Happy New Year

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy New Year! With the start of a new decade, it is a pleasure to send this letter to family and friends. 2009 has been a very fast paced year for all of us, but one that was good to the three of us.

The Daddy:
Serving as HOD for the Department continues to demand most of his time. Despite the recession, which has not hit the desert as hard as many in the world press might have liked, we were able to significantly expand our department and add some new programs. He finally enjoyed the chance to teach a course devoted to modern Southeast Asia, while also doing the Senior Seminar which explored the politics of Heritage in the Middle East. Additionally, he was able to near his manuscript for publication, attend some interesting conferences in Brisbane and Jordan and get a few articles published along the way. One of the nice surprises that 2009 had for him was that he got invited to publish on baseball: he wrote about 6 pieces about the Atlanta Braves draft and farm system for a blog devoted to the Braves (for those who follow the Braves a post just two days ago: http://www.chop-n-change.com/). All of that said, his day is made when he return home to the Mommy and Our Little One and the latter, now nearly 18 months, comes to the door carrying a ball for us to play with.

The Mommy
Her professional advances neatly framed the calendar—with significant developments at both the beginning and end of the year. In January she resumed her education: She began Leicester University’s MA program in Mass Communication. This is an online degree program and at this point she has completed 5 modules and she will take an exam for another in about a week. With the end of 2009 on the horizon, the mommy joined a commercial publishing company located in Dubai—as an editor. She assists with the publication of one magazine and is the editor for another magazine. She has been tasked with taking her magazine from bimonthly to monthly so this is a terrific opportunity, which guarantees that 2010 will be fast paced year for all of us. The daddy is very proud of her: instead of appearing on the covers of magazines (which she did back in 2006), she is now editing them. The Daddy would not rule out the possibility that one day she will do both! In between, She has enjoyed being a devoted and loving Mother. Her frequent updates about Our Little One on Facebook have brought him many new fans.

Our Little One
Predictably, Our Little One gets the lion share of attention. In terms of development, he has had the biggest year: after all, he learned to walk and he is now working on talking. Our 6 weeks of travel in the summer gives you the snapshots: his first birthday party in July in Singapore; his first real attempt at a conversation (with another baby/toddler) on the ferry from the Taronga Zoo in Sydney—this event was cute until Darwin continued to babble loudly at length without saying anything. Clearly, this moment could be a harbinger that he will follow in the family tradition and become an academic—or even a politician. Darwin crawling over our apartment in Brisbane and learning to look out of the balcony windows from the 21st floor were new experiences as well. The flight from Brisbane to Singapore which we enjoyed because of the wonderful view of the outback, had many babies, but one parent told us after the flight that “your son has such strong lungs”! Our Little One in North Carolina competing with his uncle and aunty’s dog Rio for his bowl and ball; these episodes were followed by Our Little One learning about lawns and grass in Connecticut. A month later, he was walking in Sharjah and soon practicing his newly found abilities in some of the desert’s lesser known malls.

Yet, he had one more transition ahead of him: Our Little One enrolled in the nursery program in November. Someone asked if the choice of school meant that we were preparing our son for a career of beer drinking and I could only reply that this was an outcome which we would have to ‘track and measure’. In any case, he quickly made his presence felt—in fact, he appeared to be getting ready for a visit by George W. Bush, as he got so angry that he took his shoes off and threw them at this teacher! Eventually Our Little One got over the shock of being at school without his parents and eventually he made the transition and began to benefit from interacting with many other children.

As 2009 recedes from view, we know that we have been very fortunate. Like so many, we watched with dismay as so many people lost their jobs and struggled to rebuild their lives. Again, the passing of the Daddy's uncle (and the incredibly frustrating inability to get to the funeral in West Virginia) was a reminder that good years are normally followed by ones which are more challenging. 2010 beckons with promise, but five decades of experience has taught be that there will be shoals ahead—many of them completely unforeseen.

More important, perhaps, in sending this letter to you we want you to know that you have already enriched our lives. After all, Cicero was at least partly right about the importance of friendship: friends divide our grief and double our joys. We may not be able to see you in 2010, but it is a privilege for the three of us to know you because as our friends you have helped us when we needed it or added more happiness to our lives. With some luck, our paths will cross in 2010, but if they don’t we hope to be able to catch up with you. We also wish that as this decade dawns, you will find that it proves to be a wonderful one for you—complete with many achievements, joyous moments and great memories.

In closing, we want to wish you and your family the best for the New Year.