Naive Psychologist

good morning my loves

pinch and a punch for the first of the month

do you want leftovers in your lunch

bowl out to the sink please

I can’t find my shin pads

clean your teeth

here’s a bag for your soccer gear

please don’t leave your pyjamas there

shoes on now or you’ll all be late

kiss goodbye

see you later

i love you mum

have a great day

good luck at soccer

fill up your water before the game

i will, don’t worry

goodbye

see you after school

footsteps leaving the house, then footsteps returning

oh…and Mum…if you’re stealing any of my candy today, don’t take the doritos

Following a missive from home, I decided to go in search of John Howard’s appearance on qanda last night. I had to go to youtube because stoopid ABC won’t let me watch iview from here. Anyway, good to know John Howard hasn’t lost his ability to make me so angry I can’t see straight.

Mr Howard, let me be clear…when I was part of the campaign for David Hicks to be given a fair trial, I never once claimed, nor even thought, that he was ‘a hero’. To say that I did is to be tricky at best and deceptive at worst. I was speaking out about his right to a trial, to a fair trial. I was arguing that he should be charged, that he should not be held without charge. And I said that he should not be subjected to torture while imprisoned.

I did not once say that he was a hero.

I know a lot of people who were campaigning on behalf of David Hicks and I don’t remember any of them describing David Hicks as a hero. I did, and do, think that his father was a hero, and perhaps I expressed that thought in a public way. So maybe you misheard me. Maybe when I said Terry, you heard me say David. Fair enough, you had a lot on your plate at the time, mistakes happen. If this is the case, please advise, and I will accept your apology unreservedly.

Otherwise, please stop saying, or even implying, that I have ever said David Hicks is a hero. It is not cool to misrepresent people and their opinions in this way.

While we’re at it, I’ll just remind Mike Rann that I still haven’t forgiven him when he did a similar thing . I never said that van Nguyen, a young man facing the death penalty in Singapore, should be compared to Florence Nightingale. I said that he should not face the death penalty because I believe that the death penalty is wrong in all circumstances and I do not qualify my opposition to the death penalty. I’m still extraordinarily mad with Mike Rann for saying the things that he did – it was completely unnecessary for him to say those things, and if he really was against the death penalty then he wouldn’t be undermining other people’s efforts to have it abolished.

Goodness, but I’m cross about those things.

Back when we were deciding whether or not we should move to Abu Dhabi, we came for a visit and various people showed us various things which were variously convincing or not. One evening, we sat around a table with some of the mister’s colleagues and they showed us the photos of their recent trip to Jordan.

I was utterly captivated by their photos and declared that the Dead Sea would be a wonderful place to spend my 40th birthday. There were other things that clinched the deal, but that moment was one of the defining moments in our decision-making.

We didn’t quite get to Jordan for my 40th, but have just returned from a 6 day trip, and it was bloody brilliant.

Here’s a picture of the lads running to catch up with us at Jerash. They are running, not sitting around moaning about the heat and the long walk and so on, because I have just called down to them that I’ve found us a shortcut (‘you’re good’, the mister said with awe in his voice as we watched the lads jump up and begin to run).

Here are some bagpipers in the amphitheatre of the Roman ruins at Jerash. No, I cannot explain the bagpipes. I’m good, but I’m not that good.

Here’s me and the lads at Petra. How the mister managed to get this photo without anyone between the camera and us I will never know. It is high season in Jordan at the moment, and there was possibly a gazillion of us modern day humans at Petra that day.

And here is a photo of me floating in the Dead Sea. How do you know it is the Dead Sea and not just some other random sea? Because I am in it. Have you ever heard of me being in the sea? Case, I rest it. I stayed in until I could feel my nipples stinging which was a little less time than you might imagine.

The lads, they hated being in the Dead Sea and lasted about ten seconds. It is, I think, pretty much a been there, done that kind of experience, in that the weirdness of it was rather brilliant but not something I will ever feel the urge to repeat.

I have a friend who says of things, ‘It is to be seen’ and that Jordan is. I mean Petra was absolutely one of the most stunning places I have ever been. But what I really loved was being immersed in an Arabic and Islamic culture. The difference between there and here is that in Jordan we were surrounded by Arabic speakers – in the shops and the hotels and the cafes and on the street. Here, there are of course many, many Arabic speakers but so many of the casual interactions in a day are in English. I think this is probably because in Jordan, there is much less reliance on imported labour. While a lot of people have moved to Jordan from other countries (65% of the population are Palestinian-Jordanian and there’s also a lot of refugees from Iraq), it is not like here where around 80% of the population is expat labour. Many expats are from Arabic-speaking countries such as Egypt and Lebanon and Jordan, but there’s also a substantial number of ‘western expats’ and expats from countries such as the Philippines. Our common language is English and for someone like me, English dominates our interactions.

One of the real pities about living here is that we are not learning more Arabic. I have had a few lessons, but haven’t even really got my head around the alphabet and while I’m full of good intentions, I think realistically, I’m unlikely to leave with anything more substantial than the most basic of greetings. The thing is that it would be so much easier to learn in a place like Jordan where any language skills would get much more of a workout. In my job, I would have had much more of an opportunity, because the 4 other members of my team were all native Arabic speakers, but now I’m not there I barely come into contact with the Arabic language from one day to the next. This is sort of my own fault and sort of something over which I don’t have much control.

Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a post about what’s wrong with living here. It’s supposed to be about what an excellent time we had in Jordan. Which we did. And you know, on a clear day when you’re bobbing up and down in the Dead Sea, you can see clear across to Jerusalem. Makes you think, that does.

Here is a photo from Mt Nebo which is one of the places where Moses stood. In the distance you can’t see the Dead Sea or the Promised Land, but Moses could because it wasn’t so dusty when he was standing there and because he was looking at the real thing and not some hastily taken photo.

So, I just realised something so amazing that I have to put it on facebook and my blog.

Next year, on 4th of the 2nd, I will turn 42.

Even the mister – a greater skeptic than you can even hope to be – agrees that there has got to be some celestial significance in that.

They struggle a bit to find their own spaces, the lads do. They have to share their books, and the games are all communal. We don’t even really know who owns this T shirt, these shorts, those underpants. Given the logistical difficulties with getting around Abu Dhabi (and plus, did I mention I hate driving) I don’t do any after school stuff that they can’t both do. They do all of the same things all of the time. They always have which has always partly been because I’ve been so very tired ever since they were born really, and the fact that we get anywhere at all sometimes surprises me. They have a pretty intense relationship which makes our jobs as the adults in their lives sometimes simple, sometimes complex.

Until last night, they were even sharing a bed. When they were little, they would start off in separate beds, but we would always find them snuggled in together when we went off to bed, then, when we moved here, we inherited a double and a queen and we just never got around to getting them another bed. And anyway, we do the usual bed hopping that lots of families with young children do me here, him there, that boy here, that boy there. We don’t co-sleep, but the arrangements have always been fairly fluid, especially because I’ve spent a lot of time alone with them and often we’ve gone to bed at the same time.

But that’s changing. Last night, they slept not just in separate beds, but separate rooms. It was all planned and arranged by youngest lad. And while he, youngest lad, was busy organising his new space and his books and his lego and his pokemon cards, eldest was saying, ‘Mum, will you snuggle me before I go to sleep?’

Image: leaving Istanbul train station on their first ever overnight train journey.