Cecile Popp
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Cecile Popp
  • BLOG
    • ESSAYS
    • EXPAT CONVERSATIONS
    • FOOD
  • ABOUT ME
  • EXPAT SOFRA
  • CONTACT

Posts by author

Arne

20 posts
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  • 1 min
  • Expat Conversations

Episode 13: Becoming British

Can living in a foreign country change your personality? Can cultural misunderstandings be avoided?Fiorenza Rossini is French and Turkish, grew up in Italy, and now lives in the UK. She is also a leadership coach.
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  • 1 min
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Episode 12: The International Teacher – An American in Dubai

Is teaching abroad a good way to travel? Andy LaRaia is an American high school English teacher currently working in Dubai. Before that, he taught in Istanbul for 9 years. We discuss how to get an international teaching job, touching on the application and hiring process; his current course load; as well as how teaching and working abroad is a great lifestyle choice, allowing for many travel opportunities and the time and space to pursue other hobbies and interests.
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  • 1 min
  • Food

How to Eat Loquat, or Japanese Plums in Turkey

It happened again! My husband came home with a LARGE quantity of something ... leaving me to figure out how not to let it go to waste! What will I do with all these loquats? This fruit of many names was new to me after moving to Turkey. "Yeni dünya," or "new world;" Japanese plum, Maltese plum or loquat, are just a few of its names. How do you eat it? Can you make jam out of it? Can you store it? Where can you find it? Can you grow your own tree?
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  • Expat Conversations

Episode 11: Teaching Internationally – From ESL to K-12 International School

How do you become an international teacher? Is teaching a good way to travel? Should you teach ESL or work in an international school as a home-country certified teacher?Josh has worked in South Korea, Saudi Arabia and most recently Singapore.Alexandra Paucescu is a Romanian diplomat's wife, currently posted in Berlin. We discuss the answers to all these questions and more.
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  • 1 min
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Episode 10: Not Just a Diplomatic Spouse – A Romanian in Berlin

How do you find "home" when you move every few years? How do you make friends in a new place? How do you maintain long distance friendships? What is the diplomatic life like? Especially if you're the spouse of a diplomat? Alexandra Paucescu is a Romanian diplomat's wife, currently posted in Berlin. We discuss the answers to all these questions and more.
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  • 1 min
  • Expat Conversations

Episode 9: The Cultural Chameleon – Ethnicity & Cultural Identity

What happens when a first-generation American goes abroad? Asra Ghori and I talk about her years in Istanbul, Turkey as an expat, and how the experience shifted her identity as a South Asian.
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  • 1 min
  • Food

Canning Tomatoes in Turkey

What to do with your summer tomatoes? I can a small batch of tomatoes from my garden in southern Turkey and show you how I capture this abundance for the winter.
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  • 1 min
  • Expat Conversations

Episode 8: The Career Expat – From Montreal to Venezuela, Germany to D.C.

Is the expat life for everyone? Alexander Keyserlingk and I talk about his first expat posting with Price Waterhouse in Venezuela and later Germany, and why he decided to return with his family to North America and be the one to travel while they stayed home. He tells us how he kept his children rooted in their Canadian and German heritage, and we begin to explore the difference between an expat and an immigrant.
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  • 1 min
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Episode 6&7: A Sense of Adventure – a Canadian in Portugal & Keeping Your (Canadian) Expat Kids Rooted – a Canadian Leaves Portugal

What do you do when nothing about your foreign posting turns out as planned? If you're Ginnelle Elliott, you embrace unexpected housing and schooling situations as challenges. Ginnelle has lived outside her "home" country, Canada, for over 20 years now. In this, part 1 of our conversation, we talk about her family's time in Corfu, Greece and Cascais, Portugal, and how a sense of adventure has made every and any expat "problem" manageable.
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Episode 5: Promoting African Art in Istanbul

When Daffa Konaté's husband was posted to Istanbul, she knew she didn't want to stop working. She may have left a career in Paris, but her entrepreneurial spirit took over. She listened to her inner wisdom and combined her different passions, namely art, curation and promoting African culture. And thus, Art Kelen was born.
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  • 1 min
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Episode 3&4: Starting A Business in Turkey & Raising Bicultural (American-Turkish) Kids in Turkey

Not only did Chrissy Güleç start her dream business, but she did it while living in a foreign country! Chrissy and I talk about how she came to leave the American Midwest, move to New York City, and then move again, this time to Istanbul. Find out how her business, The StyleIST, started and how it has evolved.
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  • 1 min
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Episode 2: Family Gap Year in Spain

Can you imagine just packing up your home, pulling your kids out of school, saying goodbye to the city you call home, and moving overseas? Lisa Kisch has done just that, and now she's sharing her inspiring story with us.
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Episode 1: Redefining Home – A Chilean-Canadian Finds Home in Turkey

When does a foreign country become "home?" Mauricio Araya and I discuss how one's definition of "home" changes when living abroad, especially when you've been living in your host country for a long time.
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Bowl of figs on a table in a garden
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  • 4 min
  • Essays

Redefining Abundance: A Thirteen-year Journey

The flat of plump purple fruit stares at me from its inclined position on the familiar shelves of Harvest Wagon in Toronto’s tony Rosedale neighbourhood. It wasn’t there yesterday and seems to have appeared out of nowhere, exotic-looking and vaguely suggestive. Within seconds though I’ve come up with several reasons why it will never be mine: cost ($5 each!), practicality (it would get crushed before I got it home), and intimidation (how does one eat a fig?).
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  • 3 min
  • Essays

It’s Me, Not You: The Mindfulness Habit That Has Made Me Happier and Nicer

My next door neighbour stands in his doorway with a proud grin on his face while my two youngest sons put on their shoes. I’ve come to take them home, where their older brother, their father and an oven-roasted fish supper are waiting.
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Forest street after snowfall
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The Snowstorm: How a Scarf in a Snowstorm Warmed More than Just Our Bodies

The winter storm caught us completely off guard. We’d taken the York Region Transit and then the subway into Toronto the day before and had spent the night at my brother’s house. It had been a mild winter’s day and we’d worn our winter jackets, of course; but there had been no need for boots, mittens or hats.
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  • 5 min
  • Essays

Maybe It’s You

So your job is wearing you down. The workload, that difficult co-worker, management’s lack of respect for your time and intelligence. And what’s worse is you’re too exhausted to enjoy your evenings and weekends. Besides, by the time you finish the grocery shopping, the cooking, the housework; the kids’ homework and shuttling them to their various activities, it’s time to go back to the office.
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  • 4 min
  • Essays

Integration

Surely you’ve heard the phrase work life balance so many times you no longer know exactly what it means. The tension between our work and our personal lives is always going to be there; and those in pursuit of “balance” are often chronically disappointed. Since our personal lives are often further divided between household responsibilities, family and personal care, it’s no surprise so many of us are feeling stretched.
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  • 3 min
  • Essays

Staying Aligned at Work

It took me 7 months away from my full time job to build habits into my daily routine which keep me “Zen.” Let me share with you my five most valuable strategies which you can implement right away, so that you don’t have to take a leave of absence from your job. Unless you want to, of course!
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Woman from behind walking through a street
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  • 3 min
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Pushback

If you’re sensitive to others’ emotions like me; if you’re a people-pleaser, chances are you feel extremely uncomfortable when you face even the mildest form of pushback from someone.
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