Thinkin'

I've got an excess of downtime. Since coming back from my visa run and getting set up at my new place, the main appointments I have had have been going away parties, meetings with co-workers and such. I've had to set up the new computer so that I can download materials for future jobs, (not to mention movies for watching right now), and I've had to go a few places to get items for my room, meet people, tie up loose ends at Wall Street, etc. Don't underestimate the complications that can arise every time a person has to go somewhere in Jakarta. I went to pick up my final paycheck the other day. It took two hours to get to Wall Street by cab and two hours to get home. Missed a student's birthday party because of it. Not to mention I was paid by check. I can't cash a check without a bank account. I can't get a bank account without a proper work visa, (KITAS), I can't get a KITAS from Wall Street. So luckily Tegu, the money man at WSE Pondok Indah, cashed my check for me.

But I have had more than the usual amount of time to myself so I have started catching up on movies I missed. Downloaded the Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club, American Hustle and a few episodes of a few TV shows. It's nice to have a small computer so I can just watch while I'm in my bed.

Also, as planned, I have been able to study the language here in my downtime. My goal is to use this time MOSTly for that. But it hasn't materialized yet, though I have done some studying. If I had classes I think I'd be better off. Same thing with exercise. I planned to work out more and that hasn't happened yet either. Both require money and since it would not be wise to count my chickens here I am reluctant to spend money on those things. I looked into the gym nearby and it's 75 bucks a month. That I don't think I'd pay even in Canada unless it was a really good gym where I could just work out and GET out. It's tough to find a no nonsense gym here. All I seem to find are the "Hey everybody, look at me work out!" type of gym where you can bring your laptop and show everyone how important you are by multitasking and skyping with a client while you drink your protein shake listen to Spinal Tap volume gag-reflex testing dance tunes and carbo load with a power bar pre-training. All in the brightly coloured, predominantly glass fishbowls that allow passers-by to admire your physicl dedication. PPpppppbbbbtttthhhhhbbbbtttt! Give me a sweaty, honest, stinky gym to work out in total anonymity and I'll pay the 75 bucks. As for the Indonesian classes, I haven't even found a good book let alone a good class. I've been using my dictionary believe it or not. That and trying to pick up words from TV I watch. But I've been watching no TV lately so there ya go.

What I HAVE been doing is thinking. And because of some friends' blog and facebook posts I've been thinking a lot about one of my favourite topics: where everything came from. Some people like to think about women. I prefer the cosmos and all things in existence because I think there is a better shot of someday figuring it out. Though I seriously doubt man will ever attain the knowledge to decipher either it is really interesting to me to look into new ideas and arguments. I like to debate and discuss objectively with friends to exchange reading lists and maybe pool resources and facts to gain greater understanding, but, unfortunately, this is a topic about which I have found very few people able to have objective discourse. Everyone seems to have strong opinions even though there can be no absolute certainty in any view or opinion. So undoubtedly if I type on about some new genetic information that brings us closer to an understanding of intelligent creation, I will have detractors. And if I get into a long blog post about how I have found some new information that clarifies the theory of macro-evolution, I will also have detractors. So why do it at all? Because I have the time. Blame the Indonesian government.

Have you ever noticed that when you look at the estimated ages of various things it seems that, almost without exception, the more complex things are the younger things. For example, the Earth is believed to have originated about 5 billion years ago. Bacteria and algae - 3 billion years ago. Filamentous algae, (whatever that is) - 2 billion years ago. Marine invertebrates - 600 million years ago. Fish and land plants - 400 million. Amphibians - 300 million. Dinosaurs - 200 million. Mammals - 150 million. Primates - 20 million. I got this list from an MIT webpost so I'm hoping it is as reputable as the college. At least.

This fits the explanation of macro-evolution that has everything, presumably from the massively non-complex amoeba on up to the most complex creature, developing in order of increasing complexity. That is, the more highly complex life forms would tend to be the younger. And to throw in a complete non-sequitur this is why Eve came after Adam. Woman is to man as watch is to pebble as our friend William Paley would have said. He's the guy who, in the 1700's, gave us the watchmaker analogy in which he posited that something highly complex suggests an intelligent creator. The key part of his theory, to me, was when he said that even the simplest of natural living things are unimaginably far beyong a watch in complexity. Remember this was years before Dalton's atomic theory and QUITE a while before SUBatomic theory. As science progressed, Paley's statement just got righter and righter. Things are highly complex! And it would seem that the theory of macro-evolution, that is the idea that everything came into being by evolving through variations or "mutations," makes sense since it is theorized to have happened in order of increasing complexity.

However, the mutation, the very engine of evolution, is itself a process of DE-complexity. There have been some studies that have shown what appeared to be new genetic information being created through mutations but what was actually happening could be more accurately explained as unscrambling pre-existing information, decompressing packed information, turning on and off certain genes, or even destroying genes such as prohibitor genes so that some pre-existing material, not new material, is no longer prohibited. The vast majority, (if not all), of genetic mutations lead to a loss of genetic material, and all those that would appear to have lead to the creation of new genetic material, whether they did or did not, are not consistent with evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theorists admit this.

This could lead the reasonable thinking person to beieve that if the theory of evolution is true, and if genetic mutation is its core scientific causation, there must have been a pattern of decreasing complexity. The original being, or anti-amoeba, must have been extremely complex and through billions of years, or maybe more, of genetic mutational simplification, or loss of genetic material, we arrived at the youngest, less complex species known today. But that is the exact opposite of what the theory of evolution suggests.

At the very least it seems almost inevitable that more complex structures exist in the genome of species than the ones proposed by Darwin. https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/p320x320/10300799_866302033390809_5444026252074926043_n.jpg?oh=c26afe611a863432517a41874db1be38&oe=541EEE44&__gda__=1410825588_d8d15ae7d6c99168c3cdf4ce36384c0aThis necessitates the idea of more and more purposeful, and less and less random genetic mutations that helped evolution along. And we're back to one of the main problems I've always had with evolutionary theory. Call it purposeful, or natural selection but when you tell me that nature is an unintelligent, non-sentient, force my mind rebels at the idea of nature making selections or having purposes or goals. Mutation rates just don't correspond to evolution rates. The scientific records show that there were bursts of evolutionary mutations the rates of which defy what we have learned through scientific research of both ideas. Giving more credence to the concept that genes perform their duties with a will, not "as if they had a will," as Richard Dawkins suggested. How selfish can that gene be observed to behave before ACTUAL selfishness is attributed to it?

It is a personal theory of mine that as science progresses and we see, (or at least see the palpable plausibility of), sub-sub-sub, (and so on), atomic particles, all the while discovering, (or at least discovering evidence that would lead to a very strong belief in the theory of), ever expansive universes, one day, most likely when I am dead, science and spirituality will end their rivalry and come to the theory, (not the certainty but the theory), that infinity both directions and higher and higher complexity doesn't just suggest but it indicates and all but proves the presence of intelligence in the coming into being of all that exists. At the very least it removes all distinctions between believers in God and believers in God particles. The more science I am exposed to, the easier it becomes to think this way.

But perhaps I'm easily convinced. Perhaps it's easier for me to see that the belief in a scientific theory and a spiritual theory are, in essence, the same. Hearing old Leon Ledderman talk about aliens and soccer balls in his analogy of the theoretical sciences sounds to me remarkably similar to a poet like Sapho seeing the handiwork of God in the beauty of nature.

Now listen, I think it's wrong to believe either way without doing some research. In fact I think a person should do research in both areas. It is also wrong, in my opinion, to believe in something based on the weaknesses in the arguments for the opposition. Investigate both sides thoroughly before forming an opinion. That's what I always thought was the best way to do things. And it is how I have formed this opinion. Only it seems this opinion is getting less and less popular while I think it should be trending in the opposite direction. That to me is weird enough to blog about.

Leastaways, that's what I reckon.

Singapore, Sarina, Nokia

So I wake up at 3:30 a.m. after working till 9 the day before and not doing anything to celebrate my last day at WallStreet. I got to sleep at about midnight so really it was a nap. The gate to my street was still down so the Bluebird taxi I had arranged for 4:30 couldn't get to my place. I just walked around the corner and met him. Not many taxis on the road at 4:30. Not many anythings. So we drive to the airport and get there at about 5:15 for my 7:05flight to Singapore. Plenty of time to spare. I KNOW myself!

The driver says to me, "Terminal mister?" So I sez, "Interrrnational," rolling the r in an exaggerated attempt to feign some unearned Bahasa ability. He responds in the affirmative giving me the impression that my ersatz Indonesian has done the trick and foolishly assuming that if you are flying internationally you fly out of the international terminal. He drops me off at a dark, lifeless, decidedly unbustling wing of the Jakarta airport. It definitely says "International" on the building but it gave me an Indonesian vibe. I dunno, it might have been that only one of every ten people I saw there was upright and awake. There was one guy smoking, as there always is, one guy walking around and about thirty people of varying ages, bed clothing and sleeping positions trying their best to get their 8 hours.

My driver was the third. He was working the old familiar no change gag on me. We had taken the toll road to the airport and he had instantly produced the 12,500 Rupiah or whatever it was to pay the toll. I suppose that was the last small change he had in the world because now with a bill of 119,000 Rupiah, after receiving from me three 50,000 Rp. bills he was doing the no change facial screws and gesticulations the cabbies in Jakarta probably study harder than their city maps. I, with my persisting newby thinking, stood there calculating that 150 thou is about 15 bucks and he had probably paid a buck fifty for the toll road so really he is conning me out of a buck and change here. So I gave him the three blues, (50,000 Rp notes are blue), thereby enabling the no small change ploy and increasing my, and everybody else's odds of encountering it again. Sorry all you expats in Indo.

I get into this building literally stepping over blankets, prayer rugs, tooth brushes and alarm clocks and walk the entire length of this apparently neglected Soekarno-Hatta International Airport offshoot to be met by the guy I assume to have been the lookout. If not him then the smoker. He walks the length of the hall, that's really all the place was, pointing to the ceiling saying, "Upstairs!" It takes a few minutes but I eventually realize that I have to go outside to take the elevator that leads to the outside of the inside of the upstairs where I think I might want to be. When I get there I find two pastry/coffee shops and an A&W just opening up. There were some signs for other Asian airways and a departure gate with a few security guards taking tickets and checking passports. I show him my passport and ticket printout only to be told something I had had Boston strong suspicions of already, "Terminal three," he gruffly announced to me. I do the blank stare and arms out shoulder shrug, a move that has served me well on my international travels, and it produces again. "Outside. Shuttlebus."

I go outside to get a shuttlebus and see a security guard sitting on the last, (or first), cart in the train of luggage carts having a smoke. I ask him how to get to terminal three and he says, "There. Yellow shuttlebus." See? Security guards... So I wait and wait. Still not panicky because I have given myself enough time to deal with this sort of eventuality eventuating. The shuttlebus comes and I get on. It stops at terminal "tiga" and I get off. No problem there. I know "tiga" means "three." I found an Air Asia check-in area and asked what to do. The attendant showed me that I needed to input my flight code and wait. I do so and nothing happens. Everyone is confused. Then they realize I hadn't booked a seat. If you don't book a seat you have to get your boarding pass INSIDE. Whatever! I got inside to find some lengthy line-ups. It's now getting close to boarding time. About half way through the line a lady who has an Air Asia uniform on and has been flashing me glances from time to time comes up to me and says, "Only one luggage?" I said yes. So she directs me to the very same machine I had tried before. When it doesn't work she gets confused. I tell her that I have not reserved a seat yet. She then reserves me a seat and voila the machine works. Next time I'll know.

The flight went well. I originally thought, by looking at the times on the tickets, that I'd have about 5 hours to kill in Singapore so I was planning to go to one of the really great gardens they have there. But when I got to the airport, saw the line-ups for immigration that would easily shave half an hour off my time, realized that Singapore was an hour different from Jakarta, I decided that with a max of 3 1/2 hours it wouldn't be worth it to go sightseeing. And besides, what an awesome airport to wander around in! So that's what I did. I bought a few things too. Spent a total of 50 Singaporian bucks and got a litre of gin, two decks of "I Heart Singapore" cards, a meal at Burger King and a mini Bahasa-English, (and vice versa), dictionary. All about half the price I would have paid in Jakarta. I love the Singapore airport! So clean and easy to find your way around! And so much great stuff! Some is pricey but you can find some good deals.

I then sat in a chair and watched a repeat showing of the Costa Rica/Italy game from the night before. Costa Rica is kicking ass! They were one of my randomly picked teams in the Jakarta Gentleman's Club pool and weren't supposed to do much. Beat Italy and Uruguay already. Not too shabby! I was starting to fade in and out while I watched though. Still not much of a soccer fan and it really was an early morning at 3:30. So killed some more time walking around trying to stay awake. What I should have been doing was going through customs, then coming back in. I ended up doing that at the last minute but still made the flight.

I got back to Jakarta at around 3ish in the afternoon I think. The last time I went through customs there I had an entry card but no pen. Had to ask the security guard. This time there were no pens and no CARDS! A far cry from Singapore! So again I asked the security guard. He looked around and found nothing. Then he just stopped looking. I found one that was partially filled out and just scratched out the info that had been filled in by a Mr. Leong. Not sure that would work though. Then got in a massive line-up. After about 30 minutes I was at the front. The lady in front of me was next and we were rolling our eyes at the two people in front of us. Both had not gotten their VOA from the window before standing in line. That's visa on arrival. I was pretty sure my visa was good for a year but the lady in front of me assured me I needed to get a VOA. So I got out of line and went back to get one. I asked the girl in the VOA office if I needed one and after looking at my previous visa, she assured me that I did. I paid 300,000 Rp. for it. That's about 30 bucks. Then got back in the half an hour line-up. I was the VERY last person to go through customs! The agent looked at my passport and my newly purchased visa and said, "You don't need this." He said I had a choice to use the new two-month visa or just continue using the one-year visa. So I said I wanted to keep using the one year visa. He ripped up the other one. I asked if maybe I could get my money back for it and he said, "Not now, I just ripped it up." I don't know if I could have gotten my money back anyway but, what a dick!

So then I go outside to the taxi ambush. "Mister, taxi? Taxi, mister?" All the taxi companies I've been told to avoid because they may not take you where you're going. I went to the area where we are supposed to get Bluebird taxis. Right next to the Express taxi area. Those are the two good ones I've been told. Both have a sort of ticket collector. He gives you a number and you get a taxi like you get served at the bank. I waited 20 minutes before I realized that, then waited 20 minutes AFTER I got the number but got into the taxi. Things were going fine until it started thundering, lightninging and raining. Rain has an almost miraculous effect on traffic here in Jakarta. Impossible to get a taxi too. Strange... So for no apparent reason traffic came to a grinding halt just a few minutes from my place. It was dark and the raindrops were pelting out a soft and soothing beat on the roof of the taxi and I did something you are NEVER supposed to do: I fell asleep. About 20 times. All with little mini-dreams ranging from 30 seconds to about 5 minutes. I was exhausted! It was now around supper time and I was getting a bit hungry too. I just wanted to get home, eat something and crash out for about 20 hours. And we were not moving. At ALL! One of my dreams was abruptly ended by another car "rubbing" the side of my taxi too. Scccrrrrccchhhh! Driver didn't even react. Not so uncommon here. It's already the second time for me. We finally started inching along and by about the 2 hour point of the journey I had made it back home! Success! I'm good for another two months. Hopefully by then I'll be working and able to get my KITAS, (proper visa). I called Matthew, my new boss, from the airport to confirm that renewing my original business visa instead of getting the new one was the thing to do and he verified it. He also invited me out for dinner and to meet his wife, Ati the next night. That night he was going out and he invited me but I had to give that one a miss because I was already turning into a pumpkin. Good thing. I probably wouldn't have made it with that brutal traffic.

So the next day I got up determined to shop for a laptop. I'll need it for the new job. I went to Ratu Plaza, which is a good place to look for electronics. I found a pretty good deal on an HP laptop for about 500 bucks and it comes with Windows 8 and a free printer. I was on my way to the cash machine to get the money to buy it and thought I should text Matthew and ask when he wanted to meet up for dinner. He sends a text back something like, "On the way now. Please meet us and don't be late." I had no idea where they were going so I called him. He told me where they'd be and said he'd text the location and I could just show that to the taxi driver. Then Ati mentioned that it was Jakarta's birthday and between the area where I was and the area where they were there would be a big parade so roads would be shut down completely. To add to the usual brutal traffic in Sudirman, (the name of the area). So I looked outside and sure enough - gridlock! Nothing moving. Matthew suggested I take a busway to Sarina Mall then get out there and show the text message with the directions to a taxi driver. That oughta work. So I went to the busway area. Busways are buses that can use the busway lane in the downtown area. When you are in a cab inching along and see the busway go whizzing by sometimes you wish you were on it. This would be my first try. I waited for a few buses before I was able to ruck my way onto one. I'm not exaggerating! People were actually putting their arms around each other, BINDING ON, and rucking into the door of the bus so that their momentum would allow them to cram in. Needless to say these buses were jammed to the nuts! I managed to get a spot underneath an air con vent so I had that going for me. I had a lot of money in my wallet for the computer so I had my thumb in my wallet pocket but had to hang on to the bars above with my other hand. The hand that could have been blocking my cellphone pocket.

At Sarina Mall, the stop Matthew had instructed me to get off at, I moshed my way off the bus and checked all my pockets. Keys, check, wallet, check, paper pocket, check, cellphone pocket, empty. The bus was long gone. With my phone and the directions to dinner on it. Not to mention all the numbers of everybody I know here. So I did the only thing I could. I walked out to the street and watched some of the parade. People were all dressed in traditional garments, playing traditional music, smiling, I could have taken some lovely pictures... if I'd had my phone. I decided to look for a taxi as Matthew had suggested, but not to the restaurant, to my place. There were no taxis whatsoever. Even if my phone hadn't been pickpocketed there would have been no way to take a cab to the restaurant to meet Matthew and Ati. I walked sort of aimlessly just to get out of the blocked off area. I walked and walked and sweated and sweated. Luckily I was wearing my runners and wouldn't get my feet all blistery. Or so I thought. I kept walking, not knowing if I was going in the right direction or not. I had moved into my new place less than a week before so really hadn't yet learned the way home. And certainly not from where I was. It took me about three hours to get home. I was very tired and I DID have blisters on my feet! But I had to let Matthew and Ati know what had happened. So I did the only thing I could think of: I went to the pub. Surely someone there would have a phone I could use to get in touch with them!

So I sat at the pub rehydrating after a long, sweaty walk and resting my barking dogs. I found a friend there, Darren, (also known as the Cripple in Jakarta Gentlemen's Club), and he let me get the message out that my phone was lost. Well, you see, they have about 20 different prefixes to telephone numbers here in Jakarta. And none of the numbers I've been getting told verbally or texted over the phone work. Either the person telling me is assuming I'll know the long list of possible ways to try to dial the number or by some ridiculous coincidence I've copied down and/or received about a dozen numbers wrong. The numbers for my boss and his wife I was given did not work when I dialled them the way they were given. So I waited until they called me and on my telephone screen up popped the identical phone numbers with different starting numbers. So I saved those numbers in my phone. They were working for a while but suddenly they no longer worked! I can't believe anybody would have knowingly changed from 062 to just 62 or whatever. So I called the numbers I had for Matthew and Ati, both of which had worked before, and got messages that said they were no longer in service, busy, can't be completed as dialled or something like that when all along the REAL message should have been, "We're sorry but Jakarta is still in the dark ages of cell phone service. Please re-dial with some randomly selected numbers before the actual number. You should be able to connect to the party you wish to reach in several thousand attempts. Telima Kasih!"

Telima kasih means thank you. So I didn't get ahold of anybody but I stayed up till 5 or 6 in the morning watching Korea get smoked by Algeria in World Cup action. I had a meeting the next day with a fellow employee named Dennis. He said we should get together for a coffee and a chat at 12:30 at the Circle K around the corner from where I live. So I went the the Circle K around the corner from where I live. Waited for half an hour and Dennis didn't show. Of course I have no phone to send any messages or give him a call and see what happened. Or receive a call from him explaining what had happened... I had to get a phone. I heard you can get a cheapo Nokia here, like all the other S.E. Asian countries, and it'll be like 50 bucks. I have a Nokia for Thailand and one for the Philippines. SOOOOOOOOOO much better than any other phone! Including the Samsung Galaxy and I would be willing to wager, the stupid I phone. Simple is better for me. More technology = more problems. So I went to Pondok Indah Mall because I KNOW I had seen a Nokia place there in my travels. That's where I have been working for the past two months. I couldn't find it. My feet were still blistery and I had to wear my sandals for that reason. I wasn't about to comb the entirity of Pondok Indah Mall! So I settled for a local product. It was something like 18 bucks! I couldn't beieve it! Then I went to the phone store to get a sim card for it. The sim card worked until I got out of the store. I went back and she changed it to the second sim card slot. It worked fine. Until I got to Wall Street. I was telling a few people my new number and the card wasn't being read. So I just took the thing back. They said they couldn't give me my money back. So I just explained what had happened about a dozen times before they gave me back my money. Then, pain be damned, I combed the outer reaches of Pondok Indah Mall looking for the Nokia store. It was, OF COURSE, in the very last wing, walkway, skywalk or whatever that I checked. But now it was a mission. I looked at the cheapo phones on display and picked one out. The girl says, "Out of stock." So I went up in price until I got one they HAD in stock. Only one colour though. Shockingly bright yellow! Don't care. Mission! "I'll take it!" I said and slammed a sweaty handful of Rupiah down on the counter. The gesture lost some of its finality when the girl motioned me over to another dude in the other corner who was the one taking the money.

So now I have a cheapo phone and today I spent the day getting myself a cheapo laptop. That's what I'm typing on now. It's working okay but unfortunately I will have to tweak the settings. Every third word I type is being underlined by spellcheck because I think it's an Indonesian spellcheck. So I've just disabled spellcheck. Along with the annoying mousepad. I got me a real wireless mouse because I hate typing and accidentally touching the mousepad and having your curser jump half way up the page.

The moral of the story is traffic is brutal in this country. So are cell phone service and internet. Having a smartphone or a really powerful computer here is like having a Ferrari. They're more likely to be stolen than used the way they were meant to be used. I'm a low tech. redneck. NObody wants my cheapo yellow phone or my tiny laptop. But they both seem to be working just fine for me! So far...

Timing is errr verythang!!!

I just thought I'd update things here. I came over on a business visa. It's 8 weeks long and I was told I'd have to renew it a time or two before my work visa goes through. I wasn't aware that I would be doing things this way until it was too late to back out. I mean I think I was already on the way to the airport when I read the email telling me not to say anything about work at immigration in the Jakarta airport. That seemed sketchy. But then I thought, hey, it's Asia. I have yet to work for anyone over here who did everything above board. And once I found out Wall Street, (the company I work for), has been doing things this way for years, I figured it was just one of those ubiquitous laws that are really more like suggestions. Yeah it carries a 24-hour deportation punishment to be found working on a business visa, but that never happens. Right? And I was told that immigration officers at the Jakarta airport would probably not even ask me a question. But just in case I was prepared to lie and say that I was just here for business meetings and training. When I got to immigration the only problem I had was filling out the departure card, (which I'll be using soon). There was not a single, solitary pen in the whole airport immigration area. I had a pencil from a book of puzzles the Jacksons got me for my trip but I knew that wouldn't do. So I asked a scary looking guard if he had a pen. His scowl disappeared and he almost looked NICE. He went into an office and asked another guard for a pen. I got one from him and he was very smiley while handing it to me. The immigration officer said nothing at all to me.

I think it was in my second week of teaching here that I got called into the Ratu Plaza Wall Street headquarters. Hamish and I went there with Matthew, the SM of Wall Street in Pondok Indah where I work. It was Matthew, John, (the guy who I had communicated with to get the job), and David who I think might be head of HR. He was in another country but was explaining the situation via satellite phone. Basically I could not renew my business visa with Wall Street. The government had decided to crack down and start enforcing this previously uneforced law. The recent events a JIS, Jakarta International School, I'm guessing, played no small part in this reversal in policy.

You see, there was a 6 year old boy allegedly sexually abused by some janitors at this school. This very exclusive, expensive school. That became a big news story and while I was at the Hang Tua Hotel where I stayed my first five days in the country, I remember seeing it on the restaurant TV non stop. For some reason it came out, (phrasing...), that there had been a serial pedophile teaching at JIS for something like 10 years. No I don't know if there was ever an issue with him or what the exact sequence of thought was behind turning the top story of some Indonesian dudes raping a little white kid at JIS to a white guy who had once taught there was, but it happened. Vahey suddenly had all the press and although I heard that one of the accused janitors killed himself by drinking bleach while in police custody, I don't really know what's happening with them.

You see now, to appear to be doing something about the INDONESIANS raping the FOREIGN kid, (and I get this from Indonesian people), the Indonesian government is going to crack down on FOREIGN teachers being here illegally. Much like the old days when China and Japan had a dispute and made life miserable for their whipping boys, the Koreans, foreign teachers in Asia are constantly being cracked down on and having laws hastily enacted and enforced and pretty much all being suspected of sex crimes and to my knowledge it hasn't done any good. No sex criminals have been caught trying to get a job at a Korean hagwan since they made the new guilty until proven innocent laws there. Well I'm sure they people who started all this punishing of foreigners by inconveniencing them one Chinese water torture drop at a time, will tell you that just goes to show their methods are working. It's just driving teachers crazy, or out of the country. Perfect example: me.

We have to get fingerprint based criminal record checks despite the fact that in Canada these are only done for people whose name based criminal record checks come back as incomplete, denoting that their name is not linked to a crime but their fingerprints may be. This is done to protect the vulnerable people who may be connected with the crime. Mostly minors and sex crimes I think. So, as I said, Korea caring little of the Canadian process dictates that although it does not make their country one iota safer, they will force every Canadian through the lengthy inconvenience, (not to mention costly), of getting a fingerprint based CRC, then having it stamped by a public notary, then taking it to a Korean embassy and getting it stamped there as well. Not to mention the person's degree needs to be stamped by both the notary and Korean embassy or consulate. And some schools, just to add another inconvenience and expense, force prospective teachers to have their universities send sealed transcripts to the schools they want to work for.

Well I had to have the stamped degree couriered here. I had to get sealed transcripts mailed here. Yet I started the negotiations for this job 6 months ago and wouldn't have a proper KITAS, (it's what they call the work visa here), by now anyway. The ages it takes to get one is WHY so many places have been hiring people on business visas and just renewing them until their KITAS finally comes in. Now I'm hearing rumours that all KITAS negotiation has been put on hold while they institute a new criminal record check policy. One that would not have singled this Vahey guy out anyway. Those are just the rumours, I'm not sure of them. What I AM sure of is this is starting to look like the witchhunts I witnessed in Korea. JIS recently had 20 teachers ordered deported. But now the Jakarta police had put a hold on the deportations. See? When you make these hasty moves without considering their consequences, this is the kind of thing that happens. The police, who for some reason haven't questioned the teachers in the four months of "investigation" into this case they have been doing, say they may need to question some of them.

And of course there's Wall Street. I came at just the perfect time! Because in order to be seen as doing something Wall Street and other institutes, who employ native English speakers because everyone wants to be taught by native speakers, is gonna take a beating they might not be able to recover from. This isn't likely over. There will be other schools targeted and I am just hoping that the place I work will not be one of them. I had an interview with TBI, the British Institute and because they are well known and might be a good and well publicised example to make, I had heard that they will be targeted. I asked the guy who interviewed me if he could ensure that although they've been hiring people to work on the business visas for 5 or 6 years, the same thing that happened at Wall Street wouldn't happen to me. He said that he couldn't and actually suggested that I was better off working for a business that isn't as well known. That's what I'm going to do.

I will probably still use the tickets Wall Street bought for my first business visa renewal run to Singapore and back on June 18th. Then I'll get a new business visa with my new business. Hopefully I'll be able to slide under the radar until my KITAS goes through. THEN I'm okay.

This is the life I lead folks! Never a dull moment over here. I dunno how I put up with three years of dull, humdrum, boring stability in Canada. Well, relative stability...

Having said all that, there is an election in a month. One of the candidates, Prabowo, is a guy who is questionable at BEST! I don't even think he can leave the country without being arrested although I suppose if he becomes president bygones might become bygones. Still the guy is known to have said he'd drive the Chinese out of this country if it sets their economy back 20 or 30 years. He was married to former prez Suharto's daughter. He has strong military ties to Suharto as well. He's a lovely guy!

And to top it all off the World Cup starts on Friday the 13th, the date of the full moon!

My impeccable timing!

Back To School

It's early. Got up at about 6:30 today. Tomorrow I'll be up at something stupid like 4 am to take a cab to the airport for my early morning flight to San Francisco. But I won't be wearing a flower in my hair, even if I could. I won't be going to a Giants game or checking out the Golden Gate Bridge. I'll be there just long enough to catch a flight to Hong Kong. Then from there to Singapore. Why? Well as the girlfriend said to her boyfriend when he asked why she was calling from the hospital, "That, like you, will soon become apparent."

No, you won't become a parent, although I consider my students like my own children. Most have been entrusted into my care by the parents so I consider myself as their surrogate, single serving parent while they are in my class. I could not say the same for the folks who were rambling through the building complex where I was guarding here in Calgary. Although, some of the kids I watched at Children's Hospital got the same care from me. And there will be adults in my classes who will not be paternally supervised during my classes with them.

But much like that man on the phone with the mother of his child, I am about to embark on a journey of responsibility that is a lot like parenthood in some ways. First thing I will notice is the lack of sleep. I'm getting into Singapore at a little after midnight if the flight lands on time. Because, as nature would have it, I am most decidedly NOT an airplane sleeper, from before dawn on Tuesday till the early hours of the 24th I don't plan on getting much sleep if any. Then if I can get through customs, immigration, find a cab to my hotel and get to sleep before the hour of 3 I'll be lucky. After maybe 4 hours of sleep I'll be up at 7ish to get my training visa taken care of so I can "receive training" in Indonesia when I get there. I've already got my June ticket back to Singapore for my actual work visa. I'll need to show that to the immigration officer if he/she asks to see it. I'm told they rarely ask, although a lot of things that rarely happen during travel seem to happen to me as you know if you have read any of my travel blog posts.

After knocking around Singapore, Singapore for the day, and trying to stay awake, I should get my visa the same night and fly to my ultimate destination, Jakarta, Indonesia at around 10 PM. I get into Jakarta at 11ish and will be met by a co-worker, taken to a hotel in the city which has been booked for 5 days for me, and probably zonk out knowing that the 25th will be a day off for me. But being a Friday, there will be plenty of my new co-workers interested in meeting me and having a Bintang or two I'm sure. So I'll probably go out Friday night to make some new friends! I will most likely call up Annemarie on Sunday. An old friend. We taught together in Korea at Chonnam University. Her, Scott and I entered the foreigner part of the Gwangju Kimchi making contest. There were a couple ringers, Japanese ladies who had been in Korea a long time, spoke the language fluently and brought their own decorative kimchi accoutrements who took first and second, but Annemarie got 3rd place! Scott and I agree that we tied for fourth. She has told me about a really good buffet at the Shangri La that she wants to take me to. She has been in Indonesia for years and no doubt will be an invaluable source of information about everything! So I should probably offer to treat her to this buffet. I'm going to. Offer. hee hee. But since I'll be essentially broke until I get all the reimbursements promised by the company I will work for, Annemarie might just refuse that offer. And I might just put up only token resistance to her refusal.

For a day or two I will be searching for a house/apartment. I am really looking forward to this! I'm hoping to find something with air conditioning/dehumidifier and high speed internet. Not so sure about the pool any more since that might require living far enough outside the city to necessitate one hellish daily commute, added stress I am not all that interested in adding. Someone from the school will assist me with finding a suitable place and I think the school will pay the requisite year of rent in advance. I will likely need to purchase a few things to make my home homey, maybe even get myself some decent shirts I can wear a tie with since that's the dress code at this school and I don't own any. I think by the end of the month I will be team teaching with another teacher to learn how things are done at Wall Street. Yeah, that's the name of the school. I'm like a young Charlie Sheen only I'm old. And hopefully won't get scammed by a Gordon Gecko. Greed ISN'T good if you ask me. If I thought that I'd be back in Korea where a guy can make more money.

By May I'll be happily teaching again. Moulding young minds with what I hope will be received as a fatherly style of teaching. Hopefully I will get only students who always listened to their fathers. The company has already shown that they are interested in taking good care of me, unlike most of the places I've worked in the ESL industry. They will not meet me as I step off the plane, throw a textbook into my hands and tell me I'm teaching in a few hours. They have told me that I will be eased into the job at my own pace. I'm confident that my pace will be quick, given all my experience, but if I choose to team teach for a while so I can get a good idea of how things work at Wall Street English, I've been told I can do that. The reimbursements for everything from doctor's appointment to meals in Singapore will probably add up to a nice bit of dough to get myself started over there, but the school is going to give me some spending money on top of all that. A sort of relocation allowance. Nice.

Today I will have to notify my phone company that I am leaving the country and get my phone turned off. I will try to get a new sim card in Indonesia when I get there and just use the same phone but as an added bonus Wall Street is giving me a new phone when I arrive. That's handy dandy. I also have to tell Netflix that I'll be in Indonesia. I wonder what will happen with that. May have to be a sacrifice I need to make. But I will be a lot more active and busy so Netflix will not be as big a part of my life as it has been in Canada. Then I will have to box up my computer and all the essentials that I need till the last minute here. I will talk to the freight company and set them up as a payee on my acct. so that I can send for my stuff once I get over there. I think Jeff will be okay with that. He has a new roommate already. She's actually staying here as I type this. Seems nice. My unemployment insurance was settled, unsatisfactorily however unsurprisingly. I should be getting my 2012 and 2011 income tax deposited into my account within a month or two while I'm over in Indo. So it would appear that my ducks are all in a row. We'll see what the hand of Fate has in store to skew that nice, straight row for me. And you will all hear about it.

Big changes! Moving, new job, new responsibilities... Just like becoming a parent. Some people are thrust into adulthood when they become parents for the first time. It forces them to grow up. I suppose I COULD be more responsible, save more, socialize less, take my job more seriously, even settle down and ACTUALLY become a parent! But I won't be rushing into that just yet I'm sure. I'll be satisfied with the figurative parenting for a while. We shall see what comes from that... I have no reason to suspect that it won't come with a lot of rewards. Stability, self-confidence, money, better lifestyle, more fun, new friends, new culture, new adventures... Like parenting, which I'm told is rewarding, it will have plenty of plusses.

However, I will be without my computer for a good while and may have to buy my internet time by the minute so it could be a while till the next post. This will be the last post from Canada. Until my first Indonesian post, Sampai Jumpa! See ya later.

The Restructuring of Canada

In case you think I'm the only one who feels like my country is crumbling around me I encourage you to read this little gem.

It will take some time, but please, read the above article.

I like the picture. Harpy with a panda bear. Only used because the pictures of him blowing Chinese businessmen were too suggestive. "You won't recognize Canada when I'm through with it." says Harper. Well I already don't recognize Canada and this traitor ain't through with it yet.

Tommy Douglas, in stark contrast to Harper who would be in the running for our WORST Canadian, was chosen as our greatest Canadian in a CBC television program. It was one of only a few truly democratic things we've done in Canada in recent memory and I have to admit, I thought Gretzky would win. I saw the show advertised on TV and Gretzky was up there on the screen along with some unrecognizable guys who did comparatively minor things like discovering insulin. I thought about it and decided that Terry Fox would have gotten my vote. But, although I didn't see the show's conclusion until I read this article, I have to admit I am REALLY proud of Canada! Well, of Canadians, to be more accurate. A socialist won the contest so, as you might imagine, that didn't get much play in these here parts. Here are the results and the voting method. Tommy Douglas headed the first democratic socialist government in North America as leader of the CCF party and premier of Saskatchewan from '44 - '61. The CCF was the forefather of the NDP party. Architect of Saskatchewan's very successful, (though hideously socialist), single payer, universal healthcare system, Douglas would roll over in his grave if he saw the state of health care or the NDP party nowadays. He once said of the Socialist Party that they sat around quoting Marx and Lenin, waiting around for a revolution while refusing to help the poor. "I've no patience with people who want to sit back and talk about a blueprint for society and do nothing about it." THIS is who Canada voted as the greatest Canadian not 10 years ago! VOTED!

That N+ magazine article above is about starting grassroots movements of resistance in Canada, instead of blogging about it then getting the hell outta the country, (cough), and I think Tommy Douglas, were he alive today, might be heading up some of those movements. Even he would probably be able to see that politics is no longer the answer. We have proven that it doesn't work in Canada. Look at the state this country is in! Our public services like health care and education, (two things I've whinged about here before), are mentioned in the article as shadows of their former selves. Two other public services, mail and the CBC, our national TV station, are also mentioned. This might sound like a joke but when I watch Hockey Night in Canada, by far the most watched CBC show every year, it's missing something. Then I watch a game on TSN, which is owned by CTV, which is owned by Bell Media, and I realize what it is. The Hockey Night in Canada theme song, one that Canadians, (and I'm not making this up), recognize more than our national anthem, is now the intro to hockey games on the private, corporate TV station. THAT'S a sign of the times in Canada!

The post office model is probably the best example of what I've been pointing out here on my humble blog. It was announced last December that within 5 years door to door mail delivery would be phased out. Stamps would go from 63 cents to a dollar and 8000 postal workers would be laid off. It was claimed that the postal service is just a drain on taxpayers but in reality it has never needed any tax dollars for support. The model of "restructuring" the business or service so that costs increase and services decrease is one I've pointed out elsewhere in this blog. It is the exact opposite of the model that won our greatest Canadian his title. And let me point out again that this title was one that was voted on by Canadians. The other model that has crept into so many essential parts of Canada is one that is NOT voted in, rather imposed upon us by governments set upon neutralizing anything that uses the Tommy Douglas model, which the Canadian people support. For years our governments, mostly those of Stephen Harper, have been doing the exact opposite of what Canadians want: they're helping the rich, and helping themselves.

Most Canadians have their own personal examples. Like me. Yesterday I received news that my unemployment insurance claim was denied. Not a surprise. What surprised me was the inquisition-like treatment I received from the agent assigned to approve or deny my claim, the erstwhile Elliot. He called me again defiantly stonewalling my 15 attempts to explain that I did not quit, I requested a transfer, which was agreed to by my supervisor, gave him a month to make good on his promise to find me another position within the company, that had many available, and only quit after I was forced to reasonably conclude that he was doing exactly NOTHING to find me that position or even a few shifts here and there. Elliot continued to insist that I had quit my job due to changes in the job description. Well there were changes, changes that I was promised at contract time would NOT take place. But that was only one of a dozen reasons I listed to my supervisor as my reasons not for quitting, but for requesting a transfer. I said to Elliot that he is continuing to confuse only one of my reasons for requesting a transfer with my reason for quitting. And he was ruling on my claim accordingly. He actually AGREED with me at one point in the conversation but said that he had made his decision and I could always file an appeal. We got into the burden of proof during our conversation. He asked if I could prove that the transfer request was approved. I told him that because it was approved by phone and because I don't record all of my phone conversations, I don't have proof. A lot of my contact with my supervisor was over the phone. I DID, however, have an email I sent to my supervisor pointing out one of the jobs advertised by the company that I would like. My supervisor responded saying that it was a completely different department but that he would look into it for me. He didn't look into it and I didn't get that position, but this email would seem to indicate that the transfer was agreed to. I also told Elliot that I have the email I sent to my supervisor with the 12 reasons for the transfer request which explicitly points out that I was not quitting, just asking for a transfer. Elliot said I could fax him these emails but that he was sticking to his decision.

I said to Elliot that I don't have a fax machine but I could just forward the emails to him. He said that that was not possible. The E.I. workers don't have emails. I then asked him why he would believe that it was NOT agreed to. He cited a conversation he had with my supervisor a day or two before. So I said that this looked suspiciously like I, (the employee), am guilty until proven innocent. I am responsible for the burden of proof. And even if I provide the emails, which are pretty close to proof, he isn't going to change his mind? Elliot said something like, "I am not responsible for the process..." so I went ballistic and said, "No, you are just responsible for making incorrect decisions and denying my claim." I then told him to fuck off and hung up on him. I have little hope that an appeal will do any good and don't intend to file one.

In fact I called a number that I found for the Calgary unemployment insurance office to explain what had happened. They gave me a number, 1 800 OH Canada, that has access to all numbers for all government agencies and for issues such as mine, and is the place to call to get another place to call for help. 1 800 Oh Canada gave me the number to call. It was the ironically named, "Service Canada" office. I talked to a guy with an Indian accent who was probably at a call centre in India somewhere. He actually told me that he was the WRONG person to contact and gave me another number. I started asking who the other number was and pointing out that it was odd that 1 800 Oh Canada had told me to call him and they usually know what they're talking about, but before I could finish he HUNG UP ON ME! Out of interest I called the number he had given me. It said that long distance charges may apply and then that the number could not be connected as dialled. So I added a 1 to it for long distance. I got, "Thank you for calling Google. Please input the four digit code of the Googler you wish to contact."

So I called 1 800 Oh Canada back. I got a lady on the phone who asked me to explain my entire situation. I did and she said that I had a legitimate beef with the Employment Insurance agent and should call "Service" Canada. She was puzzled as to why the person I reached gave me another number because that WAS the office I needed to talk to about this. It is also the office I need to call if I want to lodge a complaint or file an appeal. She also said that although she has thousands of numbers in her system, the number I was given was not one of them. She said that the "Service" Canada guy should not have referred me elsewhere and that Elliot was a douchebag. Well, she didn't say that, but she did say that SHE understood me clearly and was surprised that any E.I. agent would not be able to understand my legitimate reason for quitting my job. Anyway she suggested I call the Service Canada number again. Strangely, I HAD tried several times to call back after reaching Google and was now unable to reach a human being. She said that that was because of high volume of calls. All I could do was continue calling, and failing, until I lucked out and got a real person. You see they don't even have the, "Your call is important to us. Please wait two hours until one of our agents feels like answering." They just have a press this number or that number labyrinth that never answers the question you want answered.

Employment Insurance premiums continue to rise every year and the service, OBVIOUSLY, continues to deteriorate. That, as the article at the top of this post thoroughly documents, is now the Canadian way. The impetus behind this radical, anti-democratic movement in Canada is simply, as you might expect, to manufacture public frustration in order to suggest market-based solutions. MONEY. Don't be surprised to see private mail service or even private employment insurance offered soon. It'll be more expensive but, hey, who wants to deal with all the headaches government agencies cause? Well maybe those headaches are manufactured to create frustration in government so it can be replaced with something profitable to the few and expensive to the many.

Speaking of money, I have a million dollar idea. No not "No No Nose" though that would be awesome! Right? Why do you suppose my supervisor and Elliot can be such assholes, lie their faces off and treat me like crap on the phone, but are resistant to email correspondence? Could it be the tendency of emails to hang around in people's inboxes like the smoking gun, damning evidence they could be to thwart an otherwise perfectly devised screw job? I think that may be. And wouldn't it be nice if we had a sort of phone email storage system that recorded all conversations and stored them until we delete them? Think of the arguments you could win with friends or spouses who say, "I NEVER said that." You open the app on your phone, I dunno, let's call it Callstore, look up a phone call from April of 2013, put the call on speaker phone and BAM! In your FACE! You did SO say that! How sweet would that be? Sweet enough to buy that app for 19.99? Probably. And what about MY case? If I could just play Elliot's calls to his supervisor, or MY supervisor's calls to Elliot, I wouldn't be so frustrated. And I'd be getting the Employment Insurance benefits I deserve. And what kind of society do we live in where we feel the need to record everything we say on the phone? There's a question!

I also have an idea for Canadian "restructuring" suicidal though it may be. I submit to you that if Tommy Douglas got more votes than Don Cherry, Wayne Gretzky, all those others, (some who shouldn't be on that list mind you), a candidate with the same kind of democratic socialistic ideals could probably run independently in a federal election and win it. And once in power, if the guy weren't actually a politician, he'd deliver on what he promised and there would be so much money going from the few to the many in this country that he'd be hockey superstar popular and sure to win a re-election! But he'd also get shot. Because don't forget those few, from whom the money would be taken, are the socially mal-adjusted, greed addled sociopaths that created the capitalist wet dream Canada is today. Maybe this could be the reason why we never HAVE anybody running who would do what Canadians want. Maybe this is why we need to abandon the broken system that is politics in Canada. How about we have CBC TV shows on everything that is of concern to the Canadian people? We could vote on our "Greatest Alternative Energy Source," or maybe "Greatest New Social Program," "Greatest Tax Decrease," "Greatest Way To Make Wages and Prices Fair Again," the list goes on and on. The money we save the country, (that would have been pocketed or squandered by corrupt politicians), could fund another show called "Greatest Idea on What the Hell To Do With All This Extra Money."

Ahhh I don't know why I care so much, I'm leaving anyway.

Getting my ducks in a row

Well things are progressing here. I had my immigration physical and, as advertised, it cost me 700 bucks. Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan? Another mandatory insurance that gives precious little insurance. As far as I have seen it is free, but, oh silly me, nothing is free, is it? I'm sure we pay through taxes for it. And it is now called, (and more accurately), just Alberta Health. Did they cover one cent of the physical examination? Nope. I haven't had a physical exam for years. I'm over 40. It's highly recommended. No coverage. Did Alberta Health cover any of the immunizations? I got Polio, Hep. and DTap whatever that means. I think it's a Tetanus shot. All necessary since the last time I got an immunization was just before going to Korea for my first year. So 96/97. 18 years ago. These shots were highly recommended. Coverage? Nope. Once I get the results of the physical and the blood/urine tests, submit them to Indonesian immigration and get the go-ahead, I will need to return for 4 more exotic shots that are highly recommended for travelers to Indonesia. I think Japanese encephalitis, yellow fever, typhoid and, believe it or not, rabies. Alberta Health Insurance coverage - Zilch. I also got a prescription for diarrhea pills for the inevitable change of country eventualities. In Bali they call it "Bali belly." And two weeks worth of malaria pills for my vacation. In case I go somewhere with a higher risk of malaria infested mozzies. Alberta Health coverage? You guessed it - frig all. Why do we even bother?

At the counter at the lab I went to get blood and urine analysis the nurses noticed that the birth date on my Alberta Health Card was 1976 instead of 1967. They sternly cautioned me about having incorrect information on my health care card, gave me a piece of paper to send in to Alberta Health to have the incorrect information changed and told me to do it as soon as I could. I said, "Why? I'm leaving the country in two weeks." They said, "Yes, we know." I said, "And if I weren't, I'd probably just keep it 1976 because the extra 9 years is about the only thing Alberta Health Insurance has given me and THAT was only given to me by mistake." They chuckled, then got professional again and told me I REALLY SHOULD get the incorrect information changed. Canada!

I don't know if any of you readers remember but back in flu season I wrote a post about how flu shots were really being flogged hard. TV commercials, bus stop, newspaper, magazine, radio, billboard ads all laying on the hard sell without ANY accessible information about what exactly is IN a flu shot. The internet was clogged with the same used car sales approaches. Well, my doctor, Rudy Zimmer, got a call while I was in his office. His room in his office. Zimmer's zimmer, you might say. Ar ar. So he excused himself and then came back fuming. I had heard a few swearwords during the conversation too. Among them "bullshit." He started telling me that he, as a doctor, is really pissed off about how immunizations are being pushed so hard onto the public. Not just flu shots but all kinds of immunizations. And he had called some appropriate government office to suggest some professional, instead of financial standards, only to be rudely told to mind his business. He told me they don't know who they're messing with. He's going to try to do something. I'd suggest that we need more people like this in pretty much EVERY area in this country. I wish him good luck.

The best news of all was even though I had the bollick-fondling, turn your head and cough part of the physical, (BIG SMILE), no finger up the bum!!! And just to be clear, the big smile is not for the bollick fondling, it's for the no finger up the bum. >:( My doctor, Rudy Zimmer, who was excellent, must have known I was dreading that more than anything and the first time I saw him he looked at me and said, "I don't know why they are asking for a rectal exam. Just kidding." I told him it was a good thing they had already taken my blood pressure because it just spiked massively! I know, I know, I really should get a prostate exam at my age. But Rudy and I had no time to go out to dinner or at the very least establish a safe word. I just wasn't ready for it yet.

Rudy Zimmer. I'm going to use that name in a short story some day.

The same day, in the morning I got a call from the unemployment insurance company of Canada. It's not EMployment insurance like it's now called, it's supposed to be insurance against UNemployment. That's why I still call it that. And it's not a government agency like it's called, it's a company. That's why I call it THAT. You'll see what I mean. But is it insurance? Again, it's mandatory. We pay into it whether we want to or not. Nobody voted on this. It's just done for our own good I suppose. If you could see me now my eyes are rolling so bad they've done a complete 360. I get a call, completely unexpectedly, from a guy from the UI office. I so often wish I had a phone with a tape recorder attached to it so I could record such ludicrous calls or at least trace the location of the caller so I could hunt him down and kill him!

I don't know what his job title was, agent maybe, all I know was I asked his name and he told me it was Elliot. Maybe named after a French Canadian hero Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Not sure but his parents were French Canadian or perhaps from France and his first language was very obviously French. I don't give a flying frig what your first language is, we're talking about income here. I'm unemployed, broke and I need money. I am entitled to the money because I have faithfully paid my premiums and I left my job for very good reason. I don't want somebody who has trouble with English reading my report, which I wrote in English, and talking to me on the phone, in broken English, and then making a ruling on my claim based on what he only partially understood. I know when a person understands English and when a person is faking understanding. It is my business to know. This jagoff understood very little. I don't even think he would have passed my class if the course material were my U.I. claim.

And this is how he started out, "I 'ave read your REport and you said you quit your job because you were bored of it?"

Now look, even if this were true, even if there were any conceivable way for a person to somehow get this from what I wrote, it is an unnecessarily inflammatory way to begin a conversation! You have to ask yourself how long Elliot had planned how to start our conversation and what the hell lead him to choose THIS? I'm thinking maybe, for reasons known only to unemployment insurance employees, it is part of their job to piss off the people whose claims they are evaluating. Whatever the reason may have been, it worked. So I spent at least half an hour explaining, re-explaining and re-re-explaining things that were very well explained on my written UI claim report that old Elliot OBVIOUSLY had not read. I don't know how many times I explained things to him and he totally didn't understand so I had to explain them again. Sometimes three times. I kept saying, "Elliot, you're not listening..." and he kept assuring me that he was. If that was the case then he clearly just wasn't understanding. Why the hell he was even hired for the job he has, again, that's Canada!

I said, "Elliot, it says in my report that I didn't actually quit, not immediately. I gave two weeks notice and requested a transfer. It was agreed to by my employer who assured me he would look for an alternate position within the company and failing that find me some hours on a casual basis until he found me a new site. The two weeks passed, I never missed a shift, an hour or a patrol, and he had found not a single hour of work never mind an alternate position for me. Then about ten days after my last day of work I called again and he acted surprised that I wanted him to find me work. There were plenty of positions available at the company, some of which I applied for independently, but he found me nothing. So I was forced to believe that he just wasn't looking. THAT is when and why I quit. This is all in the written report." I am STILL getting letters from Garda thanking me for my applications for positions. NONE of the positions applied for were found for me by my supervisor.

Elliot says, "So you quit before you stopped working?" I just felt like telling him to hang up, read the fucking report I wrote, and call me back. I explained other things to him as well. He said to me at one point that this job was better than the one I left for it because I made more money. He got really rude and interrupty too, something I absolutely hate. "It wasn't actually more money it..." "It was more money. Hi 'ave dee salaries right 'ere before me!" He figured he had me caught in a lie. Clever Elliot! I said, "Let me finish. It wasn't more money even though I thought it..." "What were da salaries den? Tell me your salaries!" "Elliot," I calmly said, "If you would just listen I would tell you. I was making 16.50 the job before and 16.87 this job." He interrupted again with something like HAH in yer face you jobless bum! I am paraphrasing. I said, "BUT, since they were taking almost 30% off my paychecks and the previous job was taking off about 12%, I made considerably less. In fact it worked out to almost exactly 5 dollars an hour they took off my pay. So I was taking home $11.87 an hour. I could not live on that, which is just one of many reasons why I wanted a transfer." He said, "Hif you tink dey are doing illegal ting why did int you call de labour board?" I didn't tell him that talking with the labour board would be almost as much fun as talking with him. I said that I didn't know that taking this much off my checks was illegal but I preferred to assume that it may be an accounting error or some kind of honest mistake so I called my supervisor, the accountant and the second in command at the office. I contacted them in person, via email, text message, phone message and by phone. I got several excuses and promises to look into it but nothing was done. THAT is why I had to request a transfer. Elliot says, "I 'ave dee records 'ere hand dey don't show dat much taken hoff your check." I said, "Well I have my records too and if the ones they sent you are different they are fraudulent." He understood THAT and didn't pursue that angle of argument any further.

What it seemed like was this jerk was trying to justify, in any way he could, a denial of my claim. Who am I Erin Brockovich fighting Pacific Gas & Electric? Am I Nicholas Easter going up against Vicksberg Firearms and Rankin Fitch? "Runaway Jury." Good movie! How is it that the employee seems guilty until proven innocent here? I just see it as yet another symptom of the disease that is deteriorating this country. He left off by asking me the number of my employer. I told him it was on the report right in front of him, (which he hadn't read), and he said he was going to call them. What are the chances that he won't take the word of a company over the word of an employee? What are the chances that he hasn't been trained to do just that? And how the hell did things come to this in Canada? Again, if I were anything but the model employee I was I wouldn't have this problem. If I were late all the time, slept at work, didn't do my patrols, maybe I could have gotten fired. Then for SURE I'd get U.I. In fact I'm starting to think here, I have seen guys at work who did all those things. All from Africa somewhere. All talked to me about how much they hated Canada. Yet I am picturing their immigration agents telling them that they can work 12 hour midnight shifts for a certain amount of time and if they get tired of it they can always just jack around at work, get fired and make almost as much for doing NOTHING! The amount they make on UI would STILL be a great wage when converted to Cameroon Francs, Ethiopian Birr, Nigerian Naira, or Zambian Kwacha. Maybe this happens more than we think. Maybe while on UI, they can go get a second job and further defraud our country. Maybe THAT happens a lot too. And maybe, just maybe, THIS is why old Elliot was such an asshole to me. It's this once bitten - twice shy phenomenon in Canada.

Anyway, Elliot said that either Friday or Monday he'd get back to me with his decision. That means Monday in Canadian government-speak. Two months after my last day of work to the day! Why am I not excited to bolt out of bed and check my bank balance on Monday morning? I have very little hope of Elliot ruling in my favour even though I have a completely legitimate claim. But I guess I am the sacrifice this country has to make to protect the majority against greed and fraud. Another reason to get the heck outta here.

I also got my taxes taken care of. If you are even a casual reader of this blog you know my position on taxes. I won't go over that again here I will just say that I did my taxes under protest. All I did was renew my slavery to my nation for the simple reason that I can't get a job in another country unless I do just that. I will be receiving a little over 3 grand, which is not a refund, it just denotes the fact that I paid too much tax while I was working here. I won't likely receive any of this money because I still owe Revenue Canada from a job I had many years ago in which my employer was taking nothing off my paychecks. Even though I frequently requested, in fact BEGGED them to do so. I ended up owing the government money at the end of a year of working a 7 dollar an hour job. That should just never be the case. And while over in Korea, from whence I tried to pay my taxes and was unable to because of weaknesses in the Revenue Canada collection system that didn't allow me to pay while overseas, interest accrued on that debt. Interest, which represents tax paid on tax, something which some legal document in Canada says can never happen, now probably represents the bulk of my debt to my country. They will take the payment from my recent tax returns. I don't know how much I owe or if I will actually come out ahead on this deal because I have no way of finding out what I owe revenue Canada. I also know that I could have claimed things like rent, moving expenses and other deductions that would have increased my claim a little but I didn't even bother because I just wanted to get my taxes over and done with before leaving for Indonesia. I wonder how often people like me file tax returns for less than Revenue Canada had figured and just settle for that. I am pretty sure Revenue Canada doesn't call people up and say they miscalculated and actually give Canadian citizens larger income tax rebates than they filed for. I'm sure they COUNT on it like gyms counting on people stopping before their memberships run out. But I do know it often happens in the reverse. I can't wait for the day when someone gets audited, challenges the entire tax system and WINS their case in court. They totally could! Harry James Townsend wrote a very detailed, legal defence for this. If you have some spare time check it out.

I also know that the whole process of forcing us to file tax returns is redundant since the government already knows what those returns should be. It is a 4 billion dollar a year industry paying H&R Block or Liberty Tax, (choke, cough), or others to do the returns for us. That may be why we are one of the few remaining countries that doesn't just have employers doing the taxes saving the employee the stress and hassle of tax time every year. In 1867 when the BNA Act was passed, not voted on, PASSED as our undemocratic constitution, it gave certain gangsters who declared themselves government the self-litigated right to tax. In fact if you look closely even THAT is not truly lawful. They don't have the legal right. It's a complicated story. Then in 1917 when PM Borden and the boys instituted a temporary measure to increase government revenue during WW1 and it somehow wasn't temporary it was another screw job perpetrated upon the Canadian people.

It should be noted that in 1916 the government started a corporation tax called the business profit war tax. It was a tax on corporations whose profits exceeded a certain percentage of their invested capital. The 1917, personal tax was 4% of all income of single men over $2000. For others the personal exemption was $3000. Boy how times have changed since then eh? Now most businesses pay nothing in tax and are actually subsidized by government and in order to afford that the average personal tax rate has risen pretty dramatically. The system is grossly unfair and none of us should, nor indeed HAVE TO, pay taxes. We just do. Voluntary slavery. And I hate taxes just as much as the next guy but I just paid my master like the good little Toby I am.

But who knows, maybe I will GET the unemployment insurance I deserve. Maybe Revenue Canada didn't charge me interest on my tax debt while overseas because I tried to pay it. Maybe gold nuggets will start falling out my arse instead of crap. Anything's possible. So I'm going to try to remain Canadianly positive about all this and say that at least it looks like I will have all my ducks in a row before going overseas. So THAT'S good news. heh heh heh heh.

Why I Am Going to Indonesia

I left off my last post in a place I didn't want to be. My metaphor was mixed up and my feelings were scrambled. Was I mad at Canada and glad to be leaving? Was I under the impression that I would be going to a better country? Was I sick of struggling from paycheck to paycheck in a rich country and almost hypocritically going to a much more comfortable lifestyle in a relatively poor country? Well as is the answer to most of life's important questions: yes and no.

I have never been an acquisitive person. I don't believe it's in my DNA. And many have challenged me on this but I don't think it's in ANY DNA including human beings'. A lion will let a gazelle walk right in front of it without killing it. Just not a hungry lion. Only one species hoards more than it needs and I don't believe that it is a natural behaviour to that species. But I did not come home to Canada because I wasn't hoarding enough riches in Korea, or because I thought I could get rich here. I am not going to Indonesia because I can save more money there or have a pool in my back yard. But living for my whole life just one unlucky streak away from being flat broke, I have learned that it sucks to be in that position. I don't think it's greed or selfishness or detrimental to the harmony of the world for me, or anybody to feel that it sucks living paycheck to paycheck. And that is why it sucks in Canada for me right now. I reckon it always will to be realistic. Unless Canada makes a huge comeback from the hole it has dug itself into both figuratively and literally, (watch the documentary The Hole Story about the mining industry in Canada. It's on Netflix), I don't think I'll ever be comfortable here. So what will it be in Indonesia that will make me more comfortable? Other than not living paycheck to paycheck. I know I sometimes do things before I can consciously figure out why but I do them because I just have a strong feeling that they are the right thing to do. I trust my feelings and sometimes when I do the right thing I admit to taking credit for doing it for some wise reason when really all it was was a feeling. This is one of those times. I am sure that in the future if this turns out to have been a great decision I can claim to have had a great, adult, responsible reason for making such a drastic move, but really it's just a feeling right now and I think I'm doing the right thing. These recent blog posts have largely been about figuring out why I'm doing this for myself.

One of the things that I have missed in my figuring so far is something that I have so very little of here and will no doubt have in abundance in Indonesia that makes a massive difference to me and that's human connection. I came home sure that I'd be seeing friends and family all the time and that I'd meet lots of friends at work, develop a large network of them and have an active social life. Wow! BIG disappointment! And although I still haven't even learned to say hello in Indonesian, I have not a single doubt in the world that I will have all kinds of things to do with people at work, students and complete strangers over there. It's always been like that for me in the ESL industry and that has always been one of the best things about it. I am not married and have no kids. But I still need human contact. Professional human contact doesn't count. That's practically all I get here in Canada. Even sometimes with friends and family :( . Three years is a long time to go almost without that sort of thing. For me anyway. And I'm not going to go out and get married and have a few kids just so that I will have human contact built into my life. That's that capitalist thinking again. You feel a need, you have to OWN something that fills that need. I like to borrow folks from time to time to fill my need for human contact. I am okay with sharing them.

What I called "selfishness" in that last post could probably more accurately be called "individualization." THAT is one of the things I have found so disturbingly robust in my country where it wasn't just a short time ago. It is one of the things that has heated the water in the frog pot. In previous posts I have talked about greedy people as having the money sickness that has best been named, "affluenza," and said they should all be put into mental institutions. Like most of my philosophical ravings, I was not the first to theorize this. In fact it is quite an ancient idea that one who selfishly hoards much more than he will ever need is mentally deficient. Brain damaged. Native tribes in North America thought so. "Wendigo" is a word Algonquian tribes in the U.S. and Canada gave to a particular evil spirit that had some connections to cannibalism. But its significance may have not been so much in the eating of the flesh of another person but just in the inability to ever satiate this appetite. No matter how many human beings the Wendigo killed and ate, the monster remained in a state of emaciated starvation. This trait of insatiable greed was instantly attributed to the white man when he was first seen on our continent. They had, and still have, the spirit of the Wendigo.

The Canadian Inuit were almost wiped out because of their belief in community and non-ownership of property. Not even a man's wife was his exclusively. I was reading a very interesting account of the voyages of Frobisher in a history of the Hudson Bay Company and it included references to sailors taking advantage of the Inuit's generosity to the point of thievery. Because the Inuit made no protest, Frobisher's men just took sleds, dogs, kayaks, furs, bone knives and harpoons, all sorts of supplies back to England with them and upon returning again they noticed that the village had suffered for it. Not just in population depletion and general poverty but the people of the same village who showed such great generosity and friendliness on Frobisher's first voyage were nowhere near as welcoming the second time around. I think I remember reading this and wondering why the Inuit didn't just harpoon a couple Englishmen like the fat, greedy whales they were. They probably didn't want to be rude or considered unaccommodating to the foreigners. This is where the people of Canada are now. We've been burned by greed, (disagree with me if you want but I think it has been primarily foreign greed), and now we are doing everything we can to be less trusting, less friendly, less polite, protecting Canadians by writing it into law and completely transforming our culture when we really should be running the greedy bastards out of town to preserve our culture. We can still be friendly and trusting. Just not stupid. And we have to be tougher on greed.

I refer you once again to that documentary mentioned above called "The Hole Story." Anyone remember two successful Canadian companies called Inco and Falconbridge? Mining. One of our Canadian mainstays throughout our history. You may not know this but they're gone now. Bought up by foreign interests. Inco was bought by a Brazilian company. They still mine in Canada and take ore from the ground that should belong to US by birth, and by virtue of the fact that somebody a long time ago wrote an act and decided we should all pay for being born here, but ironically, because of the laws that greedy Canadians who ran Inco and Falconbridge cooked up while they were in charge, Canada receives exactly NO royalties or revenue from them. If you dig rock for gravel you have to pay royalties. Money to the country. These guys dig silver, nickel, gold and remove it from our country, refine it somewhere else, then sell it back to us at inflated prices. They do nothing for Canada except employ a few people at rates far below what the miners' unions got for workers at Inco before it was bought out. I guess we were too polite to stop this from happening. But I know of a few Canadian mining companies in other places around the world, Indonesia being just one, that did, and are doing, the exact same thing. Maybe it's our own damn fault.

You KNOW this will happen with the oil in Canada. In fact it IS already happening. And while we're on that topic. I can't just give it two measly lines. Has anyone heard about the latest BP oil spill in Lake Michigan? No? Gee, I wonder why not. Did anyone hear about all the water in Canada that went from protected to unprotected without a vote? That's what happens when someone wants to build an pipeline on our land. We say, "Oh, here let me clear these obstructions out of your way to make it easier for you to remove our natural resources." 2.5 million protected lakes and rivers in Canada to 159? Talk about rolling out the red carpet! Note the part in the article that says, "It has everything to do with pipelines." Oh but this, they hasten to tell us, doesn't mean they are no longer protected. It just removes the hassle of the Navigable Waters Protection officers having to go through the tedium of reviewing every single project that crosses these waters. They'll still remain protected under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Yeah, the one that "protects" the environment so well against the disasters mining and oil drilling haven't caused Canada. Ever. The same environmental protection that, with the thousands of tankers to be carrying oil sands bitumen all over Canadian waters, has actually allowed the number of oil spill clean up crews in Canada to DROP! It's because bitumen is not oil. So pipelines like the Keystone XL are exempt from paying into the U.S. federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund or the funds where the clean up crews' salaries come from. No bitumen is not oil. It's much worse and harder to control if it's spilled. Here's an article that backs me up. Hey look at that! Exactly a year ago! Anybody hear about the Pegasus pipeline spill in Arkansas? It's called the Mayflower spill. I could go on and on. There are all kinds of spills we don't know about. Look in the articles. Media is always suppressed by the oil companies.

But it's not just the Wendigo spirit that has thrived in Canada. It was strong here even when I was young. I'm not so sure it has worsened. The only change has been the bottlenecking of the assets into the hands of fewer and fewer greedy people. And the internationalization of that process has made it so the real perpetrators of the crippling greed that affects Canada are probably not even in this country. In this way it could be said to be DEcreasing. I think it is the individualization that has been more prevalent to me than the greed and corporate mentality although they are certainly both healthier for having the other. People still need other people here in Canada. We haven't lost our social genes or anything. But what I see happening is the spouse and kids becoming pretty much the whole social ball of wax. For a lot more people than before in Canada.

I was walking down the street today and found that I am guilty of this myself. I actually walked for a few hours today all over Calgary. It was a beautiful day and I had some things to do. You need to walk for hours around Calgary to walk by enough people to have a decent sample for the research I conducted, (totally subconsciously). I probably walked past a dozen people today. The first was a lady of about my age walking her dog. She grabbed the dog not by the leash but the collar, hugged it close as I walked by and neither of us said hello. Maybe I look like a person who would sue if a dog growled at me. I don't know. I walked by some school kids who were playing in the schoolyard. I was talking on the phone with my Mom though so none of us said hello. I doubt I would have since they were girls of about 13 or 14 years of age. Saying hello just might get me some dirty looks from supervising teachers or parents on the school grounds. There was one group of guys in work clothes in the industrial district I walked through. I'd say they were in their 20's and 30's. They blocked the whole sidewalk and didn't move until I said, "Excuse me," so again no hello from either side. There was a lady walking in front of me at a slower rate. I detected that she was talking to herself, or more accurately, arguing with herself. She was most likely homeless although I couldn't be sure. I crossed the road before I overtook her. Hey, it wasn't to avoid her. Not only... I had to cross the road anyway! Then finally at the very end of my walk a lady was walking toward me. She was probably in her 60's or 70's. She said hi and I said hello as we passed and I know it made ME feel good. But not even a block after that there was a guy on the same sidewalk walking towards me. Probably late 20's. I made a point of acknowledging him but neither of us said anything. Oh and I forgot there was an Asian dude riding his bike. Probably in his 40's. Just after the lady with her dog. I tried to nod at him but he made a point of not noticing me. Actually there was another Asian guy on his bike but he had just finished riding up the Chinatown bridge Centre Street hill so he was out of breath. When I got into Chinatown and downtown it was crowded so none of those people count. Although there was a lady running for the bus, I'd give her 50's but since she was Asian, probably in her 60's. SHE passed ME. Grabbed my sleeve and said, "Ay, ay," to let me know she was passing on the right, then ran to get her bus. I made a performance of not looking at her and acting as if this were a completely normal occurrence. Oh yeah, then at the C-train stop as I got off the C-train there was another dude. He looked East Indian. A teenager with some books. We both saw the bus and tried to hurry down the switchback then up the other switchback to catch it. It's just long enough of a run so that the bus can pull away and you have to wait another half hour for the next one. Countless times this has happened to me. The kid ran but his phone fell out of his pocket and his battery came out so he had to pick that up. Then he ran again and dropped some books. So he quit running. I, being a veteran of this stop, knew it wasn't worth wasting the energy and was just walking fast. I actually caught up to him and passed him, then proceeded to check how long the next bus would be, decided it was too long to wait and walked home. The whole time I could have engaged him in conversation about his bad luck. Asked if his phone was okay. Maybe offered the information about how long the next bus would be. I just left.

It's strange but even in countries where I don't speak the native language I probably would have talked with this kid. The countries I've been to anyways. With the exception of the States. I probably would have talked with the lady with the dog too. Maybe even the school kids. And here we have the problem in a nutshell. It's ME. I take on the personality of the culture I am in. Well to some extent. I am MUCH more outgoing when I'm not in Canada! Even in Korea where a lot of times people are only saying hello to make fun of me, I'd still say I was more friendly there than here. Mostly because I think my culture has evolved into a highly personal, private one and I don't want to invade anyone's privacy. I wish I had spent more time in the country here. It might have been different because I know people are just nicer in the country than the city.

Anyway, this probably has a lot to do with why I didn't manage to make a bunch of friends, get onto sports teams, meet a girl, and have any social life to speak of while I was here in Canada. I probably didn't put myself out there enough. Though it might have been different if I could have made enough money to AFFORD to put myself out there enough... THIS has a lot to do with the difference as well I think. In countries other than Canada I can afford a social life. And another contributing factor: I have a little bit more confidence in a place where I make a decent living, don't have to worry about finances, have a job that uses my skills and education, (and is considered much more prestigious than anything I've done in Canada), have a nice place to invite guests to for drinks or whatever, exercise more and eat better so LOOK better, probably dress better too. It does a world of good for my social life if I feel good about myself, not just in meeting the ladies but in meeting friends of all kinds. I can't have that confidence in Canada. Sadly.

Now I'm going to bare a little bit of my soul. I am pretty good at acting like I have courage and am not shy, but I am insecure underneath. As I used to say, "Every security guard is at least a little insecure." I see people sometimes hugging friends they meet or even kissing them and wish I could have the confidence to do that. I think that the only way to change the terrible things I've been talking about is basically being nicer to each other and showing more love. OWNING our interconnectedness with each other and the earth. Doing just what those two famous philosophers, William S. Preston Esq. and Theodore Logan said we should do: Be excellent to each other and party on dudes! Was it Bill and Ted who created that or was it Rufus? I forget.

Anyhoo, I think when I was 19 or 20 I had the ability to hug people. I hugged a lot of relatives too and kissed kids. Now for some reason, I think to myself, "Better just shake their hand or wave or something. They may not want ME to hug them or kiss them." It's a confidence thing. I don't feel like I am coming close to living up to my potential doing security work. I feel more like I am contributing to society as an ESL teacher and I feel that others view me that way also. It allows me to be less inhibited and more outgoing and this just naturally leads to more fun, better experiences and memories and a happier life. This is a better explanation about why I said I don't feel so great living in Canada even though I know I am very fortunate to have that option.

One last documentary reference: Tom Shadyac's 2010 film called I Am. Tom Shadyac is the guy who brought us Ace Ventura, Liar Liar, Patch Adams and Evan & Bruce Almighty. He used to write jokes for Bob Hope for crying out loud! I LIKE his comedy but in I Am he talks to a lot of people who are intellectuals and have never seen his movies. He asks people like Desmond Tutu, David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and others two questions: What's wrong with the world and what can we do about it? Much like this blog post it starts out with greed, capitalism and the affluenza virus. But I absolutely LOVE where the film ends up! It ends up with global interconnectedness and love. This is something I dig. For so long science has been almost ignoring these mystic parts of the universe, one of which my favourite scientist, Nocola Tesla, called the Ether. It is not mentioned by name in the documentary but it was talked about. Einstein, of course, had trouble with it because it would have destroyed his beloved theory of relativity that, like some other theories, has grown to be accepted as fact in the new, not-so-scientific science. So many other scientists have trouble with abstract ideas like the Ether, love, God, but they have no trouble believing in their CHOSEN theories, and haven't had since the time of Darwin, or shortly before, which marked the great separation of God and science. I hate this rivalry and think it has been greatly detrimental to science trying to eliminate any unexplainable phenomena like God from it only to replace them with other unexplainable phenomena. It just makes modern theoretical sciences like quantum physics almost hypocritical in that they are entirely based on things that are highly elusive, impossible to prove but we just KNOW they exist. As I have said before, when a physicist says he understands the universe because of quantum physics it's like a person saying he understands T.V. because he has a remote and can change channels. If we could get beyond this arrogant belief that we can explain and understand everything, which is the misplaced core of modern science, I believe, as did Tesla, that science could have its greatest generation.

Again I will bare a bit of my soul here but I think there is a great power out there that binds us all together with each other and the earth. I believe if we could tap into it we could do wondrous things! Like healing diseases, incredible advances in technology and maybe even stopping the greed. It just might be the ONLY way to do this. This power is something that is being hidden and/or ignored. It is not possible to quantify but we know it's there. I think God, love, the Ether, the Tao they are probably all pretty close to the same thing or interconnected parts of the same thing.

Tesla was pretty defiant about the futility of science without the Ether. This is a man who was able to provide the world with electricity wireless and free for all over a century ago! The guy was too smart for his own good. It's not wonder that he, like so many other things, was silenced and sort of swept under the rug. His life was an awfully mysterious story. Check it out and see if you don't see a cover-up.

To get even more abstract, look at the very beginning of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. Written in the 6th century B.C. It says, "Non-existence I call the beginning of Heaven and Earth. Existence I call the mother of individual beings. Therefore does the direction towards non-existence lead to the sight of the miraculous essence, the direction towards existence to the sight of spatial limitations." I think this is pretty much the same thing. The closer you get to what Lao Tzu calls the direction towards non-existence, the closer you get to miraculous essence. I bet this miraculous essence is something we'd all be shooting for if we could work together and quit trying to selfishly hoard. Conversely, individuality leads to spatial limitations such as selfishness, jealousy and greed. Disregard the self and the Self is increased. If you desire nothing, do you not have everything you want? Sound familiar? Non existence. The Ether. God. Love. Mirror neurons. Interconnectivity. Things we don't, and in all likelihood CAN'T, understand are the things that could save us. I don't know about you but "miraculous essence" sounds pretty good to me! Worth a crack anyway, no?

But back to the documentary: all the people who Shadyac chose as interview subjects seemed to agree that, although we can't prove it, it is flaming obvious that people are programmed to help each other almost as if we are a bit more connected and not so individual. Speaking of things swept under the rug, Darwin's OTHER book in which he tries to apply his Natural Selection to the "Descent of Man," he talks a lot more about our co-operative nature than survival of the fittest. Probably why nobody KNOWS about this book of his. If you actually read "Origin of Species" closely, God is not excluded in THAT either. It's just been presented over the years in that way. Think about it. Why were there so many capitalizations of "nature" and "natural selection" in the book, and why, if nature is an inanimate, unintelligent force, did he use the self-contradictory term, natural SELECTION? Nothing inanimate and unintelligent can make selections.

In the movie they mention how good it makes everybody but a sociopath feel when we see people helping each other. It gives us a lump in our throat, a tear in our eye and an urge to participate. I think the most memorable event of my three-year stint in Canada will be the tragic floods in Calgary last summer. I say, "tragic," but they were anything but. The whole city pulled together and people were treating each other with human kindness that we normally reserve for family reunions or Christmas time. It would have been a very interesting sociological study to follow a homeless person around with a camera during that time. I bet every homeless person in Calgary is hoping for an even bigger "disaster" this year! Why can't it be Christmas every day?

Okay, one final documentary reference: I was watching "The Chocolate Farmer" the other day, about a cacao farmer named Eladio Pop in Belize who honours his Mayan heritage and co-operates with the land, almost becomes part of it. He thinks the Mayan culture was more advanced and we are going backwards the way we do things these days. Many agree. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." Now, I don't necessarily think we should revert to farming and abandon technology. I'd be lost without my computer and the internet. But I like the part in this film when Eladio says that we study in school just so we can work for someone else and become their slave. I am a free man. No chance of ever doing this in Canada, but maybe I will put a little money away every check when I start working in Indonesia, and eventually buy a little shack with high speed internet, and farm pineapple or sugar cane or whatever grows over there. Chocolate? hmmmm....

So there! I'm not just going to Indonesia for a better job or to escape the evil capitalistic empire Canada has become. I feel like I will be better able to live a life there that is closer to the life I am supposed to be living. It won't be easy living in the heat and hubbub of one of the most densely populated places on Earth. I will have LOTS of human contact! And I will be working hard to build up a battery of lessons and techniques that suit the curriculum at my new school. I'll be busy learning the language and culture and finding my way around Jakarta. I'll be busy! But I think I will be happier by far. I will probably be able to get that beautiful feeling of co-operating with my fellow man more. And just maybe I can live a life that can make a small change in one or two people for the better. I think that is why the Shadyac documentary is called I Am. Because this is the change needed to change our world. Slowly as our world's frog water has almost reached a boiling point, it can be cooled by individuals just living good lives and affecting others in that way. As Lao Tzu says, "The Man of Calling dwells in effectiveness without action. He practices teaching without talking." Just do my part by living a principled life and hope that others will do so too. THAT'S what I am going to get started on as soon as I get to Indonesia. I admit, it's too hard for me to do that in Canada. I just wish that weren't the case. But who knows, maybe I won't pass my physical and I'll have to stay in Canada. Then I'll need to write a new blog post to convince you and myself that Canada is the place I am meant for. Ha ha ha. We shall see what happens...