I’ve always said that, given half a chance, opportunity knocks in Dubai – especially for those who, having given up a career and life in their home country, are forced to reinvent themselves.
I’ve known so many friends who have discovered that pursuing their existing career in Dubai isn’t straightforward, and instead have taken up all sorts of new professions, from chocolate taster (after signing a diabetes waiver), mystery shopper and film reviewer on the radio to teaching assistant, maritime law specialist and interior designer.
One minute you’re wondering what the hell to do with yourself, the next you’re designing cushions for the Sheikhs. Okay, that might have made it sound a wee bit too simple. There’s also a lot of hard work involved, but if you’re prepared to go for it, there can’t be a better city in the world in which to reinvent your life.
Opportunity knocked for me this morning, in the form of a (mildly terrifying) invite to appear on Dubai Eye’s terrific Saturday morning show Talking of Books. I said yes, while thinking, “Me, really??” then consoling myself with the thought that, being radio, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about my hair or what to wear. (How wrong I was! Turns out these things are all live-streamed these days – hence the screenshot above from Facebook!)
My boss at work, who frequently appears in the media, was delighted when I told him. It’s easy, he said, bestowing a confident smile on me. “Don’t take notes in – just speak off the top of your head!” I inhaled a sharp intake of breath. Let’s just say I’m glad HE was full of confidence. The thought of going in cold like that sent a panicky shiver through me like the start of panic attack.
And so I prepared beforehand as though I was about to sit an exam. Except it was a whole lot more fun than revising for exams. My task was to review Cecilia Ahern’s new novel Postscript, the long-awaited sequel to her best-selling debut PS I love you, and I loved the book. I also enjoyed swotting up on little nuggets of information about Ahern – such as the fact she was only 21 when she wrote PS I love you, and fresh out of college (How impressive is that?).
DH helped with a practice run to the Arabian Radio Network building in Media City, and by the morning of the radio show, I figured I’d done enough prep to get me through.
I asked Son1 (from here on in known as The Teenager) if he was interested in listening. “Naah, it’s okay Mum,” he said from the sofa, where his PlayStation controller was sat in his lap. Headsets – similar to the pair I was soon to wear in the studio (left) – cupped his ears as though he worked in ground control.
“Really? You could just listen to a few minutes,” I retorted indignantly.
He yanked the headphones off and gave me a glazed-eye glare.
“You can watch it on Facebook!” I helpfully suggested. The Teenager spends HOURS, and I mean DAYS, glued to YouTube, so why not watch his mum on Facebook. “Maybe you could take a screenshot?”
“Facebook? I don’t know how to use Facebook,” he replied, in the manner that 13-year-old kids adopt whenever anyone mentions this particular form of social media. Facebook, The Teenager believes, is for oldies.
So much for impressing the kids. When I got home, The Teenager asked what was for lunch, and had I ordered the groceries yet? But he did watch a clip of Talking of Books, in the end, with an agonised, embarrassed smile on his face, the blood rushing to his cheeks at the sight of his mum being live-streamed!
And, just a few minutes ago, I heard Son2 pause whatever nonsensical jibberish he was watching on YouTube and tell his friend: “My mum was on the radio today!”
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Proactive parents will all know about the class mums’ WhatsApp group – the 24/7 group ‘chat’ on the ubiquitous phone messaging system, in which mums discuss anything from homework to lost items and how much to give kids for the bake sale.
I’m all for it (mostly) – it helps me stay on top of things, and any questions you post on the group are usually answered within seconds. I’m now included in four motherhood WhatsApp groups: two school groups and two groups for the baseball teams my sons play on.
“Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is Florence Nightingale Day – don’t forget the kids’ costumes!”
The corners of my mouth did twitch upwards, though, when I found myself discussing these memberships with the working mums at my office – because, if I’m perfectly honest, there’s nothing quite like coming out of a meeting to a phone screen full of 26 messages about head lice.
Or getting home, tired, and hearing…
Ding, ding, ding, ding!
… As messages download about all the homework you haven’t had time to do with your children as you’ve been at work.
I’ve also come to the realisation that it’s an incredibly powerful medium. Just as social media has been at the core of some of the world’s biggest protests, WhatsApp brings parents together in a way that can actually overthrow teachers.
I was talking to V, full-time at my office, and the mother of a little girl. She was looking harassed – a slight flush to her cheeks so I asked her what was wrong.
Her eyebrows snapped together. “It’s the mums in H’s class,” she said. “I’ve got all these messages on my phone about the replacement teacher – they want someone other than the person who’s been chosen.”
She gave a half shrug. “I just think the woman should be given a chance.”
See what I mean? The mums in her WhatsApp group were planning a COUP.
Then there was my chat with A, mother of two boys and currently juggling a new job with a mad dash out of the office at midday to do the school run followed by a full afternoon back at her desk.
“There’s this WhatsApp group,” she told me.
I gave her a knowing smile. I could tell by the way her face had contorted that she was getting a little frustrated with the nature of some of the messages (“My son always forgets to bring things home from school!” “Yeah? Mine too!”; “I’m the first one to arrive for parents-teachers day!” *picture of empty school hall* “Reserve a seat for me!”).
“I got home the other night,” my work colleague A told me, “and there were 58 messages from the class mums – trending tennis coaching.”
Facepalm – but then again, as I’ve come to realise, the Mummies’ WhatsApp group is also incredibly useful, and who wants to be the only mum who has to be sent separate text messages from the virtual motherhood circle (that is, if they remember – I mean, do you live under a rock?).
Peer pressure, I’d say, and the fear you’ll get everything wrong are enough to make most of us get with the programme.
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“First, if you could ask the person next to you what they’d never blog about, what they’d love to blog about, and what they hope to learn today – then we’ll go round the room and everyone can introduce their neighbour.”
A ripple of nervousness spread from the overhead projector and all the way round the tables. “Now you know how we feel,” said a smiling Kirsty Rice, co-founder of Blogging ME, the first blogging agency of its kind in the Middle East.
Kirsty shares her blogging wisdom
I was attending Blogging ME’s inaugural conference in Doha, Qatar, and found myself among a receptive audience of writers, bloggers and wannabe bloggers, gathered at the city’s fabulous Four Seasons hotel.
As we introduced ourselves, little did we know that later that afternoon we’d all don personalised, white dressing gowns – gifted to us by the hotel – and jump into bed together. Not just any old bed, but the very bed that David Beckham recently slept in when he stayed at the Four Seasons, in one of their regally furnished, villa-sized state suites.
Kirsty, the writer behind the spectacularly successful expat blog 4 Kids, 20 Suitcases and a Beagle, and co-host Sarah Derrig, the author of the lovely Lady Sadie’s Emporium, needn’t have felt nervous. Everyone was keen to hear what they had to say, and the rest was taken care of by the Four Seasons, which laid on an amazing spread of food, followed by a sundown reception with champagne and chefs at live cooking stations. Bubbles and bloggers, it turns out, are a great combination.
The Four Seasons had thought of everything
“A new blog is started every minute,” Kirsty told us. “From the online diaries of the 90s to the political blogs of the 2000s and the launch of wordpress in 2003, people have been sharing online for two-and-a-half decades.
“Now, there are personal blogs, business blogs and blogs covering fashion, food and photography, to name just a few. There are also niches within niches, such as children fleeing the nest. After about two years, I found that expat life was my niche.”
Informative sessions on all aspects of blogging followed, from choosing a platform (wordpress, Blogger or Squarespace?) to blog stats and widgets. “From Google Analytics, I know that there’s a lady in Russia who reads my blog every single day,” said Sarah.
Blogging ME: Coming soon to Dubai, Kuwait and Oman!
We learnt about logos, fonts and colours (choose wisely: red is aggressive; orange less so; blue denotes authority; and green is associated with wellness). It hadn’t occurred to me before, but the wrong font is apparently a buzz-kill. Sarah then revealed her photography tricks, including how to do pretty – while we all got busy instagraming under the table. The prize for the best picture – a weekend at the Four Seasons!
There was tonnes more I could write about, but I don’t want to give too much away about the wonderful afternoon – as the exciting news for any Middle East bloggers reading this is that Blogging ME has plans to expand into Dubai, Oman and Kuwait. I highly recommend subscribing here to receive Blogging ME’s regular updates!
Over to Kirsty for the last word: “Just 20 minutes of creative writing a day is wonderfully therapeutic. As I told my teen, if you get it out on the page, how you feel becomes much clearer.”
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The other night, I did some work on my blog, behind the scenes. I spiffed up the ‘About’ page, and a couple of the other sections. I also knocked out a quick post – nothing controversial, just a conversation that had taken place with my sons at bedtime.
So you can imagine my surprise when I woke up in the morning and discovered my blog had been banned in the UAE!
My ban came in the same week that the UAE cracked down on applying makeup while driving and taking selfies at the wheel
Not the whole website, it turned out, but the latest post (below if you’re online). If you click on it in the UAE, you get the Du surf safely message, telling you that the website you’re trying to access contains prohibited material (!) Don’t worry, I’m not writing this from behind bars [laughs nervously].
I’ve no idea what I’d written that was so offensive, but I took this to be a blogging milestone – at a vast quantum leap of the imagination, could it put Circles in the Sand in the same category as the FHM and Maxim websites, which are blocked in the UAE, I wondered? Or, at an even further stretch, The Wolf of Wall Street? Martin Scorsese’s film had 45 minutes of unsuitable content cut, and in places didn’t even make sense. My blog only had about 300 words censored, but I do often wonder if my late-night ramblings about the non-stop party that motherhood is (joke!) are coherent.
Given that I’m pretty sure it comes across in my humble blog that I genuinely love living in Dubai, I can only imagine the censorship software was feeling a little oversensitive – perhaps trying to get its point across to all the newbies here in time for the new school year, and that it will gradually lose interest. Like a really bad teacher.
So, here goes … testing … testing … testing: I’m gingerly pushing Publish and hoping it was a one-off glitch. Fingers crossed. If you don’t hear from me again, I’m writing my novel in jail.
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My parents have lived in the same town for more than 40 years, so when I visit, it’s hard to go anywhere without bumping into a memory.
My first school, middle school, secondary school, bus stop, sweet shop, houses where friends lived, even the field where I met DH (don’t ask!) all still exist. But although the places are still here, the people are not. Most moved on years ago, with the exception of a few who I know through social media are still in the vicinity somewhere.
I think I spotted one at the station the other day, but what do you do? Can you go bounding up to a total stranger and say: “Hello, we did Biology together 30 years ago! Blimey, look how much older you’ve got!” (Like you tell children how much bigger they’ve got.)?
Searching for old friends is much more fun than googling symptoms, which never ends well
Far better to go home and look them up on Facebook, or Google – and get the low-down in just a few clicks. More fun is doing this with a mutual pal, especially after a couple of glasses of vino.
At Café Rouge last night, while nibbling on a salad Paysanne and fries, a good friend and I caught up. We covered all the usual topics (kids, schools, work, holiday activities); had a few ‘remember when’ moments; and then moved on to ‘Do you remember x? Whatever happened to y? And did you keep in touch with z?’
Not in a gossipy way, you understand, but with a healthy curiosity – and an internet connection.
And that’s when you find out that some of your old friends went on to much bigger and greater things than you were ever encouraged to aspire to in Home Economics.
I looked up S, an old schoolmate, and found her on Facebook. Except hers isn’t exactly an ordinary Facebook page. It’s her international model page, and it’s peppered with gorgeous fashion photos. Her bee-stung lips and exotic beauty radiating glamorously across the internet.
On a roll, we googled a university peer, L – now a famous model and writer (of Richard Gere former girlfriend ilk). “Look, she’s got her own Wikipedia entry,” I exclaimed. Along with a famous film producer husband and her own jewellery label.
Of course, I had to take this a little further and ‘Like’ the lovely S’s Facebook page (she might ‘Like’ Circles in the Sand back!). Which meant that this morning, as I ate cornflakes and listened to my children attacking each other viciously, I received her latest update:
“About to go on set to shoot the party scene with Hollywood actors Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for the American series Episodes.”
Jealous? Moi? Not in the slightest. Although I might have to post a few more pics of us standing on the Burj al-Arab’s helipad.
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I’ve descended into a new addiction this holiday: Instagram.
If you’re not exactly sure what it is, it turns any average Joe, like myself, into a fake photographer. The premise is simple: take a photo (on your iPhone or Android); add a quirky filter, then share it.
You can follow people, and be followed yourself; you can post photos of plates of food and cute animals; snap a #selfie without eye bags; and view the world in squares.
#O2Arena
How it’s taken me this long to discover it, I have no idea.
It started, innocently enough, when I admired a friend’s photos on Facebook, then someone asked me if I Instagrammed (like Googling and Tweeting, it’s become a verb). Then I discovered Picfx (best app ever!) and, before I knew it, I was hooked.
My boys, who I have the privilege of following in real life, are my main subject matter, but you suddenly find yourself drawn to all sorts of scenes that you might not otherwise notice, like innocuous objects (a frothy coffee, perhaps), spheres, spirals and geometric patterns.
And this explains why I found myself at London’s O2 arena the other day, peering up at a reflection in the glass at the top of the tube station, and feeling an inexplicable urge to point my iPhone at it.
I posted my faux photo (pictured above) to Instagram, and thought nothing more of it. Then a ‘Like’ popped up – from a world-famous band that exploded onto the scene in the early 80s.
Iron Maiden!
It just so happened they were playing the O2 arena that night, and probably assumed I was attending the gig. The truth was, I was on my way home to give the kids a bath.
Rock-and-Roll, that’s me!
#London’s South Bank #Bubbles
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I’ve always wondered what an earthquake feels like. Ever since a friend of a friend told me about someone’s husband who was on a layover when an earthquake literally shook him from his hotel bed (he slept through the whole thing, waking up in the morning on the floor), I’ve thought to myself: “How can you not feel the earth move?”
Well, I found out today, because at about 4pm this afternoon (9th April), the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Southern Iran was felt by thousands of people (but not me) across the UAE. Even if I had noticed a tremor, I would probably have assumed it was my children, or the Metro.
Twitter immediately erupted into a frenzy of “Did you feel it?” earthquake tweets (#SanFranciscoMiddleEast).
It seems I wasn’t the only one who’d missed it, but plenty of tweeps did have first-hand reports of feeling dizzy and even lamps swinging. “The blinds were swaying,” my friend at work told me (we work on the 20th floor! Quite glad I wasn’t there today).
“I wonder if that’s why the dogs freaked out,” commented another friend on Facebook. ‘They ran in circles and barked. I just assumed they were nuts.”
A number of high-rise towers across the city, and in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar, were evacuated, with many occupants reportedly running out of buildings and many more using the mini earthquake as an excuse to go home early (my work colleagues ploughed on, the troopers).
But, really, as I read more about it (mainstream media catching up with Twitter), I realise we’re lucky that here in the UAE it was only a very light shake that many of us didn’t notice. In the area of Iran where the quake struck (500km from Abu Dhabi), more than 30 people were killed and 850 were injured. Sad news indeed.
My thoughts and prayers are with those affected.
The quake occurred some 60 miles southeast of Bushehr, home of Iran’s first nuclear power station. Fortunately there was no damage to the plant. Image via BBC News
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We all know Facebook works in weird and wonderful ways: You sign up, publish a few photos and, all of sudden, all sorts of people start coming out the woodwork.
Before you know it, you’ve got 180 Facebook friends, been timelined, and know whether your first boyfriend has already lost all his hair.
Talking of Facebook making the world a smaller, friendlier place, a funny – possibly extraordinary – thing happened today. A photo popped up that had been shared some 130,806 times. It was a picture of a tiny, framed charm that had been found tucked deep inside a vintage needlepoint purse.
The original poster, a mum named Sarah from Michigan, had bought the purse from a Salvation Army shop, discovered the charm and put a photo on Facebook, wondering whether it would get shared enough for someone to recognise the little girl.
This is the only scan I can find of me, a bit younger than the girl below and with shorter hair. But those bangs are a clue!
I looked at it, and did a double take.
“IT’S ME!!!!” I gasped! (I don’t normally assume random photos are all about me, but it honestly was such a likeness of me at that age.)
I consulted with my mother: “It does look like you,” she typed in reply, also astonished. “Same dress as well.” Even my brother agreed.
My late Nan used to do the most beautiful needlepoint work and the purse looks exactly like something she might have made years ago.
I’m really not sure at all, of course, and if it is me, I couldn’t tell you how the purse got to Michigan – but stranger things have happened, don’t you think?
Or perhaps the parallel universe hypothesis really is true [Sings scary sci-fi tune, da-na-na-na-na-na!].
See what you think…
This is the photo shared on Facebook – the charm pinned to the vintage purse
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Actually they’re not (that was just to get your attention!), but expats in Dubai are in pole position to win a Twitter or Facebook boast-off, it seems.
Three out of five adults in the UAE have lied on social media websites to sound smarter, according to a global survey. About the same number even confessed to tampering with photos to make themselves look more attractive.
I’m sure people do this all round the world (and who wouldn’t want their eyebags airbrushed, their fine lines smoothed?), but in this corner of the globe, we’re apparently particularly good at creating online personas as shiny as Dubai’s Gold Souk.
We’re so good at it, in fact, that two-thirds of the adults surveyed in the UAE wished they were more like their stage-managed online versions.
Twitter trumpet: “Dinner at the Burj tonight, champers tomorrow at brunch! #BeachLater #LifeIsGood”
So what is it that drives UAE residents to tell more fibs than those living across the rest of the Middle East and Europe? Why have more than half of us told ‘social lies’ to impress others?
The answer could be the lack of a support network. People move here away from their families and friends who know them well – and who would usually be the first to spot a lie.
Then there’s the pressure that exists to be successful in a city such as Dubai – and to show friends and family back home how supposedly glossy and exciting their new life in the UAE is.
How many desert-dwellers, for example, are guilty of putting photos up on Facebook of a smiling family in front of the Burj, with a bright-blue, cloudless sky in the background and the caption, “Beautiful day in Dubai today”, when in reality it was hot and humid?
The survey results got me thinking about some of the little white lies that mums in Dubai might tell … here are a few examples:
– “I was so lucky – my baby slept through the night from 10 days old”
– “I’d never let our housemaid get up in the night if Veronica was wailing!”
– “My daughter did her homework all by herself. Really.”
– “I never thought of looking on Pinterest for my son’s school project!”
– “Oh this old thing! [touches fuchsia pink Whistles dress] …I just found it in the cupboard”
– “My children would never eat chicken McNuggets!”
– “It was on sale”
– “The mummy tummy will be as flat as a washboard in six weeks”
– “My eyebrows are naturally high”
– “I’m sorry I can’t be class mum..I’m thinking of getting a job”
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🙂 The fact that today (Tuesday) is ‘hump day’ in this part of the world – actually nothing to do with camels, but the middle of the week, after which it’s a downhill slide all the way to the weekend.
🙂 The cooler temps when I leave work at 5.30pm. I looked lovingly at my boots in the cupboard this morning (soon!) and grabbed a jacket to wear at the office (air-conditioning set in the Arctic zone).
🙂 The nod my website received in The National newspaper today! The ol’ blog was mentioned in an article on social media – as was my 6YO’s choice of future ‘wife’ (so glad it was anonymous, he’ll kill me when he’s 18 and realises I divulged that in the national press). Click here to read the article, on whether parents are guilty of oversharing their children’s lives.
🙂 The gift DH brought me from London. Nothing fancy, nothing sparkly, just something I really felt like: a Pret a Manger sandwich. Sometimes it’s the small things that you just can’t get here.
🙂 A search I noticed in my blog stats. Somebody had misguidedly, and very funnily in my opinion, googled: ‘How many wives can an expat have in Dubai?’
🙂 The words that tumbled out of my 4YO’s mouth this evening: “Mummy, I’ve eaten too many carb-o-hi-dwates today…”
🙂 The origami my oldest son did at bedtime tonight. He asked me to make a boat, which I managed to do after several attempts. Then he elaborated, with some sellotape, a few folds and a scrunch. And, wouldn’t you know, it suddenly had four funnels and was heading straight for an iceberg.
The obsession continues…
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