How I Know I'm Going To Heaven When I Die

 

The root word of “public” is the Latin “publicus,” which means, “Of the state. Ordinary. Common.” In essence, everyday people, ordinary Joe and Jessica Blows, the vast majority of us sad sack, filthy commoners BELONG to the state. That’s what our owners and overlords mean when they call us the “public.” It's not to be confused with the word "publican," however. In Biblical times publicans were tax collectors and thought of themselves, and rightly so, as the scum of the earth. They were the ones who collected all the money from the "public." And since they were pretty much freelancers, it was a very difficult racket in which to remain honest. But even at that, the exorbitant tax rate charged by the publicans who even considered themselves lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut, was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-10% from my research. In a nutshell, the "public" worked and paid for practically everything they got from the government even though what they got from the government benefitted the rich more. I don't think I need to include, but I will, that the rich paid zilch. That hasn't changed much has it? In fact even today, when we the public pay FAR more than 5-10% tax, a smart guy like Peter Zeihan writes off a smarter guy like Bernie Sanders, whose main platform is getting the rich to pay more taxes, as a "religious leader" with a "cult following."  Just look at this "religious extremism" for example: In the richest country in the world while experiencing record corporate profits, if you work 40 hours a week you shouldn't have to live in poverty. I guess I'm a member of THAT cult.

But speaking of Bible times, let me wax Biblical on yo asses for a bit. A good buddy of mine recently drew my attention to an interesting Bible story from the book of Daniel. Chapter 4 actually. It’s a tale about King Nebuchadnezzar, (who I have known as NEBBAH since boyhood) who dreams of a beautiful, gigantic tree that gives shade to all animals, feeds all of mankind, and the fowls of the earth nest in its branches. Behold a watcher, and a holy one came down from heaven and announced that this was no good. Cut it down, they ordered, chase away the beasts and birds and scatter the fruit. Then, oddly, comes verse 17 which says, “ This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.”

For my Atheist friends I hasten to add that the "most High," who is said to have ultimate authority here, is just some person, being or entity these mysterious watchers and holy ones blame everything on. We're expected to believe them, but ultimately left with the choice of whether or not to put our faith in Him/Her/It.

Now in the Bible nobody can interpret this dream except Daniel. But I reckon, at the risk of being blasphemous, I’ll give it a whirl. I would interpret the “watcher” to be a member of government and the “holy one” to be a banker of some sort. Probably a member of a central bank or the World Bank. They are our owners and are as close to holy as we have on the earth. Them and the IMF. The watchers/government are known as “the state.” That’s who we belong to, and they are our handlers, the ones who deal with us riff-raff directly. They report to the bankers who control all the resources that we work to produce. They can’t have us eating for free from any glorious, giant tree or we won’t have to work to make them rich and powerful. So they chop it down, hoard the fruit and wood for themselves and maintain the norm.

The most High must be God. Hence the capital H. Now this may conflict with many a theory/belief/mental certainty of a merciful and kind God, but so do kids getting cancer, telemarketing, and mosquitos so bear with me. What does it say in the verse? The intent of the lumberjacking and produce hoarding was to drive home the point to the living (that’s us worms) that God rules the kingdom of men (Earth) and purposely gives control to who(m) He desires – the basest of men. Let me repeat that because I had to hear it again when my buddy said it to me. God wants the scumbags of the earth to be the ones in control. Not TOTAL control of course, that’s God’s, but he sets up the dregs of the planet, I mean the soul-sucked, amoral, puppy-killing, automatic rebilling, Ponzi scheming, home loan shorting, disaster-profiteering, cheat-their-own-mother fuckers of this world… those are the vermin GOD sets up as our owners.

This fits into my theory that the only hell is where we are right now. It’s all about contrast. There can be no light without the contrast of darkness and how could we believe that death (whatever it holds that Hamlet and I aren’t brave enough to shuffle off our mortal coils and find out) is preferable to life without some pretty crappy earthly shit to serve as contrast? Death, even if it’s nothing, is going to be some kind of heaven if you ask me! The longer I live the more mornings start off with, “Dammit! Didn’t die peacefully in my sleep again. Well I guess I’ll just do this for another day…”

Now before you get all worried that I’m suicidal, or even a pessimist, let me assure you that it is quite the opposite. The other day I said to my Mom, "Well I guess I'll apply to a few more jobs so they can ignore me." She said, "Gads! You're not a very positive thinker, are you?" (Yes, my Mom said "gads") I replied, "Au contraire ma mere. My positivity is that which keeps me trying and failing." My optimism has always been what has kept me in good supply of failure and disappointment. Maybe I'd be a happier person if I just thought more negatively and gave up more often. Think on that a spell. 

I appreciate the good things we have as part of our hellish existence on our hellish planet. If not for those things I WOULD be suicidal and if I kill myself before I suffer some more, it’ll make death less of a heaven, won’t it? The contrast won’t be as extreme. It’s not like I’m making this up! It’s a Buddhist concept I’ve been struggling with for a while. It’s also Biblical if you read closely and don’t try to convince yourself that the moral of the Bible is “the good guys win.” That ain't the book I read. There will be trials and tribulations. The Buddhists tell us we must figure out how to take joy in our suffering. The Princess Bride tells us that life IS suffering and anyone who tells you different is selling something. And trying to become one of those "holy ones" or "watchers" probably.

We are all afforded enough love, friendship, sleeping in, music, cartoons, alcohol, naps, board games, food, strawberry/rhubarb pie, sports and other pleasures in life to keep us from offing ourselves and flying too swiftly to that undiscovered country from whence no man returns and not getting sufficient contrast for it to be considered heaven. Those who are truly good people should suffer enough to welcome death. Those who are in control on earth and don’t want to die will find a well deserved hell in death. Now I don’t know if that ratio works perfectly for everyone or not, but it’s a nice thing to cling to in hard times.

So let me tell you a few of the recent things that have increased the contrast and improved the concept of death for me so much that I believe I’m going to heaven when I die. That’s part of the reason for this blog. And let’s face it, reading about the hellish bits of our shared human experience is more fun anyway. After all, who was the protagonist of Paradise Lost?

The blinding bureaucracy of Canada. I am trying to become a citizen of my own country again. How is that even something I need to do? Doing so requires an unconscionable amount of paperwork! This includes a good deal of superfluous and just plain stupid paperwork. And it would be kinda nice if it were only paperwork. But with the advent of the computer age, our government (watchers) have complicated our lives by adding webpages and computers that are nothing of not undependable for anything that doesn't involve the transfer of money from citizens to our government.

I wrote, and then RE-wrote the learner's test for my driver's license and couldn't believe some of the questions that were so obviously included not to keep the streets safe but to make people fail the test. I've seen this in the ESL world, particularly in IELTS, where testers put these highly questionable questions in tests and every time test takers get them wrong their power-tripping heads swell a little more thinking they are superior in their English abilities to these people studying it as their second, third or extra language of some number. Sad human beings. In the learner's test there was a question about when school zone speed limits are in effect. In the book it said from 8-5 on school days. I WROTE in the book while studying, "What about at night?" Same thing for playground zones (dawn to dusk). So I got a question that asked when school zone speed limits are in effect. I chose from 8-5 and got it wrong. The correct answer was "all day" or "at all times" or something like that. Then there was the 

sign. Does it mean construction zone ahead or construction zone begins ahead? It actually means there's a crew working ahead and/or a zone with people working BEGINS ahead. I don't know how important the difference is. Not enough to make things one iota safer for anyone. Shouldn't that be the point of these tests? Not how many pass or fail? It's almost like they're doing the age old, tried and false bell curving. With driver's exams. Before I move on to the actual road test, an annoying little aside that will make death a little more like heaven to me: I got the school zone question on my second try at the test and confidently chose the "at all times" answer. I was told that the correct response was from 8-5 on school days. I got the same question "wrong" twice! Now, there is no way I can prove any of this because people are not allowed to use their phones while writing the test. So you just have to take my word for it. Convenient for the power-tripping, swelled-headed test administers, isn't it? Makes me look like a conspiracy theorist.

Okay, speaking of that, I'm going on one of my trundles. I'll return to the road test (probably). However, I had a pile of foreign currency I needed to exchange and from what I could tell it looked like TD would be the best bank to exchange it. It was money left over from trips to Guam, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and some Korean cash I had left over. While I was in the bank exchanging it, one other customer came in. He went to the teller beside me and said something about having his account hacked into. Now if you are a regular reader with a good memory, you may recall that I had a TD account hacked into TWICE while I was living in Korea. It was a nightmare to get the bank to believe me at first, then they told me there was no way I could shut down my account from Korea. BOTH times it was the same girl who had opened up a Canadian Tire credit card on MY account. This is something I can't do! I've tried! Anyway, I asked who this person was and if something could be done and the bank seemed more interested in protecting her than my money. So I shut down the account as soon as I got back to Canada. WHILE I WAS THERE, another guy in line at the bank was complaining about having HIS account hacked into! They told him to calm down and took him to a separate room so the other customers wouldn't get wind of how unsafe their money is at TD bank. The chances of my experiencing two security breaches of my own and two other people with the same experiences on the only other two times I went to the bank is a very strong indication of what TD doesn't want its customers to know: Your money isn't safe there! Don't bank there!

So why did I include that? I guess to point out that despite the mountains of bureaucracy every Canadian has in their lives, we don't seem to be good at it yet. I mean except when it comes to us "public" "commoners" giving our money to our "watchers" that is. Which brings me to the road test. On the learner's permit I got April 3rd it said, "Eligible to book a road test on or after April 3rd." So I log onto the website to book a road test and get, "Not currently eligible. You are not currently eligible for any road tests..." So I call and do the requisite telephone gymnastics every government number subjects us to including, whether it's true or not, "We are experiencing larger than usual caller traffic at this time. We hope you packed a lunch and have a book to read. Thank you." Or something like that. So I have to wait until the next working day and go in person to the motor vehicles office and ask what's up. Bear in mind I have a job doing mobile security that is on hold while we all wait for this endless process to be completed. 

So Monday morning I take the bus to the appropriate office, show them the screen I get when I try to book a road test and am told there is nothing they can do. I book the learner's test, I take the learner's test, I do the road test at this office, but I don't book the road test there? That's right, I was told, you will need to call this number and I'm handed a card. So I call the number and am told that the next available road test in Trail, where I've been practicing and am familiar with the roads, is in August. However, there is an opening in Nelson for April 11th. Well I don't know if Art or Mom will go all the way to Nelson with me to take this road test, but I tell them to book it anyway since I can always cancel. I call my good friend Tami, who is largely responsible for getting me the job I have waiting for this hoop-jumping to end, and she says she'll let me use her car. Tami to the rescue!... or so I thought. 

The day of the test arrives. The weather is rainy. The only time I can get to Castlegar to meet with Tami and drive to Nelson with her leaves us barely enough time to get there before the 11:05 test time. So I will have no time to get used to the new car or the new city. But I think back to the other two road tests I've taken and the 30+ years of safe driving I've done and foolishly believe I should be okay. 

We arrive at 10:45 or something like that. Tami even asked if I wanted to practice a bit. But I figured it'd be good to check in and make sure they know I'm there. So we did. I was asked if I was there to do my road test and when I said I was they put me to the side of the main line-up with a young guy who also said he was there for his road test. I asked the lady who separated us where the washroom was and she went behind the counter, got a key, led me to the door and unlocked it for me. So after taking a leak I stood over to the side where I was placed and waited. And waited. It was probably 11:30 or later by the time another lady called my name and took me to a wicket where she sat at a computer and took my details (and my money). She then told me I had a late fee of 25 bucks added to the usual 50-dollar fee. She also said the examiner might not be available at all. She looked behind her and then went to another office and fetched - guess who - the bathroom key lady. She comes out and gives me a flustered look like I was greatly inconveniencing her and says, "Is there any reason why you're late?" 

Well of course I reminded her of the fact that she opened the can for me WELL before my appointment time, but still she and the other lady looked as though they were weighing the options. Should we allow this guy to test, remove the late fee, or just be bitches? As if they were doing me a huge favour they decided to remove the late fee and the examiner decided to do her job. So we went out to get into Tami's car. By now the weather was atrocious! It was a freezing rain with some pretty strong winds and just a hundred feet up the mountains it was snowing. She tells me to go get into the car and unlock the passenger door while she waits. So I got in and was fumbling with the controls on the driver's door trying to figure out how to unlock the passenger side when she came up to the door, tried it and almost screamed, "Hurry up! Let me in! It's freezing out here!" 

After analyzing the incident on the trip back (with Tami driving) we agreed that maybe because of the weather this lady was hiding in her office and hoping we'd just leave and she wouldn't have to do the road test at all. But I didn't want to wait till July or August. No way! So after seeing my unfamiliarity with the vehicle she starts asking questions like, "Where is the defroster? Where is the registration? Where is the emergency brake?" Tami had shown me the e-brake location, I correctly pointed out the defroster and I told her I assumed the registration and insurance papers were in the glovebox where most people keep them. They were. Unfortunately after that little victory the rain started coming down really hard and I was not sure how to adjust the wiper speed. I saw the examiner take a note. Then she asked me how to turn on the lights if I were to drive into a dark tunnel. I am STILL not sure if I got that answer right. Probably not. She never did ask if the car was mine so I'm sure I got docked a lot for not knowing the vehicle. And okay, the wipers and the lights ARE safety features and CAN make things safer but I'm borrowing a car to take the test. That's never happened before? Or even more nowadays with the Covid backlog? 

I sound like I'm making excuses here but it went on. We're driving up a street and she asks, "What are you hazards here?" I said, "Ummm... there are some barricades where they are doing construction, is that what you mean?" She goes, "The weather, other motorists, trees, parked vehicles, pedestrians, possible animals..." I said something like, "Oh okay, I guess so," and chuckled a bit because (ffs) an earthquake could happen, the brakes could fail, aliens could invade, Elephant Mountain could suddenly blow up like Krakatoa and cover us both in molten lava too! Her hand was a blur furiously jotting down notes now as though she honestly believed I didn't know the things she listed were possible hazards. I dunno, maybe she had not seen my 30 years of clean driving in Canada? Or maybe the examiners don't bother finding out? 

We went up and down hills, through intersections, around the neighbourhood many times... it was well past noon now and the driving was extra hazardous since it was lunch time and despite the weather there were more cars, pedestrians, bikes, animals, wheelchairs, Rascals, skateboards, and I was navigating them all just fine and dandy thank you very much. Then she got me to go out onto the highway. I took the exit at 50 and in order to get into the highway had to check blindspots and everything, but it turned out the exit became a lane. Something I would have known if I'd practiced in Nelson probably. I had also sped up to get to the same speed as traffic on the highway but it turned out that the limit there was 50 and the other drivers were all speeding. I got docked for not wanting to barge into faster moving traffic forcing them to slow down. I mean you could debate that following the speed limit there might have actually constituted more dangerous driving. Then we went back to the downtown area where we'd circled many times already and I guess I did what she was waiting for. I pulled up to a 4-way intersection and my light was green. She told me to turn right. I got part way through the right turn but slowed down to wait for some pedestrians crossing the street. While I waited for them the light turned red. She told me that I failed to stop at the red light before turning right.

Anyway, she finally had enough to fail me so we didn't even do a parallel park. We went back to the lot and she told me to back into a spot. The final straw I guess. Tami's car has a rear window wiper and I couldn't figure out how to get it to work and since the side windows and mirrors were covered in rain, it was a tough thing to park in that spot. But I did it. A bit slowly, but I did it. We sat in that spot and she accusationally went over the mistakes I had made. She added that I had gone 40 in a school zone, the one and ONLY thing she had not pointed out immediately after I did it, which makes me think she just made it up. But again, you can't argue because there is no proof. 

I was unfamiliar with the vehicle, I did not know the city well and hadn't driven in it since I was a teenager, and I was made to feel as uncomfortable as I've ever felt at any exam including ones I hadn't even studied for! This examiner was actually endangering herself and others with her TUDE! I re-write the road test May 8th in Trail where I've practiced driving using Art's car that I am familiar with. I sure hope I get a different examiner but there's a good chance it'll be her again. Won't THAT make some good blog fodder! 

I have worked two weeks at a job as a mobile (driving) security guard and I don't have my security guard license or my driver's license yet. I'm not driving and I can't wear any part of the uniform with the word "security" on it, but here I am toeing the line and obeying the absurd rules and regulations that give us all hellish inconvenience "for our safety and protection." At least 10 years of security experience and 30 years of clean driving mean nothing in the face of the bureaucratic zealots that people the government agencies of Canada. Our "watchers." 

Nebbah, your dream was prophetic!

Try New Nogasatoll!

 Ever see those honest commercials on the Cracked Magazine website? With Roger? I like those. Here's one:

I like Roger. I admit it, I am a Roger-wannabe. Don't you wish you could just be honest? I do. But when I'm honest, even if I precede my honestly with one of the popular phrases in our vernacular that we use to beg forgiveness for our honesty like "Frankly," "Actually," "To be honest," "Sorry to say this, but...," "If I'm honest," and so on and so forth, I get these looks sometimes: 

The more honest the statement, the weirder the looks. 

I've been staying with my parents for a while and, "if I'm being honest," they're old, they watch a lot of TV. I almost have to force myself to watch it with them just to be sociable. I've gone for a long time watching commercial-free TV because, "to tell the truth," I download 99% of the TV I watch.  Now that I'm watching regular cable TV, which, "let's be honest here," Canadians pay FAR too much money for to begin with, Rogers, Bell, Telus and the other cable companies whose names you see on the largest buildings in every Canadian city have decided they aren't making quite enough from the hundred bucks a month or more from every household in the country, they need to festoon our screens with a Blitzkrieg of consumerism every ten minutes or so. While some, "to be truthful," are humourous, they are excruciatingly frequent for me! The other day we watched "The Ten Commandments" and I swear to the GOD of Charlton Heston they turned an already long movie into a vegetation session of Biblical proportions! I think it was FIVE hours! 

On the other hand it gives us plenty of socializing time between the movie, game show, How It's Made, or episode of Matlock we're watching. I'm only kidding. "In reality," there's no Matlock. Mom's tastes stray to the more mustachioed. She watches Blue Bloods. And because Art is nothing if not mechanically inclined, I now know how school buses, popsicles, pencils, and many more random things are made. "To be honest," I kinda like both of those shows. But the commercials! Oh Begorah! 

It's not my imagination either according to Forbes, and that's where I want to go to get the lowdown on this because Forbes is about money and that's what the ads are about too. "But if you want the truth," the most bizarre ads to me are the ones for drugs. Here's an article about what I'm referring to. It says they are only in the US and New Zealand but "let's be clear," a LOT of other countries have access to TV shows from America. I have also seen Kiwi TV in surrounding countries like Indonesia and I know Australia gets it. I bet other countries have access to the drugs as well. I'm pretty sure we can get them in Canada.

If you want a brand new drug that helps reduce your farts, for instance, let's call it Nogasatoll, and you see an advertisement on TV for it, there will most likely be a laundry list of symptoms (many of which are far worse than a little poofter now and then) that Nogasatoll could cause. For example, drowsiness, slowed breathing, erectile dysfunction, partial blindness, total blindness, loss of feeling in extremities, increased flatulence, loss of extremities, dementia, blood clotting, spontaneous combustion, death, and, "in truth," my all time favourite, anal leakage. 

And as if this isn't crazy enough, they often tell you, "Don't use Nogasatoll if you are allergic to Nogasatoll." Well I got to thinking... and if Nogasatoll is a brand new drug, which it is, how will we know if we're allergic? We'll need to try it and see if we get one of those symptoms, won't we? So if I go blind, spontaneously combust, or die, I'll know I'm allergic to Nogasatoll and I probably shouldn't take it. Is it me? Is it only me? 

So what the drug companies are pushing on us are unsanctioned, unapproved, not fully tested drugs that have potentially disastrous side effects. How can they get away with this? Because we TRUST them. We DO! Why else would we just pop pills and shoot serums into our bodies without knowing what's in them? For crying out loud we made McDonald's list the ingredients of the Big Mac even though most of us (of a certain generation) can easily SING them! Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion on a sesame seed bun. Pfizer could put dog shit in Viagra and the makers of Nogasatoll, let's call them Pfuckyu, could put baby brains in it just so they could fiendishly chuckle every time they see a person taking it. 

However, I've made this point before. Drugs and taxes: possibly the only things we pay ("In actual fact" exorbitant amounts of money) for, without having much or ("in all seriousness" ANY) idea what we're getting.

At any rate, I have another bone to pick with the world. Can anybody tell me what has happened to yellow grapefruits? I noticed their disappearance from Korea a few years ago but just thought it was one of many things that Korea seems to limit all willy-nilly. I had no idea they were extinct in Canada too! I can't find one anywhere! I was bemoaning this with Linda, a fellow greyhound fan not so long ago when I first returned to Canada. There's no PINK grapefruit juice in a greyhound! It's gotta be yellow! But just you try to find some! So I looked it up online and there is some weak borsht about how there was low demand and farmers all over the world just crossbred the yellow with pink and yada yada yada... but come on, 

are you trying to tell me...

lichee, guava, guanabana (whatever that is) juice has a larger demand than yellow grapefruit? And did I see a "grenade" there? What kind of beverage terrorism are we being exposed to? HONESTLY!

And if that's not enough to make you question everything you think you might know, here's our weather over here in April:

"April showers bring May flowers." What if they're SNOW showers? Snow plowers? I guess we'll see...

And finally, bear with me for one more photo:

See what I did there? Bear with me? See you next time folks.

The Fifty-first Fish

 Everybody's heard the old fish analogy about teaching people to fish being better than giving them fish. Creating a worker instead of a welfare case is the harshly worded moral of that pithy little allegory. Well, since returning to Canada I've seen a lot of changes and many have been of the economics variety. They have put me in mind of another fishing allegory. There are two fishermen, each with identical rods and tackle. There are 100 fish in the lake and they are the only guys fishing it. There is also a two-man net. They could fish individually with their rods and after a month or so they'd fish the lake out and let's say one fisherman is slightly better than the other and he gets 51 fish while the other only gets 49. The alternative behavior would be to use the net cooperatively and in a couple days they'd be able to get all the fish, divide them 50-50 and spend the rest of the year eating those fish while socializing till next fishing season with each other in leisurely brotherhood as men were created to do.

While this analogy has many weaknesses, perhaps the largest being the idea of catching all the fish rather than leaving some to make more fish thus creating an endless supply of fish, (which probably requires even MORE cooperation and brotherhood than the two-man net scenario above, but whatever) the point/moral/ethical lesson within is pretty easy to grasp. What kind of messed up society pits man against his brother to get a couple or few more fish than him, NONE of which either of them needs? I guess to make the analogy more accurate for most of what we call "civilized societies" nowadays, a large company under the control of the IMF/World Bank bought the lake and expanded it so there are more fish in it than ever. A THOUSAND fish, not 100. 

I'm not going to get into the whole mind-bending idea that some person, business, or financial entity can BUY a lake. That's pretty much the genesis of all the problems of the world. Personal ownership of anything in Nature is ludicrous, but here we are. But I AM going to get into one of my trundles away from the main topic. My blog, my trundles.

Anybody heard of Helium-3? It's one of the reasons why there just might be another space race. Already the Chinese are planning to mine Helium-3. At an estimated 3 billion bucks a ton, why not? And there is speculation that things are being done by competitors (US) to keep the Chinese from getting to all that Helium-3 first. Allegedly, the moon has enough Helium-3 to solve the entire world's energy demands for 10,000 years. So the Chinese are going to do that, right? Share it with the world so we will all have one less thing to worry about? No more energy problems? That'd be sweet, no? So that's what China is planning, of course. Or if not the Chinese, then the Americans, right? They'll do that, won't they? 

You know the worst thing about this suggestion? It's not that we all know it'll NEVER happen, it's that we are so mind-fucked that we think there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. "China has every right to profit from their efforts to mine the Helium-3. So does the US. It's a legitimate investment." That is the kind of thinking I will henceforth call the 51st fish. 

I suppose just because there are no Moon creatures or aliens they have to kill to get at the Helium-3, or for that matter the rare Earth metals the moon has such a valuable supply of, it's not as barbaric sounding. But I'm sure they'd find a way of making our hearts and minds acquiesce to avarice-induced murder even if there were. They've done it in the past. Before our European ancestors roamed the continent, there were people basically living the two-man net model of high cooperation, low labour existence and you KNOW that "lazy, unacquisitive" culture had to be wiped out! The natives likened the white man's greed to their legendary creature called the Wendigo/Windigo that was constantly hungry and the more food (men) it ate, the bigger and hungrier it became. 

The fifty-first fish mentality. The idea that I am better than someone else because I own more than him/her, and/or I am better than someone else so I am entitled to more than him/her. It IS monstrous! It was considered a sickness by the natives. I concur with them and have many times referred to it as the "money sickness." It is a legitimate illness I believe. And, far from Covid, it is the most virulent virus in our world today. The fact that we don't acknowledge it as a medical condition has contributed to its success. But answer me this: do you think a person who would prefer the competing fisherman scenario to the cooperating fisherman scenario is RIGHT in the head? If you do, it is a symptom of the disease.

I don't think most people legitimately have it mind you, but we've gone to great lengths to justify it in our owners in Canada. I've heard so many people say that it is even "human nature." Those same people are not really practicing it, but are indentured servants/voluntary slaves to those who are and in the same breath they might give the ever serviceable, "I do it for my family" argument. They probably know what they do is not completely right and the people they enrich are worse and worse on up to the great overlords who don't even reckon value in monetary terms any more but countries. What they usually don't say is they do it for the LOVE of their family members. THAT, my readers, THAT is human nature, not selfish, acquisitive competitiveness.

But to continue the metaphor, the lake is artificially huge, the fish population is artificially bloated, and the fish are probably genetically modified to be artificially giant because we need more, right? Another myth. Businesses have never been more profitable. We probably "catch enough fish" by the end of January to feed ourselves for the rest of the year but our overlords create an artificial market for them so that they can be sold for the personal profits of the overlords and we can be kept obediently busy and too tired to revolt. What do they do with the excess fish? Why, they dump them in landfills if they have to. It really doesn't matter so long as those fish result in higher profits (and more world control) than the year before. Does THAT sound like a right-minded business model?

So I land in Vancouver and need to stay a night in the big city before visiting family on the Island. I find the cheapest hotel available: $150 a night. More with taxes. And now that I'm back in Canada I gotta TIP everyone who looks at me because we've also been bamboozled into believing that it's something nobler than a cheapskate business owner skirting minimum wage laws and passing on payment of his/her employee wages to the customers who are already paying too much for his/her product. Just the whole country in microcosm. 

Now, wages HAVE gone up, particularly minimum wage to the understandable disdain of the beleaguered middle class whose wages haven't gone up as dramatically. So some of the middle class think the problems of Canada can be blamed on an overentitled lower class. It's all part of divide-and-conquer keeping the middle class angry at the broke people of the country, not the rich who are the real fifty-first fishers. Voltaire once described the art of government as "taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another." The clever upper class who are the hands up the arses of the government diverts just enough money - a negligible amount relatively speaking - to the poor to distract from the massive Voltairean diversion from the middle class to the upper classes. Why would they be diverting it AWAY from themselves? Smarten up middle class! 

So there are many who blame the 150-dollar a night hotel on poor Canadians rather than record high corporate profits. But it's hard to blame the poor brainwarshed Canadians who think this way. They are not alone. This is going on all over the world. The key is if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Yesterday I went to look at a place that was a small step above a crack house. One bed, one bath, kitchen/living room. One washer and one dryer shared with the people in about 20 other units in the apartment. It's 100 years old if it's a day, smells like smoke, not likely tobacco, and while riding the bus I've seen a few questionable characters board the bus at the stop in front of the place. $1200/month. 

But all is not lost! I have a great opportunity at a security job. I have sent about 50 resumes out to various places including security companies, ESL businesses, and other things without so much as a PFO letter. (please fuck off) But, because I know someone who knows someone, I am going to hit the ground running here. I'll need to get a new driver's license and security guard license and update some certificates and sign some papers and do all the bureaucratic bullshit that accompanies everything nowadays but I'm in. Both the rise of the job referral and the endless certification and paper chasing are byproducts of an untrusting society that indulges the fifty-first fish mentality and discourages collaboration and brotherhood. 

I will not be working for the company I work at, but a company that took over the company then subcontracted security work to a cheaper company. Speaking of brotherhood, if ever there were two professions in desperate need of unionization it's security and the ESL industry! If you want some details, just read the blogposts I wrote while I was working security for 10 bucks an hour in Alberta. 12-hour shifts, shiftwork, non-stop walking and standing while wearing boots and a vest even in summer, wrestling people to the ground, getting kicked by people with casts on their feet, spat at, literally having shit thrown at me and being treated like livestock for starvation wages. That was 2012-2014. Nine years later I'll be making 8 bucks more! Almost a buck a year! Surely that will be a bigger increase than the cost of living, no? We shall see...

So there you have it: my righteous but pointless indignation with the nine years of changes I've noticed so far in my first three weeks back in Canada. There are some reassuringly unchanged things like the fresh air and friendly (however forced it may sometimes be) people, but the complaining is the therapeutic stuff for me and it was a primary reason for this blog.

Don't worry, positive posts are soon to follow. It snowed today! That's no April Fool's joke either! So the weather is to my liking. At least I got that going for me. Which is nice.

Sick Days In Korea: Not A Novel Idea

 I've been confused lately by news stories such as this one in the Korea Times. In it writer Lee Hyo Jin states that "Korea is one of the only OECD countries that does not guarantee paid sick leave by law." And this article in the Korea Herald that states, "Currently, Korean law does not guarantee sick leave, much less paid sick leave, during infectious disease outbreaks."  Now take a look at this article from hani.co.kr. It states that over 43% of people surveyed were unable to freely use their annual leave when they became sick. Most are afraid to have their pay docked, which absolutely IS illegal according to the Labor Standards Act of Korea. It goes on to say that Korea still lacks proper legal mechanisms such as sick leave and points out that that very same Labor Standards Act contains no such provisions. I'm feeling like Lt. Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men when the judge says, "I don't understand, you're offering exhibits of a flight that did not exist?" then Kaffee says, "Oh we believe it did, your honour." 

You see kids, there was a time in Korea when the Koreans were able to run their country much closer to the way they wanted to run it. It was called 1997. It had been around 50 years since the US and some other allies had helped set them up to turn Korea into a country deserving of a seat at the table in that money moving, vulture capitalistic organization so euphemistically called one of "economic co-operation and development." And earn that seat they DID! Their tactics, while not brilliant, took Korea from utter devastation and economic ruin in 1953 after the Korean war to a thriving economy in '97. It is sometimes redundantly called the "Miracle on the Hangang River." 

Before 1997 jobs were plentiful in Korea. Even uneducated folks could get stable jobs that were almost impossible to get fired from. I don't need to tell you what happened. The richer Korea got, the greedier the few at the top became (government and chaebols) and before too long that brotherhood and cooperation to work together and make the country strong was highjacked by the greedy few who overextended themselves and fucked things up for everybody. See? Not brilliant. And we all know what happens when the rich few fuck things up for everybody - everybody but the rich few have to unfuck the things they fucked up for everybody. And that, in a dismissive nutshell, was yer IMF Crisis. 

I was here in '97 and I saw the citizens of Korea melting down tons of their personal gold items (about 227 tons to be precise) as one of the "austerity measures" attached to the IMF loans. They were still caught up in a frenzy of patriotic brotherhood that working hard and succeeding together can lead to. And this was promptly taken as naïve innocence ripe for exploitation by the degenerate gambler plutocracy that inexplicably still commanded the support of the people. Other "austerity measures" were called for by the IMF, which is essentially the World Bank, which is essentially the US. Debt imperialism is what we're talking about here. They're basically the international capital mafia. Here's a video that explains it well:

So in essence, what happened in 1997 was Korea being forced to choose whether it wanted to get in line with IMF/World Bank policy and have a seat at the big boys' table, or be one of their bitch countries. Korea chose the former, but with that choice came some changes to banking, financial systems, accounting practices, and... you guessed it... labour standards. 

I was working at Chonnam University in the early 2000's and management had been systematically stealing overtime pay from every teacher. We brought it up at a meeting and, in typical Korean crook fashion, caught red-handed they got angry at US and promised to make our lives difficult for our insolence and ungratefulness. They began making us teach on national holidays and/or do make-up classes and making us do make-up classes for sickness and/or come into work sick. A bunch of us got to work checking to see if we had any legal recourse and the answer turned out to be... yes and no. I distinctly remember contacting a labour lawyer by email and explaining what was going on and he wrote me some lengthy replies on Korean legal history and such that cleared things up for us all. I can't remember all of it, but he said that there were indeed laws prohibiting the above behaviors by any employer and told me the Korean word for sick leave (apeun nal I think) but told me that if I want to continue working in Korea, I should never EVER utter that word or any equivalent. It's like saying Voldemort! So needless to say, we had virtually no chance of arguing at the labour board of Korea. We might have even been black-listed if we'd tried.

I can't remember if he said it was since 1997 that Koreans had started getting militant about not taking sick days but I think it was. As all of the above articles point out, Koreans still do take sick days. Almost half of Koreans! How do they manage that if they're not legally mandated in this country where they're considered tantamount to treason? It's most likely the old Koreans who know that it's still the law and aren't buying into the mythology that sick days are not part of Korea law. 

At any rate, the story has a happy ending. A representative from the labour board of Korea came to Chonnam University, probably concerned about being contacted by SEVERAL of us teachers, and told the offending assholes to knock it off. Forcing people to work on national holidays, while sick, or do make-up classes for either, was, it turned out, even illegal in Korea. So they immediately stopped.

As an aside, people working while sick is one of the reasons for the positive association between masks and heroic citizens in Korea. That and protestors who wore them. This socially cemented stigma against taking sick days has probably saved employers mountains of money in paid sick leave too. Maybe enough to make a large dent in that IMF loan Korea got in '97? And don't kid yourself, employers regularly force employees to work while sick or do make-up hours, my current company not excluded. It is also part of the reason mask mandates have long since been lifted and Koreans STILL patriotically wear them even though they don't have to.

What the hell bro? No, honetly... 

Am I wrong, or are they currently trying to act like they are inventing the sick day in Korea? I mean, all it would have taken is an employee or two with some balls to tell the employer they're not coming into work and they can go fuck themselves. Or even just ask one of the old, most likely senior employees how THEY get away with taking sick days. Has neither happened in the last 26 years?

Not to toot my own horn but, go to 1:11 in the following vid:

Hwa - a - fucking - HWAAANNHH! I've stood up to Korean employers and got what I demanded. It doesn't take a worldwide pandemic to change them. I told the management at Carrot that sending the teachers from Icheon to Seoul to write lessons was a waste of everybody's time and we'd get more lessons written in less time if we could stay home. I was right, we stayed home, got more done in less time, management was happy and the teachers were happy. They still do it that way. I told management at Gongju Dae it was a waste of time having me sitting in my office desk-warming when I had 6 hours off. They eventually relented. Now I don't work for either of those jobs any more... and if Koreans wanted to stand up for themselves, they might have to change jobs too, but it could be done. 

I guess this is another thing done the hard way in Korea.

Anyway, it's long overdue and I'm happy Korean bosses are smartening up. The reason for not allowing sick days and all the desk warming and time wasting at work done in Korea is not as dignified as all the patriotic mumbo jumbo you might get if you ask an employer for the reasons why they are the way they are. The real reason is not a brain teaser either. They're just childishly untrusting of their workers and have been allowed to be so. I guess they reckon everybody will ask to work from home and drink soju all day, then call in sick the next day all on the company dime. The pandemic taught them different and adjustments are being made. FINALLY. So that's a good thing. But it's incredible that it had to come to this!

Oh, by the way, if you want to research the existence of sick day laws in Korea, they've been blocked very well. It wasn't as hard back in the 2000's as it is today to find them. But I have read the Labor Standards Act of Korea and they're not in there. For some, that might lead you to the belief that there ARE none because surely that's where they'd be, no? For a guy like me, the absence is almost evidence of their existence. They take the fewest sick days and have among the lowest productivity in OECD countries. Those stats you can find. They're starting to realize these two things might be related. Not only that, but maybe walking around the office with THE PLAGUE, mask or not, is a bad idea. Do you suppose optics has anything to do with this? Maybe acting like it was the law instead of we were just forcing people to work sick, spread sickness, and be less productive cuz we wanted more money looks better. What do ya reckon?

Now if we can get them to stop requiring a doctor's note. If I'm sick, I don't wanna go anywhere including the doctor's office. Don't make me go out and endanger others to placate you and your juvenile trust issues. But maybe I'm overreaching here. 

Have I Told You Lately That I Love These Guys?

 For all the complaining I've done about Korean winter NOT being cold enough or having enough snow, and for all the complaining Heather has done about it being too cold and having too much snow, I think the following pics might as well be considered a mike drop for me. Well, not literally, Mike wasn't dropped, he's in the pics of the fam. Well, minus the dogs and plus Heather's' parents that is. What a good lookin' bunch, eh? I forget the photographer's name but she was a northern American and obviously she knew what she was doing. Even managed to make ME look good! Check these out:

Now come on! How can anyone NOT love winter? I love that last shot! Me and the Kellster. I can't believe how big he is! He'll be bigger than me soon. The Spiwak/Peet family have sustained me spiritually through my many years in Korea. I love them like my own family. What's not to love? These pics are like model shots for cryin' out loud! I get a bit sweaty-eyed typing this but they're (probably - most likely - almost certainly) leaving the ROK in less than a year. I know I'm gonna miss them, but we've been temporarily separated before. It's been my privilege to share intervals of each of their lives with them. A better fam I have never encountered in my travels. Spin me around in any room of my house and I can't open my eyes without seeing an example of their collective generosity, but at the risk of corndoggin' the crap outta this post, the greatest gift they've given me has been familial forgiveness of drunken (and sober) shenanigans, putting up with my patented negativity, not always pointing out the flaws in my arguments, basically giving my assholery some latitude. Yes, I'm talking about the (gag, cough cough) unconditional love that only the best of friends and family can provide. While many have de-friended me after one such awkward post or message, these guys have weathered an F6 tornado of them. Oofa Madonne we could get into some doozies here! I reckon, and this is after 55 years of reckoning, that if a person has dealt with another person's shit, they're friends. When it is literal, why it's gotta be something more, no? I mean, we could probably go up and down a list of excremental bodily functions here. If I went out of my way to be a dick to this family, they'd forgive me. You know, like the mother of the serial killer. That's the kind of acceptance I feel here. I bet if I approached any member of this family and asked if they knew where a guy could bury some incriminating evidence, they'd give serious thought to becoming accomplices. Anyway, I feel like I wouldn't have survived so long in Korea without them and I love them all. 

Now... having said that obvious, but maybe not often enough said thing... I have to recant some of my previous trash-talking to Heather. Although I will never agree with her on cold weather, or even the way to measure how cold that weather is, and even though, the pics have clearly shown that winter RULES... I must admit to empathizing with Heather for a fraction of a second just two days ago. The following is an artist's rendering of an actual event that occurred Thursday morning on the campus of the Hyundai/Kia motors compound where I work. There had been a dusting of snow... FINALLY... and I was cheering the few inches of freshly fallen snow even though it made the commute to the compound a bit longer. I had just had a 5-day weekend for Seollal (Lunar New Year) and had filled my newly purchased cup with Coffee Bean coffee. I buy one or two every day and thought I'd better be environmentally conscious, so I bought a mug. At the big Coffee Bean on the campus (there are at least two) you actually get a discount for using your own cup! So I filled up (at the one where I DIDN'T get a discount) and walked to the building where my morning classes would take place, C 5_10. Just before getting there, this happened:

 

This is a pic of my actual notes from that day of classes. My first two classes were cancelled due to one student catching cold (so he says) and the other being on a business trip to Osaka. Her I believe. Anyway, it gave me time to kill so I drew the above pic of my epic wipe out. I only spilled a little coffee although the mug came completely out of my hand. I didn't hurt myself or break my hip if you are wondering. Still not that old. But I WAS embarrassed. The area was almost deserted, but there was one car coming down the road behind me so I popped up like a Bozo the Clown punching balloon. I checked as I took the elevator to the 4th floor where my morning classes were and found almost no snow/slush on my pants or jacket. I must have really gotten up fast! But I'm sure the occupants of that car had a good laugh. Later when I was going to lunch at the cafeteria just down the road I saw a dude snow-blowing the sidewalk there. It was dangerously slippery!

So chalk one up for Heather and her hiver hatred. I guess I am not totally right that winter is awesome. And, bless her heart, when I told everybody about the perilous fall I had survived, guess who was the only one to respond. Good old Heather. I love her guts.  

I suppose I should end this post before I gush too much and start serenading. I just wanted to put these pics up for posterity.  

Before I finish, an update on the job. I was audited today by the head teacher Daniel. He sat in on a class with probably my worst student. In some ways this is bad. But he says that the majority of students are like this dude. I have had only ONE guy like this dude so far. This dude! He didn't do his preparation for the lesson so it was much harder for me to do. And since EVERY other one of my students listened to me in week one when I told them to prep for every lesson, I was not used to teaching this lesson to an unprepared student. Trust ME to get evaluated on the lesson taught to the only unprepared student! But on the other hand, this makes me feel absolutely great about the job I'm doing because Daniel said the majority of most teacher's students are like this. I have just the one. Either they're very good students, they're afraid of me, I'm "lucky?", OR maybe I did a good job prepping my students in the first week and getting them to buy into the 50/50 flipped classroom scheme. 

It's incredible that this was the student Daniel chose! He was the one and only guy who did NOT fully commit to the 50/50. He said with his job and his 2 daughters he probably won't have time to prepare. He said that. He was the ONLY one. And sure enough, he's the guy I get evaluated on. I even went to the trouble of sending him a text message the day before class saying, "Okay, we're gonna have the head teacher evaluating the class and this is what I'll be teaching. Okay?" He said, "Check. Gotcha. No prob." Then he comes to class without having read the ONE PARAGRAPH he was responsible for! One paragraph! I should be mad at the guy, but here in Korea, especially around holiday time, and with the way jobs pressure the higher ups, I kinda feel sorry for him. And after all, he WAS honest enough to warn me...

But of all the luck, eh?

All Work and No Play Makes Dave a Dull Blogger

 Regular readers may have recognized the reason for my recent reticence. The persistent postlessness is a product of prodigious professional peon-esque occupation preoccupation. A couple apologetic bouquets of alliteration for you all!

The new job has kept me hopping for over 3 weeks now. I'm in week 4 of work even though I've been employed by SPEP since October of last year (officially Nov. 1 though). It's nice when you get a 5-day weekend in your first month of full time work (Lunar New Year here). For two months I was receiving more and more training until finally they just had me working full time hours even though the agreement was no full time hours until Jan. 3. I was doing training at the SPEP office (don't ask me what it stands for, they are in love with abbreviations, which they erroneously call "acronyms" because in modern English language usage, which is becoming more about impressing than communicating, it's better to go ahead and use a fancy word than look it up) and I was pencilled in for telephone teaching 8 hours at a time, 10-minute call at a time - which adds up to 48 phone calls without even a piss break in between. Two weeks of that, with 4 hours of commute time added on kinda hampers the old studies, which they knew about and assured me would not be interfered with until the new year.

Just LOOK at that paragraph! Warning signs all over the place. It's a miracle I have done ANY work for this company! And you haven't heard the half of it! But let's just skip over the half I haven't told you and get to my day shall we? I was told I'd be working in Namyang, which immediately made me wonder why in 2 1/2 months of apartment hunting Namyang was never an area we did any of the said hunting. I think I was found an apartment in Jukjeon because it is a fairly central location amidst all of the various SPEP job locations while being close to exactly none of them. So I was told I'd work from 10:30-7:00 at the Hyundai/Kia compound in Namyang. I guess I was meant to cream my jeans that I was tangentially working for a huge Korean company, like pretty much any Korean would. For me, the employer I am employed by is the important thing, not the client. I would still be working for SKhynix if I did not have to work for them through the horrible middlemen at Carrot. This I expected to be the same and so far I expected right. 

10:30-7 is more than 8 hours a day, a long day to be sure for an ESL teacher but I was fine with it since the past half a year of studies has drained the old bank account. Also, I was told we'd be getting a long lunch every day. Not a bad deal. But, as has been the pattern with this and all other Korean employers in my career, they left out a few important deets. You see because I'm not in Namyang, where I'd pay about 500 thou a month for a bigger place, but in Jukjeon where I pay 850 thou a month for a smaller one (I guess I'm meant to cream my jeans because I'm close to Seoul like pretty much any Korean would. For me living in a bigger place in the country has proven to be preferable in almost every way.) there is a considerable commute. I walk to the shuttle stop from 8:15-8:40, so a little less than half an hour. I can also walk - subway - walk and it takes the same amount of time and somehow ADDS to the walking. The shuttle picks me (and Jess a co-worker who lives nearby) up and takes about 50 minutes to get to the compound in Namyang. We get there around 10 and have time to get to our classes and set up by 10:30. Then we teach 25-minute classes (and a few hour-long classes) until 2. This is lunch time. We have 1 1/2 hours for lunch, which is long, but the cafeterias are not open at this time. I have been packing my own lunch for most days so far. Then from 3:30-7 we do more classes. After that it's another hour and a half of commute time and I'm home by 8:30.

SO, rather than 10:30-7 with a long lunch, I am working closer to 12 hours with a long lunch. I consider the full commute to be "work" although I doubt I'm paid for all of it if any. It's a rather large difference from what I was led to believe. But, as I say, this is nothing new and I was fully expecting something like this. It softens the blow when you fully expect cheap chicanery from your Korean employer.  

Now for the reasons I haven't told SPEP that unless they're saying spep, their name, and a ton of other abbreviations they seem to fancy as legitimization, are not acronyms, and, oh, by the way, you can Johnny Paycheck this gig! 1. As mentioned, I need the dough. SPEP pays. They've shown that. So at least I've got that going for me. 2. I've been getting over 10,000 steps a day on my pedometer since starting this prolonged intensive camp. I can't tell you if I've lost any weight or gut girth, but I do feel better. 3. The sugar numbers are plunging. I haven't changed my eating habits much. If anything they're worse eating dinner at 9 every night. But I have broken my record a few times since starting, and I've dropped my medicine dosage. 4. So far I like the co-workers and the students. That's always the best part of the job for me. And all adult students is a nice thing. 

So this job will be good for my financial and physical health although it will be a constant strain on the mental health. What I haven't told you yet is that there are even MORE hours to this job. Any teacher will know this. Even for an hour long class, it's important to do your prep. For intense 25-minute lessons, it's even more important. With short lessons you get even more students. Double actually. And that almost doubles the prep time. It certainly consumes a lot of extra time if you want to be a GOOD teacher and differentiate! I have over 50 students, most one-on-one, and I am trying to tailor lessons to their specific needs. This is done by giving them feedback at the end of every lesson that includes new vocab, pronunciation coaching, achievements/improvements, about 4 sentences from class that include errors for them to correct, grammar suggestions, and any other feedback you can give them. Then, we are responsible for their online attendance, which is sometimes a challenge since there are lots of tricky (and inexplicable) nuances to it. To name one, if a student has missed class due to a meeting, a common occurrence, there is no M for meeting we can use for their attendance. We can't use A for absent or W for work, we enter it in as Business trip domestic. On the same app is LPE (again don't ask me what THIS acronot stands for) where we have to give each student, most of whom we see for 25 mins a week, running grades from one to five on: 1. punctuality 2. class preparation & homework 3. speaking effort 4. attitude and motivation 5. Concentration 6. English-only policy 7. Book/no book 8. Listening comprehension 9. Grammar Usage-SVA (some vacuous acronot) 10. Grammar usage - verb tense 11. Grammar usage - Prepositions 12. Grammar usage - conditionals 13. Vocabulary Precision 14. Pronunciation 15. Application 16. Overall comments.

As you might have surmised, I have taken a leave of absence from my studies. I somehow managed to get my third 4.0 in a row even though I wasn't able to put as much effort into my studies as I'd have liked to at the end of last semester due to the unexpected work from SPEP as well as the holiday season. I actually just didn't do some of the assignments like marking fellow students' papers. So my overall CGPA went up.

 Not bad eh? But half a master's and a token gets you a ride on the bus eh? It's worthless until it's finished no matter how impressive the grades are. Tell you the truth, it's been a lot more expensive than I'd calculated. Not so much the tuition, but the survival without work. That's why I'm subjecting myself to the SPEPian water torture described above. This is the way I had to get my BA. It took a long time, but I got it. I'm sure this will be the same. I'll keep my eyes on the prize and soon I'll have enough to go back to studying. The harder the work, the more I appreciate the studying days. Even though I read the equivalent to a book a week, write for hours and hours, and have the frustration of doing group projects online with people all over the world while studying, it's like a holiday from work. From THIS job it'll seem like Easy Street! My LOA (as SPEP calls it) has been approved till June. My contract with SPEP ends in the GLORIOUS month of October. I'll have to see what transpires in the mean time. Of course I'd love to make it to the end of this contract and get the severance pay and have plenty of dough to get back to my studies, but who can say? Maybe I'll get an offer from a uni that will give me a sweet schedule that would allow me to work AND do my studies part time. Maybe SPEP will fire me. Maybe I'll quit. Anything can happen between now and October. I likely won't be posting a lot to keep you updated, but if not, just assume I'm still working. I'll let you know if there are any major changes.

We Must Cultivate Our Gardens

 This week is a good time to come back from my 2-month absence I reckon. I am working (and even getting paid for it) and studying, but have a wee bit of time to post. This week in my master's studies we were only assigned a discussion topic and a portfolio topic for personal reflection. Usually there's a writing assignment as well. I managed to combine the two assignments in what I think is a clever way (scuse me whilst I pat myself on the back). 

The first is the discussion topic. We're halfway through the course "Living and Learning Globally" now and it has so far been only about conservation, saving the planet and such. It's a topic about which I feel strongly, but I was expecting a bit of a bird course about teaching outside your country, being culturally sensitive and that sort of thing which, of course, I would ace. Turns out this course has been the toughest of the 6 I've taken! Every week we're assigned a book worth of reading, the usual writing, grading, groupwork, etc., and THEN some extra material on the state of our planet, the sustainable development goals of the UN and stuff like that. 

The first part of this post was an assignment I was none too thrilled about. I don't like rubrics because, like standardized tests, I find they focus students' efforts on passing, not learning. We were ordered to make a rubric to evaluate students who were doing projects like the ones in the YouTube vid about Indian Ocean region kids conservation projects. I designed a rubric for a garden project that I hoped would encourage learning. Here it is:

                                               Garden-Based Learning Rubric

The part that most impressed me in the video about the Indian Ocean region’s eco-schools was the garden-based learning project. In the past I have read about garden-based learning projects and actually experimented with them on my own a few times. I believe it is a good example of experiential learning, ecological literacy, agricultural discovery, environmental awareness, hands-on science, cooperation/collaboration, moral improvement through hard work, and possibly most importantly a chance to form a connection with nature that will grow into responsible stewardship and conservation of living things on our planet. I particularly liked the way Matthew Teeluck, a student in the video, said that he shared what he was learning at school with his parents who don’t know much about environmental issues (Eco-Schools, 2018).

I decided that if I had to make a rubric for a future project such as this, it would be divided into three parts: two parts formative and one part summative evaluation. The first will be my observation of cooperation and communication between the groups. Though the project will be about 90% hands-on, it will require effective and efficient collaboration with a partner for things like dividing responsibilities equitably. Planting, tilling, fertilizing, watering, weeding, and harvesting duties must be shared. There will be a variety of vegetables to choose from as well, so that choice me be arrived at democratically. Finally, the fruits (or vegetables) of the students’ labors must be divided up reasonably between the members of each group.

The second part would consist of a written report done by the students (ideally in teams of two) on how gardening is a good way to help the environment. In-class lessons paired with the garden project will include gardening virtues such as cleaning the air; benefitting the soil; lowering trips to the grocery store; reducing imported produce; composting and using your own waste; benefits to bees, worms, birds, spiders, insects; reduction of carbon footprint; reduction of global warming; boosting physical health through exercise and nutrition; stimulating mental health through peace and beauty; and lowering noise pollution. Any combination of five of these or any other valid benefits to gardening will earn the group full marks on their essay.

Part three will be based on what kind of connection the students form with nature. This may seem a lot for a teacher to expect from students, however, as of March, 2021 over 83 million Tamagotchi electronic, egg-shaped pets had been sold. If millions of people can form bonds with those, I think connections with living plants should not be considered an unreasonable thing to ask. Maria Montessori was an advocate of garden-based education. In “The Absorbent Mind” she said that when a student learns that the life of a plant depends on his/her care, it becomes more than a lesson, it becomes a mission (Subramanium, 2002). Part three will be a measure of whether the groups just thought of their plants as schoolwork, or if they took a genuine interest in their survival and success.

Cooperation and Communication	5. Students exhibit above average skills in democratic decision making and sharing.	4. Students show good skills in decision making and sharing.	3. Students show average cooperation and decision making skills.	2. Students have some difficulty in working with one another and making decisions equitably.	1. Students do not succeed in working well with one another.
Conservationism (Written report)	Students mention five or more environmental advantages of gardening.	Students mention four environmental advantages of gardening.	Students mention three environmental advantages of gardening.	Students mention two environmental advantages of gardening.	Students mention one or fewer environmental advantages of gardening.
Connection	Students show an obvious connection to nature.	Students show a palpable connection to nature.	Students show some connection to nature.	Students show very little connection to nature.	Students show no connection to nature.

  

References

Eco-Schools. (2018, December 5). Eco-schools Indian Ocean: from schools to communities [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ofvcL7MZ4XY

Subramanium, A. (2002). Garden-based learning in basic education: a historical review. UC Berkely Monograph Series. https://doi.org/https://littlegreenthumbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/GardenBasedLearninginBaseicEducation_4H.pdf

The second assignment of the week was more in my wheelhouse. It was a quote from Voltaire that some of you have probably heard. His epigrams could be said to be the most recognized of his contributions to literature and this was one that was well known: "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." We were told to contemplate the quote and relate it to our teaching. I did that while also relating it to the other writing assignment of the week. Here's what I wrote:

                                              Question Everything

Voltaire said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”

            What is your initial reaction to this quote?

The first thing I thought of when I read this quote was the two-word title of this paper and the best advice I have ever received or given: question everything. I received it from my 17^th century literature professor Joyce Forbes, and it summarized quite succinctly the renewed hunger for knowledge and the vast supplies of it to which, at the time, my university education was opening my eyes. That, in turn, reminded me of the Socrates quote, “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing” (Kreeft, 2002). The more I question things, the more I learn, and the more I learn, the more I learn I need to learn. Learning enough to satisfy my hunger is a lifelong challenge I cannot satisfy, but at which I will zealously fail. To be complacent in one’s knowledge is a sorry state I rejected early in life, but intellectual stagnation is a fate for which many volunteer, and this led me to my deeper reaction to this quote.

            What is your deeper reaction to this quote?

Consider the source. Voltaire was a significant contributor to the 18^th century Enlightenment. He declared himself a member of the “party of humanity” and waged war on the twin Hydras of fanaticism and superstition to which the European social order of his time had fallen victim to their intellectual endarkening, in his opinion (Shank, 2022). His best known work, “Candide,” which is subtitled, “or The Optimist,” is a savagely told satirical tale of an ignorant optimist upon whom the world of horrors is unleashed. Candide, the title character, grows up in a castle and learns that “all is best in this best of possible worlds” (Boyd, 2017).  This is the philosophy taught to him by his tutor Pangloss. “Pan” and “glossa” are Greek words for “all” and “tongue” respectively. I will not get deeply into the plot, but Voltaire’s life (and mine) were similarly blissfully ignorant and optimistic in youth until knowledge of the world was revealed through experience and questioning comfortable positivity.  Voltaire was, and remains to this day, a hero to those who would promote skepticism, critical reason and political resistance to achieve intellectual liberty and advance progressive projects of modernization and reform (Shank, 2022). This led to an even deeper reaction to this quote.

            What is your even deeper reaction to this quote?

It seems to me that the good people who make up the majority in our world seem to be held in a similar miasma of false optimism and ignorant inaction as Voltaire perceived the people of Europe to be under during his day. In no aspect more than the main subject of this course: global competence. People seem to be kept globally incompetent with a Panglossian optimism about the state of our planet complicated by environmental and ecological illiteracy. In Voltaire’s day it might have (or might not have) been more a question of philosophy whereas in modern times the Panglosses of the world are captains of industry who want to wring every resource out of the world before someone else can, with little to no concern about destroying the planet that is the only place where they can use those resources. In a word, they are apocalyptically antisocial and need to be subverted. These are the people who are telling us that they have all the answers when their one and only question is, “How can I maximize my profit?” When will we realize they are all tongue?

            How do you relate this quote to active/inquiry-based learning and assessment of student learning outcome?

The answer to that question is in the word “inquiry,” isn’t it? As a teacher in a world where people are assets of industry and beholden to capitalist sophistry, we need to encourage our students to disregard the false answers and concentrate on the question from whence they all emanate. And we need to teach our students to question that question. Is life all about profit? Is profit just about resources? What are the things that will profit most and from which the most will profit? Soon the idea of profit will take on a less industrial and more egalitarian meaning. Soon we will realize that we profit more from brotherhood, compassion, and empathy than competition, avarice, and violence. Soon we will realize worldwide similarities abound and Robert Putnam’s idea of bonding social capital will replace money as capital and a novel capitalism will be formed (Claridge, 2018). If we can teach our students to fight extremism and radicalism with harmony and mutual respect, they can be the Voltaires of our era. We must protect our own planet, or as Candide might say, “We must cultivate our own garden” (Boyd, 2017). Our students can save our planet. What a learning outcome that could be!

 

References

Boyd, C. (2017). Voltaire's Candide is the hero we need. Medium. https://doi.org/https://clarkboyd.medium.com/voltaires-candide-is-the-hero-we-need-59e1c9e9292

Claridge, T. (2018). What is bonding social capital? Social Capital Research. https://doi.org/https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/what-is-bonding-social-capital/

Kreeft, P. (2002). Philosophy 101 by Socrates: an introduction to philosophy via Plato's apology: forty things philosophy is according to history's first and wisest philosopher. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Shank, J. B. (2022). Voltaire (E. N. Zalta, Ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://doi.org/https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=voltaire

 

What do ya figure?