Three more days

Just three more days until Kindy graduation! And when it's all over...kindy will go on as before for another month or so. But it'll be over! Speeches, trips to Pinjen for rehearsal, "The Ugly Duckling," bribing the kids with candy or threatening them with time-outs to keep them focused - gone! I can't wait.

Oh, and I found out this morning that we, the Native Speaking Teachers, will be leading an exercise routine to the tune of "Lollipop, Lollipop" at the ceremony to show the parents what we have their kids do every morning. I knew I loved this job for a reason.

Hogsmeade for the weekend...

With other things keeping me too busy last week, I neglected to mention my reaction to the latest Harry Potter movie. "Prisoner of Azkaban" is my favorite thus far of the five books and, well, the movie measured up to it pretty well!
I generally avoid seeing movies based on books I like that much, because I've usually found the movies don't do the books justice. I haven't let that stop me with the Potter series, I guess because I'm mostly there for the special effects rather than the stories. I suspect I would feel differently if the series had been around when I was a kid. Back then, a book I liked that much would just make me feel happy to be alive, period, and a movie that I didn't like nearly as much would just seem tragic. (I certainly wish I could be that excited about reading these days!)
All of which is my lead in to saying that I didn't like the movie nearly as much as the book. That's exactly what I suspected, of course, and I don't regret seeing the movie one bit. The dementors and the house where the climax takes place and the streets of Hogsmeade all looked just about exactly as I had imagined them, and the special effects were terrific as always. And laying aside the story, the atmosphere alone made me pine for getting away to an academic paradise like Hogwarts. I do have a soft spot for long train trips, especially if there's inclement weather involved and if you're going to be among old friends at your destination.
So why did I like it a bit less than the book? Well, it's something I don't think you could really depict in a movie the same way you can in a book. The whole theme of joylessness and despair represented by the dementors and how Harry's resilient love of life and his friends help him overcome them are a big part of what made the book so brilliant for me. (And anyone who has read it will tell you it's all far more convincing and less treacly than I just made it sound!) The movie only gives you a taste of the dichotomy, but that's probably the best it could do.
Still, a heck of a movie. Recommended to anyone who hasn't gotten around to it yet, although I suspect there aren't many of you left!

I love the rowing on Dragon Boat Lake

Wow, nearly two weeks without a word - I am quite sorry! The schedule has been crazier than ever with graduation coming up next week now and various other events in the works. But as always, I'm still happy to be so busy and challenged for a change.

Besides, there hasn't been anything too dramatic to share. One tidbit I will pass on: last week was Dragon Boat Festival, a big patriotic holiday in China - or at least in Taiwan. I've lost track of which celebrations are and aren't allowed in The Other Country. Loosely based on a long-ago search for a very loyal-to-his-country poet who threw himself into a river after being falsely accused of treason, the big event on Dragon Boat Festival is dragon boat races. Think of your average college rowing team, and then just add wonderfully colorful dragon heads to them all. It's quite a sight!

A week and a half ago, we took all the kindy kids down to the lake one morning to see the practice runs for the big day. The kids were only marginally interested (I think they were mostly just happy to be outside), but it was a pleasantly cool morning and the teachers definitely enjoyed watching the boats. On the big day itself (four days later), I had the day off from work and didn't really want to go to the lake, mainly because it was excruciatingly hot. But I figured I should try a bit harder than I had been lately to appreciate the local culture. So off I went, and, well, it was just about the same as the practices only hotter and more crowded! I did run into some fellow foreigners I hadn't met before, which was a nice surprise. I hung around with them for a while before heading back, and had a pleasant enough afternoon.

Still and all, big holiday blowouts can be just as overrated here as at home!

Little Todd or Shayla is a hopelessly spoiled brat!

Remember the "Sex and the City" episode where they went to the baby shower in Connecticut? At some point in the party (which, if I recall correctly, was rather depressing for all four of them for varying reasons), a young mother says something or other which demonstrates that she's extremely obsequious to her very young son. As soon as the mother is out of earshot, one of the regulars (Miranda, I think) says, "And when that boy grows up, how many women will be able to live up to his image of Mommy? I'm thinking none!"

I'm thinking that unfortunate principle applies to teachers as well as girlfriends.

Peter is the troublemaker in my kindy class. Well, there are several troublemakers, but Peter is the worst. He never pays attention or tries to learn anything, rarely stays in his seat for more than two minutes at a time, and usually just laughs at attempts to discipline him unless my co-teacher or I come down really hard on him.

I've known from early on that his parents have a fair amount to do with that. I've met his mother on a number of occasions and, although I can't communicate directly with her because she doesn't speak English, I've been able to gather pretty clearly that she rarely disciplines him for much of anything. Once I even saw her yell at another kid for taking one of Peter's toys, but to be fair, that other kid was also something of a troublemaker and may well have deserved it. Even before I started this job, I knew that some parents are on a strictly see no evil, hear no evil basis with their kids, and I've known all along that she was one of those.

But I got a new dose of her this week that gave me a new appreciation for why Peter is such a little terror.

I have a few rules in my classroom when it comes to lunch. One of those is that all the kids have to eat some vegetables. We get rice, meat, fruit for dessert, a side dish of some shape or form - usually something tofu based - and vegetables. I don't force the kids to eat any of the other things if they don't want any, but I do make them eat at least a few veggies. Well, this week, I noticed that when Peter got to the head of the line, my co-teacher didn't make him take any vegetables even though she always backs me up on that rule with the other kids. I, of course, asked why. Now, my co-teacher only speaks a little English, but she had no difficulty explaining this one to me. Peter's mother has sent down orders that if he doesn't want to eat any vegetables, we are not to try to make him eat any.

Kind of hard to know how to respond to that one, isn't it? I really hope little Peter finds some kind of moderating influence on his life somewhere down the road, but I ain't holding my breath!

There is, however, the occasional sign of hope. Today, Peter did take a few vegetables with his lunch, although I suspect that was only because he knew I was particularly furious with him for fooling around on stage during a rehearsal for the graduation play. Hey, it's a start. He's also quite good at art projects; the few times I've ever seen him stay in his seat for any amount of time were all when he was working on a drawing or painting of some sort. Maybe he'll grow up to be a tortured artist and produce a masterpiece or two on the futility of childhood. You never can tell!

Any mistakes in the recounted plot and dialogue above are owing to the fact that my SATC DVDs are currently in my parents' basement halfway around the world. Thanks for understanding!

Worst. Website. Evvvvvverrrrrrr

Being as my old GRE scores are expired and I've been eager to get the ball rolling on my grad school applications but most of the universities aren't even letting you start filling out the forms yet, it seemed like a good time to get rolling on taking the GRE again. And, well, I'm glad I got the registration out of the way.

Why am I glad it's over? Because the GRE registration website is easily the least user friendly site I have ever stumbled across. It's a disaster, start to finish. It crashes regularly, it won't let you look up anything too specific, and although there's a lot of information there, it doesn't really tell you how to find it. And if you happen to be overseas and in the market for the computer based test (only paper and pencil tests are available in much of Asia), you'd think there'd be a list somewhere on the site of which countries have the computer option available. You'd think, but you'd be wrong. It's only by sheer guesswork that I settled on Manila and Singapore as my two closest options. If you click on a country that doesn't have the CAT, it'll just kick you back to a page that encourages you to try the paper and pencil version instead. But anyone who knows anything about the GRE knows you're much better off with the CAT. Grrr.

On the bright side, it is a nice excuse to go to Singapore in August, something I was thinking of doing anyway. So I have a working vacation to look forward to in just under two months! And the application process is in motion at last.

Ray Charles, 1930-2004

Some truly tragic news from back across the pond. My well-worn 45 of "You Don't Know Me" got me through the worst night of my life several years ago, when I was reeling from a situation just like the one in the song. God bless you, Ray!

As for the other famous American who died last week, well, it's wrong to speak ill of the dead. So I won't say anything for now!

Off to see the lizard

Sometimes Taiwan feels a bit like one of those science fiction movies where the hero ends up in a parallel universe where everything is almost the same - but not quite. Once you get used to having all the signs in another language and the fact that people tend to look at you as something of a novelty on the street (which I've never really minded), it doesn't necessarily feel like you're halfway around the world from home. The cars, stores, furniture and other things you see on a regular basis just don't look all that different. Then, every now and then, something jumps out at you to remind you that it really is a different place.

I ran into one of those just a week or two ago when I was walking past a park in Chung Li. There was a series of cement posts along the sidewalk, whose purpose I couldn't discern from where I was walking. Maybe they were trashcans or something. Anyhow, I saw a lizard sunning itself on one of them. It looked quite happy, actually - it was a sunny and very hot day and sunbathing was a good thing to be doing right then. It was a slight shock for me to see it at first (like I said, you do tend to forget that differences exist until you see them!), but I was intrigued enough to stand there for a minute or two and look at it from a respectable distance. Sort of like children here do with me, actually.

It was cute. It was harmless. And I wouldn't have seen it at home, except maybe in a zoo.

Breaking points - when and where?

I passed the three month mark last week, and with it another observation and performance review. It was good. Great, even. The head teacher said she was amazed at my improvement. Definitely a nice surprise!

Well, maybe surprise isn't exactly the right word. I did feel I was getting better at my job anyway, although her enthusiasm was definitely unexpected from where I sit. The thing is, I came here fresh from two years and change in a situation where progress and effort just weren't rewarded, or usually even acknowledged. How I survived as long as I did there is really something of a mystery to me. Bottom line, the idea that if you work hard on the job and learn from your mistakes you will be rewarded for it is something I no longer take for granted. I'm not sure that I ever did, really, but I definitely don't do it now. The fact that such a no-brainer came as such a surprise to me is a rather sad commentary on how an awful lot of people (previously including myself) are treated at work these days. But I guess this is proof that, ultimately, you don't have to take what I put up with for a while there.

I keep thinking of a conversation I had with a friend not long before I left DC, who had been through his own share of recent ups and downs on the job. He noted that he always did pretty well in jobs he only took to pay the rent until the Next Big Break came along, then added "It's only the jobs on my actual career track that became disasters." I recall thinking the same was basically true of me, and since I came to Taiwan mostly for the adventure and to do something fun for a year until I can go back to school, my success here would appear to bear out that trend.

So, when does one's breaking point come when it's time to take a chance like this? If I had to choose a single moment, it probably all goes back to hearing this song on the radio late last fall, when I was exactly where she describes herself in the first line. As I pondered the lyrics while waiting for the light to turn green, I thought, why not stop thinking about big changes and start making them? Barely three months later, I was on a plane to Taipei. There were lots of conversations with friends along the way and a fair amount of searching for other options in case I found something I might like better than teaching. But it all started at that one moment when I remembered that if I was that unhappy where I was, there was no real reason to stay there.

So, when have you hit a breaking point in life? What brought it on and what did you do in response? (And by the way, if anyone else is crazy enough to take a big leap like I did based on such a seemingly minor occurrence, let me encourage you to do it! I haven't regretted it yet.)

Long May You Roar

After a long hiatus, it appears that the Ms. Magazine discussion boards are gone for good. At least that's what the notice currently on the site makes it sound like.

I have mixed feelings about that. My endorsement of the boards was always lukewarm to begin with. I learned a lot by lurking there, and it is important to be aware of the unique problems women still face 30 years after the Second Wave. No other site that I am aware of did as good a job of raising awareness of that as the Ms. boards did. But the prevailing attitude there was intolerant at best and downright vicious at worst. It presented the worst case of groupthink I have ever seen: not only were dissenting viewpoints never considered, but people (women and men alike) who raised them were treated with contempt and their views usually not addressed substantially or at all. That is why I was a lurker, by the way. I agreed with probably 90% or more of what was said there, but my dissenting views on the other 10% (not to mention my gender and the fact that I refuse to apologize for it) would have made me persona non grata in that particular community.

The boards also tended to bear out the worst of stereotypes about feminism. The right loves to paint feminists as bitter, paranoid man-haters who are just taking out their personal issues on men who have done no wrong and the women who love them. The overwhelming majority of self-described feminists I have known are miles from that stereotype (in fact, only one of them fit it - and I dated her for a year and a half anyway!), but some of the more vocal regulars on the boards fit that ugly and unfair image to a T. My two favorite quotes from those folks illustrate all this better than I could: "I don't see how men can add anything to a college experience except date rape and domination in class," and "I oppose men taking women's studies classes because they might do really well and make their female classmates feel inadequate."

I am all for a social movement allowing for radicals as well as moderates in its ranks, but stuff like that does no good and a lot of harm for its credibility. (My ex disagreed vociferously with me on that point, which is one reason why she is my EX. And she never did explain why perpetuating your own stereotypes is helpful in any way, beyond telling me I had no right to an opinion on the matter.) So I think while the Ms. boards were probably the best feminist site on the web, I also think they'd reached the point where the harm from the image they projected was outweighing the good from their very informative nature.

I'm sure there's a better site still out there, one which allows for a pleasant exchange of ideas while staying true to the goals of feminism. I'll be sure to replace that link over there once I find it.

More politics

So, the Dems went 2 for 2 in this year's special elections this week. Good for them. The close margin was, truth be told, a bit disappointing for me, and I'm not persuaded that it's a harbinger of anything in particular. But hey, good news is good news.

I honestly think the Dems are overdoing the "victory in strong Republican territory" thing a bit. True, South Dakota is among the eleven states that haven't gone Democratic for president since the end-of-an-era landslide of 1964, which is as good a definition of "red state" as any. But it is more or less unique among the Red Eleven (*) in that it has had several close presidential votes since then and has elected a lot of Democrats to Congress in recent years. Clinton came pretty close there at least once, even though the Dems didn't spend much on his behalf there (which wouldn't have been cost-effective or necessary), and the House seat in question was in Democratic hands from 1982-96. But Bush did carry SD 60-38, so I guess a win there is worth crowing about a bit. If nothing else, it's fun to watch the Republicans try to spin this one after all the chortling they did over a few special elections they won in the mid-90s in former Democratic districts.

And wins like this are usually a sign of things to come, especially when there is more than one election in an off-season as was the case here. (The other was in Kentucky in February.) Like it or not, those aforementioned GOP wins in the spring and summer of 1994 weren't outliers. In the lead-up to the Watergate election of 1974, the Dems won five special elections out of (I think) a total of six. So, if nothing else, it's not a bad sign for us. I just hope it doesn't make anybody complacent.





(*) The other ten, by the way, are Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. I don't see John Kerry making that list any shorter this fall, but he does have an outside chance at Virginia and - if the wind is really at his back - Indiana.
posted by Dave : 11:55 PM