Xmas dinner

I had dinner at the Al Bustan Rotana with several colleagues on Christmas Eve.  The food was great.  The turkey was juicy.  The company was pleasant.  And I didn't have to do dishes or clean up after.

Xmas present

I must have been even better than I thought this year.  Santa upgraded my bike.  I got a Scott Aspect 20 plus a cool helmet and some other gear (much better than the Giant I was looking at before).  I've really missed biking, so I'm going to be out most morning before the sun comes up riding around the university.

Christmas Presents

I've been pretty good this year (The fact that I live on campus in the middle of a desert in a dry emirate that has no bars is completely beside the point.).  I'm so sure that Santa is going to bring me exactly what I want (and deserve) that I stopped by one of his out-sourced workshops at the Dubai Festival City mall.  I'd love to get a new road bike, but I really don't want to ride on my own on the hard shoulders of any of the roads in the Emirates.  So...I'm looking at an offroad bike.  I'll be able to ride on the roads around the University City and there are a lot of sand lots I can cycle in.  I have a friend in Dubai who does some really serious looking mountain biking, so I may give him a call when I'm in better shape.

At any rate, I love this bike.

Of course, this being the UAE, I said, "I'll take it with me right now (so you don't have to deliver it on Christmas day). I need some shoes, too. I need a size 10 or 10 and a half.  I'll also take a helmet and a bunch of other stuff"

The elf said, "Sorry, we have only size 12.  If you wear heavy socks, it should be okay."

"Gee, I don't think so.  I'm going to spend US$1,000 on a bike and you don't have the shoes to go with it."

I'm hoping that, by Christmas, they will have what I need.

A friend told me about this website last week.  It's cool.  Some of the vocabulary is really hard, but it's a good way to learn vocabulary.  I like it because it has links to the sound files as well, so you can learn how to say it as well.  If you use it, you can feed needy people.

A Charlie Brown Christmas tree

I put up my Christmas tree this morning.  I'm sure Christmas will pass quietly this year.  I'd like to say that I've been good this year, but that's not true.  I'm expecting a lump of coal in my stocking.

I will certainly miss my family's company this year - my older brother in particular has often provided me with memorable Christmas dinners in recent years.  I expect that the closest I will come to a Christmas dinner this year will be a Chicken Whopper at Burger King.

Perhaps I should look at roasting a couple of Cornish game hens and having a few colleagues over for dinner.

Hatta "Water" Pools

I've been to the Hatta Water Pools several times in the past and there was often a fairly large pool and lots of running water.  I thought that my friends would find it interesting.

  Unfortunately, the pool was almost dry and there were only a few tiny streams.  They didn't believe me when I said that there were often a lot of fish in the pool.  Fortunately, the falaj running along the road had plenty of small fish in it.

Dubai Creek Dinner Cruise

A couple of days ago, I went on a dinner cruise celebrating a colleague's birthday. Getting from Sharjah to Deira in Dubai took one and a half hours. However, the cruise was really pleasant. The weather was perfect - cool but not cold - and the food was quite good. It was nice to get out with friends for a cruise that lasted about 3 hours.

Security???

I have no desire to do this, but, if you like jumping off tall things, this must be a thrill.

Musical Interlude

One of my favorite musicians is Jim Brickman. I've always loved his piano playing, and I've never understood why the "purists" complain about his collaborations. He does beautiful work with Martina McBride (Valentine), Collin Raye and Susan Ashton (The Gift), Michelle Wright (Your Love), and All-4-One (It Must Be You). I've always been a little soft pop and a little country. This one is just right. It brings a tear to my eyes.

Aaaarrrgghhh! 2

I gave one of my classes a grammar quiz today. One of the questions mentioned Jordan and Israel. In the middle of the quiz, one student put up his hand and asked if I thought that Israel was a country. I, of course, said, "Yes." He and two other guys in the class said that they were refusing to answer the question because Israel is NOT a country.

I haven't marked the quiz yet, so I'll have to see if they stood by their belief.

I intend to ask them who Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with and who Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat negotiated with if not with a country named Israel. (According to Wikipedia: Prior to signing the accords, Arafat — as Chairman of the PLO and its official representative — signed two letters renouncing violence and officially recognizing Israel.) I would like to see all the settlements removed and a more equitable division of the land - perhaps a 50/50 split, but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize the country of Israel.

I have a lot of Palestinian students in my class. My students seem quite privileged and far removed from the millions of Palestinians living in substandard conditions in the Gaza Strip or in refugee camps, so I'm a little less inclined to put up with too much crap from them, but I don't really know their situations. I'm assuming that every Palestinian knows someone who has suffered. I don't have the energy to struggle with this. I hope we can deal with this in an educated way and then it will just go away.

If there was every an argument that marijuana should be legalized, the last few years have convinced me. Everyone would be a lot more laid back if they smoked a joint from time to time. Perhaps George B, Donald R, and Dick C would still just be pondering an invasion of Iraq.

Can you imagine a bunch of suicide bombers sitting around a bong - "Oh, man. Let's do this another day"?

I don't think I've ever met an aggressive stoner.

Rain and other things

Yes, those are puddles. It rained fairly hard last night. There was even lightning and thunder.

Then, on the way to school, I saw this very beautiful Indian Roller sitting on a street light.

My favorite birds, of course, are the Eurasian Hoopoe. The two are regularly sitting in the window of someone's office.

I went down to the Emirates Towers today for lunch at the Noodle House (I had a serious craving for char kway teo.)

Around the outside of the building they had ant sculptures. They were odd, but kind of cool.

Aaaarrrgghhh!

Every once in awhile, I say something in class that I immediately regret. Several years ago, I had a student who rarely did any homework and, after I assigned the class a little homework, I said to the student, "Will you do the homework this time?"

The response was the typical, "Inshallah." This sort of means "God willing," but not really. For most people in the UAE, it's just a natural response to just about anything.

I said, "Are you really putting the responsibility for your homework on Allah? If you don't do it, will it be Allah's fault?" Well, I was lucky I didn't get kicked out of the country. It took a long, long time for the students to get over that.

Today, one of the students asked what 'myth' meant, and I foolishly said that they are stories we tell to explain mysteries but that they are real - like the 'jinn' in the Middle East. And, I kind of mocked jinn and ghosts. In my defense, Wikipedia says,

Genie is the mythical English translation of the Arabic term jinn.

Well, one student said that jinn were real because the Quran mentions them. Most of the other students agreed. It took them an hour to stop sulking.

From Wikipedia - Jinns: Similar to humanity, jinns have free will allowing them to follow any religion they choose to, such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. The only difference is that they are made of smokeless fire and therefore are not visible to humans. There are more jinns than humans, in terms of population. Jinns have the power to fly and fit in to any space so they live in remote areas, mountains, seas, trees, and in the air, in their own communities. Similar to the humans, Jinns will also be judged on The Day of Judgement and will be sent to Jannat (heaven) or Nar (hell) according to the life they lead.

Every person is assigned a special jinn to them, also called a qareen, the jinns that whisper into your soul and tell you to give into your evil desires. The Prophet Muhammad's jinn turned into a Muslim jinn, on the recitation of the Qur'an, as the jinn found it most beautiful.

I know I should be more careful, but I just wish everyone would lighten up.

My Saturday Morning Walk About Campus

The weather has become quite pleasant. This morning, the temperature was around 28C, so I took my camera and walked the route I take every morning to school. It's about a 10 minute walk. Most days, I see only a dozen people on my way in to the office (I usually go in around 7:30am, so the campus is quiet.). I NEVER get bumped or jostled. I NEVER end up in my office furious at all the rude people around me (see my posts on Seoul). My office and classrooms are in the big domed building on campus (the Main Building).

I saw a number of birds (see the photos on the sidebar). I was thrilled to see my favorite bird - the Hoopoe. I got a number of shots, but I need to try to get it with its crest spread out. I saw a couple of Indian Rollers, but they are skittish and I didn't get any pictures yet. There were also a number of terns (also very skittish).

Living on a campus in the middle of the desert has its drawbacks. However, it is quiet and relaxing. I spend most weekdays in my office or in the classrooms. In the evenings, I go to the gym or watch TV or read. On the weekends, I go into Dubai and have a pleasant meal at the Lime Tree, More, or some other trendy cafe. Then I do my grocery shopping at Spinneys or the Organic Store and return home. If the traffic is good (it usually is when I go), it takes 30-40 minutes to get into Dubai.

I've added a video below. There's no action - just the sound of birds. If I open my windows, this is what I hear. I'm always amazed at the number and variety of birds here.

'ecological disaster'

Mayne warns Dubai set for ‘ecological disaster’

Another in a long string of similar stories.

I was in Dubai today for lunch at the More and to buy a loaf of bread (The Organic Foods and Cafe has the best Spelt bread in the country). Dubai has some really nice restaurants and some really interesting buildings. There are some great, green parks. However, the obsession with having the biggest, best, most...yadda, yadda, yadda, seems to be a recipe for disaster. Perhaps it's just my Canadian-ness, but being okay is, well, okay. You don't need to be the greatest to be pretty darn good.

When science and culture bump heads

Genetic disorders afflict Arab world

Below are some excerpts from an article in The National (a UAE newspaper).  It's interesting that they are actually talking openly about this issue.  In countries such as those in the Gulf, it is very difficult for men and women to meet, socialize, fall in love, and marry strangers.  It's forbidden by their religion; there are also cultural prohibitions.  As a result, people marry those that they or their families know - their relatives.  This intermarriage custom is causing problems - problems which will affect the long-term survival of their countries.  They can continue to live as they have, but it is going to increase the scope of the problem.  The scientific evidence seems irrefutable.  It will be interesting to see how they deal with this problem.

The Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) yesterday said Arab countries were showing greater prevalence of many hereditary disorders caused both by environmental and social dynamics....

Disorders such as Down’s syndrome, sickle cell disease, and thalassaemia are far more common in the region than elsewhere. Many genetic conditions that are considered rare are found more frequently in the region.

According to CAGS, 21.4 babies per 100,000 are born with Down’s in the UAE, about double the average global rate.

About one in 10 people in the UAE is a carrier [of thalassaemia], CAGS said. 

Saudi Arabia has the highest rate of birth defects in the Gulf, with around 80 babies out of every 1,000 born with a disorder.

In the UAE, Kuwait and Oman, 70 to 79 children in every 1,000 are born with a birth defect.

Birth defects have been closely linked to marriages between cousins and relatives, a common practice throughout the region and estimated to account for 35 to 50 per cent of all weddings. 

Up to half of all Emirati marriages are between relatives, with 54 per cent of married couples in Al Ain being relatives, compared to 32 per cent in Abu Dhabi and 40 per cent in Dubai.

Saudi Arabia, has perhaps the highest rate of intermarriage, with up to two thirds of all marriages occurring between relatives.

A Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner

I got together with a dozen fellow Canadians (and a few American cousins) for a really fine Thanksgiving dinner last night.  We sang our national anthem (Yes, the new words), ate (the turkey was great - and, oddly enough, cooked by a vegetarian couple), and socialized.  A good time was had by all.

Changes

I changed the layout of my blog ----- just because.

I like the fact that this one is wider.

Umm Al Quwain Aero Club

I went out to the Barracuda this morning with a friend to pick up some libations. He's a flying enthusiast so we stopped at the Umm Al Quwain Aero Club, which is right beside the Barracuda. I have passed the plane dozens of times but I'd never gone inside. It's kind of cool. You can walk right inside it. Everything has been stripped out of it, but it's still kind of cool to walk into the cockpit.


While we were there, there was a real functioning airplane of a similar type preparing to leave from the airport. There must have been 100 men dressed in coveralls walking up the back ramp to go inside. I'm assuming that the men were being shuttled to some construction sight or oil facility in the UAE or possibly a neighboring country. It must be a tough way to go. I imagine that a lot of the guys lie or sit on the metal floor for the duration of the flight.

When you can't keep a dog...

Most evenings, he/she is on my living room ceiling. I don't know what it eats. There don't seem to be any insects. Perhaps that's why it's so skinny.

Food for thought

An interesting article about Dubai at The Observer - the dark side.

Holiday tasks

Since I'm on holiday now, I have time to start scanning all of my old slides and film negatives. I want to get them into digital form since slide projectors have gone the way of the 8-track. I started taking pictures seriously in 1976 and I have a huge box of slide and negatives. I also plan, at some point, perhaps after I buy my iMac, to put the pictures into slide shows with music. I have some pictures that I took in Bali 20 years ago that I think will go well with a tape I have of gamalon music.

The whole process is quite slow and a bit tedious, so, while I'm waiting for each set of slides to scan, I've started reading books that I've had on my shelves for a few years and haven't opened. My first choice is Chang-Rae Lee's novel, Native Speaker. So far, I'm impressed.

A new toy

I don't know how I've lived so long without one - a GPS that is. It's so cool. I bought a Garmin GPS today. While sitting in my car, I turned it on and it immediately found my location (easily then designated at Home). I typed in Barracuda, and it quickly found the Barracuda Beach Resort in Umm Al Quwain. I took the GPS for a test drive (unfortunately, the Barracuda really is closed until the first day of Eid). It's so cool to have the GPS tell you, "After 600 meters, turn right." Even when I turned too soon (and got lost), it just said, "Recalculating" and then it gave me new directions. Okay, the "Recalculating" voice did sound a tad condescending, but perhaps it was just my imagination. I know that it won't be perfect because of all the recent road changes, but it will help a lot. I think it will also enhance my safe driving ability because I will be able to focus on traffic while my GPS tells me where to go. I'm looking forward to taking it for a test drive in Dubai soon.

Sex on the beach trial highlights Dubai cultural divide

DUBAI -- Sex on the beach or drunken trysts may not raise eyebrows in many cities, but a recent case in Dubai has exposed a growing cultural divide between native Muslims and Western residents seeking fun in the sun.

I have seen this same story recently in a number of online news sites. It makes me wonder if I'm the last conservative on the planet. "Sex on the beach or drunken trysts may not raise eyebrows in many cities"??? I would sure as heck raise my eyebrows. I'm not some radical Christian. I think that what goes on between two (perhaps 3) consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes is their business. And I will admit to fooling around on a deserted beach late at night in Vancouver (but that's another story). But, for a long time, I've been bothered by the lack of separation between what is considered acceptable private and public behavior in Canada and many other western countries.

I think that a kiss on greeting or parting is fine, but, if a couple want to play serious tonsil-hockey, that should not be public. Whatever happened to polite behavior? Whatever happened to self-control? If you really feel the urge, can't you wait a little.

So, I have two problems with this story. One is that I think the basic behavior is inappropriate at any time in any place - including Canada. I'm not advocating years in the slammer, but I do think a few days - maybe a week - is fine. (The sentence hasn't been handed down yet, so we don't know if it will be excessive or not.). The second problem is with the idea that we can go to another country and act any way we want. That just seems impolite. Admittedly, Dubai is like the Wild West in many ways, and it sometimes seems like anything goes, but this couple should get a little jail time and they should be expelled from the country. The story that I got was that this was took place during the day, and they were given a warning by a police officer. It wasn't an unsuspecting couple holding hands and walking down the street (which, by the way, is perfectly acceptable in Dubai).

This story has also been accompanied quite frequently by this picture as though this fully-veiled woman represents the average Emirati. "Oh, yes. Look at how different they are." What a pile of c**p. The majority of Emirati women wear long black dresses with long sleeves, and they wear head-scarves. Very few Emiratis wear veils.

The picture below is much more common.


This whole story smacks of a nasty intolerance and racism that I find disturbing.

Yuck!

Since I arrived three weeks ago, the daytime temperatures have been 35-38C. Generally, it's hot but not unbearable. Today, humidity was 80-90%. I just got back from the gym (a 15 minute walk from my apartment to the fitness center). The temperature is 30C but the humidity is 80%. By the time I got home, I was sweating like crazy. It was really uncomfortable.

TGIT

Thank God It's Thursday - It's Thursday afternoon and I'm really looking forward to a couple of days off. The weekend in the UAE is Friday and Saturday. It used to be Thursday and Friday, but they changed it to make it easier for businesses around the world to work with the UAE. I had a pretty good week, but I need to gather myself, reassess my classes, and plan for the next few weeks.

Today, someone asked me where I was going on the holiday. I had completely forgotten that we get a week off at the end of Ramadan - actually 2 weekends and 1 workweek - a total of 9 days. I've just arrived here, so I don't think I'll go anywhere. I have some computer related things I want to work on. I may set up my own website and run my own English resource center for my students. I may also set up Moodle there. Oddly enough, the university seems really resistant to the best option - a site on the university system. They've also dumped Moodle and are using Blackboard - an online course delivery system. I've been to numerous Blackboard sessions, and I'm trying to like the program, but it is unnecessarily complicated for teachers who just want to provide things online for their students.

Movies I've watched recently

In the past week, I watched two movies that I saw years ago and have always remembered fondly:

The Sand Pebbles - I think it is one of Steve McQueen's best.

The Princess Bride - A great cast and a great story.

Both really are marvelous movies.

This afternoon I watched 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama. It was gentle and very moving. At the end, I was left with a tear in my eye. It seemed appropriate somehow to watch this film at this time. I know the Dalai Lama was just recently released from the hospital. He is quite elderly (73 years old). He seems a little frail. It is odd to think of the world without the Dalai Lama.


He could conceivably last another 30 years. I hope so. It would be nice if he could go home.

Google's new browser

It's cool.

Google Chrome

It has a nice clean interface. It may just replace Firefox as my main browser (although I have some privacy concerns with Google).

Back in the UAE

Three weeks ago, after a pleasant on-time flight from Kamloops to Vancouver on Air Canada, I went to check in at for my British Airline flight to Heathrow. I was four hours early but BA was checking in bags, so I went to the first available person who told me to go back and use the kiosk to speed up the process. I looked around and didn’t see any kiosks. When I said, “What kiosk?” a bemused check-in person took me a bunch of computers on stands. There is no way that those were kiosks. At any rate, I was supposed to scan my passport, but, since it was issued in Dubai four years ago when the Canadian government didn’t issue any machine readable passports outside of Canada, that wouldn’t work. Well then we just needed a number, which should have been on the e-ticket I printed out, but wasn’t; I went back to the line where I started and did everything the old fashioned way.

The BA flight was half an hour late, my seat was broken, the in-flight movies and the reading light didn’t work until an hour out of Heathrow. Fortunately, I usually sleep a lot on flights, so that’s what I did.

BA is the only airline that I’ve ever been on where the flight attendants (two) were actually rude to passengers. The seats in economy class were narrow and close together. I don’t think I’ve had such uncomfortable seating in years. When the person in front of me put his seat back, I had to extend my legs straight out for the whole flight. The person sitting beside me was not fat, but his elbows were in my space for the entire trip. Well done, BA.

When we got to London, we had to circle the airport for half an hour. When we landed, we were out on the tarmac, where we waited for half an hour for the stair driver to show up. Then it took another half an hour for buses to shuttle us to Terminal 5 where I had to walk for half an hour along often unmarked passages to get to a bus to take me to Terminal 4. At one point, I was told rather brusquely to go down a corridor and turn left. “You mean the corridor with the signs for other airlines, but not BA?” (which was what I was looking for). “Yes.”

At Terminal 4, I had to go through a security check, taking my shoes off and emptying my pockets. They were telling me to hurry up, so I forgot that I had my iPod hanging around my neck. I have never had anyone at an airport speak to me so rudely as the young women on the other side of the metal detector who yelled, “Go back. This is a metal detector you know.” No “Please, go back.” No “Would you mind removing that iPod?” The security checkpoint also had a big sign, saying that it was no longer necessary for laptop computers to be taken out of bags because of the advances in x-ray technology – well that didn’t happen. I had to take my laptop and everything else out of my computer bag so that my computer, mouse, external hard drive, and electric razor could be wiped with a little sniffer device. Then everything was run through the x-ray again. Clearly the advanced technology hadn’t arrived with the sign.

Heathrow is perhaps the ugliest airport I’ve been in in the developed world. I think the designer was an old Soviet era architect. It is also the only major airport that I’ve been in – ever – that didn’t have small baggage carts for people who had carry-on baggage. In the seven hours that I was at Heathrow, not one person working in a shop or restaurant smiled or said please or thank you. If this is typical of jolly old England, I think I’ll give England a miss, and BA is not going to be my first, second, or even third choice of airlines. Overall, this was a disappointing experience. Give me Singapore Airlines any time.

Dubai was a pleasant end to my trip. They scarcely glanced at my passport and didn’t need to check my bags.

I am now safely ensconced in a small but comfortable apartment on campus. The weather is hot – about 35-38C – not not incredibly uncomfortable. I remember temperatures of 48C ten years ago when I first arrived in Dubai.

The campus is quite green and the bird life is amazing. When the weather cools a little bit more, I’ll take my camera out and get some pictures. I have seen an Indian roller with vibrant blue feathers, a whole bunch of hoopoe, lots of doves and pigeons, and flocks of green parkeets.

I’ve been really jetlagged. This is coming on to the end of my third week, and, this week, I’ve finally been feeling better. For the first two weeks, I ran out of energy around 11am every day (11pm Vancouver time). Getting moved into my apartment has been tiring. The moving company made a real mess of everything. The container had gotten wet and had been dropped. Three Ikea bookshelves and two CD/DVD racks had been soaked and then dropped, so they were no good. The glass tv stand that should have held my tv was shattered. A folding Korean dining table was broken. I’ve had damp books piled on the floor and in corners. It has been difficult to get everything set up. All of the broken stuff was not insured. My big screen tv and one of my stereos were damaged (those are insured). I’m still waiting to see how long it takes to get that resolved. Needless to say, this has made settling in more tiring than necessary.

My classes are okay. The students are pretty good. The university is interesting because we have students from more than 80 different countries. The student dress ranges from shorts and T-shirts to traditional kandura and abaya. The students are pretty relaxed.

It’s now Ramadan and there are restrictions on eating and drinking in public. But, there are dining rooms and places for non-Muslims to have lunch.

Before Ramadan, the gym was almost deserted in the evening, but, now that most of the students can’t eat during the day, the gym gets packed from about 8:30 on. Our university seems to win a lot of sports competitions – both men and women’s.

As I sit here, a tiny gecko is running across my wall. I don’t recall seeing them before, but I have at least three small geckos in my apartment.

I will start taking pictures soon. The campus is quite green and the buildings are beautiful. University City is huge.

Canadian, eh?

I was shocked and more than a little disappointed when I saw the new B.C. license plates - "The Best Place on Earth". While B.C. may in reality be the best place on earth, it just feels wrong to be running around telling people that we're better than them. This license plate seems so arrogant. It just doesn't feel Canadian to be tooting our own horn (we may think it, but to say it...?). Besides, the U.N. (for the second year running) has Norway as the best place to live. Canada is only number 3 (admittedly, the west coast may be the nicest part of Canada

Cruel and unusual punishment

Car-keying suspect out on $25,000 bail

As a Canadian, I've always thought that people should be punished for the wrongs they commit, but that the punishment should not be cruel and unusual. Having had my car keyed a couple of times in Vancouver, I don't have too much sympathy for people who do such mean-spirited, seemingly pointless things (and this guy has been caught 3 times) . . . however, this punishment surely is cruel...

Kim, who works at a restaurant on Kingsway in Burnaby, was ordered to live with his parents in their Coquitlam home and not to change his residence, except with prior permission of the court.

The man is 31 and it was probably his parents who had to post the $25,000 bail. I suspect that his parents are going to make his life pretty miserable for the next little while.

No free lunch

I always forget that my brother always has something he is working on around his house. Last year, I was tearing siding off his house and doing footings for a new deck. This year, we painted his shed. I keep waiting for him to downsize and move into a townhouse or a condo.



I can't really complain. I get a nice room, good food, and laundry service.



Every time I come back to Canada I notice that ALL of my middle-aged friends are obsessed with retirement. It's a little depressing since I can't imagine retiring EVER (my feeling is that my students will one day find me slumped dead on my desk, dying with my boots on so to speak - I just hope it happens BEFORE I mark those 20 essays). What's even more depressing is that all of my friends say things like, "I only have $200,000 in this investment, $200,000 in RRSPs, $500,00 in my house, and 20 years of a pension. I don't know how I'm going to manage." Considering that ALL of my friends have 10 times more than I do, I'm a little concerned and a little disheartened. Everyone here lives so big. They all have big houses, big yards, big cars (often more than one). I think that they all expect their lives to be exactly the same after they retire as they are now. I am working on living in the moment, so I hope I can stop worrying about this.

I've been up at the TRU gym a couple of times this week. For the last few years, I've kind of been the king of the gym in Korea. A few guys have been stronger and fitter, but not many and NO women have been even close to my strength and fitness level. Here in Canada, I'm average, and quite a few woman have been stronger. It's a little intimidating when some woman takes a machine after I've used it and throws on a couple more plates. Yikes! If I stayed here, I'd really have to step up my workouts.

The gym shower culture here is also quite different. Today, I noticed how much quieter our showers are because we don't have people vigorously clearing their sinuses on the shower floor or hawking up a lung for 10 minutes and spitting big globs of phlegm on the shower floor. Mirrors here also get just a cursory look. Most guys just quickly run their fingers through their hair and then they're done. In Korea, the guys could easily spend ten minutes preening in front of the mirror before they go to workout and another 10 or 15 minutes when they finish.

Kamloops

I've been in Kamloops for the last couple of days, visiting my older brother. It has been a little hot (33C) but dry. This area is semi-desert.


















This will be home for the next three weeks. My days will be spent exercising, reading, and trying to really get a grasp on CSS (a daunting tasks).










Yesterday, I went to the Technogym at Thompson River University. The equipment was quite amazing as can be seen in these before and after pictures.


My older brother, the Bionic Man, having just had a knee replacement, felt the need to go for a 60 minute walk through the hills to check out some bird boxes he had put out. One box had baby bluebirds in it and another had baby swallows.

Vancouver

I have just had my first full day in Vancouver. The weather is beautiful. The sky is incredibly blue. It was sunny all day and about 25C. I walked a lot, got a mobile phone set up, and rented a car.

It feels really strange to have strangers smile, say hello and chat a bit while waiting for a crossing signal. I find it strange that any time I step to the curb, cars stop. It's a little embarrassing. A few times, I was just standing at the corner, admiring my surroundings. I felt compelled to cross the road since they had stopped.

Everything feels really relaxed here.

In honor of the blue sky, I rented a nifty little Toyota Prius (a hybrid car). I had never driven one before and it feels a little strange because the "gear shift" is about 5cm long and is located on the dash board. It has only Drive, Reverse, Neutral, and Park. I've driven a hundred different kinds of vehicles, so I expected to have no trouble. There is no key. What looks like a small garage door opener fits in a slot on the dashboard. When I finally parked, I couldn't get the "key" out of the dashboard and had to call the rental agency. I thought that all the power was off, but, after pushing the Power switch one more time, everything was okay. I was more than a little embarrassed.

In Vancouver, I expect that an environmentally friendly hybrid call will be a chick magnet. In fact, I'm sure I got a couple of good long looks. I've changed a lot since I used to drive a red Camaro.

A farewell to Korea

As I get ready to leave Korea for the fourth time, I feel compelled to reflect a little on my last few days. I know I will miss many of my colleagues and students a lot. Many of my colleagues have left me with kind, supportive messages. I am touched.

I’m not going to miss Seoul at all. My rants about Seoul have been long and far too frequent, so I won’t repeat them here.

After struggling with so many things lately, the end went very smoothly. Apple Tours at the Yongsan USO got me the flight home that I wanted at a great price. The moving company came early (almost unheard of in Seoul) and were in and out in 2 and a half hours. The final cost of shipping was a million won LESS than the original estimate – something that I hadn’t expected – a very pleasant surprise. The movers were really professional. I would definitely recommend Asian Tigers (www.asiantigers-korea.com) to anyone. I got all of my key money back EARLY and my landlord has let me stay in the apartment until I leave. At the bank, there was absolutely no fuss. I managed to get all of my money transferred home and my account closed with no problem. The staff at the Shinhan Bank in Itaewon were great. That took just half an hour. It’s nice to have so many positive things happen at the end.

It was all so good that I thought I would treat myself at the new Hard Rock Café under yhe Hamilton Hotel. The Hard Rock has been under construction for ages, and, after my visit, I can understand why. It’s huge. Inspite of the fact that it’s part of a large commercial chain, I liked it. It’s quite well-layed out. It has several distinctly different dining areas that are all nice, and it has a large, very cool bar. I went in for lunch and it was pretty quiet. I don’t know what it’s like at night. The food is a little pricy but not outrageous when compared to TGIF or the Outback. After my meal, I thought I would buy a Hard Rock T-shirt. Last February, I bought a really cool one for a friend in Abu Dhabi. It had a map of Korea with a huge dragon and tiger superimposed on top of it. Of course, there were none on the shelves. I asked the salespeople if they had any in the back and I was informed that they were so popular that they sold out quickly. “Would you be getting anymore in?” “No.” Hmm. Really popular design. Not going to get anymore. Hmm. At any rate, the rather mundane shirts they had were not attractive, so I didn’t buy any.

This will be my last blog from the land of the Morning Calm – the country I would love to love but just can’t. I should say up front to my family and friends who might be concerned – I will be okay. It was a very difficult year ( I really should have left last year). But, this will pass. At this point in my life I’m reminded of a story that I read in a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn about two Buddhist monks – one young and one old. They arrived at a river to find a young woman who needed to cross but couldn’t swim. The older monk put her on his back and swam across the river. When the young monk crossed, the two monks continued on their way. After several hours the young monk, who had clearly been upset for some time, turned to the old monk and said, “How could you carry the woman across like that? Monks aren’t supposed to touch women.” The old monk said, “Are you still carrying her? I left her at the side of the river hours ago.” As someone who regularly carries baggage that should have been left long ago, I resolve to move forward unburdened. It feels to me as though I’ve been carrying the weight of my dislike for our administrator on my back for a long time. When I leave here, I promise myself that I will not carry that weight anymore.

I got into teaching 25 years ago because I wanted to change the world. I’m a lot less idealistic now, but I still think of teaching as a calling, and I find it galling when people look at it just as a job – a way to make a little cash – or as a way to get ahead. My work-week has always been between 50 and 70 hours. I don’t expect everyone to spend so much time working, but teachers get long, long vacations, and I don’t think that it’s too much to ask that we devote our lives to teaching when we are actually at work. When I look out at a group of students, I see people who have come to me because I have put myself forward as a person who can educate them – as someone who will help them be all that they can be. We, as a group of trained professionals, need to assess their abilities, look carefully at where they would like to end up, and show them the way. When we assess those students, there should be no surprises. The students should truly believe that they are being assessed fairly so that they can say that they have arrived at their goal or they can assess their efforts, make changes, and continue on to success.

So…working in a program that has not been developed through the collaboration of professional language educators, that seems to totally ignore the level of the students, and that aims to teach discrete high level often trivial skills has made me very unhappy. I am torn because I think that a school should have a curriculum – one that has been developed by educators to meet the needs of the particular student body. I don’t think that we should be able to ignore the curriculum, so I try to do what is asked, yet the teachers who ignored the program and taught what they wanted were probably happier and surely did the right thing for their students. Having to go into the classroom every day to sell a program that I didn’t believe in was beyond me, and I feel sorry for my students. I’m pretty sure that I won’t be getting any “Best Teacher” awards for this semester.

My ego has been pretty fragile the past few years, and it really didn’t help to have all of my suggestions and ideas about teaching (developed over 5 years of study for a B.Ed in English and 4 years for an M.Ed in TESOL plus 25 years of teaching in North America, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East) dismissed as out-of-date, irrelevant, or downright wrong. My baby, the online resource center, was deemed to be not useful (in reality, it didn’t support the new program because I don’t know how to create online material for the new program). I had worked on a program that supported the teachers and students so I guess it isn’t surprising that it doesn’t support language teaching theories that haven’t been current since I began teaching 25 years ago.

The result of this has been a slow, steady downward spiral for me. It couldn’t have been a pretty thing watching me crash and burn. I know that my western colleagues, who bore the brunt of my unhappiness, couldn’t have enjoyed spending time with me, and I apologize to them. I really should have gone last year.

It is unforgivable that the university allowed some immature wanktard who was fired from his last job for conflicts with colleagues and complaints from students to take control of what had, for many years, been a pretty good program and replace it with a program that I think is one of the worst I have ever worked with. Unforgivable? Absolutely! We take money and, even more important, the lives of our students (50 hours) and we promise to make them better. We failed this past year. It really does matter what teachers do.

Having said that, I resolve to leave this now and move on. It has taken enough of my life. I hope that my colleagues somehow survive this and that the students somehow get what they need and deserve, but this is no longer my concern. I will finish my grades on Wednesday and my time at this university will be over.

Soon, I will be back in Canada. I’ll have a pleasant relaxing month and a half to hang out with my older brother and to visit with friends and family. Then it will be off to the Middle East. I hope that this will be my last move until I retire (another ten years perhaps) but one never knows. Inshallah seems an appropriate thing to say now.