It's been hard to find time or energy to write these posts for a while. There's been a lot going on, but not in the ways that make an appropriate blog post. There's been a lot going on in my family, work, and activities. Much like last time, I'll write an overview here in an attempt to get the ball rolling to write a few other entries in the future.

For music, I've continued to play guitar in a little covers band. It's a good group of people, a four-piece band with three members who can take some lead vocals. There's some good potential there. I've enjoyed playing as part of a two-guitar attack and settled well into playing the rhythm guitar role. I still have a lot to learn and to get used to, but I think I'm a better rhythm guitarist than I expected. It's nice to be part of a group and to not have to carry as much of the vocals too. So that's nice.

For photography, I recently participated in an event called, "Picture the Port," which was facilitated by the Port of Vancouver. They hosted a few trips around the Port, and I managed to find my way to a trip around Annacis Island. I took a lot of pictures with my medium format Kowa Six camera, and two of them were picked for enlargement. It felt good to see my work acknowledged, and to notice that my photos were quite different in style than the other photos that were submitted. Perhaps I'll be able to use this as a jumping off point to put together an exhibit of my own.​

For writing, I haven't  been writing anything for public consumption. As I wrote in my last attempted update, I've tried to write "Writer's Way" sorts of Morning Pages, but I haven't been able to keep up with it. I've mainly been writing for myself, or writing letters to my children or to others. I've been writing letters on my typewriter. Writing these pages and typewritten letters has been a sort of therapy for me. But as of lateI haven't been able to write any songs or creative pieces. 

Through July, for the third consecutive Summer, I taught Literary Studies 11 to immigrants at an adult education school. Most of my students were from Afghanistan and other insecure places, and it was a rewarding experience. These last few years have been good for learning new things, but I've enjoyed teaching summer school because it reminds me that I can still manage a classroom effectively, and that people can still appreciate how I do it. This being my third year, I was much more prepared than before. I'm very grateful that it worked so well, no matter how exhausting the morning-afternoon workload was. It was a good time, a good experience. 

I've been growing more confident in the kitchen. I don't enjoy it, and I don't know if I'll ever have a sense of food, that I'll ever have intuition about what food goes with what, or what is appropriate at that time, but my cooking has been generally good and effective. I've made some good soups and some good roasted dishes. I feel a little crazy about this, because I went through most of my life without preparing meals, feeling extremely anxious around any sort of food preparation. I avoided food prep at many costs, and took it far too personally when someone would criticize me for my errors. But I'm getting a little better. It gets done slowly, since I don't get anything done quickly, but I've found ways to get it done. I look forward to the day when I can prepare a meal for my kids and they actually enjoy it.

There are a few things I've reflected on lately more than others, things that might be worth an entry here:

• My patience for bad presentations at professional development meetings has plummetted. Teachers and educators should be far better at presenting information without a dependence on Powerpoint. 
• I find it fascinating how people come and go in life, how they fade into essence. I think about this as my grandmothers recede further into my memory, and as circumstances have led to an estrangement of sorts between myself and some of those closest to my heart. Who are these spectres? What to do with them?
• I've been experiencing memories that I feel have "always been with me," images and ideas that I've grown to suspect were born in my preverbal mind. It fascinates me when I can get my mind into that space and draw out, what seems to me, thoughts that I ruminated on when I was likely a toddler. I know this is crazy talk, but I think it's something. I just don't know how to describe it clearly.
• Impulse control, particularly with snacking, continues to be a problem. I have some ideas that might help me with that, but I'm not sure what's effective with a lifelong problem.

​That's all for now. Perhaps that will get me thinking blog again.

Time has been hard to come by. I've found it difficult to write posts here as a result. I'll write this post in an attempt to roll the writing-ball again.

This year, my worksite has been very challenging. I continue to work as an Integration Support Teacher at an elementary school. It's my role in the school to support students with special needs designations, to support them in order to ensure their "inclusion" in the classroom. I can't really write much about it here due to privacy and professionalism, but I can say that I've come home discouraged many times, and I've found it very hard to stay energized or to feel successful this year. A lot of things are going well in an objective way, but from another angle nothing is going as it should. I wish I was doing better at work, but consistency has been a challenge all year.

Creatively, I've continued to play at the local Legion when I get the chance. I play at least once a month on the Saturday night Jammers stage, and I think my guitar and leadership skills have improved each time. It's a laid-back environment, but I also want to do a good job with it. I was invited to join a covers band for the next few months, and I'll be joining them for a first rehearsal this coming Sunday. That should be a good boost to the musical ego, and I'm looking forward to getting some "band" experience that I've never had before.

My photography trundles along, but I'm having trouble finding joy in it. My wife and I have done a couple trips out of the country over the last year, and that's led me to take lots of pictures in other locations. But here in Ladner, in the Lower Mainland, I feel like my photographic inspiration is pretty-much dried up. I'd reached out on some photography Facebook groups to find some models to work with, but my posts didn't receive any responses. So I'm still trying to find some inspiration there.

I've tried to start running again, but it's been patchy. I've injured my body more regularly at the gym for the last seven months, so I need to start exercising more like the 43 year old man I am. I've been learning more about cooking at home.

Overall life is good. I am healthy and I'm looking forward to some good things. However, I find that, at the end of the day, I don't have much to say, and I'm performing poorly at keeping up with friends and family. But I've started to try to write The Artist's Way "daily pages," so maybe that technique will help me get the wanting-to-talk juices working again. 

[October 31 2023: I've tried to edit this post so it's written a little more clearly.]

I saw two articles yesterday that described ways that some local BC school districts doing good things in response to political and religious conflicts. The first incident took place on Vancouver Island at a religious summer camp where I used to work; the second took place in Surrey, where I currently work. I have a couple personal connections to both cases.

​On Vancouver Island,some school districts have severed ties with Camp Qwanoes due to the religious organization's stance on homosexuality. In my opinion, this severance is justified on the school districts' parts; school districts should not associate with organizations with such inequitous policies.

I attended Camp Qwanoes as a camper in the 1990s and worked as staff there for the summers of 1996-2001. It was during my time working there, perhaps the summer of 1997,  that the camp instituted the code of ethics form that all staff had to sign. The code of ethics, by some other name, was a ream of statements you had to agree with to work at the camp. I remember being uncomfortable signing the form, simply because its litany of rules seemed to be over-reaching. The form set rules about the music staff could listen to, their beliefs about homosexuality, their involvement in a church outside of camp, and numerous other rules that seemed a little over-the-top. However, despite reservations I found it easy to sign the form for the first few years where I worked there. The camp was fun to work at and I was pretty straight-edge, so it was easy to sign the form even if it seemed excessive. Even if I didn't like having my behaviour curtailed in this way, it wasn't going to change my life very much to follow their rules for a few months.

Still, by the time 2002 rolled around, when I stopped working there, I felt good never having to sign that code of ethics form again. By that point, my faith had grown pretty liberal: I may have been uncomfortable with homosexuality, but I knew that it wasn't any of my business to condemn it; I may not have been comfortable with abortion, but I knew that the arguments for its legalization far outweighed the other side's arguments; I was deeply troubled by trying to justify complex and arbitrary theological stances on the atonement, salvation by grace, Biblical inerrancy, and the Trinity. By that point in my life, I couldn't sign the form with a clear conscience. So I stopped working at the camp and felt better for it.

Today, in 2023, I think the camp's code of ethics essentially makes teenagers (most of their employees are teenagers) agree to hatred, and I'm appalled by that. So I'm glad that some public districts are severing ties with the camp. School districts shouldn't give funds to organizations, like Qwanoes, that promote hatred, no matter what the camp director says is within their "rights." 

Closer to home, the Surrey School District cancelled a rental of district space to a "non-binding" Khalistan voting event. The district's decision is something I'm also in support of. I currently work for the Surrey School District and I don't want my public occupation to be associated with political-religious issues like Khalistan. Some religious and cultural activities are fine for a public school district to acknowledge and celebrate, but I think Khalistan is a step over a line.

Specifically, the district's focus is on a poster: "the cancellation was due to a promotional poster that showed an AK-47 assault rifle being stabbed by a pen below an image of the school in Newton." As obvious as the imagery is (and I've seen the poster a few times around town), it's unnecessarily violent for direct association with a public school district.

The district has said, "As a school district, our primary mission is to provide quality education and support to our students and ensure a safe environment for our school communities. Our agreements, policies and guidelines, including those for rentals, support our district in creating a safe environment for our community. Anyone renting our facilities must adhere to this." 

I think this is an important stand for the district to take. The posters and the event are clearly political and religious in nature and the district should have nothing to do with events that might cause a religious or political ruckus. There's no need for that level of tension in public school districts. There are plenty of private locations for an event like this one; the event (in addition to its inexplicable repeat a few months afterwards) was later held at a Sikh temple, a decidedly more appropriate venue. 

So I'm a little proud right now to be working as a public educator in British Columbia. The system isn't perfect, not at all, but at least some districts can take a stand for neutrality and equality. Good stuff.

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 15 2023: Monocle Radio's The Foreign Desk, one of my favorite news shows to listen to, recently posted a great short "explainer" that mentions the [original] referendum I mentioned in this post. I think it's crazy to think that sites I drive past almost every day are the centre of international news. 

I've been on a bit of a Steely Dan kick as of late. I bought A Decade of Steely Dan on CD a few years ago and it's slowly been growing on me. I didn't really care for them when I was younger, but I kind-of knew that, as a snooty musician type, I was supposed to like them. And as I age, I'm understand that supposition a little better.

The Midnight Special has been posting some great videos to their YouTube channel as of late. Steely Dan's performance of "My Old School" is spectacular there.

I'd just like to say that I despise the ways online algorithms try to "give me what I want" by showing me news based on my most recent searches. It feels infantilizing to have a computer suggest that I read or view things that I may have searched for one time, or for a brief period. Just because I searched for something doesn't mean I want unsolicited news about it.

In addition, and perhaps related, I'm so tired of professional sports league contract talk. I've felt exhausted by the endless talk of contract talk over the last few years; the Pride stuff, mentioned a few posts ago, pushed my patience over the top. It's deeply unenjoyable to hear more about contracts than about people playing the game. I feel like I'm being pushed to ignore the major professional leagues altogether, because most of the talk will just be about contracts. It's off-putting.

To combine both of these points, I wish I'd never followed sports on Google because it inundates me with contract talk, amongst other things. So annoying.

​That's all.