The End

I sit in front of my computer and I want to write more. I want to write from the heart. For a while I thought I could do this but how is that possible when your heart has been ripped out.

I came back from Malaysia late in 2006 to help my folks pack up the farm, because I wanted to pack up the farm as well, because it was time to leave Malaysia, and I was ready for a change. So I started this blog and kept it going for very nearly a year. The blog started out being about home and how home is a destination on a road. I was on a road and I was going home. I was going home to say good-bye. A year and a half later, home is long gone.

I had tried to keep writing even after it was over, and Morocco became a fun way to decompress after that experience. Morocco is long gone too now. Funny how that happens.

I have avoided my own blog for a while now and then tried repeatedly to write with no success. I have felt that I have nothing left to write about. Where, what, who could I write about compared to what I was writing about before. Nothing, so I will end this blog with a few short stories about what has happened in the last year.

Months ago, my uncle took pictures. He went back to the farm and took pictures. He took pictures of nothing. The nothingness that was left. The ground where house had been, the tree beside it which still stood on its own. The area where the shop stood. When he sent them to me, I look at them and immediately felt sick...Even now, I imagine myself standing there looking though the open air at a place where a house should be, and tears run down my face. This is the first time I have cried over the loss of that home since we left it on December 27th, 2006. I have almost cried before but I have never let it come out. In each case it has almost come as a result of lilacs.

Lat year when lilacs cam into bloom down the street from my parents rental home in Niagara Falls, I walked past and smelled them and then buried my face in them and just felt an overwhelming sadness. I did that this year as well when I smelled them, fresh cut in a vase, at a friend's house. In each case, I buried my face in them, the smell demanded some sort of physical experience. I needed to hold onto something real, because home wasn't real anymore. Home was gone. Home ...is gone.

This blog has been a journey about finding home. Now, I have to find that all over again. Like my family did 200 years ago when they first settled in Port Colborne, I am going to have to start fresh.

Home has to start with me.

I would like to thank everyone has ever taken the time to read my work. Your feedback has been invaluable. There may be blogs in the future but it will be on different topics and different pages. This one is ended.

May home welcome you back with strong open arms, sweet memories of the past, and hope for the future.

The End.


Mark Augustine

Um, no-- we don't teach people to say that!!!

This past week I have started and have been teaching a training course for new teachers, teaching teachers how to teach. This is commonly known as "teacher training."

It has been a real 'education' (excuse the pun) to deliver this course as I have found out what many people consider teaching to be. Some people come with a lot of preconceived ideas; others come with no ideas at all but do have the desire to learn and try something new. For some, it is, admittedly, a response to mid-life crisis while others believe it will be a more prosperous and enjoyable career route. One trainee, whom I greatly admire, openly said that he had been teaching in Japan for years with no real idea of how to teach at all. I had to give him credit for admitting that but also praise for doing so in a class of his peers.

What really shocks me is the ideas that some people have about teaching. One discussion amongst trainees focused on 'swearing' and whether this needs to be taught. Now at this point I have to admit that this is hearsay, as it comes from my colleague who is teaching the same programme, concurrently. Her group discussed swearing and its usefulness. Surprisingly, my colleague began to talk about how pronunciation and intonation was important to, say, express the difference between 'shit' said with anger compared with 'shit' said surprise or joy.

Teacher Trainer -- "well guys, when you say 'shit' and you are angry, your voice drops and you speak with less variation in tone. Overall, it might be said faster. When surprised, however, you may say it more slowly, at a higher pitch and with more variation."

Teacher in Training -- "So you never teach students to say anything like 'HEY, YOU FUCKIN' CUNT-SNIFFER!"

Teacher Trainer -- ".......no.......we don't teach students to say......that...."

Now, you, the reader, may be shocked to read this but go back and read it again to make sure. This was a real exchange between a colleague and a trainee. No names have been added (to avoid embarassment) but no content or dialogue has been omitted either. Read it and weep/laugh. This was an actual question.

The fact is that many new teachers have rather interesting ideas about what to teach to whom and when. That being said, my teacher training work for the first week has been fantastic and I have enjoyed it immensely. I can't think of any place I would rather be right now.

Today's blog is brought to you by the letter "W"

In courses I have recently taken at a university here in Toronto, we have discussed the best way to begin a presentation.
A.) Tell a joke
B.) Give an interesting fact
C.) Ask a rhetorical question
D.) Use a dynamic or provocative image

I think I'll start this with a joke.

The First World

There. That was the joke. I have talked with some freinds about how humour that ridicules people and is cruel just isn't funny anymore but the paradoxes of life can be really humourous. So there you have it -- careers and the job market - these are paradoxes of life which really deserve a good laugh.
Think of it - we in the first world have more stuff, more products more food than any other place on Earth. Yet the average North American loves to complain about how much we don't have. Oi Vey! We have more rights and freedoms than most other people but we are constantly complaining about how our rights are being violated when someone tells us we aren't perfect or asks us to take responsibility for ourselves. Ai Carumba! Canada is scaring me, and maybe that was what was so great about living overseas -- I often couldn't understand when people complained about their lives.

Fact: Really poor people never bitch about their poverty because they are too busy working to try and put food on the table.

Charity is a strange saint-- those who need her graces most are often the last ones to accept them.


Back in Germany, last year, I had a great time visiting the family. In retrospect, I can give all kinds of little details but these aren't nearly as good as the vague memories which sit like a juicy roast beef dinner in the hungry emotional table of my psyche. Nothing is as flavourful as the beautiful memories of the distant past.

So on that note, I would like to share a story of the extremely distant past.
In the village where my cousins live, there sits a sculpture in the square.

It is a 'w' of sorts, and in the local bakeries the same 'w' sits in glass cabinets, refrigerated, covered in chocolate or vanilla or nuts. Seeing this in the town, I say to myself, "Hmmmm, who knew the letter "w" carried such weight. Maybe, like that old chestnut "Sesame Street", this vacation was sponsored by the letter "w" and a few other random letters and numbers.


Walter, my cousin who is set to get married this June, 2008, was kind enough to help me out with this story.

Once upon a time, during the feudal epoques of Germany, the village of Chrailsheim was surrounded by a wall, a large stone wall meant to keep invaders out. Where did these invaders come from? Neighbouring villages, of course!! (this gives you a pretty good idea of just how far back we are talking) Now on one occasion, the invaders came to Chrailsheim and surrounded the city, camping by the wall. Their objective? Conquer the city by starving the villagers out! By waiting at the wall, the villagers would eventually have to open their gates and let the invaders come in because the only other option would be starvation. The plan was sound but would it work? Days passed and then weeks. The villagers saved all their food and rationed their resources but the invaders stayed camped. The situation looked progressively worse as the waiting passed it's one month mark. Finally, the food was gone and all that was left was flour.

"What to do?!" the villagers despaired.

But, as usually happens in tales such as these, a lone man, or perhaps a child, or even some village lunatic (these stories are never clear) got an idea. It was an idea which should go down in the annals of history as the single most ridiculous yet highly effective form of psychological warfare ever.

The villagers took the flour and made cookies. They needed to show the invaders that they did, in fact, have food! How much food? Enough to throw away! If they made the flour into cookies and threw them over the wall then the invaders might believe their strategy wasn't going to work, that the village was fully stocked and that starvation wasn't going to happen! Yet, on it's own, this ploy might not be enough. The villagers were really going to have to SHOW the invaders that they had enough food and weren't on the edge of starvation. So, they decided that the best way to do this would be to show the army the biggest, fattest, richest, most plumpest and juiciest round rump in town. They needed the most robust of them all to hang a mooner and give the invaders and eyeful of just how well-fed the town was --- and who better to do this than the best-fed example of womanhood in town - the mayor's wife!

So the plan was set and the preparations were made. And the next day, the mayor's wife climbed the wall and dropped her illustrious drawers and gave the invading army an eyeful of just how healthy the people of Chrailsheim were. Townspeople stood beside her, hooting and yelling and throwing their cookies in the shape of a 'w', which was actually a representation of the mayor's wife's bottom, inviting the invaders to share in their bounty. The result? The invaders were crest-fallen! More than a month of encampment had all been for nought. So, they packed up their toys and marched home, possibly the only time in history that an army has disappointedly walked away when offered a nice piece of 'ass'.

And so, to this day, every year, the village of Chrailsheim takes a week to remember the cleverness of their ancestors and the sacrifice of modesty by one woman. They fill the bakeries with chocolate, vanilla,and nut-coated little 'butt cookies' while, just down the street, the mayor's wife's ass sits, immortalised, in the square by the church.


Who said you need to make fun of people to have a good laugh! Obviously, home is a place worth protecting...

So, yeah, nearly um....7 months later

nearly 7 months and I haven't written anything. Gosh, loser me.

Looks like i am gonna have to write something soon.

Heh heh heh
wonder what that will be!

Me and my Balls

Having not written for some time, I realise that I may have alienated the few readers who have been loyal to me. That being said, I have set a goal for myself. I will write 100 entires into this blog before I say good-bye to it. This one is number 62.

Spain was fun. How else to describe it? I have come to love the Spanish and their warmth as a people. My friend Susana made me love them but Spain itself made me adore them.

After Spain, I flew to Zurich and then took a train to Stuttgart where I met my parents in the airport along with my cousin Walter and his wife, Astrid.


This is NOT them. This is Philip and Rosalia, the Oma and Opa of the family in Germany. The thing I love about being in Germany is that it is home. Though I don't speak German well and I can barely get by in it, Germany feels so much like it is the whole house of my grandparents where I religiously spent Thursday afternoons growing up.

The style of the houses, the smell of the food, the way the people act -- things like that make this place "home".

________________________________________________________

Here in Toronto, I am working as much as I want and getting more experience in teaching. I do teacher training at International house where I get to observe new teachers and give them ideas on what to improve.

I have also started taking Poi lessons. If you want to know what this is, I'll show you.







I attend a class every two weeks in a local park where a dude named Davey imparts the knowledge of the years and helps us, me and some other thrill seekers, improve and move towards the goal of mastery of the poi!

In time I hope to be excellent.

Stay Tuned!

Things I have traded; wherever you go, there you are...

These are the things I have traded...

my friends for my family
new friends for old ones
a full sized desk for a dinette table for 2
a hot country for a cold one
char kway teow for burgers and fries
hawker stalls for pubs
my sense of hedonism for my sanity
my passport for my driver's license
brown men for white ones
my own flat for my own room
twin towers for 1
an ocean for a lake
dangers and risks for financial security

Here I am.

I sit in my room. My one room in a shared house in the city of Toronto. Don't get me wrong. It's a nice room in an acceptable house on a great street in a fabulous neighbourhood in a big city, legendary and hated in my country for being big and metropolitan. Yet somehow I have sat here for 2 and a half months not answering email from very many friends back home (and yes, when I say back home I want to feel like Malaysia was it) And what do I say? Did I trade too much? Did I trade all I had for something that I don't even want?

I talked with ... someone I know here. (Despite the raging facebookery of the world now, I don't believe that he is really my friend) I told him that I wasn't sure if Toronto was the place for me, I didn't know how many times more I could move. I didn't know how many more times I could lose my friends. It takes me far too long to get them, it has always taken me so long to make them that to lose them again in so quick the purchase of a plane ticket is unbearable. He said he knew how important my friends were to me. I said, "do you?" He said, "Yes."

I never really hear from that guy, oddly enough.

So there I was and now, here I am.

People who talk about "degrees of separation" are really talking about people. People as degrees. When did people stop being people? I'll tell you when that happened.

It happened the day we became numbers in a disaster.
(355 killed in Peru earthquake)
It happened the day we became contacts on an email list.
(dmccoy1976@hotmail.com)
It happened the day we became something you request and add on facebook.
(+add friend)

There was a time that people only knew those close to them. Then when we were able to find out who people far away were, when news had just begun to travel fast, people became numbers. Knowing all those names got too hard, I think.

Then, when being able to talk to anyone anywhere became easy, people became codes on a page and messages got shorter. (Why send long messages when you can talk anytime -- just not at the moment)

Then, when we developed our profiles, and we became lists of data. We became, virtually, anything we wanted to be and we allowed ourselves to be lists of facts and interesting things to be looked at.

We sat ourselves up on a great long table and made ourselves into a buffet of faces on profiles. "Pick me!" "Poke me! See if I am tender and juicy!" "Add me to your plate, your ever-growing list of friends!" "Please, include me!"

I came home from Malaysia to help my family move. I came to help them dig up 200 years of family history and move. I wonder if I traded something I didn't like anymore for something that was almost gone.

The past is gone.

The future is here.

Time to make a new home.

Spain

My trip across the straits of Gibraltar from Tangiers to Algacieras was fun albeit more for the humour value than anything else. One of my true biological curses in life is a weak stomach on large ocean liners. My one cure for this is fresh air. So while many others huddled inside the ferry in warm corners with hot coffee, I sat out on the deck in Mediterranean darkness with a strong wind and lights of distant ships to keep me company. Eventually, I did find a fellow passenger who shared my problem but we kept to opposite sides of the aft observation deck. I huddled in one corner, he calmly sat in the other reading his paper. I thought I was the worse off until the first time he calmly got up and turned around to the rubbish bin behind him and "called to God". I decided shortly thereafter that I wasn't nearly as sick as I thought.

When we docked in Algacieras, I went through customs to find that the bus which 40 people had paid for to go to Madrid was not there. That was at 8:00 pm. By ten, it was still not there. Having forty people on the curb in front of a ferry port does not make for a fun evening in a situation like that, let me tell you. Luckily, I quickly learned that the Spanish are very patient with this and not without humour and tolerance for 'that which runs behind schedule'.

By eleven I was uncomfortably lying on a marble floor in the doorway of the port with several dozen Moroccans and Spaniards all waiting for various buses to arrive. By twelve I wasn't sleeping and wondering if a hotel across the street was not a better idea. Finally, by one thirty the bus had arrived and we were off by two.

Asleep, slumped over a headrest, I was finally on my way to Madrid. This experience would come to punctuate my four days there.

Spain was never an efficient place but no one seemed to mind, and I quickly grew to not mind either. 'Refreshingly laid back' was probably the best way to describe the people and by the time I left, I came to understand why I had loved the Spanish people I knew and worked with so much.

They have got more zest for life than most any culture I have encountered.

While there I got to see a good friend from Malaysia, my Hannah.

We trekked through mountains, went to bars and had tapas, and drank some of the cheapest stinking 'lemonade' that left you more limp and legless than a jellyfish out of water.

Spain was far too short a trip but I can see why the English love it and choose it as their favourite holiday destination.