Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Terror of 2024
I listen to a weekly "horror podcast" called Pseudopod. The quality varies wildly from week to week, but the general tone of the show ranges from "creepy" to "disturbing." Yet nothing on Pseudopod could ever scare me as much as this week's episode of This American Life.
I am not, as a rule, frightened by public radio. Neither the concept nor the content are typically unsettling. Most of the time the stories are quirky, interesting, or even thought-provoking. I guess this latest episode about parental worst-case scenarios falls under the latter category, but it did so while absolutely scaring the hell out of me.
My wife and I talk a lot about our forthcoming baby, mostly focusing on the necessary preparations that we need to make before he is born, but we do ask ourselves the question: "What kind of baby will he be?" We look at her sister's kids as two wildly different baby archetypes. Her son Daichi is loud (I should say LOUD), lively, and constantly demands attention. Her daughter Mizuki is quiet and rarely makes a fuss. Mizuki may very well turn into Daichi over time (she is only sixteen months old) but I have been interacting with Daichi for some time now and I feel like he has always been a noisy, active child.
This American Life forced me to think about what kind of teenager my son will be, thanks to two terrifying tales of families nearly destroyed through a few simple mistakes. One mother found her young teens drifting away after she divorced their father and when she tried to pull them closer, they rebelled and eventually ran away from home. While she certainly treated them with a bit of a heavy hand, I'm not sure how else she could have responded. Had she gone easy on them after they started skipping school and partying all night, surely that would not have reeled them back in? Then again, when they ran away they descended into even more self-destructive behavior and one of them almost died from a heroin overdose. Given the choice, I think I'd rather have my son disrespect me in my own house than not know if he's dead or alive on the streets.
The second horrifying story was a teen who screwed up at school. His grades were sinking, he was caught stealing school supplies, and when he threw some lit matches in a gym locker, he feared the worst when the school threatened to expel the guilty party. Despite having friends, a caring older brother and two "disappointed" but obviously attentive parents, he tried to kill himself. It wasn't even the first time and he openly told other students he was going to commit suicide. Again, the parents and teachers were right to disapprove of his outright criminal actions, but how could they have better expressed themselves so as not to lead him to choose suicide as the best response?
I think back to my teenage years and it scares me even more because I wasn't too far off from these kids. No, I never got caught doing anything outrageous like arson or theft, but my friends and I did a lot of stupid things that could have easily gotten us into a lot of trouble. I destroyed school property on a number of occasions, and when things got bad in high school I would cut class. In the real world, I shoplifted once or twice and I had plenty of opportunities to drink or smoke whatever I wanted (although I never did while I was in school). Had someone ratted me out on my bad behavior, had a store clerk been a bit more attentive, had I been more receptive to the offers of alcohol or drugs...basically, I was a few coin-flips away from being in the exact bind that these kids got themselves into.
Yet here I sit today in a very fortunate position, happily married with a decent job and a baby on the way. I narrowly avoided wrecking my life and instead merely put myself on the shelf for a few years before getting back on track. Was it merely luck? Did my parents do something right? Was there something else they could have done to prevent the (shallow) ditch I dug for myself? These are now the questions I'm asking myself, both in looking back at my own life and looking ahead to my son's future antics. If he strays or puts himself at risk, will I make the right call? Worse yet, is there a right call to make? That's the scariest thought of all.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I am not, as a rule, frightened by public radio. Neither the concept nor the content are typically unsettling. Most of the time the stories are quirky, interesting, or even thought-provoking. I guess this latest episode about parental worst-case scenarios falls under the latter category, but it did so while absolutely scaring the hell out of me.
My wife and I talk a lot about our forthcoming baby, mostly focusing on the necessary preparations that we need to make before he is born, but we do ask ourselves the question: "What kind of baby will he be?" We look at her sister's kids as two wildly different baby archetypes. Her son Daichi is loud (I should say LOUD), lively, and constantly demands attention. Her daughter Mizuki is quiet and rarely makes a fuss. Mizuki may very well turn into Daichi over time (she is only sixteen months old) but I have been interacting with Daichi for some time now and I feel like he has always been a noisy, active child.
This American Life forced me to think about what kind of teenager my son will be, thanks to two terrifying tales of families nearly destroyed through a few simple mistakes. One mother found her young teens drifting away after she divorced their father and when she tried to pull them closer, they rebelled and eventually ran away from home. While she certainly treated them with a bit of a heavy hand, I'm not sure how else she could have responded. Had she gone easy on them after they started skipping school and partying all night, surely that would not have reeled them back in? Then again, when they ran away they descended into even more self-destructive behavior and one of them almost died from a heroin overdose. Given the choice, I think I'd rather have my son disrespect me in my own house than not know if he's dead or alive on the streets.
The second horrifying story was a teen who screwed up at school. His grades were sinking, he was caught stealing school supplies, and when he threw some lit matches in a gym locker, he feared the worst when the school threatened to expel the guilty party. Despite having friends, a caring older brother and two "disappointed" but obviously attentive parents, he tried to kill himself. It wasn't even the first time and he openly told other students he was going to commit suicide. Again, the parents and teachers were right to disapprove of his outright criminal actions, but how could they have better expressed themselves so as not to lead him to choose suicide as the best response?
I think back to my teenage years and it scares me even more because I wasn't too far off from these kids. No, I never got caught doing anything outrageous like arson or theft, but my friends and I did a lot of stupid things that could have easily gotten us into a lot of trouble. I destroyed school property on a number of occasions, and when things got bad in high school I would cut class. In the real world, I shoplifted once or twice and I had plenty of opportunities to drink or smoke whatever I wanted (although I never did while I was in school). Had someone ratted me out on my bad behavior, had a store clerk been a bit more attentive, had I been more receptive to the offers of alcohol or drugs...basically, I was a few coin-flips away from being in the exact bind that these kids got themselves into.
Yet here I sit today in a very fortunate position, happily married with a decent job and a baby on the way. I narrowly avoided wrecking my life and instead merely put myself on the shelf for a few years before getting back on track. Was it merely luck? Did my parents do something right? Was there something else they could have done to prevent the (shallow) ditch I dug for myself? These are now the questions I'm asking myself, both in looking back at my own life and looking ahead to my son's future antics. If he strays or puts himself at risk, will I make the right call? Worse yet, is there a right call to make? That's the scariest thought of all.
Labels: family, fuzzy memories, predicting the future, the horror, the Law, This American Life
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Rubber Soul (-crushing Boredom)
They call it "the rubber room." There's more than one, of course, but just like "the post office" or "the bank," the rubber room looms over people through office gossip and spook stories. However, the rubber room is real. People go there everyday, and many of them will spend years in there. Waiting.
Alright, this is not nearly as spooky as it sounds. I was listening to the latest This American Life podcast this morning when I learned about the rubber room. It is the nickname for several "reassignment centers" used by the New York City Board of Education. Teachers who are facing disciplinary action are "reassigned" to these waiting rooms where they...wait. The kicker is that there's no way to know when the waiting ends, and some people don't even know why they were sent to the rubber room in the first place.
There is a twist, good for those sitting around all day and bad for everyone else: teachers in the rubber room continue to earn their full salary. Obviously the press reports have latched onto this story as another example of government waste, while those in the rubber room spin it as bureaucratic nonsense. They know they're getting paid to do nothing and they just want to go back to their schools - any school, frankly, since there have been people who have sat in the rubber room for years. Even those who abandon their positions and find work elsewhere are sore about it, because they felt they had no choice but to give up.
This initially sounds like a great deal for those being reassigned. Who wouldn't want a paycheck just for playing cards or sleeping in an office, devoid of actual responsibility? But consider this: with a finite number of rooms and a rapidly increasing number of reassignees, these rooms are quite crowded. Seats and tables are hard to come by, and the radio show featured stories of fights breaking out. They compared it to prison life in that grown adults were being "confined" and had nothing else to do but to viciously defend what little power they had left. When all you have is your territory, that can mean fighting over who gets to sit by the window.
Of course, for me the rubber room story was completely unshocking as I am familiar with the mindset behind it. During my time as a postal worker, there were a number of occasions where I was required to come to work and wait for mail to arrive or wait after my shift was over for the carriers to return so I could lock the door. It didn't matter if it was after 6 or on a Sunday, I simply had to wait and collect the overtime. This bored me to no end but I learned to deal with it. At least there was no one watching me. I could listen to whatever music I wanted or even take a nap.
It wasn't the waiting for mail that bothered me as much as waiting for other employees, because there were certain people who deliberately took their time in the interest of earning more money. Just like New York City teachers, there are strict union rules about removing a postal employee from their position. No matter how slowly you do your job, they can't fault you for it. In fact, no matter how poorly you did your job (i.e. coming to work drunk), they can't complain so long as you actually deliver the mail. In the case of the Board of Ed., I'm sure someone realizes that children cannot be so cavalierly exposed to gross incompetence, so they decide to simply relocate the people they want to fire. The principle in both organizations is the same: we can't fire this guy, so let's do the next best thing. The Post Office doesn't have a rubber room so they just look the other way.
Alas, my rubber room experience is hardly a distant memory. In my current position I rotate between five different elementary schools. My schedule is pretty much set, so if there are no classes for me to teach, I am still expected to come to work and sit in the office. That includes breaks between semesters where no one has classes which seems to confuse everyone involved. When I walk into a school in mid-August, someone invariably asks "What are you doing here?" and all I can say is "It's Tuesday. I come on Tuesdays."
So I have some sympathy for the rubber room people, but not much. The system is obviously broken, yes. I know how dull it can be to have a job with no responsibilities other than "come to the office." But I'm not duking it out with strangers over desk space, and more often than not I am one of the few people in the office. Hell, I've even managed to work in some gaming during particularly quiet times when I had a room to myself and my laptop on hand.
Ultimately, I say embrace any job that offers you a salary without demanding much, at least in the short term. With so many people in jobs they hate that pay very little or those struggling to find such a job just to make ends meet, it's pretty petty to sit there and complain about being bored at work. Just count your blessings and enjoy the free money. If you really can't stand it, work on your resume and leave. Pursue your dream job; that's what I did. I left my comfortable, money-for-nothing job and moved to Japan...where I found myself in a new money-for-nothing job. At least now I get weekends off.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Alright, this is not nearly as spooky as it sounds. I was listening to the latest This American Life podcast this morning when I learned about the rubber room. It is the nickname for several "reassignment centers" used by the New York City Board of Education. Teachers who are facing disciplinary action are "reassigned" to these waiting rooms where they...wait. The kicker is that there's no way to know when the waiting ends, and some people don't even know why they were sent to the rubber room in the first place.
There is a twist, good for those sitting around all day and bad for everyone else: teachers in the rubber room continue to earn their full salary. Obviously the press reports have latched onto this story as another example of government waste, while those in the rubber room spin it as bureaucratic nonsense. They know they're getting paid to do nothing and they just want to go back to their schools - any school, frankly, since there have been people who have sat in the rubber room for years. Even those who abandon their positions and find work elsewhere are sore about it, because they felt they had no choice but to give up.
This initially sounds like a great deal for those being reassigned. Who wouldn't want a paycheck just for playing cards or sleeping in an office, devoid of actual responsibility? But consider this: with a finite number of rooms and a rapidly increasing number of reassignees, these rooms are quite crowded. Seats and tables are hard to come by, and the radio show featured stories of fights breaking out. They compared it to prison life in that grown adults were being "confined" and had nothing else to do but to viciously defend what little power they had left. When all you have is your territory, that can mean fighting over who gets to sit by the window.
Of course, for me the rubber room story was completely unshocking as I am familiar with the mindset behind it. During my time as a postal worker, there were a number of occasions where I was required to come to work and wait for mail to arrive or wait after my shift was over for the carriers to return so I could lock the door. It didn't matter if it was after 6 or on a Sunday, I simply had to wait and collect the overtime. This bored me to no end but I learned to deal with it. At least there was no one watching me. I could listen to whatever music I wanted or even take a nap.
It wasn't the waiting for mail that bothered me as much as waiting for other employees, because there were certain people who deliberately took their time in the interest of earning more money. Just like New York City teachers, there are strict union rules about removing a postal employee from their position. No matter how slowly you do your job, they can't fault you for it. In fact, no matter how poorly you did your job (i.e. coming to work drunk), they can't complain so long as you actually deliver the mail. In the case of the Board of Ed., I'm sure someone realizes that children cannot be so cavalierly exposed to gross incompetence, so they decide to simply relocate the people they want to fire. The principle in both organizations is the same: we can't fire this guy, so let's do the next best thing. The Post Office doesn't have a rubber room so they just look the other way.
Alas, my rubber room experience is hardly a distant memory. In my current position I rotate between five different elementary schools. My schedule is pretty much set, so if there are no classes for me to teach, I am still expected to come to work and sit in the office. That includes breaks between semesters where no one has classes which seems to confuse everyone involved. When I walk into a school in mid-August, someone invariably asks "What are you doing here?" and all I can say is "It's Tuesday. I come on Tuesdays."
So I have some sympathy for the rubber room people, but not much. The system is obviously broken, yes. I know how dull it can be to have a job with no responsibilities other than "come to the office." But I'm not duking it out with strangers over desk space, and more often than not I am one of the few people in the office. Hell, I've even managed to work in some gaming during particularly quiet times when I had a room to myself and my laptop on hand.
Ultimately, I say embrace any job that offers you a salary without demanding much, at least in the short term. With so many people in jobs they hate that pay very little or those struggling to find such a job just to make ends meet, it's pretty petty to sit there and complain about being bored at work. Just count your blessings and enjoy the free money. If you really can't stand it, work on your resume and leave. Pursue your dream job; that's what I did. I left my comfortable, money-for-nothing job and moved to Japan...where I found myself in a new money-for-nothing job. At least now I get weekends off.
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Labels: JET, politics, postal service, This American Life, Write or Die
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Friday, March 06, 2009
ABC: Not as Easy as 123
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon
I listen to the excellent This American Life weekly podcast and every episode gives me a lot to think about. I suspect that if I was diligent, I could write an entire post each week just reflecting on what I had heard. Maybe today will be the first of many such posts.
Ah, do you see what I did there? I started making plans. A recent episode was all about "Plan B," telling stories about people who found themselves mired in their backup plan and wondering how to get back on track. The first story was the one that stuck with me the most. John Hodgman (yes, the one you've seen on "The Daily Show" and the PC vs Mac ads) told a story about Cuervo Man, a guy who made his living as a "party catalyst" hocking tequila at bars and other social events. Cuervo Man happened to be a well-educated guy who always dreamed of being an actor and a series of unlikely events landed him what seemed like a dream job - being paid to drink booze and act like an ass so that others would be inclined to drink more booze. Although the job eventually wore him down (particularly once he stopped drinking out of concern for his health and state-of-mind), he came to respect it as a part of his Plan A - being an actor. He played a role, it just wasn't one with a script or any cameras.
I thought about this a lot this week, especially after something that happened yesterday at one of my larger schools. I make it a point to be BIG in the classroom. Not just in size (that's a given - these are children after all and I live in Japan) but in presence. I move around the room as much as possible, use broad, sweeping movements to punctuate what I say and I constantly point to myself to get the student's attention. So when a little girl yesterday stood in front of the class to do her presentation, she openly channeled/mocked me by waving her arms around with each word, speaking much louder than necessary and generally acting like a crazy person. It was a huge hit with the children and I was amused at how much thought she clearly had put into her act. I was also impressed at her presentation, since few students were able to audibly address their peers in English, but that's besides the point: watching her "zing" me by reflecting my own performance back to me, it forced me to consider what it is I do for a living. Am I on Plan A right now? What is my Plan A, honestly?
I mean, I obviously spent years going back to school so that I could apply for the JET Programme and get a job in Japan as an English teacher. I'm here, mission accomplished. But now what? Even as I studied and worked towards achieving this goal, I was thinking about what I wanted to do next. It was as if my goal was just another step towards a new goal, only I couldn't decide what the new goal was. Did I want to be a translator? Was I going to live in Japan for ten, twenty, forty years? I never actually answered these questions but they kicked around inside my head throughout my senior year.
So now I'm here. I'm teaching English to children in Japan. Is this what I want? I used to consider this job my gateway to a greater and more rewarding life in Japan as some kind of translator or (dare I say it) voice actor, Now, I don't want to say "never," but my lack of progress in studying Japanese has made me realize that becoming a translator in any professional sense is probably impossible. My listening skills are terrible and even if my reading skills were to improve (and that's a big if), it seems like any job worth taking would require a nearly-instantaneous Japanese-to-English response. There would be no time for dictionaries or late nights of exploring odd vocabulary. The translating life I led at school cannot exist in the working world. No one would pay me for doing what I did.
But this is not gloom and doom time. Rather, what that girl did yesterday helped me to recognize that I am, in fact, living out a dream I've had for years. I am more or less an actor right now. Think about it. I have never received any training as a teacher. Everything I do in the classroom is following direction or improvisation. I know the goal (as the Board of Education sees it) is English education, but let's get real here. These kids get so little time with me and that time is so non-academic that this is less of a teacher's role as it is an acting performance. I could do what I do on the streets of Osaka and people would start gathering around me and taking pictures. I'm a human statue that can't sit still, a mime that never shuts up, a busker with a steady gig inside a classroom. Things can always change, but for now this is Plan A.
Once again, this post was made possible with the Write or Die web app. If I keep this up, I wonder if my fantasy of becoming a writer may become the new Plan A?
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I listen to the excellent This American Life weekly podcast and every episode gives me a lot to think about. I suspect that if I was diligent, I could write an entire post each week just reflecting on what I had heard. Maybe today will be the first of many such posts.
Ah, do you see what I did there? I started making plans. A recent episode was all about "Plan B," telling stories about people who found themselves mired in their backup plan and wondering how to get back on track. The first story was the one that stuck with me the most. John Hodgman (yes, the one you've seen on "The Daily Show" and the PC vs Mac ads) told a story about Cuervo Man, a guy who made his living as a "party catalyst" hocking tequila at bars and other social events. Cuervo Man happened to be a well-educated guy who always dreamed of being an actor and a series of unlikely events landed him what seemed like a dream job - being paid to drink booze and act like an ass so that others would be inclined to drink more booze. Although the job eventually wore him down (particularly once he stopped drinking out of concern for his health and state-of-mind), he came to respect it as a part of his Plan A - being an actor. He played a role, it just wasn't one with a script or any cameras.
I thought about this a lot this week, especially after something that happened yesterday at one of my larger schools. I make it a point to be BIG in the classroom. Not just in size (that's a given - these are children after all and I live in Japan) but in presence. I move around the room as much as possible, use broad, sweeping movements to punctuate what I say and I constantly point to myself to get the student's attention. So when a little girl yesterday stood in front of the class to do her presentation, she openly channeled/mocked me by waving her arms around with each word, speaking much louder than necessary and generally acting like a crazy person. It was a huge hit with the children and I was amused at how much thought she clearly had put into her act. I was also impressed at her presentation, since few students were able to audibly address their peers in English, but that's besides the point: watching her "zing" me by reflecting my own performance back to me, it forced me to consider what it is I do for a living. Am I on Plan A right now? What is my Plan A, honestly?
I mean, I obviously spent years going back to school so that I could apply for the JET Programme and get a job in Japan as an English teacher. I'm here, mission accomplished. But now what? Even as I studied and worked towards achieving this goal, I was thinking about what I wanted to do next. It was as if my goal was just another step towards a new goal, only I couldn't decide what the new goal was. Did I want to be a translator? Was I going to live in Japan for ten, twenty, forty years? I never actually answered these questions but they kicked around inside my head throughout my senior year.
So now I'm here. I'm teaching English to children in Japan. Is this what I want? I used to consider this job my gateway to a greater and more rewarding life in Japan as some kind of translator or (dare I say it) voice actor, Now, I don't want to say "never," but my lack of progress in studying Japanese has made me realize that becoming a translator in any professional sense is probably impossible. My listening skills are terrible and even if my reading skills were to improve (and that's a big if), it seems like any job worth taking would require a nearly-instantaneous Japanese-to-English response. There would be no time for dictionaries or late nights of exploring odd vocabulary. The translating life I led at school cannot exist in the working world. No one would pay me for doing what I did.
But this is not gloom and doom time. Rather, what that girl did yesterday helped me to recognize that I am, in fact, living out a dream I've had for years. I am more or less an actor right now. Think about it. I have never received any training as a teacher. Everything I do in the classroom is following direction or improvisation. I know the goal (as the Board of Education sees it) is English education, but let's get real here. These kids get so little time with me and that time is so non-academic that this is less of a teacher's role as it is an acting performance. I could do what I do on the streets of Osaka and people would start gathering around me and taking pictures. I'm a human statue that can't sit still, a mime that never shuts up, a busker with a steady gig inside a classroom. Things can always change, but for now this is Plan A.
Once again, this post was made possible with the Write or Die web app. If I keep this up, I wonder if my fantasy of becoming a writer may become the new Plan A?
Labels: Japan, JET, teaching, This American Life, Write or Die, writing
つづく...(Click here to read more)
