No, I don’t mean the place surrounding every city, I mean the new, totally awesome album released two weeks ago by Arcade Fire. This album seems to have been met with mixed review, but I for one, have nothing but great things to say about this piece of work. I defended their last album three years ago, and (not-surprisingly) I’m happy to do it again!
Why I Love "The Suburbs"
Just to let anyone out there who may be worried know, I’m alive and well on this side of the earth. It’s been a busy few days since my last post, but ultimately very rewarding and has me excited for the coming year(s).
It all started shortly after my last post, when I was at the Toronto Airport and I hear the ominous words come over the loudspeaker “Attention everyone, American Airlines Flight 4112 to Chicago has been canceled”. Needless to say, I wasn’t too thrilled about that.
I ran to the counter to see what they could do for me. I NEEDED to make that connection in order to catch the flight to Seoul and then to Guangzhou.
In a few hours I hop on yet another plane. It never seems to end with me, does it? I’ll be on a 36 or so hour journey to my next new home in Guangzhou.
Yet again, I didn’t do all that I wanted to this summer, and yet again I missed seeing a lot of very important people to me. If you’re one of them, then I’m sorry, really I am. I missed seeing most of my friends and many of my family members this time. As usual I crammed too much stuff into not enough time and things kept popping up left, right, and centre.
But I am very excited to head to a new school and start a new life in a new place. Guangzhou is by all accounts a very happening city that I think will suit me well. In the two times that I have been there it seems like an exciting place full of energy and enthusiasm. If that isn’t enough, Hong Kong, the coolest city on the planet, is a short train ride away.
As for what I’ll be doing: I will continue to teach High School Math at an International School. In addition though, I will be taking on a new class for me, Theory of Knowledge. This is the course that is designed to bring all of the subjects together a bit, and runs like a Philosophy class. I am pretty exciting for that. Also, I do plan on setting up a class blog for that, so I’ll be sure to post some links to that around here somewhere.
As always, should any of you happen to be in the area, please drop me a line (preferably not on Facebook as it tends to be blocked). I’d love to meet up and/or hang out.
Hope to see you soon,
Until next time,
G
Let’s do a bit of an experiment today, shall we?
Say we have two well educated, intelligent people, both of who did very well in school, but each had one subject that they struggled with and just plain didn’t get. Now, imagine them each saying the following things:
Person A: I really can’t read much. I mean, I was good at it in elementary school, but when the books stopped having pictures I couldn’t do it anymore. And really, what’s the point? All the best books are movies now anyway.
Person B: I really can’t do math. I mean, I was good at it in elementary school, but when letter started showing up I got to confused. And really, what’s the point? I have an accountant to do it all for me now anyway.
I’ll admit it. I’ve a bit of a wagon rider when it comes to The Beautiful Game. I don’t follow the big European leagues, or even the small North American ones. But every two years when the World Cup and European Championships are under way, I start to get soccer fever. But this year, working in an International School, the passion and emotion for the game that I was surrounded with where much more than I’ve experienced in indifferent Canada.
So in bringing back an old feature of this blog, here are the main reasons I’ve grown to love this sporting event.
I’ve been a terrible blogger this past year, really I have. No need to go through the motions by telling me that I’m not that bad while I just cry, eat ice cream, before eventually accepting my own failures. We are well past that.
Back in my glory days (circa 2007-2008) I was a lean, mean, blogging machine. Looking at my archives, it’s easy to see that it wouldn’t be uncommon to write 10-20 posts a month, whereas now I’m lucky to get 4 done in that span.
The easy thing to say is that I don’t have any time for it. I mean, I live in a foreign country, work full time, and try to have a social life where I talk to *real* people now, so obviously time is a bit short. But the truth is, like everything else, I just don’t make time for it anymore.
Blogging is a very egotistical hobby to have. Obviously I feel that my opinions on life matter enough to write them down, and that you all care enough to want to read them. I think in the last few years I have gotten more humble with my old age. While this is inherently a good thing, an unfortunate side effect seems to be less and less blogging here. I mean, if I am just another cog in the machine, why would my opinions on politics, music, or sports really be worth reading?
Well I’m posting here to tell you that is no more. I’m going to get my ego back.
I’m on summer vacation right now, and in the past few years I have taken a break from blogging, this year it’s going to be different. I have 17 days left until I go back to China and I plan on writing a post for every one of those days. I have a lot in mind, and a few started. They may not all be actually posted on each day, due to internet access issues, but I will have them published on each day.
I don’t have plans for every post, but I have a few in mind on living in China, LeBron James, New York City, homecomings, and a lot more. No matter what I end up typing, I hope that you all enjoy the ride.
Until next time,
G
So it’s all said and done, my multitude of flights for the summer has been booked. I’ll be flying to the following places on the following dates:
Shanghai to San Francisco: June 26
San Francisco to Toronto: June 30
Toronto to New York: July 5
New York to Halifax: July 8
Halifax to Toronto: July 15
Toronto to Guangzhou via a zillion other places: July 24.
So…get your bookings for designated Glen-time now. It’s going to be a wild ride.
Until next time,
G
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