Schools don't teach this anymore.

One great thing about working in a school is that I get to talk to teachers about problems in the school system. Today I learned that schools in this province no longer teach printing or handwriting.

This means that there are many grade 5 kids who literally cannot write basic sentences or paragraphs. Because they never learned how to form letters, their brains are busy thinking about letters rather than thinking about what to write.

These are called "output problems". The cure for these problems is to teach children how to properly hold a pencil and form letters. Schools don't do it anymore.

Good to know. We'll add this to the list of things we need to teach Jake.

It's always good to have something to look forward to.

I was talking to my coworker and she said she was feeling down about the prospect of continuing to work indefinitely for our organization. I told her I felt relieved that my time here was coming to an end. Scared, but relieved.

It's always nice to have something to look forward to - even if that thing is uncertainty. Why? Because there's always a chance things will work out better. For example, I may find a better job that pays more money.

Not likely though. Most of the time things don't really get much better. But it's nice having "hope".

More than a change in my employment, I'm looking forward to the arrival of my new son and daughter. Though I'm very scared and nervous about it.

Back to my co-worker. She was trying to get me riled up on some issue here at work and I said, "You know, my concern with this problem in my life right now is here." I gestured with my hand, very low.

"My concern for my family and my future job and my future baby is up here." And I raised my hand very high above my head.

I wanted to put things in perspective for her.

The body heals itself.

Whenever I hear things like:

"Your body naturally heals itself."

"Your body is wise."

"You can't fool your body."

I think, really? If our bodies naturally heal themselves then why for 99% of human history did we die of sickness in our 30s?

All we ate was organic food and we still got sick and died young.

We exercised all day performing manual labour and we still died young.

We had natural medicines and tons of faith in God and we still got sick and died young.

Today we live longer than ever. We've eradicated many horrible diseases. We have the best quality of life in all of human history...

And yet the media still tells us every day how we're getting sicker and fatter and more unhealthy.

All of this does not compute.

It doesn't make any logical sense. It would be like if, during the next 20 years, humans grew to be 12 feet tall and all these giant humans talked about was how short they were and how they were shrinking and how bad it was that they were getting smaller. It makes no sense.

The easiest religion to believe.

I wouldn't call "agnosticism" a religion, but if you wanted to, it would definitely be an easy religion to follow.*

You wouldn't have to go to church. No doctrine. No reading or listening to sermons or silly requirements like confession, praying etc.

Ethics would be a matter of gut instinct. Do what you think is right and don't try to harm others.

You would never have to argue your beliefs because you've already acknowledged that these things are "unknown or unknowable". And thus you wouldn't have the close-mindedness of Christian or atheist.

On the other hand, you're open to both possibilities - the God exists and that he doesn't. The whole idea isn't really relevant to your worldview.

I like things that are easy and simple. I think I'm going to be an agnostic.

__

* I'd say the Bahá'í Faith would be pretty easy to follow as well. It stresses the "spiritual unity of all humankind" and builds its tenants from Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad. A potporri of spiritual beliefs.

Experiment #45

Abstract:

The janitor at my work always discusses hockey (specifically, the Vancouver Canucks) whenever he comes into our office to empty the garbage at the end of the day. I never participate in these conversations. I ignore them and continue to do my work. My other two co-workers engage him enthusiastically about hockey*

Purpose

I wanted to see if he would talk to me about hockey, without my co-workers being present. I was making coffee when I heard him coming. When he walked into the room I said, "Hello!" in a friendly and inviting manner.

Results

He said, "Hello. Are you the only one here today?" Then we started talking about how expensive dental work is. He said that his wife was recently asked, while holidaying in Mexico, if she was there for "dental work". Apparently, many Americans cross the border for cheaper dental care.

He did not mention hockey.

Conclusion

He either realizes that I don't talk about hockey or there was no hockey games/news worth talking about today.

* Post script: Although one co-worker admitted that she'll "have to start watching hockey again" so that she can talk about it more intelligently. In other words, she fakes it.

We need more practical advice.

I was reading a book about communication skills in kids with Down Syndrome. I quickly gave up because the book offered no practical advice.

I think this is a problem with many books. They explain theory quite well, but they're short on actual advice.

I wanted a book to teach me specific communication techniques I could use with Jake. Or teach him to use with us.

Instead, the book talked about different kinds of communication, how kids move at different paces, the differences between a speech pathologist and blah blah blah. All boring crap.

Many, many books unfortunately are like this. They're mostly boring filler material. When they do have advice, it's simple, common sense stuff that you don't need a book to tell you.

Most magazine articles are like this as well. I get all excited about a "How to Fall Asleep" magazine article and quickly become disappointed when it's filled with banal suggestions, "Go to bed at the same time every night. Drink a glass of water. Don't drink caffeine after 6pm."

Right now my favourite books are written as courses that you work through step-by-step. I need a program to follow so I can improve.

To draw better you need to learn how to see.

I was reading The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. She said that drawing well doesn't have anything to do with hand coordination. It has everything to do with sight.

"When you see in the special way in which experienced artists see, then you can draw."

I thought that was such a great idea. It applies as a larger metaphor for life as well. The more clear we see things the more success we have.

Educating yourself is learning a new way to perceive or see the world. Painters and artists train themselves to use their eyes in a different way. Edges become beautiful. Negative spaces become beautiful. Shadows become beautiful. All this means that simple objects become fascinating.

Above are two drawings I did. A before and after. The before was my first drawing since grade school. The after, is about a week later after reading a third of the book.

I want to be an old white man.

My friend always used to tell me he couldn't wait to become an old white man with grey hair. He said it would help his career and he'd look "distinguished".

I used to scoff at him.

Today I realized he was right. At work we were looking up Canada's richest people to ask them for donations.

Right away I noticed the top 10 were old white men. Then the top 20. Then the top 30. All old white men.

I became determined to find a female or a minority. I got to 41 before my eyes glazed over in a puddle of wrinkly white skin and silvery hair.

I gave up. The good news is that I'm white. The bad news is I will never make it on that list.

Buying cheap stuff makes life worse. (Part 2)

A few days back I wrote about the book Cheap : the high cost of discount culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell. She said buying cheap is bad because it lowers income and surrounds us with crappy stuff.

I kept reading the book, hoping she would talk about what else was bad about buying cheap. Well, she said it "dilutes the brand" - which I don't really understand because she didn't explain it well.

She also says it makes consumers "confused" because prices change so much every day. This seems a bit weak to me.

Later she said that low food prices are bad because we become "compliant" and when food prices go up, it causes "social unrest". Um, again this sounds weak. She's not making a good case for not buying cheap stuff.

The last chapter is about China and its notorious sweatshops. Yes, they're bad. They do, however, provide income and hope to the people who live there. Would you rather work in a sweatshop for $1 a day or rummage through a garbage dump?

I imagine that most locals prefer sweatshops.

The "worst Olympics ever".

Well we're still in the first week of the Vancouver Olympics and the international media is calling it the "worst Olympics ever" (over 7,000 Google references and counting).

The UK media is especially frothing at the mouth - denouncing everything about the games and calling them a total "disaster".

I find this fascinating. Not whether or not the games are the worst ever (though I would think Munich and the Nanzi games would probably be the worst), but why the media is saying this...

Fascinating. The British are hosting the London Olympics in two years, so why would they call Vancouver's the worst? To make themselves look better? Low self-worth? Trolling so they can sell more newspapers?

***

A couple interesting points and theories:

The exaggeration is incredible. To say that these Olympics are a nightmare and a disaster, using examples about a Zamboni breaking down and warm weather is a bit silly. The worst thing about the Games was the death of the luger and that wasn't really anybody's fault.

I think North American cities always get more criticism of the Games than European cities - possibly because we hype them more and so expectations are so high.

Every Games has problems: Salt Lake City = bribing the IOC, Beijing = pollution and human rights violations. Atlanta = logistical nightmares. Nothing works perfectly.

The Olympics is about competition between elite athletes. That's the true spirit of the games. The extras like the ceremonies and the concerts and just that - extras. You don't need them to have a good games.

The best way for Canadians to deal with the criticism is ignore it. The more we react, the worse we look.

You can answer every question about religion with the word "metaphor".

I just figured out that you can answer every question about religion with the word "metaphor".

Let's try it.

"Does heaven exist?"

"Metaphor."

"Would you say that we humans were made in the image of god or the image of a monkey?"

"Metaphor."

"How did Noah fit all the animals in the Ark?"

"Metaphor."

Metaphors are meant to illuminate truth. They're often used to compare two similar or dissimilar ideas or thoughts.

Occasionally you would have to be a little more verbose. For example if someone asked, "What religion are you?" You might have to say something like, "I think religion is a metaphor."

My boss is obsessed with the Olympics.

While it's certainly nice that we're hosting the Winter Games, it quickly gets tiring. It's really all you hear on the news, radio and street. Literally all the time. For months.

So now that the games have started, my boss has become obsessed. She has news alerts emailed to her and loudly announces various Olympic doings. "WE JUST WON A MEDAL!" or "DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS EVENT?"

She even comes over to our computers and forces us to watch clips of the Olympics on Youtube. She does this at work, while I'm trying to concentrate on something. At first, I politely responded. Now I just ignore it and let my other co-worker answer her questions.

I keep my back turned and pretend to squint in concentration at my monitor.

How to write a successful book without a brain.

I was browsing The Napkin The Melon & The Monkey: How to be happy and successful at work and in life by simply changing your mind by Barbara Burke and was struck on how easy it would be to write a book like this.

It's very short. 100 pages or so and the book is like half-sized. It has one central idea: That everyone in the world faces 10 problems that we can't do anything about. The eleventh problem is that you think you shouldn't have to face the ten other problems.

In other words, the book is about how to accept that you're going to have some tough times in life. A pretty commonsense idea. Now how do you make a book out of this:

1) Choose a very simple, easy-to-understand, common sense idea.

2) Give the idea a catchy marketing name. Maybe call it a law. Involve numbers.

3) Write a parable about this idea and how you discovered the idea in your own life.

4) Include a wise-character in your story (a "magical negro character") who guides you and teaches you the way.

5) Keep the writing conversational and short.

5) Describe how your life has improved.

BONUS: Give your book a very original, catchy title to attract attention.

I don't think it would be hard to dash off books like this. You could almost do one a month. Certainly one every 2 months. The hardest part would be coming up with the clever marketing names and numbers.

I saw 37 quilting magazines at my grocery store.

What the hell is quilting and why are there so many quilting magazines? I counted 37 today in the magazine section of the grocery store. 37!

I think quilting is like sewing. I think old people do it. Not sure because I never seen anyone looking at quilting magazines. So how can there be 37?

Let's assume they're quarterly magazines. That would mean there were 148 magazines last year at that grocery store just about quilting. If they're monthly, 444 magazines about quilting.

If each magazine has 5 articles or projects, that works out to between 740 and 2220. So we'll take a nice, round median of 1000.

1000 new articles about quilting per year - at that grocery store. That's a lot of quilting. There must be a demand for quilting or else there wouldn't be so many quilting magazines.

I must remember to ask some older people I know if they quilt. The thing is I don't know many older people. I asked my co-worker just now and she said her friend does it.

Well, her friend certainly has lots of resources in the quilting world.

Some people get depressed on Valentine's Day because they don't have a partner.

V-Day is one of those holidays that gets a lot of grief. Especially from single-women. They often get "depressed" on Valentine's Day because they don't have a boyfriend.

V-Day reminds them that they are lonely and they don't need to be reminded. Sometimes they get downright angry and say, "It's such a 'fake' holiday!"

Many men agree and say it's invented by the greeting card companies so that they can make money.

To rebel against the holiday, some women go out and do a "girly" things with their other single girlfriends. They pretend that they're proud of their "independence from being in a relationship."

But you know what? The whole idea that they need to rebel and have hate on towards Valentine's Day shows that they care.

If they truly didn't care about being single on Valentine's Day, then it would just be like any other day. No need to emote.

If you took these people and said, "I will give you the greatest boyfriend you could want right now with the snap of my fingers" they would all beg you to snap their fingers.

It's just like when really fat people say that they're happy with their bodies and that fat is beautiful. If you snapped your finger and magically made them skinny, they wouldn't want to be fat again.

It's called lying to yourself. And we all do it. Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that can bring out the lie.

The first day of the Olympics.

This being the first day of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, I thought I'd share my thoughts.

First, it's a HUGE HUGE deal here. Downtown was in bedlam yesterday with the torch relay. The streets are closed and everyone is partying.

I've never seen such Canadian pride. What a boost to our self-esteem as a country.

Secondly, Canada actually thinks they're going to win the games, and we've been getting some bad international press about our cockiness. Well, what a refreshing change for Canada - a generally diffident country that doesn't care much about sports. Now we're actually talking about being competitive!

The Olympics is a monstrous waste of money. The total cost will be around $6 billion dollars. That's a lot of money that could have been directed to local schools, homelessness and social services. And it will all be over in two weeks.

The organizers say the games will bring in $10 billion in benefits. I doubt it. But even if they do, who gets the money? Corporations get the money through increased sales. The people won't get much except higher prices.

To summarize:

Pros of the Olympics

- Increased Canadian self-esteem and spirit

- Improvement of local facilities

Cons

- Expensive, other arguably more important services sacrificed

- General inconvenience for citizens

Unknowns

- long term economic benefit?

- costs of goods and services to increase in Vancouver area?

- terrorist attacks?

- will international media be positive or negative?

Other Comments

Canada's torch relay was the goofiest ever. It was carried on tractors and trains and by Indian chiefs and by people in white, space-age track suits. The torches also looked weird.

NBC announced that they weren't going to make money on broadcasting the Olympics. Apparently not many people watch it or care. I don't entirely believe them.

Jeez someone just died in the luge. How horrible. I hope this doesn't mar the Olympics, but who feels like partying now? Very tragic.

A useless book about how to get your child to eat.

I'm skimming Just two more bites! : helping picky eaters say yes to food by Linda D. Piette and have quickly determined that the book is useless for us.

First, it's written by a pediatric nutritionist. Right there is a warning flag. Nutritionists don't know how to get kids to do things. Behaviourists do.

Second, the book is filled with tons of dull common sense advice - the kind of advice the community medical people told us. "Try a new sippy cup." "Keep meals short." "Don't get into a battle over food."

Third, on page 81 she says, "Don't use food to bribe or reward or punish." While technically correct, we were told that Jake needs his positive behaviour reinforced.

At the beginning she writes, "The trick is to act like you don't care if your kid eats or not."

For Jake, that didn't work either. He started eating when we applauded him and acted like we cared.

The rest of the book goes into boring boring detail about recipes and multi-vitamins and different types of personalities. Very little practical information here.

Unfortunately, there are lots of books like this out there. Jake needs to be pushed, encouraged and basically forced to eat. Books by medical professionals that basically tell you not to push your kid are simply not effective for us.

If you were the last person in the world.

I just finished reading Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien. It's a post-apocalyptic novel about a 16 year old girl and a 30 year old man who are the only known survivors of a nuclear war.

They meet each other after a year, and about halfway through, the book gets all creepy because the man tries to rape her. The story moves from man vs. nature to man vs. man.

I thought that was such an odd thing for a character in that situation to do. I think if the last two people in the world are roughly reproductive age, they're naturally just going to have sex eventually anyway.

It's human nature. Look at Adam and Eve. They obviously figured out what needed to happen. Even if they don't like each other much, what other choice did they have?

Then again the book wouldn't be as exciting if the characters just naturally had sex.

This pregnancy is going much faster...

I was telling Cindy how much faster this pregnancy seems to be going. It's only months away before we have another child. That blows my mind. I keep telling her we need to set up the car seat and buy a stroller, but she's more laid back than me.

Why is time going so much faster this time around? I have two theories:

1) We're distracted by Jake. He takes up so much time and energy right now that we don't often sit around and day dream about the future. When Cindy was pregnant with Jake, we had nothing else to do except day dream about the future (and buy a house and move to Maple Ridge). So time went by much slower.

2) We told people later this time around. Which means people have spent less time asking us questions or talking about this pregnancy. This makes it seem like it's happening so fast.

My workplace has 17 different forms to fill out.

We have 17 different forms. We are a small, not-for-profit organization.

We have 2 full-time staff people and we send these forms to our over 500 members who complete the forms throughout the year, based on the situation.

Some of the forms are complicated and need signatures from different people. A couple of our forms need to be stamped by a notary or lawyer.

We have so many forms because our members created a large number of complicated rules. The rules are so complicated, that forms had to be created.

We store the forms in a large filing cabinet. Because we get such a large volume and variety of forms, and because I'm the only one responsible for the forms, I don't have time to look at them.

In other words, I receive them and file them. If I happen to notice a glaring error, I contact the person who filled out the form and ask them to do it again. Most of the time I don't bother.

In the summer we have to change all our forms because our members change the rules. We pay a lawyer to create our new forms.

He charges a lot of money. When he sends them to us, our computers can't read them because he creates them on a Macintosh computer. So I have to re-do them anyway.

Would you rather look old when you're young and young when you're old? Or look young when you're young and old when you're old?

I find it fascinating that when you look at someone you can immediately determine if they are younger, older or about your age.

Why can we do this so fast? My guess is that it has to do with reproduction and evolution. It was in our benefit to identify people's ages very quickly - it helped us get more mates and have more babies.

The way life works now, we look young when' we're young and old when we're old. What if this was reversed?

From my work in the school system I know that kids who look older often have more problems:

1) They're bullied by their peers for looking different.

2) Teachers and adults overestimate their maturity and are disappointed.

So I think it would be bad when you're young. On the other hand, when you're old and you look young, lots of good things can happen.

1) People will be pleasantly surprised at your maturity and wisdom.

2) You'll have more success with the opposite sex because combined with your good looks, you now have the intelligence and wisdom of an old person that would help you attract and seduce(?) a younger person.

On the other hand, it would be frustrating being treated as a "dumb young person" by people who are younger than you.

In conclusion, I say that the way we age works out just fine.

Jake carries things in his mouth.

Jake is going through a phase where he carries his stuffed animals in his mouth as he walks. He does this most often with his bear "Scout"*.

The problem is that as he walks along, holding the animal in his teeth, he can't see where he's going. So he will often trip or fall forward onto his face.

When we randomly pick up one of his stuffed animals it will often be wet with his saliva. Sometimes the stuffed animal is stained a strange colour. We realize that whatever he was eating at the moment had dripped out of his mouth and stained the animal.

___

* Scout has a USB port. We plugged him into the computer and downloaded some new songs and told him Jake's name. Now he says out loud "Hi Jake". And uses Jake's name in the songs. When Jake first heard this, he sat up straight in surprise and pointed to himself. We said, "Yes, Scout is talking to you." Toys are insane these days.

The left / right brain myth.

We've heard over and over again that the right brain is concerned with creativity and the left brain, logic and language. A whole bunch of books are about "how to tap into the right brain".

Not surprisingly, this idea is one of those science folk tales that is way, way over simplified in popular culture. The fact is that the brain is way too complex to be simplified into right and left. Brain modules stretch across the brain.

Here's a wikipedia quote referenced in a book called Mind Myths:

"One explanation for why research on lateralization is so prone to exaggeration and false application is that the left-right brain dichotomy is an easy-to-understand notion, which can be oversimplified and misused for promotion in the guise of science."

Here's a quote from an article titled "In Search of...Brain Based Education" by John T. Bruer:

"What modern brain science is telling us - and what brain-based educators fail to appreciate - is that it makes no scientific sense to map gross, unanalyzed behaviours and skills - reading, arithmetic, spatial reasoning - onto one brain hemisphere or another."

So there you go.

Time theft is a serious crime.

Is time theft morally wrong? Let's examine the issue.

Time Theft Is Wrong

We'll define "time theft" as time spent at work not working when you should be. In other words, if you work an eight hour day and you're doing personal things outside of your 15 minute breaks, you're "stealing time".

Let's make the case of it being immoral. First, you agreed to work for your employer in exchange for a salary. Your employer has this expectation. When you waste time, you're breaking a promise to your employer.

You are also damaging your employer's ability to do business, satisfy customers and pay other employees. When you aren't working, your employer is less efficient and they make less revenue or lose more money.

So your "time theft" also hurts others who rely on the organization.

***

Time Theft is Okay

On the other hand, your employer probably has an expectation that some time theft is reasonable - as long as your important work gets done.

Also, your employer has an obligation to supply you with work (or to make clear that you need to initiate work on your own). Your employer should also supply you with the tools and training to get the work done.

If your employer does not supply you with work or with the tools to do this work, then you do not have an obligation to "complete" anything for them.

Conclusion

Overall, I conclude that there's a stronger case for arguing that time theft is wrong.

Other Points to Consider

* Would it make a difference if your own manager or boss "time theft" himself or herself? And that there was an unstated culture of time theft throughout the workplace?

* Would it make a difference if you stole time as a way of revenging some other injustice?

* How about if you stole time, but told your employer about it, so that they knew you weren't busy enough. Would that make it okay?

* What about if you realized yourself that by "time-theft" you actually made yourself more efficient and productive as an employee, because you've had that added rest. Would it still be unethical? Should you be allowed to make that judgement?

***

Note: I wrote this entry at work.

Buying cheap stuff makes life worse.

When I was younger I used to buy the cheapest possible stuff.

Now that I'm older, I like to think I'm immune from cheapness, but really I'm not. I'll often buy cheap crap and that's a problem according to Ellen Ruppel Shell in her book Cheap: the high cost of discount culture.

She says that when stores sell cheaper stuff with lower prices, it means other stores have to lower their prices to compete. This means they make less profit (because margins are smaller) and to counteract the losses they cut salaries.

So when everyone starts buying cheap stuff, salaries go down. It becomes a cycle because now people have lower salaries and they can only AFFORD cheap stuff.

In a better world everyone would buy the most expensive stuff. Salaries would start to go up.

High prices and high salaries would mean we'd probably be able to afford approximately the same amount of stuff. It's just that now all our stuff would be excellent, high quality stuff instead of crappy cheap shit made by child slaves in China.

I had to buy my boss a birthday card and it was super hard.

I didn't think it would be so tough. I mean, a card's a card.

But to find one for your boss is different. It can't be overly-familiar, and that rules out 75% of the cards. It can't be humorous because your boss can't share your warped sense of humour.

It can't be sappy because that would be too kiss-ass.

The other cards are for husbands and wives and kids and nephews. Or they're money-holders. And I ain't given my boss money.

So I stood there like a moron for ten minutes, like I cared about which card I got him.

Finally I settled on a lame, generic card that said "Happy birthday and all that jazz" and had a cartoon character playing a saxophone.

Still, birthday cards are totally worth it. There's nothing else that quite says, "I wish you a happy birthday but I don't care enough to put a lot of energy into anything so here's a card."

A birthday card is the perfect amount of politeness. It's the bare minimum birthday standard, and it's an excellent subsitute for a real gift.

You don't even have to put any creativity into it. Someone else, whom you will never know or never meet - likely in India, wrote that poem or joke that you are now sending your loved one.

The only down side is that it's a waste of paper. When I get a card I pretty much want to throw it in recycling right then and there unless it contains a note or a picture. I find cards ugly, and people who hang their Christmas cards in their window blinds are ugly people.

Jake gives people high fives as he walks past.

Last weekend at the mall I noticed something hilarous. Jake likes to give people high fives as they walk past.

He's so short that they don't see him, so he ends up hitting their knees or legs. Then they look down in confusion and see a toddler walk past.

The best was when he did it to a high school student. The guy was like "what the hell?" I was trying not to laugh.

It's pretty funny. I let him do it for the most part.

Also, at the food court he walked up to tables and touched people who were eating. Some people ignored him. Others turned to him and said "Hello!" enthusiastically.

Brandon.

I'm terrified of this kid here at the school where I work. His name is Brandon. I'd say he's about 8 or 9.

He smashed a door window to a classroom and he pointed this out to me proudly one day. "I broke that!" he said.

I just nodded.

Another day he came up to me and shouted, "What's your name? I SAID WHAT IS YOUR NAME!"

Another time he was karate chopping the classroom doors with is foot and my boss went out to ask him what was wrong and he shouted, "SHUT UP!!!"

He's often screaming in rage and smashing or kicking things. He's surrounded at all times by 2 special needs workers.

I went to the washroom today and saw him run into the girls washroom. I went into a stall and locked the door, praying that he wouldn't come in.