A Challenge

Friends,

A good friend and colleague, has made a small challenge. As you know, I'm currently growin' a Mo for Movember. He is a reluctant supporter, but he said he'd donate $60 if I shave HALF my moustache this week while allowing the other half to grow for the rest of the month. However, $60 isn't enough to ruin the beauty (and make me feel okay about alienating the delightful Miss M).

My challenge to you: Donate. If my total donations exceeds $600 by Friday and my colleagues raise an additional $300 for my MoSpace, I will do it and look like a fool for the final week of the month. Any supporters out there? Making me look ridiculous is just one more reason to donate. Rally your friends... call your parents. Make it happen. 

http://mobro.co/TMoRAK

My message to MM today via Facebook

This is a message I sent to MM today over Facebook... it may get me into hot water, but with the taste sensation exploding in my mouth, I simply don't care.

"So, our friends think we're competing with each other and attempting to one-up each other over the food we make on a nearly daily basis. I tried to go on the defensive and explain to them how absurd they were being. Then, as my southern-style chipotle and black bean chili simmered on the stove, and I thought back to my amazing pre-lunch indulgence of homemade Greek salad (two kinds of olives, a bucket of feta, and more sauce than Granny shakes her wooden spoon at) and my lunch-lunch of red Thai curry (of which my student from Thailand said, "smells just like Thailand!"), I thought they might be right. And I'm winning."

Don't judge me too harshly. But do, please, come by for dinner sometime. It's only a short flight to DongBei.

T

My, how far we've come

There are so many moments in my life that I wonder about the state of the world. I could wax nostalgic about better days in the past when people weren't cruel, when people didn't encourage bad behaviour, when people didn't do miserable, awful things to each other. But I know I'd look the fool. The "good old days" weren't necessarily better. It's easy to say, "That didn't happen when I was that age." Reality check: it did.

The difference now is about how widespread the misery can be made. Today, we're wired. Andriods, wifi, laptops, apps, data, continual and constant feedback and information being sent around our Twitter-verse. Google+, Facebook, blogs (guilty as charged), micro-blogs, newsreels, rss feeds, and a whole host of other jargon-filled technological indulgence allows endless access to an audience for bullies, predators, criminals, and miscreants of all colours, shapes, and sizes. Small, ridiculous vendettas can become the stuff of personal ruin and cause enough damage to warrant a psychological breakdown. 

The story of Amanda Todd goes far past that of bullying. When I read the article on the CBC the other day, I was sad about how cruel kids could be to each other. I thought a great deal about this last year during "the incident" and how helpless I felt to stop it. Bullying can be many things, but the story of this poor girl is so much more brutal and despicable. Sure, bullying was a part of it, but that's only one facet.YouTube took down the video she posted around the time of her suicide. However, this isn't something that should be hidden, and the video is back online. You'll see by some of the comments that there are a tonne of despicable vermin on the internet who think it's funny/helpful/righteous to continue to show ignorance and hatred toward this girl, even now that she's dead. They put blame on her and express the belief that she was responsible for this herself. But this isn't simply bullying... it's victimization, continual and widespread. Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej7afkypUsc  It began with an event of sexual coercion and predation which turned into blackmail and a snowballing course of emotional and psychological abuse over months and years. A foolish decision made by a seventh-grade girl turned Amanda Todd into a pariah who was victimized, blackmailed, and emotionally/psychologically assaulted by someone who decided that, since she wouldn't give up more of what he wanted, he was going to do his best to ruin her. From there, it was all downhill. And in today's day and age, it's impossibly easy. After this episode of villainy, Amanda Todd began victimizing herself and never found her way out of a very dark place. The post-assault bullying that took place at school after school was beyond cruel and impossible to imagine. Beaten, shunned, ostracized. I regret every moment where I was a beast by making fun of those who I deemed "below" me. And please read THIS ARTICLE.

I'm not so pessimistic to say that only bad things come from our wired world. Fundraising, peace campaigns, education and so many other facets of the modern age are helping to fight against ignorance, racism, bigotry, and connect people in ways that were never possible before. But within the walls of this glossy new world, the dark reality is too hard to ignore. We have become not only an impatient people seeking immediate satisfaction and immediate feedback, but we've also created a beast that can exponentially enhance both good and evil in ways that are hard to fathom. Does the good outweigh the misery? Not when a young girl turns to suicide as her only hope.

T

Even when they don't get it right...

... they get it right. This was what the barista heard when I ordered my americano and provided my given name. Although not technically accurate, it seems apt all the same.

It's all about the little things in life. From Kuala Lumpur and the rest of Asia...

T

Constant departures...

3 ferries (66km), 3 flights (7846km), 3 trains (923km), one sailboat ride (about 20kms), 2 buses (1281km), multiple car trips (approximately 2134km), 2 bears, multiple eagles, one skunk, countless gophers, one osprey which outfished me, a mama moose, a gaggle of deer.

This was my summer in a numerical nutshell.

I've had big travel dreams for years. In the spring of 2000, when I made my first trip out to the west coast with the family, I knew there was something more to this desire to see everything I could lay my goggled eyes on. It didn't take long to realize that those desires were going to be expanded from seeing Canada to stepping foot on as much of the planet as possible. For what other reason could I justify the thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours that I've spent on flights, trains, buses, taxis, ferries, tuktuks, motorbikes, and rickshaws? Work? Not really... I can find places to teach at home if I desperately wanted to. Nope... there was something more there the whole time.

I've talked about it before, but part of it was definitely linked to the heavily-accented stories told by my grandmother as I grew up in the prairie lands. Often the rest of the family got bored or uncomfortable when, inevitably, the stories would turn tragic and would rekindle a deep sadness my grandmother felt. I'm certain there was a sense of abandonment there too, leaving and ensuring her own safety, all the while knowing that more people would suffer under the newly-communist former Yugoslavia, just after the war was "won" against the Nazis. One could spend a lot of time debating what it means to win a war.

Luckily for me, I didn't come from poverty and other than giving up the requisite trips to Disneyland that my more affluent friends and acquaintances seemed to have taken care of before the age of 15 (when I say "give up", I mean I didn't exactly have the opportunity and my McDonald's earnings sure weren't being saved to make it happen). I came from a family who did, however, think I was crazy for embarking on my Europe excursion and they still believe (after I've been overseas in China for going on 4 years) that I'm nuts for living on the other side of the Great Firewall of the PRC. But they know... they see the glint in my eye as I get ready to hop on a plane, and they can sense my oncoming and ever-enduring verbal diarrhea when I talk about the flights/people/adventures I've experienced. This life isn't for everyone, but it sure is for me.

My Canada trip took me across 6 provinces, from one coast to another, and into different beds nearly every few days. I was exhausted when I returned "home" again to Dalian and it was wonderful to retreat into my place of comfort again. I got to see Canada's most beautiful cities all in one (expensive) fell swoop and my life continues to be more rich because of it. When I finally got back to China, I noticed that the techno music hadn't gotten any quieter and people don't spit less often, but I have grown to love the land of the People's Republic. As with experience in novelty, one can grow tired.

Thus, here I am, enjoying free Wifi at Starbucks on Victoria Road in Singapore. No firewall, no spitting ($1000 fine if you do!), and no problems just being. Other than trying to sort out the free Wifi system they offer to all locals. I'm down in order to pursue potential jobs for next year with my lady in tow. I'm hoping for some good luck. For now, though, the cosmopolitan surroundings I'm indulging right now will suffice, It's easy to get lost in all the accented vernacular here, but I'll indulge nonetheless.

As always, from the road (which is ever-changing), much love.

T

Curious incidents...?

This is a story from a few weeks ago that is simply just too good to not re-tell...

I'm just arriving home on a Friday night with a couple friends in tow. We're planning to enjoy a few sodas before embarking on a night out with a bunch of the new teachers. MM is at my apartment getting some things ready.

So MM notices this weird wet spot on the floor in my bedroom, and since we'd both been gone all day, this is strange. She decides to investigate. She sniffs it. She touches it. Neither of these sensory endeavours yield information. Still uncertain, she decides to lick her finger so to taste the substance making up the mysterious wet spot. She's still confused... she mentions the fact that there's a wet spot on my bedroom floor. I'm thinking that it may have rained during the day and it came in the window. We hang out for a couple of hours, then head out on the town. Because we're busy, we forget about it. Coming home later, I step in something wet but I'm too tired to deal with it. It's late, I'm exhausted.

In the morning, I wake up with a start, I hear a loud sound coming from outside. Nope... inside. It's not just any sound... it's barking. It was the sound of a dog barking. Like, 10 feet away from my bed, in the hallway. In my apartment. The dog is barking loud. I get scared, put on some pants, and investigate. No dog. I go out to the patio. No dog. Then, though, I see the girl next door on her patio. Her pet pug is on the patio with her. I go back inside. I see a puddle against/beside the hutch in my entrance.

I then realize one of the consequences of living on the top floor of an apartment building in China, where apartments have connected balconies. A dog had been using my apartment for a pee/playground when I left my patio door open. I also realize my girlfriend licked dog urine.

T

Year #4 and another long hiatus

As per usual, the time seems to disappear without notice. In a mere two days, October will be over. Just last week it was summer, but yesterday we got our first taste of the cool north wind funneling down from the hinterlands of Siberia. And somehow, barely after being able to remember the names of my new students, I'm hopping on a plane for my first holiday of the year.

My new job as Department Head has been, well, full. I'm the head of English 11, which has about 12 teachers between Intro to Lit and English 11 classes. I've got a full load of English courses myself that are keeping me plenty busy, and since we've already sent home our first round of report cards, the month of September was anything but quiet. Multiple meetings per week with my department, the admin, and our new English coordinator... regular and ongoing emails with department colleagues, coordinating teaching strategies with the other grade levels, and trying to keep up on my marking/planning. It's hard for me to believe that in just my fourth year here, I'm considered one of the "olds"... full of wisdom, knowledge and guidance. What is the school/world coming to?? 

My new assignment also brought me a change of venue over to the Girls' Campus. This has been a weird but fun adjustment. I find myself much more calm in the classroom and the constant spitting in the hallways and lack of interest in the classroom aren't nearly as evident. Whether it's because of the DH job or that my classes (including my homeroom) are all taught in the same classroom and I don't have to share with anyone else, I'm not exactly sure what the reason is, but I know that things feel much better this year. I even have a couple of my old middle school students from 3 years ago in my English class. My decorating talents pale in comparison to my Zhou Enlai homeroom (top students in the grade), but the girls just take care of everything and make it awesome. The girls can be loud and boisterous and they like to laugh. I'd come to assume that it'd be like pulling teeth to get them talking. Nope... definitely not the case. I even feel like I'm finally starting to figure out this teaching thing. Who knows? Maybe I'll make a run at being a decent teacher after all.

But enough about work. It's vacation time! The wonderful MM and I are leavin' on a jet plane for Kuala Lumpur and Singapore for the next week. It wasn't exactly a financially frugal trip, but the hope is that we'll come back with more potential for jobs for next year in much more tropical, much more beautiful locales. Your duty (for those few readers who read this nonsense), is to cross fingers, say prayers, or burn some incense to inspire some good luck to float our way.

I have a post from the summer that I'll post soon about my travels, and another one about an an unexpected incident of a mystery animal in the nighttime. Those will come soon (quite possibly during layovers en route to the tropics). Until then...

T