Buttoning Up (Social Experiment)

September 16, 2010

A few weeks ago I was complemented by four different people on the shirt I was wearing. While I do try to maintain a sense of fashion, I must confess that I was caught by surprise by their comments. While I agree the shirt (pictured) looks nice on me, I wouldn’t claim it all on the shirt.

In Australia, I often find it difficult to find comfortably fitting clothes due to the fact that I do not fit into one of three sizing brackets: anorexic thin and oblong tall, biff and broad shouldered or obese. Due to all this improper sizing, this shirt in particular was a just a tad larger than I would have liked. So, to remedy a puffy-shirted appearance, I rolled the sleeves up and tucked it in firmly. The shirt is also a little more open-chested than my other shirts, so overall (again, see picture) it creates a sort of sexy, flamenco dancer look.

Now, it’s always great to be complemented or looked at, which is why I’ve decided to extend this dress code to my other shirts and see if I got some, if any, different reactions. So, that is, tuck my shirts in firmly, roll up the sleeves and undo an extra button. So far, and admittedly it’s probably just because I am more concious of it now, I’m noticing some differences. In any case, I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how this experiment unfolds.

Posted in Life | Comments (0)

Why I Don’t Trust Rich People (and will never be rich)

September 14, 2010

Allow me to share my brief reasoning on why I hate the rich, with an unrelated, and highly illustrative paragraph:

“Money makes the world go around”, or so chanted those who continue to murder the world and plunder our humanity. That is our celebrity friends of business and hollywood; of fame and finance, the shallow, material fixtures we aspire to be and the string-pullers who ensure we never can. We are slaves to them, the capitalists, and they know it. In this world, the pen, the idea, the thought, holds no rolling weight against the dollar sign. Money is power and those who hold it work only to maintain it, keeping the rest (us!) with less, content and silent, more silent than content however. Never should we trust powerful people since people with power only work to secure their power, and as we know, money is power”.

I don’t see value the value of currency, only in personal currency.

Posted in Life | Comments (0)

#3 Variables and Teaching

September 11, 2010

There are three significant characteristics which define the children who study at the school and thereby my teaching methodology.

Same Language

The first is the fact that all the students are of the same background and can therefore speak the same native language. This is a nuisance, particularly in a culture like China’s where students dare not to make a mistake in front of their peers, and therefore box themselves into their native language. Teenagers are particularly bad for this. Often times you’ll ask a class of teenagers a basic English question (ie. is he a boy or a girl? (hint: ‘he’)) and everyone will gaze between their legs at the floor in avoidance. Other times, the students flatly use Chinese to minimalise their connection with English. When I ask a question, one student will translate it and the rest will respond to the translation. Or if one student doesn’t know, they’ll communicate with the rest of the class to get the Chinese meaning. They do not listen for the English words, but instead for the translation and in effect skimp out on learning anything whatsoever.

Low Morale and Great Tiredness

Every one of my students, and I mean practically every student I have always looks exhausted, particularly the younger students. These poor blighters live a life of continual work and pressure. This affects their mentality in the classroom as they simply do not wish to be laboured as they are on the outside. This in itself is fair enough, but it can be obtrusive to study. Since we are not as strict as their overbearing Chinese masters and mistresses, they are more likely to want to play up as well, or at least, be averse to language theory. Also, the smaller classes, less intense teaching and more socialable environment is a great chance for kids to relax a little and occasionally bring their new-found sense of freedom to the classroom with detrimental effects. It can be very difficult to teach a class of low morale and great tiredness.

Money, Money, Money

All of the students at the school are stupidly rich and that just peeves me off cos I hate rich people. Sometimes you can see the way their attitudes reflect their wallets, but for the most part their okay. Still, that doesn’t stop me from looking down on them somewhat.

Posted in Life | Comments (0)

« Previous Page — Next Page »