shake rattle and ....

Today is the one year after the earthquake in sichuan. There were reports of more than 80,000 deaths while this is in itself a huge tragedy leave it to me to find a problem. Here is my two cents. The chinese government just released the official figures for how many school children died when the earthquake struck. Now one would think that this would be an opportunity for the government to get some more sympathy from the people and all. As they went to great lengths to show their response and how mush they did for the people of this disaster. And here is what struck me as a bit off. They have reported that more than 7000 school rooms collapsed. And guess how many schoolchildren they claim died? No ideas I will tell you 5335. So I am to believe that china has such uncrowded schools that less that one child per room. I realize that not every room was occupied and even those that are not every child died but come on really 7000 rooms and only 5335. And if so few why does the state stop families from coming to beijing to seek redress of their grievances? Seems that either they have something to hide or are not being honest about what happened. Either way, leave it to them to ruin a perfectly good tragedy.

weird, wild, stuff

As I am teaching a course on the introduction to western civilization I have been trying to introduce the ideas that have helped shape the way the west thinks differently than the east. I have gotten to the part about christ and the whole christianity part and to my surprise the students here, while they have heard of jesus they know nothing about the life or teaching or beliefs or anything. Now I am an atheist. I have a very strong belief in nothing. I dont want to teach the students about christianity, but it is a really important part of the shaping of the west. So how much do I tell them? Do I present it as a story, some peoples beliefs? Is it important that he is born of immaculate conception? Really hard choices for me to make. I think that I will go with the pure history of it. The belief system is up to them to figure out. I will teach them the actual history, try not to put too much bias into my explanation. But it is really odd that these students have never been exposed. It really is such a huge part of the culture of the west. We have fights still about this in our courts and it influences so much of our discourse. It is no wonder why we as different cultures have so many misunderstanding. I have a hard job out ahead. How to make them understand without advocating for any particular belief system.

sorry about that

IP address conflicts. So no net for a few days.

So I chatted with my sister the other day and she was telling me about her new found fun in Muay Thai fighting. What is wrong with her? I dont mean the fighting, I mean she is like 100 years old, she must be because I am old and she is even older. And she takes up the fighting sport for fun, arent people supposed to mellow with age? Shouldnt she be like I dont know bowling or playing tennis? I probably would think different if she were still like 17 but that train left the station 20 years ago. What else happened? I had the first class of teaching the college administration. Thats right bitches I teach the University administrators english. Talk about an odd feeling I have doctors lawyers, deans , department heads, and others in the class. Today I had to give an assessment test to them so I could divide the groups up, we shall see how that goes. I can see a conflict in the future with the classes. When I lived in mexico there was conflict whenever coworkers had to become equals in a classroom, stupid petty things like the fact that a lower level worker could not have better english than a boss. And in an exercise the boss could not be corrected except by the teacher. I can see the same thing happening here. It will at least be interesting to watch the power dynamics play out in the class. I hope of course that it doesnt happen but if it does at least I am prepared.

arggghhhh.....

Have I ever told you how much I hate to type? Let me tell you why. My childhood was full of hope and lies. Fortunately these went hand and hand and danced a fine waltz that left all of us children slack-jawed with wonder. However when it was much to late we realized that the lies and hope were unable to continue to coexist and soon the whole thing came crashing to the ground, bleeding profusely and teaching us all never to trust again. Here is how this relates to typing. When I was in middle school computers for the home were just coming out, and they were expensive so naturally everyone wanted one. After a few years my parents bought a commodore 64/128. I entered high school and while debating the elective courses that were offered at my school I was going to take a keyboarding class, taught on real typewriters, but the counselor told me not to do that. She was sure that the computer would have voice recognition and typing would be a thing of the past. So I listened to the wise sage of my school, and stood with my mouth agape as hope and lies took to the dance floor once again. I think I took a cooking class instead and I am by the judgement of others a pretty good cook. Unfortunately I can not type at all. I use two fingers and never remember where the letters are. It takes me forever to write anything. And right now I am writing 4 different syllabi and lesson plans for all my classes which begin next week. Just took a break to vent. Funny that I have to type this out doing exactly the thing that annoyed me in the first place.