Catching up

Well, since I find myself with a few minutes on my hands, I think it's time I let the frustrated legions of Ozan fans around the world know what he and his parents are up to these days.

Ozan continues to grow in stature, wisdom, and cuteness, as I hope is evident from the occasional pictures and movie clips I toss onto the web, either here or on Picasa. It's really true that babies develop practically before your eyes; it seems like every day Ozan is a little more alert, a little more responsive, a little more like a real person, albeit a diminutive one, and less like a bundle of reflexes attached to a diaper. Nowadays he acts like he knows we're there, and he even looks us in the eyes, which warms the cockles of my heart. We're even able to get him to smile sometimes. He still cries a lot, but he went to the pediatrician last Friday and got a clean bill of health, so it's normal baby woes which are making him fuss. To address them at least a little, we got him some infant Gaviscon (kinda like Pepto-Bismol), which, judging at least from the initial trial, seems to do the trick pretty well. The pediatrician gave him a vaccination which, as expected, triggered a light fever 48 hours later, i.e. today. So he fussed a lot, but also slept a lot, and now seems to be more his normal self again.

How's mommy handling this, you ask? Well, she's a trooper, that's for sure. I think she's getting a little stir crazy (basically because she told me she is), but she is as loving and patient a mother as anyone could hope for. Ozan is really one lucky kid. We are also eternally in debt to Meltem's mom, who is nowadays dividing her time between Ozan and Melek.

As for daddy, I am creaking under the load of two jobs, one at TIPPS and one at Bahçeşehir University. The former is good because I like everybody there, the students range from good to very very good, and the grand old principle of the private sector applies: the more work you do, the louder the "cha-ching" at the end of the week. My other job, though, is asymptotically approaching 100% unrewardingness. The students are horrible; it's a frightening window into the Turkish educational system to deal with them. The very concept of thought, as opposed to mere memorization and regurgitation, is utterly foreign to them, and in fact has probably been drilled out of their heads in the hopes of creating a citizenry that doesn't ask questions because they just don't know how. I have to give these kids quizzes and exams that would get me laughed out of an eighth-grade classroom back in the West Hartford I remember. Moreover, they're remarkably infantile for people in their late teens, and I have to set my teeth against their whining whenever I hand back said quizzes and exams. Oh well, I tell myself, it's pretty good money, and it's not like I have to stay after the semester comes to its merciful end in early June.

Meanwhile the weather is getting warmer, the leaves and flowers are bursting forth, and it's just good to be alive.