Wednesday, April 27, 2005

I finally have the internet again at work! My computer is now officially virus free. It's amazing how dependant I am on the internet for everything that I do. Lately, we have been talking about Canada in class, and I have to download all the materials from class off the internet, so you can imagine that the last few days have been kind of a pain without the internet. I wonder why people make viruses?

Anyway, things are back to normal now, and here I am blogging. As I said before, we are talking about Canada in class. I never knew this could be such a difficult topic. I don't know where to begin. How do you teach about an entire country in just three lessons. I have been inspired though. I think I need to write an ESL book just about Canada. But what is Canada? I guess I have been concerned with this question just about all my life. I can still remember when I was six years old, my Dad and his friends standing on the street corner where we lived talking about this same question. The year was 1976, and the Parti Quebecois had just come into power in Quebec. The Parti Quebecois are a separatist party, and they want Quebec to become an independant French speaking nation. We lived in an English suburb of Montreal at the time, and this wall all my parents and their friends talked about. To a six year old, you can imagine this must have seemed all very boring, but for my parents and their friends the future of their country was at stake. In the end, my parents decided to move to Alberta, and so far, Quebec is still part of Canada, but the question still haunts me "What is a Canadian".

Anyway, just prove to your that your teacher is particularly weird, here is something that I wrote after a trip I took across Canada in 1996 that tells you what I was thinking back then:

A Trip Across Canada - 1996

The mountains are always there on the edge of my vision. No matter where
I go, they are the boundary that I cannot pass. I wander through strange
cities filled with bizarre and different modes of life, but still the
mountains are there, fleetingly appearing in the corner of my eye,
constantly beckoning me to return - to return.

The land of my youth haunts me. I escape and still the undulations of the
fields and the straw yellows of the pastures call my name. Sloughs cry
out, using the voices of the ducks and frogs to call across the miles,
reminding me in my sleep, sounding in my ears as I walk that there is
somewhere that demands that it remain in my soul, form part of my body
and not let me escape.

The people filter in and out of my memory. The people - Mennonite stock,
German and Protestant farmers giving their produce to eat, and by
partaking in what they create, by incorporating it with my body it
becomes me - the soil nourishing the grain, the labour harvesting the
wheat, the skill baking the bread. It all comes together in a grand
communion where I eat the body of my land and mingle my life with the
cells of theirs.

But can I only belong to them? Why does my soul ache as I travel through
this land? How does the song about Newfoundland, sung by a barmaid on
holiday cut at my heart while we sit in the pub on the ferry from Sidney?
Where do the tears come from when I see the gnarled trees, stunted
ancient mountains and pools of misty water in Ontario. Que'est ce que le
spasme de vivre que j'ai que j'ai?

Every person belongs to me. In smoky bar cars on the train, biker chicks
with skull rings and silver bracelets are mine as they describe the last
fight they had and how useful it can be to have jewellery that can double
for a knuckle duster. She and her mother are going to West Edmonton Mall
to stay in the Fantasy Land Hotel.

The lady in Ottawa who clarified the difference between an American and
Imperial gallon and the metric standard presently employed is mine. Mine
as she turned around and joined the conversation Fabrice and I were
having on the street in Ottawa.

Chad is mine as he looks for a home moving east and west. Wanting to
leave where he came from and then go back again.

Mike and Karen belong to me. Giving free post cards to the travellers
buying eggs and the margarine Mike suggested because it cost less than
the butter.

Everyone at the Barn Dance we found in the middle of Cape Breton belong to
me. We shared something as we danced to the fiddle player and drank
Pepsi. Them dancing to forget the farms that could no longer produce,
the language that had died and the jobs that were not there. They dance
to forget that the young people were gone, leaving children and people
over 40 to play the music and pass on pieces of their lives to the
children before they couldn't.

The drunk in the pub on George Street is St. John's is mine. Mine as he
asked me and everyone else who would look at him to play pool, connect
with him through his drunken haze. His refuge in his Newfoundland accent
and Black Horse lager.

Jessie was mine as he told me from behind the bar in The Ship how St.
John's had the highest per capita of pubs in North America, 18 year old
drinking age, no more fish or work and the highest rate of alcoholism.

Do the people who mutter and scream to themselves as they walk through a
self defeated city belong to me? They cry out in different languages
hanging onto the lamp poles, wrapped in their own filth. They are mine,
but what am I to do?

Elizabeth has always belonged to me. The wind eating us from across the
Atlantic as we stand looking across to Ireland and Britain. Ancestors’
voices hopeful in the wind as they sweep across the ocean as the rocks,
the trees, the endless wildness, the new cities tenuously sprouting from
the earth ancient and enduring.

History began when Britain took Newfoundland. Elizabeth takes us up to
the top of the lighthouse where no other tourists may go. We look out.
History wells up in her voice, the echoes of her ancestors floating in
her vowels. The ghosts lighting the light. Bright flash 17 seconds,
darkness, two bright flashes 17 seconds, darkness. The fog horn booming
for hundred's of years.

Susan and the college boys playing soldier in the citadel in Halifax are
mine. They are with me as Americans look from the other side of the
glass and we remember the war of 1812.

Canada, Canada, what are you? Are you the chansonnier singing "Mon Pays"
in Les Deux Pierrots? Are you the dead on the Plains of Abraham? Are
you the drug dealer on East Hastings in Vancouver peddling hash to
natives who now speak a foreign tongue?

Where are you? I want you. I need to know what you are. The anomaly of
different coloured pebbles sliding around in a slowly decaying box. The
glimpses I have caught of you tell me only that I love you and I need
you.

The memories swell and crowd each other out inside of my brain.
Remembrances rush forward and others recede back, but they are there and
they are me.

The beer is the blood of my land and the bread is the body. I partake and
we are one.

The trains put it into perspective. A sudden city, then fields, then the
land. A land that stretches forever, populated by memories and escape.

Escape from America and revolution. Escape from poverty and exploitation.
Escape from the white man. Everyone who lives here has run away or has
had their home taken away. Because they came here, we come from broken
families. Because they stayed, we have become orphans.

Does the land cry or sing, or is it silent?


Scott Roy Douglas
1996

Monday, April 25, 2005

I have so many viruses on my computer at work! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! On Friday, my internet stopped working in my office, and when my friend ran an anti-virus program on my computer, there were something like 15 viruses on my computer. eep. We deleted all of them, but the internet still doesn't work on my computer. This isn't just happening to me. The internet has shut down on my officemate Linda's computer too. I can't believe how many viruses there on are the Kansai Gaidai Mail Server. I wish they would hurry up and fix it. Now, everytime I need to use the internet, I have to go home.

Anyway, beside my annoying computer troubles, I still managed to have a really good weekend. I finally got to use my new barbecue. Some friends and I had a barbecue party. We make pork, chicken legs and chicken wings. Plus, we also had a cheese salad and garlic toast too. Mmmm, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. I definately want to have more barbecues this spring. What will I barbecue next . . . . .?

Monday, April 18, 2005

Once again, I should be working or something, but I just have to get this off my chest. This morning as I was reading The Japan Times, there was article after article about Japan's poor relations with its neighbours. The article that upset me the most, more than the riots and claims and counter claims for tiny islands was the article about how certain school trips have been canceled that were going to South Korea or China. The reason I am so upset is because, in my opinion, one of the key ways to bring about peace and mutual understanding is through communication and cultural exchange between ordinary people - especially youth. If young people can meet and talk to each other, then that would be the first step towards understanding. The tragedy of what is happening right now is that the opportunities for exchange and communication between young people is being cancelled at a time when these kinds of trips and programs should be increasing. I hope that more trips won't be cancelled.

One organization that I admire is The Asian Youth Forum. Here is more information about them: http://www.asianyouthforum.org/ They organize meetings between young people from all over Asia. It's times like these that we most need organizations like this.

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Here I am Again!!

Hello World! Here I am again in the computer lab with my students. This is the last time that I am going to be coming into the computer lab with my students for a long time. From now on, they are on their own! However, I am not at all worried, because I think everyone has really got the hang of blogging already. Some of my students have even start posting pictures already. It's so cool!!

Right now, I am in the computer lab with my English II - 2 students. They are all blogging about their goals for this course. As I have already blogged about my goals for English II, I thought I would try blogging about my goals for my life. I am so confused right now! I am going back to Canada in August, but I am still not sure exactly what I want to do. I could teach at the University of Calgary, and I could study for my Ph.D. in Education, but I am not sure if that is exactly what I want to do. Part of me wants to go back to Calgary because it would be really good for me to get my Ph.D. I'd be "Dr. Douglas" :-) But then again, part of me wants to go to Vancouver to live, well, because Vancouver is just so amazing, and Calgary is just so, well, cold. However, if I go to Vancouver, what would I do?? I guess I could try and get a teaching job, but the money wouldn't be very good, and I wouldn't have a very good lifestyle, not that money is everything, but it helps. I have even heard of teachers in Vancouver who have quit teaching and now they are working in Starbucks because they can make more money managing a branch of Starbucks than teaching. Hmmmm, what the heck should I do with my life?? I have given myself until the end of the month to decide, and in the meantime, I'm going to keep doing my best at Kansai Gaidai :-)

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Holy cow, it is such a beautiful day today! Actually, the whole weekend has been just amazing. I wish I could tell the world that I had gone out hiking or done something exciting this weekend, but actually I pretty much just stayed home the whole time. Why? My apartment was such a mess! It was driving me crazy, but I have finally cleaned up my entire apartment from top to bottom. You could eat off of my floor :-)

So now, here I am looking out my window at how wonderful it is out there, but I have to still stay inside and do work for school. s i g h. That's okay though, because I can always blog. 's offically work, but it's kind of fun :-)

Acually, I did do one exciting thing yesterday. I bought a BBQ! I can't wait to eat delicious Canadian style BBQ chicken. Yum.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Blogs can be so frustrating

I just made an entry into my blog, and it messed up my entire blog page. I was so unhappy. This is a test to see if my blog is still working.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Missing Students!

Here I am in the computer lab with one of my English II classes. I was so worried today because when the class started, there were no students in my class! The registrar's office had forgotten to post the change in rooms on the bulletin board, so no one knew where they were supposed to go. It was really confusing. Luckily, one of my students came to the computer lab, and she went to the classroom to find all of the other students. I was so happy to see them when the finally arrived. I was worried that we weren't going to be able to have a class today. Anyway, we are all finally blogging, and so far it seems like everyone has managed to make a blog. I can't wait to read everyone's blogs tonight. I am sure that they are going to be very interesting.

I'm going to help my students now . . . b y e !!!

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Welcome to English Two

Hello World!

This is my first blog of the semester. I am very excited to be teaching English II at Kansai Gaidai. I can't wait to meet all of my students. I hope they enjoy blogging as much as I do. I have been blogging for over a year, and now I think I am addicted! If anyone is interested in my old blog, they can check it out at www.kansaigaidai.blogspot.com.

For anyone who doesn't know me, I have been teaching at Kansai Gaidai for a year and a half. I really like living in Osaka. I especially like tacoyaki and okonomiyaki. I am really going to miss Japanese food when I move back to Canada. I am moving back to Canada in August, so this is going to be my last semester at Kansai Gaidai. I am sure that this is going to be a really great semester, and I am sure that my students and I are going to learn a lot from each other.

Talk to you later!!!!!!!!!!!!!!