It has been raining all day long today. Needless to say I have stayed inside and enjoyed the warmth of my apartment. I am feeling healthier today than I have felt in a month. I am still coughing and do not have 100% of my strength back yet, but better is better. While it may be cold and dreary outside, I am quite content and happy inside. The only thing to make this a perfect day would be some hot cocoa with marshmallows on top. Alas, I have neither so I make do with my Kış Çay or “Winter Tea”. It is quite delicious though an contain Echinacea, rose hip, hibiscus, ginger root, cinnamon, black pepper corns, and licorice root. Good stuff.
I have just started a new book called The Last Testament by Sam Bourne. I enjoyed his first novel (The Righteous Men), and this one has started out pretty good as well. It is a murder, international mystery, suspense, etc… bringing in the Israel and Palestine conflict. I needed something a little lighter (literally) than the one I just finished, Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures by Walter Moers is a 700 page brick of a book. I was super excited to have found that one here in Turkey. I loved Moers first book as well, The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear. Rumo, from the very beginning, was a far more gruesome and dark tale, but I loved it nonetheless. I would not recommend it to the faint of heart or to young adults (unlike Captain Bluebear which I highly recommend to everyone!).
By this time you may be asking yourself “why did Charlotte start yet another blog?” The answer is quite simple my dear friends and family, my freedom of speech is being suppressed by the government of the country I currently reside in. It is not just me though, but everyone living here. I woke up the other morning to find this message when I went to access my blog:
Blogspot has now been added to the list of websites (along with YouTube) that I can not access without a cloaking website 
. This is quite easy for Turkey to do since there is only one internet provider for the whole country. The reason remains a mystery but usually have to do with one of three things: bad-mouthing Ataturk, Armenian genocide, or PKK (Kurdish terrorists). I love Turkey, and living here is on a whole wonderful, but sometimes I wish they would worry about bigger issues like the overcrowding of schools and the poverty in the east instead of shutting off access to blogspot. Let’s hope I may have better luck with this new site.
In other news, Murat is great and work is going well. I had to miss a couple days last week due to being ill but I am looking forward to being back. I miss my kids. I am afraid I gave them quite a scare last week. Kezban, my afternoon partner, was ill and did not come to school on Wednesday. I was alone all day with the kids. They were great but having to speak all day did a real number on my throat and cough. By the end of the day I was pretty bad. I started coughing so hard it was difficult to breathe and it made my eyes water. That evening a parent called my principal to ask why Kezban had quit. My principal informed them that Kezban was just ill and had not quit. The parent then said that her daughter told her Miss Charlotte was crying, so she assumed Kezban was gone . My poor traumatized kids! I will make it up to them this week by being extra happy 
. Not much else new and exciting here. I hope all is well and will be using this website from now on. You can check out my old blogs at: turkishliving.blogspot.com , charbar137.blogspot.com , and blog.myspace.com/charbar137.
