They call him David Beckham.” So she was looking forward to seeing the monkeys, as were we. Who doesn’t enjoy the occasional bonding time with primates, especially if they’re local!

But when we got to the area where the monkeys usually hang out (ha)… no monkeys! Not one! “Here Becks! Here boy… mama’s got an apple!” Nuthin’. Disappointed, a little. But there were promises of more local wildlife, as you can see by this other sign. Scorpions. Snakes. Centipedes. Asian centipedes can be deadly, but if we were to die from the wildlife, a python would certainly be a more adventurous way to go, and besides, what a photo!

Alas, no animal viewing, besides a couple butterflies not-so-covertly mating beneath our resting bench. The mosquitoes were out too, bothering Katrina, who mumbled something about all the recent deaths from Dengue fever in nearby Singpore, thanks to the mosquitos. Yikes.

Still! The massive tropical trees, some with leaves over a foot wide, tough vines that would make Tarzan drool, and large clusters of hard, heavy bamboo trees – these are all things we wouldn’t see back home, so we were satisfied.

Check out the bananas here. Also wild. None of us had ever seen a banana flower before.

I dream of cool breezes, of coming back home from a walk like this without my head throbbing and threatening to explode because of the heat. But in the meantime, we can still enjoy the bits of exotic life around us – things we’ll one day remember fondly.

There are about 25 English teachers at our centre. Most of them are British, but there’s our little minority of Canadians, New Zealanders, and Aussies. It gets more colourful when you mix in the partners; spouses hail from Colombia, Italy, Korea, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, Australia, and more. About half a dozen teachers are married to Malaysians and are quite settled here with families.

We have quite a variety of shifts at work, and there’s not a whole lot of social mingling because everyone is really quite busy. So when Jonathon invited everyone out to an Italian restaurant down the road to celebrate his 33rd birthday, we decided to go. Jonathon lives in the same building as us.

About half the teachers came, and it was a good time to get to know a few people better. People have such interesting and unique backgrounds! I never tire of hearing where other teachers have lived, why they left, what they miss, what their students were like, etc.

Mehmet is content if he has somebody to talk football with. “English teacher talk” can get boring pretty fast if you’re not one of them!

“This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia began.”

So begins the first book of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series – Mehmet and I started reading it yesterday. For me, it’s a welcome, nostalgic jaunt down memory lane. It isn’t difficult to think back to Mrs. LaBerge’s grade four class, when she read us the Narnia books. As she worked her way through the series, she made fantastic displays on the bulletin board. Now, almost 30 years later, (*gasp*) it’s such a delight to go back to the Wood between the Worlds with Polly and Digory.

Everyone knows that marrying somebody from such a different background and culture is bound to have challenges. But what nobody told me about was all those great “firsts”, of introducing him to cultural tidbits that are such a normal and unceremonious part of my everyday life or of my youth. Besides Narnia, some of the things I’ve really enjoyed sharing with Mehmet with are:

• jello (he hates it)
• sushi (he loves it) – yes I know it’s not a Western culture thing
• muffins (he loves them)
• cheddar cheese (likey)
• pancakes for breakfast (no likey)
• bread with just butter, Euro-style (he likes it)
• 80s music (he loves it)
• Seinfeld and Frasier re-runs (a big fan)
• reading in bed (we’re working on it)

Sharing little bits of my culture adds a delightful dimension to the colourful cultural differences in our relationship.