Sanity for Vanity

 I'm not generally a fan of new music. The newest band I'm a big fan of is probably Tool and I know they are NOT new. But today I heard a song by Lizzy that I really liked! It was called Games People Play and it included these lines: "Never meaning what they say Never saying what they mean And they wile away the hours In their ivory towers Till they're covered up with flowers In the back of a black limousine... People walking up to you Singing Glory Hallelujah And they're trying to sock it to you In the name of the Lord... Look around tell me what you see What's happening to you and me God grant me the serenity To remember who I am 'Cause You've given up Your sanity For Your pride and your vanity Turns You sad on humanity And you don't give a da da damn. "

The tune was good too! And Lizzy had a nice, comfortable, Cheryl Crow style about her. I was impressed! But.... surprise, surprise, the song was NOT new. In fact the original was released in 1968, written and sung by that household name, Joe North. Or wait a minute, Joe West. Nope, it was Joe South. Right Joe SOUTH. It won the Grammy for song of the year in 1970. So it ain't new and neither are the universal concepts old Joe Compass was singing about. Particularly giving up our sanity for our pride and vanity. Let's unpack that nugget, shall we?

As you all know, I love George Carlin. I don't fanatically agree with everything he said or even think everything he said was funny. I've seen him bomb! But he HAS been responsible for some of the thruthiest truth I have heard from microphones held by comics, MC's, announcers, anchors, poets, singers, teachers, and speechmakers of all sorts. This might be his best:

Nobody has ever said it better. I never get tired of that rant. Now... think hard about this question... have you ever heard one of these disgustingly obese, systematically undereducated, Pavlovically consumerist, Orwellically media-dependent tokens in the games rich people play say, "I am not proud of my country."??? Well, guess what, George has something for that too. 

"The big red, white and blue cock that's being jammed up your asses." ha ha ha ha. And old Joe East, or was it West? Anyhoo, he couldn't even say "give a damn," he had to turn it into "give a doo doo dee dum doo" or whatever. Think of how far THAT part of America has progressed. We're allowed to swear now! Yet on the issue of the "owners" playing their game and calling all the shots - things haven't budged an inch. In fact, they have probably gone backwards. So what's the pride for? "It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." That goes for a lot of "dreams." Yet people are "proud" of how we've turned those dreams into nightmares. Is it just something we say? Do we say it cuz we're not allowed to say the opposite?

"Pride" should be reserved for accomplishments or skills not for random, geographical happenstance. "It's not a skill to be Irish." Pride goeth before a fall. 

I believe that all it takes for most of us to acquiesce to our roles as pawns in our owners' games of chess they call the "free market," "economics," "business," or some other dismissively euphemistic thing like that is the mere whiff of riches. It ain't about freedom any more, I think we're all aware of that, but there is very little a RICH man can't do. To be more specific, there are few freedoms the super rich can't buy. Musk is breaking the law with his million buck a day reward for being a MAGAflake. Alice Walton (Walmart) drives drunk a lot. Even killed a person with her Porsche. Amazingly (!!!!!) the arresting officers get suspended, statutes of limitation on breathalyzers run out, and charges disappear. The rich have super-human powers and it's only because of the Mammon worship that has crept into so many cultures. This should elicit the exact opposite of pride from participants in those cultures but somehow it doesn't. It's absolutely insane! Manufactured insanity. 

Consider this another fall post, but this time it's not my favourite season I'm talking about. It's the fall that the rough beast humanity is irrevocably slouching toward. That's right, I don't believe it can be changed any more. The good guys are losing. All we can do now is slow it down in isolated incidents. Wanna speed it up? Vote for this ethically bankrupt imbecile: 

Thanks Giving

 Just so's I can keep everything straight at this time in my life, I'm going to post a little update on the major issues I have. If you are interested, go ahead and read. It's Canadian Thanksgiving and I'm trying to find things for which to be thankful even though, other than some family and friends, most of the things I'm thankful for are not in Canada. Like the Peet/Spiwak fam. They're just letting me stay here and participate in household goings on as if I am a part of their family. Rob and Terri did the same. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the charity, but how did I become a person who has only charity to be thankful for? Maybe this list will shed some light on that...

1. M. Ed. To begin with, my endeavors to become a master of education have been successful but (you'll notice a pattern here) the paper saying so has met with a roadblock. My M. Ed. studies have been on hold since I found out that I have to do a study on a class of 25 students or more as course #11 and write the study results as course #12, my thesis. I already had ideas of writing on some of the more interesting things I had studied in the previous 10 courses. This is not how it works at the U. of the People evidently. They give you a false feeling of choice by offering a small variety of topics on which to base the study they are forcing you to do. Educational studies and the tedious formats and mechanics by which they must be administered are the mathematics of education and I am not at all interested in them. Even reading them is frustrating because of the over-specificity required to say something insanely simple that we all know without the study like, for instance, small classes are better than large ones. That would probably be my choice of topics to study IF they weren't forcing the students to do their studies on classes of 25 or more. 

I am currently not working and that will be number 2. Because of that, I have no class upon which to conduct my thesis study. This is a problem. I contacted the prof of my 11th course after registering and reading the course outline to ask what I should do since I was moving to the US, had no class to study, and it was the summer during which there are no fucking classes at all. I received no response so the day before the course drop deadline I dropped the course. I have since been informed by TWO academic (both meanings) advisors that I should have contacted my prof. They told me I would have received instructions on how to do the study on teacher interviews or using "archives." I don't know what this means or how I would do it so I was instructed to open my dashboard, click on "my courses," locate the class members list, click on the prof, and send her an email. Anyone see the problem? Neither of my academic advisors realized that without being registered for the class, I click on "my courses" and I get a blank page. So now I have been referred to the supervisor of my two academic advisors who has told me she will contact the appropriate parties and get back to me within 5 business days. That was 6 business days ago. 

2. Unemployment. I am not missing employment at all, but I miss the money. Living in Maryland has been one big holiday. I do chores around the house but haven't done a day of work since early July. It's been nice. Let's see so far some of the things my family of besties and I have done together have been... fishing (and catching!), Much Ado at Roman's College, open house at Roman's College, Cubs vs. Orioles/Wash. vs. Milwaukee baseball (my first two MLB games), meeting two families of friends of the family, Kings Dominion amusement park, pool party at Roman and Reilly's work, a trip to the big Baltimore Bass Pro store, a visit to see Ed Allan Poe's grave (incl. a trip to the Poe House), plenty of Olympic watching, sport watching, bbqing, game playing, and lots of swimming in the family pool. I don't like being unemployed but I'm having a really good time!

I knew someday I'd end up in the Poe House - just didn't think it'd be so soon.

Me and Eddie.

Not big fish, but at least I'm not getting skunked here.

The tiresome flume ride with Mike, Reilly, and Kelly.

So I gotta say... I'm thankful for being unemployed? And, as recent posts describe, that IS at least partially to do with Canada so I suppose I'm thankful that Canada sucks for me as far as employment goes. 

3. Taxes. I had my taxes done for the almost 10 years I was away from Canada and the H&R Block worker gave me some positive results. The problem is that everything positive in my life comes with nagatives attached. That's why this post is such a challenge. I'm getting money for the time I was away from Canada. That's great right? Of course not! There's work for me in Canada but I can't get it. At least not enough of it to pay the bills. So I reckon I have earned a little tax money due to the hardship of being forced to leave my country to obtain a living. Not to mention paying tax on things I bought in Canada while being away and contributing zero carbon to the Canadian air. When you look at it that way, the amount I was supposed to receive was very little. But I guess someone at the Winnipeg Tax Office didn't see it that way and I was audited. They withheld some of my tax money (I still haven't done the complicated calculations but it's likely between 2 and 3 grand) until I gave them some information about where I'd been living in Canada since I returned. That's right, my government was EXTORTING information from me and it was information that had to do with less than 2 of the 120 months represented by the tax return they were blocking. But I sent the information. It was received but the funds were not deposited into my account. I received a letter saying the information had NOT been received so adjustments would be made and I might receive less or even have to pay money back that I had already received. (Remember-less than 2 months. How the fuck could it make THAT much of a difference?) I have spent 5 months sending emails to these jagovs and to the ombudsmen who are supposed to oversee them and recently received a letter (by snail mail) admitting that they DID receive my information. So I qualify for benefits from Feb. '24 to now. No mention of the withheld funds and my bank account has not been properly enhanced as yet. I got a number to call because it's much easier to keep a person busy without actually helping them that way. Nobody wants to email me cuz it's too hard to hide. Even text messages are not accepted. I haven't called the number yet but have no doubt it'll just start a whole new chapter in this saga. 

4. Telus/Koodo. Still being harassed by Telus about the internet I had while living in Trail that I have contacted them about and have been told to ignore the messages FROM THEM because my account is fully paid up. I've blocked them in every way I know how but still a message sneaks through now and again. This is what happens when you break the law and make your service WAAAAY harder to discontinue than to start up.

With Koodo, my phone, it's the exact same thing. Before coming to the US I went to a mall Koodo booth and told them I waned to cancel. The dude there said there is an international plan. The FIRST thing I asked him was if I got it, would it be easy to cancel because I've had trouble before. He assured me there would be no trouble cancelling from my personal online account page but it is impossible to do from my personal online account page. What I didn't ask was if the fucking service would work because... you know... you kind of expect that. I can't make calls or receive calls and I'm paying 79 bucks a month. For text messages. My internet data doesn't even work! So I try to discontinue the service and everybody tells me they can't do it. I just told one person to fuck off and die, I will not pay you another cent. They had the nerve to tell me online that I need to call their toll free service number. Using my phone you have turned into a brick? "No, just use someone else's phone." This, folks, is illegal. They get away with it because nobody does anything about it. I WANT these fuckers to try to get their money out of me through legal action. Bring it on Telus you scamsters! So not at all thankful for THAT. Let's move on.

5. Teaching. I have an ongoing offer of employment to teach in public schools in Taiwan that is as roadblocked as these other things and for the same reason - intentionally impotent paperwork and protocol. Now this is a bit sketchy but I've long since grown accustomed to at least a little sketchiness in jobs teaching overseas. It's part of the hardship to which I referred of leaving Canada although I am NOT saying Canada is without its own abundance of sketchiness. My employer, Teach Taiwan, wants to ensure its clients - parents - that all their teachers are licensed in N. America. Normally that means they have teaching certificates and even experience teaching in Canada or the US. I have taught in the public schools of Canada, Korea, China, and Indonesia though I am not properly licensed. But that's okay. You see there are some states, Illinois being one, where they issue substitute teaching licenses. All you need is a BA. You send them your transcripts (and some states also want fingerprints to do a criminal record check) and wait a few weeks. BAM, you're now technically licensed to teach in N. America. A bit sketchy but what the hell. I'd have classes or more than 25 to teach so I could kill the proverbial two birds by making money AND finishing my master's. I sent my transcripts and just waited. I poked them a few times but they just kept telling me to wait longer. Finally someone told me that I need to have my degree "translated." In short, does it equate to a 4-year degree in the US. Here comes some more paperwork and protocol. I went to grade 13 in Ontario then 3 years of university. I received my honours BA (4 years) as opposed to the non-honours BA (3 years) so I figured I'd be okay. My BA has been endlessly verified and honoured internationally as the equivalent of an American BA. In fact I was accepted into the U. of the People where they would not have accepted me without the equivalent of a 4-year BA. HOWEVER... I have received word from a few of these credential translators that my BA is only worth 3 years toward an American BA. I have talked to Illinois and several other sub licensing state school boards and they all say the same thing. I need an accreditation agency to officially equate my BA as equal to an American BA. I have given up on all except North Dakota. I may end up getting a sub job in Fargo so I can finish my friggin useless M. Ed.

6. Education. Did I say useless M. Ed.? I sure did! Get ready for some more impotent paperwork and protocol. I figured that since I was stalled in my efforts to finish my degree with the U. of the People I'd look into transferring into a local program that is similar. I went to the open house at Roman's college and was impressed. They have a Master of Arts in teaching program there. I contacted a gal named Crystal who was very nice and helpful via email. I just don't know why other people can't be! She told me to send my transcripts from both my BA and my master's. I did so and she said that I needed more credits in my major and that my master's credits would not be accepted because the U. of the People is not REGIONALLY accredited. It's nationally and internationally accredited, but not regionally. I would think regionally, being smaller, would be the less prestigious (and transferable) of the two but life, eh? Regionally accredited schools are more widely accepted. So I started asking other schools about my credits. Not accepted at any of the M. Ed. or similar programs I looked into. W---T---F??!! 7 years of hell to get my BA and now over 2 years of hard work to get 10/12ths of my M. Ed. and neither degree is as good as I had been led to believe! I know Westly told Princess Buttercup that life is pain and anyone who tells you different is selling something but... IS EVERYTHING IN LIFE A FUCKING SCAM??? Right now I FEEL like Westly knowing this pearl of wisdom but hardly able to move a finger to do anything about it.

Let me splain... no, there is too much. Let me sum up. My head is swimming with all the variant but essentially identical plots and schemes (they're the same thing) to screw up my life and career in exchange for money. The epicentre of this shitstorm if not the source of all of my "suffering" is Canada. So on this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend I am finding it nigh onto impossible to be thankful for anything Canadian except friends and family that I have to leave behind BECAUSE of all the shyte I'm not thankful for. I am going to make some ribs and corn on the cob for Thanksgiving dinner and I will feast with the family I am most thankful for here in America. Then about a month from now, I'll do it all over again. Maybe by then I'll have an American job, an American teaching license, and American school to study at, or something else Canada can't provide and the meaning of Thanksgiving will return. For now it's just an excuse to eat some good food with good friends. We'll watch some good sports and probably do something fun like taking hockey shots, polar bear swimming, bonfiring, playing games or going on outings together. For these things I am thankful but I would be REALLY thankful if I could stop being a charity case and become gainfully employed once again. Maybe even offer charity to someone else. That's what I'd LIKE to be thankful for.

Oh well, as usual I'll just have to hope for better days ahead.

Onward Migration From Canada: It's Not Just For Foreigners Any More

 Canada is increasing immigration. I admit to being a bit misleading with that opening statement because for many, including myself, the immigration to other countries is what Canada is causing. That's really emigration but it's still immigration because when you do it, you don't change your visa at the "emigration" office. Hoooo hooooo trust me, just those two words together - immigration and office - give me the willies and I don't love willies! While referencing the IT Crowd I'll continue to say that although we like to put Canada on a pedal stool, many, maybe most immigrants tend to find the whole experience of relocation to Canada at best a damp squid, and at worst a friggin' nightmare. 

Oh, I am also talking about what we all think of when we hear the word "immigration" as well. So before we get into the immigration from Canada to other countries, let's do a bit of fakety-fake history taken from highly (and purposefully) misleading Stats Canada immigration numbers, shall we? 

I'll only go back to the 90's but we know I could go further back. Allegedly, 2.2 million people came to Canada in the 90's making it the highest immigration total for a decade... at the time. Today Canada has the highest percentage of immigrants in the G7 with 23% (2021). At today's population of 41,000,000, 23% would be around 9.43 million people. HOWEVER... there are permanent, non-permanent, student, and of course illegal immigrants. The REAL total is certainly not lower! Last year, for example, there were (again according to highly biased statistics) 471,771 perm, 804,901 non-perm, 485,000 study permits, and who knows how many illegals? If you add this up and account for a highly optimistic total of around 400,000 illegals, you have in one year the number of immigrants we had in the entire decade of the 90's. That'll give you some idea of what has happened in Canada since then. And it is steadily increasing. The goal is to "level out" at half a million perm. a year and most likely higher in all other categories. 

As far as illegals and "students" who are actually using student visas as back door entries into permanent Canadian residence, the government agencies like IRCC (Immi. Refugee, Citizenship Canada), IRB (Immi. Refugee Board of Canada) and such overtly ENCOURAGE such illegal behavior. If you want to see what a mess it has become for (largely Indian) international students you can watch this vid I have posted before. In it, former minister of Immigration Sean Fraser says it's distasteful. He hated the student immigrant scams in Canada SO much... he quit being the minister of immigration. Now it's Marc Miller a long time friend of Justy who lent him a pencil in English class in Quebec when they were young. I have heard of recent cuts to student immigration (which is really what it is) and limits on working while on a student visa, but I have also seen vid of Miller admitting that international students commonly work full time - a breach of their visas. If I remember correctly (and I posted the vid somewhere on this blog) he called it their "RIGHT" to work full time in breach of their visas. So I don't see anything happening any time soon.

You may wonder why this is allowed, or at least a blind eye has been turned towards students working far beyond their caps be they 20 or 24 hours a week. I know, and know many people who know, international students who work more. It's harder to find one who works less. What gives? Well it all has to do with the myth of perceived worker shortages in Canada. It's as simple as this: Canadian citizens know you can't get anywhere working full time on 18 bucks an hour. I won't get too far into the reasons for that but the largest is because of the housing shortage and explosion in accommodation costs that have been created by massive immigration. And the programs to hire immigrant workers to build the houses we need to drive housing prices down have already started. No experience, we will train. Any programs like these for Canadian citizens? Nope. We are left with the 18 dollar an hour jobs and have international students and illegals to compete with. There's your "worker shortage." I know a guy who was turned down for work as an electrician. He was told they only hire "from within." It was a program such as this:

Good old extremist Canada committing massive discrimination in reverse of the norm and brainwashing us into believing it's not just plain discrimination. Are you honestly going to tell me we don't have people already living in Canada who are out of work or working shitty jobs who would give a kidney or a spleen for these opportunities? You - no. Our government - that's what they expect us to believe. Worker shortage my ass! A shortage of these jobs for workers is what we have. We also have reverse discrimination but heeeey, don't be negative, Canada is a kind, nice, wonderful country... what an insult to intelligent Canadians!

When I was working at the Centre For Newcomers in Calgary my students told me about all kinds of benefits such as this. They get housing assistance (not just finding housing and finding jobs building housing, but getting money to make rent more affordable), medical assistance, education/training for free, childcare for cheap or free, taxes done for free, all kinds of social outings and programs, and I constantly found myself (squeaking by on the $240/week I made there) asking if I could get in on some of this. Nope. Only for immigrants. While programs like that are only accepting applicants "from within," my job was NEVER going to become full time because, as my supervisor told me after 10 new teachers were hired part time and my hours did not increase, "Sometimes we have to make 'outside' hires." 

Most of the feel-good stories in Canadian immigration are from the refugees who back in the 90's were mostly from Iran, Bosnia/Herzegovina, and Sri Lanka while these days (and I know this from teaching and getting to know them) the majority are from Syria, Iraq, Eritrea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. But not even all of these, in fact I'd venture to say FEW of these are feel-good stories. At least not right away. READ THIS ARTICLE. It's about a couple from Pakistan who were both professionals. He was a branch manager at a big bank, and she was a teacher who had a master's in education. They immigrated to Calgary where they struggled for 7 years to get permanent residence. He installed carpet and she was unemployed. They went through many rejections for jobs for which they were overqualified, even suffered the scams of people who say they will get you work if you sign up for their program for a non-refundable fee. Eventually she got work as a lunchtime supervisor at one of her kid's schools and he got on as a forklift operator in an oil warehouse. Finally she took a two-year course (probably free due to her immigrant status and unavailable to non-immigrants) to get work as a teacher's assistant and he got a job through his oil connections as a pricing analyst in the industry. Those 7 years left them scarred physically and with the kind of PTSD that I and a LOT of other people try to avoid by getting the fuck OUT of Canada. She suffered years of stress and weight loss and he got high blood pressure and cholesterol along with diabetes. This is a "success" story of Canadian immigration but it is nothing like the scenarios of hope and success the millions of immigrants have been bringing to Canada since the 90's. If those pie-in-the-sky hopes and dreams could be tempered with reality like the couple from the article, perhaps Canada would not have the problems it has with immigration. 

Have you ever heard of Stompin' Tom Connors? That's Canadiana for you! He is the artist responsible for The Good Old Hockey Game. 

He also wrote a song called Believe in Your Country. This was back in 1991. In it he writes "... if you don't believe your country should come before yourself, Ya can better serve your country by living somewhere else." He sings about factories closing down, politicians dividing our precious land, and our jobs being traded away. But Canadians know him better for the Hockey Song. 

Maybe... just maybe if Canadians believed in Canada or stood on guard for it as they sing with unconscious irony before most hockey games, I could live in my own country. Maybe if we started making programs for people IN Canada instead of importing folks who are not necessarily going to be any better or even stay in the country, we'd have a little more to believe in. 

We're told that onward migration from Canada is way up. 31% according to this:

The video contains a few good examples of why. In a nutshell, a lot of immigrants, and a lot of Canadians are not getting the message that Canada believes in them, so it's hard for Canadians to believe in Canada and all the more difficult for immigrants. Most immigrants would rather go home when they encounter difficulties in their adopted countries. That's what they're doing. When you get screwed (as I have) by your own country in education, taxes, employment, accommodation, and cost of living, the very staples of life, what do you have to believe in?

I agree with Stompin' Tom but the solution is not for people to get out of Canada, it's for Canada to transform from its current state back into a country worthy of pride, belief, and faith. That's got to start at the political level and I'm sorry but every last politician I've wasted the time researching appears to be one of the many zeros coming to save the day that Stompin' Tom sings about. I agree that, as he sings, we are short on heros, but as long as politics is our largest corporation and we recruit businesspeople rather than those who believe in Canadians, this trend will continue. You know who would better serve our country by living somewhere else? The greedy scumbag politicians, bankers, and captains of industry who persistently shatter the faith in Canada of both those who are Canadian and those who come to Canada hoping for better lives. 

Canada definitely has more immigrants than the 23% it wants us to believe. Them, along with the untold numbers of nationals who can't get by on shitty jobs that are available and for which they are probably overqualified, can easily go from wanting to get out of Canada to believing in it again. We can't believe in a place where we can't live dignified lives. We need more money. But with the hyper-capitalistic protocol that pervades all government action, we could raise minimum wage to 40 bucks an hour, but businesses would just find a way to pass whatever percentage that raise amounted to AND THEN SOME right back onto the customer. That's what has fucked things up in Canada. We can't expect the banks, government, and industry to UNfuck what they have fucked. When this is the case, which it is, even Stompin' Tom can't expect us to believe in Canada. 

I have to be honest, I am Jim, Jackie, John, and May. If I can find a good job in America (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) I'll leave the crappy, permanent part time jobs, or full time low wage jobs that are the only ones available to me in Canada for someone else. In that way I am serving my country better by living somewhere else. Take a look at how sad even the success stories of newcomers to Canada are while actually having many advantages that the locals do not. A lot of them think THEY are better off leaving Canada too. If THEY don't wanna stay there what chance do I have of success? 

Any advice?

Progress?

 

A common theme or moral I get upon reflection

is we can't call it progress when we choose the wrong direction.

First class, deluxe, cutting edge, prestigious, chic, or glamorous...

Ego stroking, soothing words we say instead of avarice.

Caveat emptor, don't lose your shirt, down you need to hunker

before confronting "Honest" Ed who's selling you a junker.

"Honest" Eds are everywhere they never used to be

charging what the market bears to keep that market "free."

I don't feel free. Do you? Not me when freedom seems to be

getting gauged and overcharged for things that once were free.

Before you call me cynical or thrash me as contrarian

I warn you my health care and yours neglects both health and caring.

Nestle, Danone, Coca-Cola, the drinking water giants

count us, the naked royalty, their snake oil guzzling clients.

Our civilized societies have yet to launch a law suit

for marking up a million times what once flowed from our faucets.

You and me just being we, that's free of charges surely!

Not so my bro, here, as you know, reality gets squirrely.

Like primordial ooze, we did not choose to pop into existence,

but just relax and pay your tax or rot on social assistance.  

Can we share the very air we need for respiration?

Au contraire ma soeur, mon frere. Not by my calculation.

Look above and show some love to aircraft of all kind.

They own the airs and take their shares of fares that keep us behind.

Before you think or put in ink philosophy or wisdom,

you must beware of what I term crime thought/thought crime sadism.

Do not disparage the gross miscarriage of justice by the laws.

The penalty is harsh, you see, for confusing effect and cause.

If we should choose to forfeit and not participate

in this existence we are sold as civil, refined, great,

we won't have a dime and for that crime we'll be charged by the banks.

They'll get our pay either way. They'll even get our thanks.

Who can save us from our fates? How can we get protection?

We'll stage a ritual of faith and call it an "election." 

But leaders speak in codes of which they stand in dereliction.

How can we call it "progress" when we choose the wrong direction?

It's All Academic

 I think most of us know that there are two meanings of the word "academic" and I for one do not believe that the virtually opposite definitions are just beautifully coincidental. One meaning is anything related to education and scholarship. The second meaning, one that most only discover through education and scholarship, is anything that is not of practical relevance, usefulness, or interest. You've heard the saying, "It's all academic." It's something you say when any further action will be useless, disinteresting, and irrelevant. That's meaning #2 and we all know that "number two" has a dual meaning as well. Bearing that in mind, I will begin this post by saying that my M. Ed. efforts have taken a sudden turn from #1 to #2.

Let me hit you with another well known saying - and sayings tend to become better known in proportion to their truthfulness - You get what you pay for. I chose the University of the People because it had a Master of Education program and because it was cheap. Not free although they claim to be tuition free. I don't give a rip whether you call it "tuition" or "a modest stipend for the professor," I am concerned only with how much this education will cost me. "Free" tends to catch the eye more than the word "affordable" which also appears on this page. I guess they got me there! 

I have recently found out a few things about my current Master of Education studies, as well as the institution through which they are being conducted, the University of the People, that are screaming definition number two and are illustrating saying #2 because if you ask me, they stink like number two. I will let you in on those things and what I think they signify. Please tell me if you think I am jumping to conclusions.

I started my studies officially in April of 2022 while still living in Gongju, Korea. I was accepted into the U. of the People on the strength of my Canadian BA that I am currently being told is only the equivalent of three years of study toward an American 4-year BA. Translations and equivalencies... a frustrating and unfair part of academia that sometimes subverts definition #1 in favour of #2. I have also been informed by a Maryland university that my credits from the U. of the People are not yet acceptable or transferable to that college because while the U. of the People IS accredited by the DEAC (Distance Education Accreditation Dept.), which is recognized by the US Department of Education (USDE) and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), it is not, as yet, recognized by the WSCUC (Western States Commission for Senior College and University). Wait, wouldn't that be WSCSCU? Abbreviations, initialisms, and acronyms... one of the most common ways to disguise #2 as #1. 

I will get to the shafting I believe I am receiving that has to do with my final two courses in my master's, but first an illustration of the above. I contacted my academic advisor (chuckle chuckle... academic is right) Sampada about the BS I am going to relate and she focused on one part of my correspondence: my use of the "U. of the People" instead of what she called the "acronym UoPeople." I am going through an educational crisis that could end my studies that have cost me a several thousand dollars and hundreds of hours and she is lecturing me (erroneously) on how to abbreviate the name of the institute?!?! The following is what I felt the need to send her:

As a friendly reminder, kindly note that "UoPeople" is not an acronym. One of my pet peeves is people who throw around acronyms like LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) and initialisms/abbreviations like PBLA (Portfolio Based Language Assessment) especially when speaking to people who do not know what they mean. It is a pretension of professionalism that I try to avoid since it leads to highly UNprofessional confusion. In many cases it is just an affectation used to impress. 

"UoPeople" is neither an acronym or an initialism. I'd refer to it as an awkward abbreviation. What I did is abbreviated "University" in the accepted "U." form and then wrote the rest of the title in full. In my opinion, it is a form of the university title that is less prone to confusion. However, I think we would both know from context and experience what is being referred to even if one of us would type UoP, U.P., UoftheP, or some other short forms, so let's not be pedantic. 

The focus of my B.A. was English literature. I had more than my share of professors who analyzed every detail of my syntax, grammar, and writing structure to the point of excessiveness, but they did it correctly. It made my writing better. One part of my predominantly positive experience at the UoPeople that has been difficult for me to deal with is the weekly criticisms of my written work done by fellow students, many of whom do not speak English as their primary language, that have included incorrect corrections which cost me grade points. There is so little recourse that I have taken to skipping the peer correction portions of my classes. It has hurt my CGPA, (an initialism, not an acronym) but saved my sanity. 

See? I have far too much free time. I need to get back to my studies. :-)

So in future, let's not be concerned about each other's writing, grammar, spelling, etc. I think it would be preferable to concentrate on giving program advice relevant to my academic experience at the university. 

I hope you agree. 

I received a reply that ignored my advice and continued to refer to UoPeople as an acronym and it was purposefully overused. I will henceforth use only "U. of the People" and never "UoPeople" to refer to the institute with which I am currently, and precariously, attached. 

You may consider all of this academic... because it totally IS. But I have grown sick of this sort of number two. I have reached the limits of what Faulkner would call the "baseless hoping that is the diet of weaklings." I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more. This is the start of me fighting back. 

The acronym LINC and the initialism PBLA were chosen for a reason. They are two of 100 such misleading and confusing short forms that were bandied about by self-congratulatory academics at weekly meetings in the Calgary Centre for Newcomers where I used to work. They cherished all of their secret code words and Pavlovially honoured and protected them as loyally as Sampada with "UoPeople." They sprinkled these abbreviations generously into their meeting lectures to assure the higher ups of their worthiness and irreplaceability and to assure the newbies that if they don't understand, it's because they are UNworthy and replaceable. The entire room was full of people who fancied themselves teachers and who were loathe to explain things or TEACH things. Is this what we consider to be academia?

Anyhow, I digress. Is my university accredited? The short answer is no. It is not regionally accredited and unbeknownst as well as unbecarenst to me, regional accreditation is widely considered superior to national accreditation in the US. It is more prestigious. Well la de da, who gives a fuck, I wanted my M.Ed. for international or possibly Canadian teaching purposes. 

However, now I know that often when the word "accredited" is used, it only means regionally accredited. For example Canadian universities recognize transfer credits from similar courses from accredited American universities. So I could go to the U of T, UBC, McMaster, SFU, Queen's, UVIC, or major unis like that in Canada and just grab two more credits and claim my master's, riiiiiggghhhht?Well, I am now learning that like the answer to almost all questions in our lives of manufactured complexity, the answer is, "It depends..." Maybe, like the Maryland university that refused my U of the People credits, Canadian universities will only accept REGIONALLY accredited university credits. 

Who the hell looks deeply into this? I mean honestly, before I signed up for the U of the People should I have called every university and college in Canada at which I thought I might at some point want to use my master's for teaching and/or studying and asked whether credits from the U of the People would be recognized? What about the ones around the world? And that answer can change. The U of the People is currently a candidate for regional accreditation. I think I know one of the ways they might be going about trying to attain it and it has to do with me and my fellow M. Ed. students being forced into performing studies and writing them up as our theses rather than choosing topics about which we are more passionate. In almost every class I took the professors gave us readings from the internet, JSTOR, LIRN, e-book central, Gale, ACM, or other such cherished abbreviations with which to complicate our educational vernacular but we were also tasked with providing our own outside sources in everything we wrote. In almost every class I noticed some of the websites I had used in my writing being assigned as required reading in subsequent weeks. It probably happened other times without my notice and it definitely happened to other students. This is not plagiarism and with the profs not getting full salaries, who can blame them, right? My baseless hopes were that only our sources, not our writing, would be used for the benefit of the university.

I have no evidence and I am not suggesting that this is happening, but what if the reason we are all being forced to write professional pedagogical studies on classes (something exactly none of my fellow students have expressed an interest let alone a preference in) is so that the university can combine our studies and theses into a macro-study that can be published by the university as a means toward qualification for the more prestigious regional accreditation? That's how this academic number two works, isn't it? If you answered no, stick with me.

 I have to tell you that part of the 11th course, aside from conducting your research on a class of students, is compiling a comprehensive list of articles, documents, and works that you have cited or referenced in your writing throughout the previous 10 courses. They want at least two for each week of study. The courses are 8 weeks each. Along with weekly correspondence and peer evaluation between fellow students and the prof, we are expected to do one discussion post, one formal writing assignment, and one portfolio writing assignment. We don't always have all three but usually do. That amounts to almost 240 written assignments by the end of the 10th course. Each are 2-3 pages and each must have several sources. I have some with more than 10 works cited. 

If I make a "portfolio" of the most important sources from the most important writing assignments, we'd be looking at conservatively over 700 sources I have used. Part of the 11th course is to write up that list and they provide us with a template we must adhere to. In the beginning (2022 and 2023) we were forced to use the online portfolio program called Evernote. Like most of my fellow students I found Evernote to be unnecessarily complicated, tedious, and completely superfluous, but we were forced to make entries, take screenshots of them, then submit them for grades. Also like most of my fellow students, I have kept all of my writing in an organized file and it includes well over 1000 sources recorded in perfect APA citation. They are also recorded in the program I use that makes the APA perfect called Perrla. I don't need a "portfolio" but the school has hopped on this pedagogical bandwagon, this fleeting fad, this flavour of the day in education - port fucking folios. 

Can you tell how much I like this process? I hated using it for my studies (as did all of my fellow students) and I hated using it in the classes I taught (as did all of the students). It's just a giant waste of time. When I was doing the PBLA classes at the Calgary Centre for Newcomers, trying to organize each student's binder and trying to organize each lesson, handout, exercise, assessment, quiz, etc. into the appropriate heading, sub-heading and sub-sub-heading with uniformity that would pass the auspices of the governing bodies constant watchful eyes, the only thing uniform was frustration for everyone and time we could be learning to speak English completely wasted. At the Calgary CFN it was useful for the bosses, however, in making sure teachers were teaching what was wanted and not teaching what wasn't. For the U. of the People, it's just a more organized and convenient printout of academic sources their students find and they use for their own purposes. But BOTH try to soft soap the teachers/students into believing it is all for our own good. Well fuck 'em. I am reminded of Korean banks forcing customers to use their bankbooks. After 100 transactions without updating the bankbook, your account will be frozen. It was even worse in China. They assure us it is for our "convenience" but it's just so they can keep track of our money. In Korea I got into the habit of starting new accounts after 99 transactions and making a grand display of throwing my pristinely unused bankbook in the garbage before taking home my new bankbook that would be thrown into the same garbage 99 transactions later. I am VERY tempted to tell the U of the People to take their fucking portfolio and flush it down the toilet because it stinks like number two.

Before Sampada became my academic advisor I had Renuka. About half way through my 10 courses I asked her to make sure I took all the electives and mandatory classes I needed and to give me an idea of what was acceptable for thesis topics. I gave her a description of some of the things that had interested me most in the courses to that point and how I would like to formulate a thesis from them. It was basically how to use Paulo Freiere's tactics for teaching adult literacy to oppressed Brazilians and employ them in the area of adult ESL for today's politically oppressed learners. I would still like to do that and I have a list of reading and research I have already done in preparation. I was never given an answer by Renuka. In fact the last email I received from her was an introduction saying, "Hi, my name is Renuka and I will be your new academic advisor."

I think I had Renuka to get me through the good 10 courses and now I have Sampada whose job it is to bully me into finishing this thing up. I recently asked her if I really had to find a class and do a study on that class. I am finding it difficult to get work in Canada, U.S., Taiwan, and other places as described in my previous post. Her response was that I could have worked out other methods like surveying teachers or using archives. But it was my fault for dropping the course without getting in touch with my professor.

The reality is I sent an email to the professor via U. of the People email which is the only means of correspondence with her I had been offered. I waited until the night before the course dropping deadline and received no response from the professor. So I guess I was expected to stay in the class having absolutely no idea of what the course would entail other than the tedium of the portfolio and conducting some sort of process that I was NOT interested in which would ultimately become the basis of a thesis I did not want to write. 

I chose to drop the course and am currently on leave of absence   NUMBER TWO. 

Evidently there is a maximum number of leaves of absence a student can apply for and take. After that I don't know what happens. From early indications of the help I will receive from Sampada, or lack thereof, I think I may find out.

There may yet be a way to make Gatorade out of this pile of gators but if not it is still another piece of extraordinarily bad luck in an extraordinarily bad luck career. 

The one saving grace is that it IS entertaining to write/complain about, don't you reckon?