15 posts tagged “rainbowhill”
I know it's old news that Pownce is closing, but I just went across there to pick up my posts as an export for vox and when I got to the point of importing I noticed that all my posts were being fed there from Twitter anyway. Talk about redundant. Long ago I must have begun feeding Twitter to Pownce, and completely forgotten about it.
One less blog/microblog/social networking service to worry about. I wonder if I can take the knife to any more? Jaiku?
If you were stranded on an island, what five books would you bring?
- Light on Yoga - B.K.S. Iyengar
- Lord of the Flies - William Golding
- The Art of War - Sun Tzu
- FM 21-76 US Army Survival Manual (pdf)
- The Dhammapada - as translated by Thomas Byrom
I didn't think too long about this but now looking back at it, these books provide a fairly practical guide for surviving this world and the next. I haven't read the US Army Survival Manual, but it's in there because I'm a pragmatist.
via (CJP)
Alright, so there are many reasons to be cheerful, but lets start with three. Not the only ones, nor the most important ones, but 3 being the magic number, a good place to start.
Almost a year ago Mick and Min and Nettie bought me a moleskine when they came to Japan. I've been writing in it almost every other day and I'm starting to feel as though it's had a transformational effect not only on writing about things I experience but on observing them as they happen.
Until today I haven't really been that interested in going back through it and reading it again, but I was prompted by a freinds retrospectiveness to delve into the waybackmachine and visit one of my first blogs. Most of the links are broken and the jpegs are missing due to the archive not following links contained within javascript, but it's still there, frozen in time.
Moments we capture in print or on screen are also indelibly imprinted on our psyche. I am who I today for as much I have determined for myself, shaped by the influence of others.
Today I am tired and sore. Yesterday was a 16 hour working day, and tomorrow will be another fourteen. I am happy for the standard 8 today, but feel so driven to produce something of value I am up writing now.
How different things are now to what they were a year ago. I was newly out of work and expecting my third child. It was getting very cold and I was sporting a long beard. I was in a foreign country surounded by people speaking a foreign language and those that did speak English were paying for me to do so.
Things couldn't be more different. I am clean shaven and working three jobs to get back on track. My third child is almost walking, and all three of my kids are at least in the same city. I still get paid to speak English, but this time it's different because it's my second job and the pressure is off. Now I'm able to poor my talents and skills in to my day job I'm a lot more settled.
I still have a long way to go before I can say I'm doing exactly what I want to do, but I am getting there. I'm in a place where I can share my vision and make a difference. I could be getting paid more, but that's beside the point, I'm learning and growing into my responsibilities and that feels good.
Where I'm going from here is the nexus of technology and learning. I have a couple of plans that are slowly being brought to fruition. I won't be revealing all just yet, but you can see things slowly taking shape in places like rainbowhill88 and jrfiction on YouTube, and rainbowhill and jrfiction on tumblr. If you're a higher frequency person, then join me on twitter in either Japanese or English flavours.
There's also edufire, which is where I'm off to now, to try and build up my student base. I'm tutoring in Japanese and English over there. If you're a teacher maybe you should come and join us, if you're a student maybe you should come and learn from me!
It's been trapped up inside my head trying to find it's way out for such a long time, I wondered if it would ever make sense enough for me to write about it. I've been getting into the habit of keeping a journal on paper and that has helped with regularity and avoiding all kinds of self censorship. It's peculiar even when I write for myself I am held back by a sense of what might be appropriate to write, and what I should be allowed to think about something.
It really does help to get things down on paper, but for me it is it is a means to an end. The aim is to live more creatively than I have in the past. By that, I mean not just taking more photographs, or writing poetry, but through creating opportunities for myself and my family. Lately, I feel as though I've been able to do that in a way that I haven't done since I left University and started working in multimedia.
Work has been a bit tough, there have been interpersonal rivalries and some corporate casualties. I'm glad I have toughed it out however, because it has now given me the more scope to seek autonomy and creative self expression. I'm hoping that work provides a stable platform from which to move forward in my career.
The hours at my day job have been flexible enough for me to be able to take a second job two nights a week teaching English at a language school just around the corner. The second income gets taxed at the maximum rate, but it's good to know that with the support of family I am able to hold it down. That confidence in myself, and in the team at home, is going to come in handy when I decide to go back to study hopefully next year.
It could be I'm just feeling confident after reading too many self help/life hack/productivity blogs, but things are moving in the right direction.
I bet you didn't know you can still find a long black in Brisbane for less than $3, well how about about $2.50. Yes it's true, I was completely blown away when I realised I'd been paying too much elsewhere. The cafe is WickEd Corner Cafe, on the corner of Wickham Terrace and Edward Street heading up towards Spring Hill. It's conveniently located towards the end of my morning walk into town, and just before I drop down in to the seething morning rush coming out of Central Station.
The coffee is Segafredo, a full dark roast with a rich crema and subtle aroma. There is just a hint of sharpness with very little persistent after-taste, just the right kind of coffee to launch into the day with. The deck on the corner is full sun, so although it's bright it has good views down Edward Street and up Wickham Terrace to the old mill. It's just too bright to face the other direction, and too hot behind the glass inside the cafe to sit anywhere else but on the terrace.
I found about about through a promotional flyer and loyalty card that was left in the office. The card requires only five purchases before the first free coffee and each free coffee after that is five stamps. Great value. This morning was the second time I'd been there and I was a bit surprised when the staff asked me for three dollars. I could see it clearly written above her head on the board, long black/flat white $2.50, I bet she was surprised also. She must have been new I thought.
Well, they are hiring!
Well part of the battle is won. I've made it home, finished my course and landed a job, all without completely depleting my savings. The hardest part is yet to come, finding an apartment. Not an easy task in Brisbane at the moment, where most people spend at least at least a 3rd of their income on rent. Buying is out of the question, housing affordability is at it lowest point in about 12 years, and there doesn't seem to be any chance of that changing soon.
I'm working, and that's the main thing. I decided on going with a full time permanent position with James Cook University Brisbane, in their Learning Support Services section as a Student Learning and Support Officer. It's not English teaching, but it does have slightly more going for it financially. I needed the stability that comes with a salaried position over the contract work that typifies the English teaching industry even here.
I'm going through the induction process today, and tomorrow I'll be in the Channel 7 studios for the recording of "How to Get That Job" with Sarina Russo. I've been told to have some questions ready just in case I get called on to participate in Q&A.
I've been having such a good time in Brisbane since I've been back. I've found time to do all the things I have to do, like prepare for my course, and find work. I've also had plenty of leisure time, which will end tomorrow when my course starts.
I don't have a lot of money, but there are lots of things to do here. I've discovered the State Library of Queensland has free wireless Internet access. I've using it to do my course pre-task and stay in touch with friends and family in Japan. I usually get in to West End and have a coffee at Ugees before the library opens at ten and stay until just after six when the traffic has died down. Sometimes I pack a lunch and sit on the grass by the river.
The GoMA which is just next door to the library runs free films in their Cinémathèque every day. They are showing films accompanying the Andy Warhol exhibition which is on right now. I've seen a few free exhibitions, but since I can't really afford to spend $20 or $30 I haven't been able to see it.
That was until tonight, I finally have a chance to see it. A group of my mothers friends booked tickets to the exhibition and concert tonight, and some of them can't make it. Art is for everybody right? Also playing tonight is Ed Kuepper, well known for his seminal early Australian punk band The Saints.
After a fruitless week of searching for work in teaching English as a second language, rather than throwing in the towel completely, I've decided to take another qualification. Despite almost 5 years experience teaching English, employers don't want to take me on with out formal recognition of my ability as a teacher.
I've been accepted in to the Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults, otherwise known as CELTA, offered at The Australian TESOL Training Centre in Brisbane. It's considered an entry qualification for teaching English professionally, and here in Australia it's very hard to find a job without it. TESOL stands for teaching English to speakers of other languages.
Australian English schools of repute are accredited by a body known as NEAS, which is itself an acronym within an acronym, The National ELT Accreditation Scheme, ELT meaning English Language Teaching. If I can just get my head around the acronyms then I might have a chance of understanding the course.
By all accounts the four week full time intensive course is very hard work, there won't be time for much else except study and teaching preparation. The course starts Saturday week and finishes the first Friday of April. There should be enough time after that to find a job and an apartment before June when C and the kids come over.
When I first considered a job teaching English in Japan I had a vague idea of what learning a foreign language might be like. My experience of learning a language at school in Australia was disjointed at best, and was centred around standardised classroom texts and didactic teaching methods. Subsequently I didn't learn much of the Japanese, Italian, French, German, Latin or Ancient Greek I was taught.
I was fortunate however to have been educated in a school where most of the students spoke a second language at home, so I knew even then that bilingualism was a reality for many people. When I made the commitment to go to Japan, I also committed myself to learning the language, and studying martial arts over a two to five year period. My best chance of learning the language centred around being immersed in the culture, and using it to accomplish tasks of an everyday nature.
When I arrived in Japan, I enrolled in survival Japanese courses offered at the local international centre and took my notes home and practised phrases every day. I also mastered hiragana and katakana early on because I wanted to be able to read. Towards the end of my first year I moved to a rural town, from a prefectural capital, and my opportunities for engagement with the locals grew. I was beginning to feel more confident in my language ability.
Being a language learner gave me a much greater appreciation of what my students needed in the classroom. Everyone learns differently, and made sense for me to approach language acquisition from a learners perspective. I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in my second year, and sat it each year following. Studying for the test helped me understand the different modalities of language learning. Doing the past exams helped me to understand my weaknesses and better prepared me for what was ahead. I was constantly on the lookout for different learning techniques. Language learning itself, became my hobby.
When I met my then future wife in 2004 all of our communication was in Japanese. As we grew together as a couple my language needs changed, I was now required to understand things with a degree of subtlety that I hadn't had before. Speech was infused with nuance, and although the potential for miscommunication was high, I credit my wife's patience and understanding with my current language ability. We now have two children, a boy and girl aged 2 years old and 3 months respectively. They will be joining me in Australia in June.
I have come to the realisation that language learning is not separate from cultural experience. Language learning doesn't happen in a vacuum, it must be connected with and through people to what you want to achieve as an individual. Just as the motivation for learning a language must come from within, so too should the approach. Language learners are individuals first, and approaches to language learning should be centred around individuals.
It's been about three years, since I saw Brisbane but I never imagined it as green as this. It's almost as if I've been transported back to the Brisbane of my youth, except for the traffic and the development. Things are alive, growing, and the air is full of potential.
Or perhaps it's just the humidity getting to me. When I left Japan it had snowed heavily in the week before I left and was freezing as I stepped on the plane. As I stepped off the plane in Brisbane, almost a years rainfall had fallen in some parts of the state in the same time. Subtropical lows and a monsoonal trough are bringing an end to the drought here. There isn't enough rain yet to fill the state's dams, and there is heavy damage to crops in the north, but everyone I meet is saying it's a good thing.
There also seems to be plenty of work around. The resources boom in Australia is in full swing and Queensland is at the forefront of the boom. I'm looking for work in two areas, English as a second language (ESL), and software development. I'm hoping to put my Japanese skills good use use in either one of those areas.
ESL will provide some continuity and is perhaps more accessible in Brisbane, due to the high number of foreign students studying here.
Finding the right pathway back in to IT might be a little more difficult, since I've been out of the industry for about 5 years. My experience as a multimedia/web developer spanned over 7 years and 5 countries. It was top class, but now I need to work hard to update my skills, and demonstrate my ability.
I'm looking forward to the challenge.
