Sunday night is here -- No matter how many times I have watched the news today, it never gets any better. If we are to take our worldview from the news, it would appear that the whole world is blowing up.

Success and failure.

This original post had to be removed, because I didn't want anybody mentioned in it to stumble acrosss it, and recognise references to themselves. Could put me in a bad position -- and why would I do that to myself? So I wrote this one, instead.

Since we only have two channels in English, (maybe one now, since BBC seems on the fritz,) and I spend a fair bit of time walking back and forth to work, I spend a lot of time thinking about abstract concepts, which usually have very little practical application. I suppose this is because every time I think about practical things I get confused and feel bad. So it is best to just let Cynthia think about those things, and I can pluck mental daisies in friendlier fields.

I think about what I would do if I were the President of the US.
I think about what I would do if I were the King of the World.
I think about the long and complicated titles I would give myself if I were King of the world.
I imagine trying to explain certain technologies to a person from 500 years ago.
I imagine trying to recreate certain levels of society after a global meltdown.
I imagine what nice things I will be able to say in 10 years to those who still ridicule the concept of global warming, even at this late date.

(I find it really instructive to note that the foggier a person's concept of an issue, the less they actually know about it, they more likely they are to have very decided views on it.)

I also spend time thinking about momentum, and its different applications. As a physical concept, it is easy to grasp. But it seems to exist in a very real manner on a less literal level. It applies to simple day-to-day patterns of behaviour, as well as to larger patterns of interpersonal relations. Why is it that a person's recent decisions and behaviour patterns should so heavily influence their impending one's?

As a very simple example, take writing this blog. If I practice doing this 3 times a week, it will gradually become easier and easier for me, and something I find more and more rewarding. Similarly, if a person spends time eating healthy foods, it becomes easier and easier for them to continue in this pattern. If I get up early in the morning, and accomplish some small act of productivity, this seems to jumpstart a productive and positive day. What is the saying "getting off on the right foot" speaking of, except a sort of momentum?

On the other hand, (as happens to be the case,) I had some very positive momentum going, and felt that life was proceeding according to plan, (as perhaps it was.) Then a number of factors came along - the classes I had been preparing for came to an end, (whew,) I had to play catch-up in a number of areas, I had a rather strong emotional boost from achieving some goals, and then I got sick for a week. Suddenly, all the positive direction I had seems to have evaporated into thin air. I stare blankly at the to-do lists I used to care so much about, and cannot find in myself the energy to care if it gets done or not. And the more I let the small things slide, the more lethargic and pointless I feel.

Of less practical concern, (and thus of even greater interest to me,) are those people who seem to have established positive and negative momentum over the course of years, not just weeks. At one point in my life I was convinced that there were people in life who were simply destined to be failures at everything they touched. They showed an uncanny ability to consistently make the wrong decision, and further their negative spiral. Yet others seem to face the decision with no more information, or greater care, (that I can see,) and make decisions that turn out to be right, which further their positive momentum.

I am convinced that it is not simply a question of luck - obviously there are factors at play here too subtle for my eye to see. But to some degree, I do believe there is an element of manufactured destiny, and due to the positive or negative accumulation of your past decisions, the same decision that would be positive for another person will turn out to be negative for you, or vice-versa.

One of the benefits of moving here has been getting to know a new set of people. I have been privileged to watch how they, just like Cynthia and I, entered into new positions, in a new town, creating a new chapter in their lives. Then I have been able to observe how some of them seem to be generating positive momentum, and others the opposite. And when you sit and talk with them, you can observe from the stories they tell that these patterns existed in their previous jobs and lives. Somehow, although they have changed continents 3 times, across different employers, in and out of romantic relationships, etc, the same patterns that dog their behaviour now were evident back then - and they can't even see it. Then again, maybe I only see it because I am looking hard enough that I mentally invent patterns that don't exist. But I don't think so.

Breakfast

Everyday when I get up I eat a cookie. They sit atop my fridge, waiting for me, and I bite into a crumbly cookie before I even reach for the coffee pot. Then I get so distracted doing battle with the coffee pot (an espresso kind of pot) that I usually don't get the cookie finished until after the coffee is on the stove. Then I wander off, munching my cookie.

When the coffee is done, I go back into the kitchen to get it, which forces me to walk past the cookies again. So I have one or two more. In most situations I can use the considerations of economy (I have a keenly attuned sense of miserdom and impending poverty) to discourage these sorts of flagrantly profligate behaviour. However, in the case of these cookies, it doesn't work. It happens these cookies are not only the best ones in the store, they are also the cheapest, at about 50 cents for a box of 12. If you divide that per cookie, and I am prone to doing such things -

(many times when people catch me looking like I am deep in profound thought I am actually trying to figure out the cost of the sandwich I just brought from home. How much the cheese cost, roughly how many slices we could get from a lump that size, how many slices in a loaf of bread, cost of tomatoes per kilo, X number of tomatoes per kilo, X number of slices per tomato, How many spoonfuls of mustard in a mustard jar?)

- which I really ought to avoid not only because it is futile, but moreover, I have about as much sense of mathematics as I do of Chinese algebra, which usually results in a sandwich that costs as much as one of NASA's space trials, because I have forgotten to move a decimal point somewhere along the line. But anyway -- if you divide that per cookie you can see that each cookie costs me about 4.17 cents. Which is eminently worth it, considering how it makes me feel.

When I have a cookie in the morning, I feel utterly depraved and decadent. I feel as if I have just mocked the laws of the Universe, and got away with it. I feel as though I have looked my Monday's destiny square in the eye, and tweaked its nipple.

Because one is not supposed to have cookies for breakfast. To do so violates the order of the Universe, and deep down inside I know it. If the forces in the universe are actually as beautifully balanced as Stephen Hawking claims, then I am quite sure that every time I have a cookie for breakfast somewhere in China a diligent mother suddenly bursts out sobbing for no apparent reason.

I have been experimenting with my daybreak decadence for some years now. And to be honest, there were times I overdid it. Once I took a goodly number of L'il Debbie Swiss Rolls, mashed them with a fork, poured milk on them, and proceeded to eat the resulting cheap chocolate and faux whipped cream mass of artificial flavors and preservatives with a large soup spoon while watching cartoons. Oddly enough, this action coincided with what in retrospect was the lowest point in my life. I am forced to conclude that I was driven to such extremes in my morningtide repast to reassure my psychically wounded self that I could still assert some control over my life. Or, alternatively, I just wanted to see what it would taste like.

For anyone who would like to know, the Swiss Rolls experiment was an utter failure, and resulted in a repugnant brown mix that ended up being chucked out. Fortunately, the four swiss rolls in question, including the milk, only cost approximately 29 cents.

However, I feel as if my life, and my breakfast, have reached a more stable plane. No longer given to such ridiculous excesses, I am now content to flout my contempt daily and flauntingly contravene the world's sense of decorum with a mere cookie.

Presidential hankerings

(For those of you who notice a change in tone, it is becuz this is the rough draft of what will be submitted to the local university magazine, where the quality of the submissions is low enough that accepting my work actually be a step up.)

Aah, February, when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of . . . politics.
Well, unfortunately so. Now that the two great commercial events of the season, the superbowl and Valentines day, (that crassest exploitation of humankind's nobler sentiments,) are nearly out of the way, CNN is at last free to focus on what it does best: Pointless recycling of clips of political candidates lusting for Presidential office, years before it is even available.
So far in the race, we have Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Hilary Clinton, and Barak Obama. Oh, and some other people.

With so many interesting candidates so early on in this race, one might ask why we had such shoddy candidates in the last two races. With such a plethora of talent on the roster this year, how did we end up with Gore/Kerry vs. Bush for the last two elections? The answer, I fear, is not encouraging.

Put quite simply, last election we suffered from a dearth of good options because there was an incumbent in the white house during a "war". What this means is that short of accidentally bombing his own country, Americans will re-elect him. Americans are funny that way - longstanding tradition dictates that we will not change horses midstream. Even if the horse we are currently riding has all the aquatic characteristics of an anchor.

Because there was an incumbent in the White House, the Democratic party knew it was a lost cause, (though they musn't actually say so) and kept their heavy hitters back so they would not be tainted with failure when 2008 rolled around. Sure, a few brave souls ventured out, (John Edwards, et al,) but I would speculate they did so mainly to raise their name recognition for 2008.
So what went wrong back in 2000, when there was no incumbent, and no "war"?

A quick look back at the presidential field in 2000 is instructive: at the beginning of the primaries, (the process by which the Democratic and Republican parties begin their selection process for the eventual nominations) there were a number of interesting candidates, just as there are now. Notably, Bill Bradley, former NBA star and Senator, who, perhaps too honest for his own good, publicly declared American politics "broken," and decided not to run for re-election to the Senate in 1996. In his presidential run, he campaigned on universal health-care, campaign finance reform, and gun control. On the Republican side was John McCain, who also focused his campaign on removing the money from politics. Both of these men had dynamic styles, proven records of statesmanship, and reputations as honest, independent-minded men.

The other two mainstream candidates, the acting Vice President Al Gore, and then Governor of Texas George W. Bush, both had serious difficulties in a number of areas. Both were handicapped by their pasts, Gore by his association with the Clinton administration and its public scandals, and Bush by his Savings and Loan scandal in Texas, where his business mistakes cost the American taxpayers dearly. Both were also handicapped in public speaking, one doing a fair imitation of a wooden-puppet, the other making mistakes in wording his sentences that caused many people to question his clarity of thought, and some of his utterances to lose meaning completely. Witness just these few:

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."

"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas."

"Actually, I—this may sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it. When I'm talking about—when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking about myself, all of us are talking about me."

"I was raised in the West. The west of Texas. It's pretty close to California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California."

"I do not agree with this notion that somehow if I go to try to attract votes and to lead people toward a better tomorrow somehow I get subscribed to some—some doctrine gets subscribed to me."

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"

"One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards."

All sources, with full documentation, can be found here:

http://www.slate.com/id/76886/

Yet, these men, both associated with scandals in their pasts, significant problems in interpersonal communication and less than inspiring public personas, were selected by their respective parties over other, better qualified and more eloquent candidates to possibly lead the world's superpower. To find out why, we need only consider the money.

Both of these candidates were well-connected to financial sources. Al Gore, as the Vice President, was well-established with his party's financial machine, and Bush had long-standing contacts with the deep pockets in the oil industry, as well as his family's roots in politics. What this implies for both of them is that they would be signficantly indebted to their political masters once they reached office, and would be subject to the manipulations of those who provided them with funding.

On the other hand, both McCain and Bradley had publicly declared that money was the number one corrupting force in American politics, and had promised to reduce the role deep-pockets would be allowed to play in formulating legislation and foreign policy. Could these men be trusted to protect the global interests of large, multinational oil companies? Clearly not.

Fortunately, the American republicans were spared the difficult decision of having to choose between George Bush and John McCain. McCain was leading the polls stongly when the Republican primary entered South Carolina, where a telephone poll was conducted which asked voters,

"Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"

This completely baseless innuendo, in a region of strong racial sentiment, combined with the fact that McCain's family photo includes their adopted child from Bangladesh, was sufficient to undercut McCain's support to the point that he was forced to drop out of the race shortly thereafter.

Bill Bradley hung on longer, but lacked the funding necessary to compete with Gore. The rest is history.

So the lesson which emerges from all this is simple. Sure, the field is fast filling with interesting candidates. But how many will survive the political mud-slinging and defamation sure to follow? Only those with deep pockets. And those with deep pockets are not those with the common man's interests at heart. So don't get excited yet. 2008 is still a long ways away.

Poland

When I told people I was moving to Spain, the reactions were varied, but the tone was normally quite positive, even if they didn't know much about it. "Wow. Spain. Don't they speak Spanish there?" When I told people I was moving to Poland, the reactions were almost uniform. "Huh . . . Poland . . . Poland . . . What's in Poland?"

It was a fair question. When I went to Spain, I did have a few expectations, mainly gathered from pop culture, Madonna songs, and fotos of bull fights that could have been taken in Mexico, for all I knew. When I came to Poland, on the other hand, I came with a largely blank slate. I had no idea what to expect. I would have been equally non-nonplussed to encounter fat grandmas laboring in fields with scythes all day or to encounter a society of fully modern gleaming vices and devices. One friend of mine stated his lack of reference particularly finely -- When he attempted to think of Poland, he said, all the images were in black and white.

As it turns out, there is a reason for that. Primarily, because through a good part of the year, Poland is black and white. Or, more correctly, grayscale. I realised some months ago, as I was walking to work, that at certain points on the road, I could take a picture in black and white, hold it up to reality, and have to look very closely to see where the two differed. If I took a foto of what I can see out the window right now, the only color you would see is the roof of a house, and the puke yellow of my balcony railing, neither of which are much in the way of cheery color. Everything else, the buildings in the distance, the trees, and the sky (Oh, the sky is the most depressing of all!) are a blah grey. Even the birds are black.

But really, it is the sky that does it. The sky is the color of unrepentant malaise, of depression wallowing so listlessly it can't even cry. Occasionally it works itself up to get a light ice-blue tinge about the gills, before lapsing back once more into its leaden sop state.

Whether the chicken followed the egg, or vice-versa, I do not know. But whether the Poles sense of aesthetic has been influenced by their sky, or their sky reflects the color of their architecture, I cannot say. But what can be said with surety is that while a Spanish woman will deck herself out in garish colors before she heads out into the city, which is itself composed of buildings with cobalt blue domes, pointless murals around the top, odd architectural details all over, and color leaking out of odd corners, the average Polish person dresses in grey. Or black. Or, if they are feeling particularly adventurous, beige or white. This complements the buildings, which are, with a few exceptions, typically a grimy concrete grey, with no adornment whatsoever.

I am exaggerating slightly. If I change my position at the window, I can see 3 buildings of color. But even then, you can perceive a strange note amidst the color combinations, as though the lack of experience with colors results in designers (or whoever painted that shopping mall) missing a key element of perspective in color combinations.

I used to wonder why my students were so anxious to see snow on the ground. I couldn't comprehend why we would wish to have our toes colder than they are now, and wet to boot. But now I think it is because when the snow comes, it covers the grey sidewalks, the black roads and the barren trees with a white that reflects the ambient light back into the sky and makes it bright outside. I still hate snow, but am beginning to see why they speak of it with such love.

But spring is coming. And in spring and summer this area sprouts a vivid green, the air is warm, and the hills are vibrant with life. I can hardly wait.

New Phone!!

I know this doesn't interest anybody except me (Look, I am turning into a self-absorbed blogger already!!) But my new phone arrived last week. My old phone had gotten to a point where it refused to give me my messages at times, and when it did some arrived in gibberish. The keys would not register when you hit them, etc. So it was with great relief that I received from the kind hand of my brother my new (new to me, that is) phone.

This is the Motorola SLVR L6. (Click on the link to get more fotos and junk -- this is what I learned to do in technology classs -- don't I feel special?)

It is the lower-end version of a higher-end model. (Did you follow all that?) So my phone, while darn sexy, and dangerously slim, with a large, multi-colored screen that the photo doesn't do justice to, is unfortunately lacking the MP3 player, higher quality camera lens, etc. Ask me if I care. I am just so happy to have a phone that works again.

Masters classes

I just finished with my first set of courses. It was both more and less difficult than I expected. The projects themselves were not so difficult, but the schedule got a bit gruelling toward the end.

The curriculum theory and practice course was a relatively straightforward lecture course. It was oriented mainly for people teaching in regular elementary and highschools, rather than language schools, but it was nevertheless applicable and interesting. We learned about what a curriculum should be, key questions to ask yourself when developing a curriculum, and factors that must be taken into consideration when planning.

The teacher was a gruff old man who has been very active in school desegregation cases. (I found this out first when I was trying to get ahold of him by email, and ran a search on his name, and came up with a million court documents of "State vs. Franklin brd. of education" with his name listed as counsel.) At first I didn't much like him, but quickly came to realize that he had a very large intellect and yet didn't have a large ego as well. His main concern reflected through everything he said was that the student learn and that the student's concerns must be of primary concern. At the farewell dinner he talked to me and told me that based on the comments I made in class, He thinks I belong in a PhD program. (Ego boost!)

The other course was about integrating technology into the classroom. I was very interested in this course, because when I was looking for jobs on the internet last year, most of the best paying jobs specified that they wanted a teacher who was comfortable with current technology, or who placed an emphasis on incorporating technology in the classroom, and I could not be further from that. So I figured I would just have to lie like a trial lawyer, get the position, and fake it till I could make it. Then we came here, and I was right glad to have this course, so I could either, A. Learn about the latest uses of technology in the classroom, or B. Learn to fake it more convincingly.

The course consisted mainly of projects that we had to accomplish using various programs. This blog (ok, actually another one that I cannot presently get into becuz of password trouble -- oh, the irony) is a direct result of one of those projects. We also had to set up a website for one of our classes, use powerpoint to present information to the class, make a wiki sight (that I am now the moderator of, use winvideo to make a video project, and create a webquest. (Don't ask.) In addition to all this we had to read a ton of articles and half a text book about the debates over whether and how to use technology in the classroom, and the what the studies reveal about the benefits and drawbacks thereof.

Although I recognize that to have the students presenting material to each other and doing hands-on projects in order to learn are sound teaching methods, it resulted in the professor being a bit of an vestigial organ. Combine this with the fact that he was by nature a withdrawn type whose natural tendency was to shrink into the corner at the first opportunity, and stumble over his speeches in a soft voice, and it gave the class a sense of lacking direction. He obviously knew his material, but couldn't express himself well, and had structured the class so he was always in the background.

However, I did learn a fair bit, and what I learned most of all, is that technology in the classroom is still in its most infant stages of development. No one has yet come up with firm and fast rules and guidelines for how and what to do in the classroom with technology. One of the best articles, in my opinion, stated clearly that technology just amplifies whatever you already have going on in your classroom. If your class is on task and achieving, it will do well. If your class is out of control, technology will just provide one more way for them to mess around. Another article presented an interesting idea, which was the networked classroom. Instead of giving children a computer in the classroom, you give them something like a remote control. Then, when you post a comprehension question on the board, they can each type in their response, and you can get immediate feedback as to how many understand, or which ones, which is much faster than handing out quizzes and grading them (24 hr turnaround) or asking the question and people raising their hands and answering (you only get one response).

But the most reassuring thing I found was that I was not so behind the curve after all. Although I don't really know what to do with technology, nor do most administrators or many teachers. So at least I am starting out at the same position as most others.

All in all, I was pleased with the courses. They weren't any harder than Bachelors level courses, but they were significantly more insightful, practical, and less boring. More than anything, it was the quality of the professors they sent us that reassure me of the value of this program.

Well, this is the first time I have ever tried this -- I have always thought blogs to be the natural result of too much time and introspection intersecting with the conviction that others must find my own navel-lint as riveting as I do.


However, having been set on this course by my techonology class, and being determined that I will take maximum advantage of the education I am paying so dearly to receive, I am resolute that I will pursue this blogging thing to the bitter end, or until I get bored, whichever comes first.


It also occurs to me that it would serve as a convenient platform for my friends and loved ones (should they have the time or inclination) to check up on my doings, thus saving me the effort of emailing each and every one of them every time I discovered a new ball of fuzz trapped twixt my abdomen hairs.