Day 2 in Chestet

Today was a guided tour of Chester with a walk around the city walls, 1st century, and a lecture about how the museum is involved in the learning process. My feet hurt.

Why?

Why do I tempt the travel gods? Bus ticket booked to get me to Chester was for yesterday...

Day 1

So, I arrive in normal Jason style, 50 min early, and chat with Marcus. The train comes, on time, and my seat is not taken by some idiot. So far so good. I sit and try to relax. A message comes over the speakers..."there is no power north of Norrköping so we have to wait.." shit. Why can't my travels be smooth? Anyway, 40 min later we start to move and no troubles the rest of the trip. Now I stand here, in this cage, and write my first England Trip 2012 post.

Non weekly update

So I'm in Vancouver doing the rounds of visiting family hauling my daughter around. Vancouver has changed. I don't think I could ever come back to this type of living. I like my smooth, quiet life. Behing here, seeing the stressed out parents makes me appriciate what I have and the opportunity my Swedish wife has given me. Jag älskar dig Rebecca.

Weekly rant #43

So I am just about done the Gunslinger series and this got me thinking about fate, or Ka as it is referred to in the books. Many years ago I had the thought that there are multiple universes that all stem from ones first choice. I mean for every choice a split occurs. I began to wonder about the choices I have made in my life and how the other Jason's are doing. The Jason that didn't throw the snowball mixed with mud at that van in Montreal or the Jason that went to karate instead of gettting dropped off and waiting in the park. What about the Jason that stayed in Oliver, continued the drinking and drugs?

The one I wonder about most, these days, is the Jason that finished work one night, drove drove home at 150 kph down Old Dewdney Trunk Road in tears, almost hit a telephone pole and when asked by Teresa to  "tell me you love me", said "I love you". Because this Jason, writing this, couldn't. How is he doing, I wonder. DId he get to return to school? Did he get to build the darkroom he wanted? I guess he is the assistant manager at the store that replaced SuperValu in Coquitlam, working with Al, Tim, Gabe and Rena. I hope he is doing ok in his universe. At least he gets to see Amanda every day.

But anyway, there are some that believe in fate (Ka) and there are some that think we have a choice. I have no idea. I have been plugging along, studying, working and life keeps rolling along. I have found that I need active in this "fate" otherwise life seems to fall apart. Ignoring bills and hoping that problems go away only leads to the crappy consequences of those choices. A good example of my universe is my "extra job". I started working with one of Rebecca's cousins, every other weekend for a little extra money. I got this job just before my trip to Vancouver last Christmas (see my post on my trip from hell), when I came home to that huge bill, my "extra money" went to paying it off. Fate? 

A quote I once heard, or read said; "every decesion I have made in my life, led me directly to where I am." True and to the point. It makes me sad to think of some of the other Jason's out there, and at the same time wonder about the one who made all of the right choices. 

Sometimes when I'm tired and weary, when my wife says how much she appreciates all that I do and how hard I work and when my kids tell me they love me, I think that the Jason who made all the "right" choices is the one right here. 

PS. The rant is: Some people in the teaching program should stop whining about how early in the morning some of the classes are, that they have to do re-tests and that some of the material is not relevant to "their subject". Shut up and realize how good it is. Life is what you make of it (if you read the above paragraphs, you will understand). 

"Man stands for long time with mouth open before roast duck flies in." -Chinese saying

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Arjun, I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - Jason Jason Read Student at Linköpings universitet Linköping Area, Sweden

Confirm that you know Jason

© 2011, LinkedIn Corporation

Weekly rant volume 42

So my new job gave my name to www.sinec.se which is the Swedish International Network for Exchange and Commerce. They want me to do some translating for them in exchange for a membership. I am a littlw worried about the direction that all of this is going. How much time do I want to put into this? I want to continue the teaching program so I don't know how much energy I can give to this new endeavor. Might lead to something cool and interesting though...

I love my wife and kids. Rebecca is my one and only, not just cause I'm lonely...

Anyway...this year of Geography is almost over...English next year.

 

Sickening Behaviour.

On May 1, 2011 Pres. Barack Obama appeared on national television with the spontaneous announcement that Osama bin Laden, the purported organizer of the tragic events of September 11th 2001, was killed by military forces in Pakistan.

Within moments, a media blitz ran across virtually all television networks in what could only be described as a grotesque celebratory display, reflective of a level of emotional immaturity that borders on cultural psychosis. Depictions of people running through the streets of New York and Washington chanting jingoistic American slogans, waving their flags like the members of some cult, praising the death of another human being, reveals yet another layer of this sickness we call modern society.

It is not the scope of this response to address the political usage of such an event or to illuminate the staged orchestration of how public perception was to be controlled by the mainstream media and the United States Government. Rather the point of this article is to express the gross irrationality apparent and how our culture becomes so easily fixed and emotionally charged with respect to surface symbology, rather than true root problems, solutions or rational considerations of circumstance.

The first and most obvious point is that the death of Osama bin Laden means nothing when it comes to the problem of international terrorism. His death simply serves as a catharsis for a culture that has a neurotic fixation on revenge and retribution. The very fact that the Government which, from a psychological standpoint, has always served as a paternal figure for it citizens, reinforces the idea that murdering people is a solution to anything should be enough for most of us to take pause and consider the quality of the values coming out of the zeitgeist itself.

However, beyond the emotional distortions and tragic, vindictive pattern of rewarding the continuation of human division and violence comes a more practical consideration regarding what the problem really is and the importance of that problem with respect to priority.

The death of any human being is of an immeasurable consequence in society. It is never just the death of the individual. It is the death of relationships, companionship, support and the integrity of familial and communal environments. The unnecessary deaths of 3000 people on September 11, 2001 is no more or no less important than the deaths of those during the World Wars, via cancer and disease, accidents or anything else.

As a society, it is safe to say that we seek a world that strategically limits all such unnecessary consequences through social approaches that allow for the greatest safety our ingenuity can create. It is in this context that the neurotic obsession with the events of September 11th, 2001 become gravely insulting and detrimental to progress. An environment has now been created where outrageous amounts of money, resources and energy is spent seeking and destroying very small subcultures of human beings that pose ideological differences and act on those differences through violence.

Yet, in the United States alone each year, roughly 30,000 people die from automobile accidents, the majority of which could be stopped by very simple structural changes. That's ten 9/11's each year... yet no one seems to pine over this epidemic. Likewise, over 1 million Americans die from heart disease and cancer annually - causes of which are now easily linked to environmental influences in the majority. Yet, regardless of the over 330 9/11's occurring each year in this context, the governmental budget allocations for research on these illnesses is only a small fraction of the money spent on “anti-terrorism” operations.

Such a list could go on and on with regard to the perversion of priority when it comes to what it means to truly save and protect human life and I hope many out there can recognize the severe imbalance we have at hand with respect to our values.

So, coming back to the point of revenge and retribution, I will conclude this response with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., likely the most brilliant intuitive mind when it came to conflict and the power of non-violence. On September 15, 1963 a Birmingham Alabama church was bombed, killing four little girls attending Sunday school.

In a public address, Dr. King stated:

“What murdered these four girls? Look around. You will see that many people that you never thought about participated in this evil act. So tonight all of us must leave here with a new determination to struggle. God has a job for us to do. Maybe our mission is to save the soul of America. We can't save the soul of this nation throwing bricks. We can't save the soul of this nation getting our ammunitions and going out shooting physical weapons. We must know that we have something much more powerful. Just take up the ammunition of love.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King, 1963 -

Tiptoe through...

Weekly rant...

Weekly rant, April 13th 2011.

Another section of Geography done, regional economics. Just passed the final by the skin of my teeth, oh well. The teacher was not clear about what he expected from us. Oh well... 

Still dealing with the aftershocks of my travel woes and now have to pay 1000:- per month to pay it off while I wait for my case to go further with Konsumentverket and hopefully get my money back. I am thinking of adding damages to the case as it is causing further problems with my credit etc. I could certainly use a little vacation from life right about now...oh well...

I now have two jobs on top of school and the kids and married life. I clean a grocery store every other weekend and have started translating press releases for a company that builds unmanned arial vehicles here in Linköping. The "extra" money goes, of course, to pay bills... oh well, c'est la vie. I start my sommer jobb at the campground Lysingsbadet (www.lysingsbadet.se) in June and I am looking forward to it. Another beautiful Swedish summer. 

The kids are good, Mattias has fit in well to the new school, he came in in the middle of the year because we moved into the city, and Markus and Elisabeth love to go to their daycare. I still love that we pay nothing for daycare or school. Mattias is a LEGO master like his pappa and can draw awesome skeltons.

Not really a rant...what can I rant about? Life is good, hard but good. I have an awesome sexy wife who takes good care of me. Speaking of Rebecca, she has applied for the teaching program at LiU in the fall and I can't wait to see her sexy body around the campus, sit under the trees and talk about Vygotsky and Skinner and love each other. 

I could rant about gas prices, 14,32:-, but I realise that driving is a privelege, not a right. I could rant about my excercise routine, but I don't have one. I could rant about how I have to pay an increase in my rent because they are fixing water damage and need to "upgrade" the bathroom but...oh well...

Life goes on, nah nah nah...