A brief farewell to cyberfolks

Tomorrow I have the unenviable task of disconnecting my computer from a perfectly good internet line and going OFFline for an unspecified as yet amount of time. This is a scary proposition to me. What events will happen in the lives of my facebook pals that will shake the chatrooms to their floors and leave me innocently ignorant? What new challenges will I fall way behind on in Frontierville? What celebrities will gain weight, get married, cheat, die or slug a photographer while I'm completely cut off from reality? What American politician or sports star will commit some normal sexual exploit that is blown so far out of proportion that everybody is forced to pretend it was deviant? What if a nuclear war begins, (God forbid, touch silicon), it hasn't happened yet, but, how will I know? Well apart from the crispy sunburn. How, oh how will I ever survive a week or MORE of being OFFline???

Have patience with me. I am moving and if I am not one of the many people who mechanically wish you a happy birthday only because facebook reminded us of it, don't worry, I would have if I were online.

If I don't respond to your request to chat, please pardon my reticence. I'm not being rude, I'm OFFline.

If I fail to write anything in my blog that gives you a chuckle, or upload a funny video to my facebook page that brightens your day, it's not because I didn't want to, I'm just unable to use my computer.

And if any important email remains unanswered, any good post goes without comment, any clever joke is not "lol"ed, or any entertaining vid goes without my like, it's probably just because I'm offline folks. Otherwise I'd be MUCH more sustaining of our online relationship.

If you need me I will be in the OFFline wasteland where I'm only reachable by phone, text message, and actual person-to-person interaction. Short of that I suppose messages could be left unanswered until I reconnect to the world again. But by then if I answer you'll no doubt have forgotten what the original comment or question was.

Wish me well in my offline adventures. It's been so many years since I was without a computer I don't know what I'll do yet. But I suppose the old ways may come back to me. If you hear a wooden sounding, repetitive soundbite coming from the direction of the entrance to your dwelling, that may be me "KNOCKING" on your door to see if you're home. It's been, geez almost 5 months since I've done that. Talk about dinosaur behaviour! But bear with me, I'm non-cyber for a while.

Or maybe there might be a hard copy, epistoleric, bundle of forest product in your corporate advertising recepticle. It might be a "letter" from me. Don't be alarmed. And please don't throw it out with the other waste. It will almost be as though we are typing in a chat room or texting on our cell phones, only with the outdated, one-way style. It's quaint, if not boredom relieving.

And if you should happen to see me out of doors, (it tends to happen without a computer to keep me in the comfort of my home), you may want to use your portable electronic device to hook up to the internet, download my profile picture and compare to my actual face. I can't promise to be wearing the identical clothing or have the same expression but I'll do my best to remain identifiable. Unfortunately we won't be able to link up and chat, because I am, alas, OFFline. But I promise we'll be able to rediscover the outmoded and obsolete action called "conversation" if we give it a try.

I know it might sound scary. Think of ME! But it could actually be fun. If you don't feel up to it, I'll see you back in reality when I get virtual again. If I see you beforehand, I will understand if you do not react.

Thank you and fare well while I am gone.

Blowin' a Kiss Goodbye to the Smithereens

Well, I tried. Smithers is a nice place and I really wanted to live here but it just didn't work out. Oddly it was what I thought would HELP me here that turned out to be my Kryptonite. I worked as a substitute teacher way back when I lived here 15 years ago and was getting pretty well known in the system and my hours were on the increase. I wanted to get certified and teach full time and there was a course at SFU called the PDP, (Professional Development Program I think it was), I could take to do so but I was advised to get more classroom experience to strengthen my application for that program. Teaching ESL overseas seemed like the thing to do. It was also my plan to save up enough to pay for that program, a year in Burnaby being pretty darn expensive.


Well now that I'm back I will need extensive, (like 2 years worth), upgrading and course re-taking before I can even qualify for one of those certification programs, and practically ALL of them are now 2 years long. That's 4 years. I can start all over again and get certified in 4 years. But I'd just be doing 3/4 review and one year of teaching philosophy and instruction that is probably very close to the stuff I've TAUGHT in the teacher training courses I've designed and given. It's like closing the windows after going through the car wash


I've been through the car wash and figured out by trial and error how to roll up the windows as well as anyone. But I just don't have a piece of paper certifuckingfying that I am able to roll those windows up. This is the cash grab known as education we got going here


The school board won't hire me to sub here even with a couple years of subbing in this system and 13 years of full time teaching because I'm not fully certified. I have to get certified after having learned how to teach. Roll up those windows!
..
And every other job I apply for here sees either all my ESL experience on my resume and figures I will either leave them and go to Vancouver and teach ESL or I SHOULD. Or I give them my other resume with applicable experience that was acquired 15 years ago and they wonder what the heck I've been up to since then.

So I'm destined to keep on doing what I do. And it's not that I don't like it. I love teaching. It just has to be done in the big cities where I just don't want to live. Smithers has a brand new, shiny college here and very few people who speak anything but English as their first language. This is a FAR better location for an ESL school than Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Toronto where anybody from China, Korea, Japan or even other countries will never actually have to speak English apart from their classroom. And if they can synchronize their schedules with their friends who speak their language... it is pretty much like the years of French we took during our schooling. Anybody remember any of that?

But I'm just one man. I can't change much. It's not all bad though. Victoria is a nice place. It's a lot more like a small town than Vancouver. And it IS a beautiful place. I've even heard of some fishing to be done there. It'll be nice to be close to my relatives there too. And I have a few friends there. I KNOW I'm going to see a lot of Jaimie and Colleen and they're really nice. They are my brother's best friends. I think I'll even be able to play some softball this summer and I have been just ACHING to get back into THAT. Some nice golf courses too. Plus I'll have students from all over the world, not just one culture. That'll be SWEET! I love learning about other cultures along with my students. And now I'll be able to blow the dust off every book I never bother to teach that has lots of lessons in which the students are supposed to ask their classmates about themselves. That stuff's pretty useless in Korea because they have to get ultra specific before they find any interesting differences.

So I'm going into this with a positive attitude. I will be landing in Victoria on the 27th of June. With a bit of luck I'll be able to start teaching in July. I have been asked by one ESL school there to teach in July and August so I will have some work. Not sure how many hours that will be or what I'm looking at for pay but it's a start. I visited the school last time in Victoria and it looked like I would have no trouble there at all.

And I wanted to give Smithers a try before resorting to a big city. So I guess I'll have to take in as much of Smithers as I can before I make my Snag. My Snagglepuss. "Exit stage left even." Trying out some phrase coinage. Saw it on an English movie one time. Like England English. These guys were saying stuff that was pretty confusing. Anyhoo I thought I'd put a few pics up. It's been a while since I've posted so I'll explain as I go.

The first pic is the pink Hudson Bay Mountain I was trying to get at the end of winter. I just never had my camera when I saw it. Usually on the way home from work at 7ish in the AM. Now lots of the snow is gone but it's still pretty nice eh?

The second is me working at the Hudson Bay Lodge. This is where I was coming home from when I saw the pink mountains. It was a good job... when I balanced.

Picture three is what I looked like when I DIDN'T balance. Then it could be stressful and frustrating. Notice all the hair I've pulled out.

Number 4 is what makes the mountains pink. Some pretty spectacular sunrises around here! The picture just doesn't do it justice.

The last pic is Me, Meg and Andrea watching the Canucks play game 7 for the Stanley Cup. We're all dressed in our gear. Norm wasn't there yet. He was on the way home from work. Definitely would have taken some more pics that night IF the Canucks had won. But I won't get into that. Maybe next year I'll be able to catch a few games! That'd be cool!

So, I guess I have to change the blog name AGAIN to something Victorian. Lemme know if you have any idears. Take it easy. I'm gonna make my Snag. Dave out.