Home on Summer Vacation

• Even though everything is actually going quite well or fine, my mind after a time always seems to kick into overdrive and make it appear as though things are falling apart. This is how I woke up this morning and let me just state, I’m not taking the bait. In other words, I’m not buying into my mind’s interpretation of reality. Instead, I’ve decided to do some writing to address some points.

I’ve been home on summer vacation for about 10 days now and I’ve been busy every day. I started swimming again and I was surprised that I am still able to swim a kilometer each time. Then I started cleaning the house, walking up and down many flights of stairs, which I really enjoy. I even enjoy getting down to the first floor, realizing that I’ve forgotten something on the sixth floor and having to walk all the way back up and then back down again. I was surprised and thankful that I was still able to do all this physical exercise, especially since I hadn’t done that much exercise throughout the school year. Then I noticed a tightening in my right knee. At first, I thought that it could be gout. Then I thought maybe it has to do with certain constructs I’ve been working on, system components disintegrating as I change how I am in relation to certain points. Now I’m thinking, maybe it’s just over exertion… Perhaps mixed in with some system disintegration, lol.

The battle on the homefront with a few of the neighbours continues as I knew it would. For more on this, please see “Horrible Neighbors or Horrible Me” parts one, two, three, four, five, six and seven. I actually wrote an update on this point and then I deleted it due to an excess of projections. Therefore, suffice to say we’re working within the rules of system to adjudicate differences of opinion and it’s not pleasant. Nevertheless, we are learning a lot and we’re standing our ground. Follow up note: as I was cleaning this morning I came across some writings that I had printed out and the first words that I read were, "When living and working within the system, it is necessary to work within the rules of the system." Continuing, "The people I'm going up against are high end legal experts and the wealthy majority shareholder of the company." Strange how things change, yet remain the same. 

Anyway, having just finished up my third year at my favorite university, I’m left feeling once again that I am able to do better. Honestly,  I guess I feel this way at the end of every year. Thus, I will once again revise each one of my syllabuses, all nine or ten of them. This time, in addition to reading, speaking and listening, I plan to double the amount of blog posts that my students write. As for classes such as Global Citizenship, I would like to find topics that students actually give a shit about. Democracy, human rights, wealth inequality… No one seems very interested and I guess I can’t really blame them. Afterall, as far as societies go, Taiwan is one of the freest places I’ve ever lived. That being said, I will nevertheless continue to push for a new understanding of Democracy and Human Rights, too.

On a more joyous note, I’ve been noticing that my relationship to money has changed and perhaps I’ll write about this in my next post.