Battling philosophies

Note: I wrote this last week in the middle of a frustrating encounter at the school. Today I was able to meet up with some superiors at my job to discuss the miscommunications and frustrations I felt and they seem to have be received positively. However, I didn't post anything last week and am not yet ready for my exposee on food, so this will currently take it's place. I have a couple other funny stories to share if I get to them tonight, but otherwise, the food exposee will be coming soon...

I'm a pretty stubborn dude. Most of you are likely reading this and are probably asking yourselves why I point out the obvious. I do so because I seem to run into situations where, no matter how vehemently I present a perspective about something, that someone will simply tell me I'm wrong (or even just ignore me). I don't even need to convince them... just persuade them enough for them to think that I have a reasonable position. This is generally enough to pacify the rise in blood pressure I face from time to time,

Most of the time, I like to think that I'm open-minded. I'm sure there are a few of you who are asking yourselves, "How can he kid himself like that???". I'm sure I can think of instances where my belief in my own open-mindedness doesn't exist, but I don't like to focus on those moments. I'm much happier thinking about the times where I think/know I'm correct and I've convinced people of a perspective. Ask my parents... they've known this passion (read: "obsession") for arguing and spouting off about things in a slightly (read: "ridiculously") enthusiastic and vehement way. Others see this as well. Anyway, enough about me...

I'm living in a country that doesn't exactly embrace this passion for conflict engagement. And I'm definitely teaching in an environment where I can see faults and flaws in a big system, and I've been told by some that I have to just live with it. Like I've said before... T.I.C. As you can imagine, this brings some frustration into my life, as I like to have a chance to voice my perspective and I like even more to convince people that things need to change (if I think I've found a flaw). In China, this is not only discouraged, but it's systematically removed from the whole equation. It's not easy to bring up grievances when no one is available to listen. And the few voices who I expected to listen (re: my fellow foreign ESL teachers from Canada) have their own regimes that they're unwilling to change. Or, they're feeling drowned by this system so they tell me to move on and forget about it because the system is much larger than me and I don't have the power to fix. The only thing left to do is work within it.

I understand the truth of this sagely advice. I also know I'm speaking very generally here. I guess I don't want to get too far into it for personal reasons, and so I'm attempting to get past it all. It's just not that easy sometimes. I'm already dealing with a variety of personal challenges relating to my life both in and out of school, and this is only compounding the frustration.

There is a bit of sunshine in this rant. It's FRIDAY! And because the Chinese teachers are stuck at the school all weekend (our school is hosting a national meeting of Chinese public school teachers) there were some complaints amongst the staff... so the admin is taking everyone in the ESL department out for dinner! So the equation is such: Friday + Free Food = Satisfied T. Maybe life isn't so bad. Sometimes I just gotta wait out the rain.

T