R.I.P. eMachine

The computer I mentioned was acting strangely in a previous post, has gone to computer heaven. Now that it's there, I'm sure it's sound card will play nothing but harp music and it'll rest on a cloud which is never too hot or too cold for optimal performance. It'll also never get dusty inside, which is a lot more than I can say for its earthly lifespan where carpets of dust lay inside of it's metal innards.

Since that computer was primarily a means to watch computer content on television, I didn't think or care much about replacing it, but my CH has said that he really would like to have a computer attached to the television for this purpose. In particular, he'd like to be able to watch streaming content like the Colbert Report or the Daily Show on the bigger screen regularly. This is not particularly convenient or mechanically possible from any of the 5 machines currently crammed into our tiny living room because only two have S-video outputs and both of those are workhorses that can't be surrendered to T.V. duty.

After discussing this, we decided that the next oldest machine, my current Mac Mini, is the best candidate for a move to semi-retirement. It's now 2 1/2 years old and has never been all that fast. I looked into Apple's current line-up and my desktop options are very limited (as they have been for ages due to Apple's limited line-up). I considered each of the following:

1. A Mac Pro tower

This would be ideal, but it's also too expensive. In Japan, the price is around $3,000 and it's more than I actually need (though I'm hungry for a better graphics processor than I get on a low end Macs). I just can't justify such an extravagant outlay of cash for more machine than I require.

2. An iMac

This looks good except for the fact that I don't need a display and it's $600 more than a Mini. It does have better video and other specs, but it's hard to justify it both because the monitor portion is not necessary and I really prefer not to clutter my (already too small) desk with another display. The funny thing about momentum is that it's rather hard to get off the merry-go-round once you're on it. I have a nice display and I have two computers that use it. Getting one that doesn't need it and has its own causes issues.

3. Another Mac Mini

Reluctantly, I believe this is the route I have to take. The video processor specs disappoint me greatly, though swapping to an Intel dual core processor should give me a great speed boost. I may also toss in some more RAM, but I haven't decided for certain yet. At the very least, I'm sure Photoshop and Rosetta Stone will run better.

Before deciding to take the plunge though, I checked out when the Minis were last updated by Apple. There's a very helpful buyer's guide at MacRumors which gives you dates of updates as well as recommendations about buying now or waiting. If you're in the market for a new Mac, this is your one-stop shop for considering whether to wait or buy now and possibly regret it in the near future because Apple released a new one right after you made your purchase. The Mini was last updated a little over a year ago and is overdue for a refresh. I'm hoping that Apple tries to roll something out in October or November (for Christmas) so we can pick up a new one when they come out. For now, we've decided to wait and see what Apple offers rather than take the plunge right away. In the mean time, we'll have to watch on the small screen rather than the big one when it comes to video.

This has been a surprisingly big year for us on computer purchases. I bought a new PC (maybe that's why my old eMachine died...it was sad that I got a new one for a whopping $300), the CH got a new MacBook, and, with any luck, there will be a new Mac desktop by the end of the year. I'm a little unhappy about buying all this new stuff, but gratified that our lifestyle is such that we can do so without impacting our budget much or without having to go into debt.

Old Pictures

Minnehaha Campfire girls (photo by Sammy Fischer and taken from the Eccles-Lesher Memorial Library collection - link to the full collection appears below)

Have you ever stumbled across a stash or record of old photos and thought that it looked like those people lived in another world? Awhile ago, I set up a gallery for a collection of glass slides for a CD-ROM for the library at which my sister works. The collection is a fascinating set of photos taken by a man named Sammy Fischer who took the pictures around 1919 (this is one of the years written on one of the pictures).

The world shown in those pictures seems to little resemble the one we live in today. There are horse races on the fair grounds and old cars. There's a "water plant" which is little more than a rickety-looking water tower. Buildings all look inelegant and utilitarian. All of them are a bit shoddy-looking, but this was the norm of the day. There are people dressed in football, band, military, and scout uniforms that betray the times. I also noticed that few people are smiling in many of the group pictures and I wonder what that says about the zeitgeist they lived in. If you have some time, you might want to browse the pictures. They're both fascinating and haunting.

I have a lot of these sorts of old family photos but, unfortunately, many of them are damaged or of poor quality.

Time passes for us all and we change as does the world around us. Recently, I was looking through a collection of my own family photos and I was profoundly struck by how our family pictures now appear to have been taken from another age. The picture above is my sister on a pony (my mother crouches behind the pony because she doesn't want her picture taken). The picture also shows the fact that there was a gas pump at the corner of our front lawn at that time. There was never a gas station there, but at some point in time, one could have a gas pump on their property, it seems.

It's sort of freaky to look back on these pictures and know that someone else will view them as being from "another age". I'm old enough to have grown up in a time which was markedly different from the world we now live in. You can see it in the way our house was built, the way our toys looked, and the fact that poor kids had ponies. This sort of freaks me out. I wish I could say I can be philosophical about it, but I really can't. It's not so much that I feel old (though I always do and have since my late teens), but more that the pace of change in the world gives me a sense of it hurtling forward purposelessly at breakneck speed and I'm really ready for it to slow down now (pretty please?).

Losing Business Through Bad Assumptions

When I'm offered a new student, I always ask the referral agency the same questions.

1. What is the student's level?
2. What particular type of lesson does the student want?
3. What are the student's goals?

The answers I always get are something along the lines of:

1. 'I think her level is ~, but I'm not sure. You'll find out soon enough.'
   
2. 'I don't know, you'll have to ask her/him in the lesson.'
   
3. 'I don't know, you'll have to ask her/him in the lesson.'

This is somewhat frustrating for me because not knowing these things makes it impossible to prepare to do what the student wants. In two recent cases, I did whatever "generic preparation" I could and didn't have any problems, but certainly didn't do as good a job as I'm capable of.

The bottom line is that the referral agency simply does not bother to ask these questions of the students who are considering signing up with them. While these questions are quite reasonable and the students would definitely not mind them, the agency doesn't bother. The reason they don't bother is that they buy into the commonly held notion that all Japanese people study English casually and are looking to have a casual "chat" with a foreign person who is being paid to be as nice as possible to them. This underlying mentality is one of the reasons teachers are viewed as unskilled and interchangeable and having an easy job where they just socialize for an hour for pay.

The truth is that there may indeed be many people who are looking for a chat. Another truth though is that not everyone is looking for that, particularly not in hard economic times where people are far less likely to invest their money in frivolous endeavors and much more likely to further themselves professionally. At present, I have 12 regular students and only 2 of them fall into the category of chatting to alleviate their boredom or for entertainment. All of the others have very specific goals in mind and actively want to advance their skills in specific areas.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I was asked to give a trial lesson to a 13-year-old girl and given very little information. The lesson ended up being one in which she needed instruction for a short-term goal (passing a test to enter a special school for those who have lived abroad for a long time and are now living in Japan). In particular, she needed to know a lot of vocabulary for the test and had a book she was studying from that needed to be used. Had the agency asked, I would have known this and could have considered my options before the lesson. As it was, I had to fly by the seat of my pants and it went okay, but I think it was very tiring for the girl and she complained that one of my requests (asking her to make sentences about her life using the words she was studying to help her remember the words since using new words aids greatly in recalling them) was too hard. With more time to plan, I could have varied the activities more and she may have enjoyed it more.

Today, I learned that she won't be taking my lessons. Color me totally unsurprised. The given excuse was my apartment is too far away, but I don't believe that. I'm not angry about losing the job as it was probably good for 10 lessons tops anyway given the fact that the test would be taken in November and she'd learn English at the school if she passed and not need it if she failed. I'm annoyed, however, that the referral agency doesn't ask a few basic questions to aid in my doing a professional job simply because they can't wrap their heads around the idea that anyone who teaches can be a professional.

A Better Me

Sometimes I sit in lessons and think about nothing but the clock. I struggle not to dart my eyes over at it every 3 minutes to see how much time has passed and I hate it for showing that the last "10 minutes" was actually only 5. After a few stolen glimpses, I start to wonder if the student's know when I'm looking (I think they do) and I feel bad about the fact that I may be sending them the message that they're boring or I don't enjoy the time with them.

The truth is that sometimes they are boring and sometimes I don't enjoy the time with them, but it has nothing to do with the students. It has everything to do with what happens to be going on inside of me. There are times when I just don't feel like teaching or talking. There are also occasions when I don't feel especially well, am tired, or have to pee and just want the lesson over with so I can go lie down, veg out, or empty my increasingly weak and shrinking bladder. And frankly, controlling a conversation by asking all the questions, keeping it rolling, and focusing mainly on what the student wants is something I don't always look forward to. On the occasions when I'm not in the mood, I sit around hoping that the students will be appreciably late or suddenly have to cancel the lesson (because then I get paid for doing nothing).

When I feel like this, I have to push very hard to be what I call "the better me." That's the me that has to keep repeating that the person I'd like to be wouldn't want the students to lose their money without getting anything back for it because of an unfortunate situation which causes them to have to cancel. That's the me which issues reminders that I'm being paid to do everything I'm struggling to do and that all adults have to do their job whether they enjoy it or not because the whole point behind "work" is that it's something you'd generally prefer not to do with your free time. After all, if people loved such things, they probably wouldn't need to be bribed to do them with a salary. The real imperfect, flawed me feels guilty for watching the clock and wishing the hour would just end when I'm being paid to sit there, teach, and talk to nice people while others are doing back-breaking labor or repetitive work for half my wages or less.

One thing I realized a long time ago is that the road between the personality I want to have and the one I really have isn't as long a one as I might think. If I work consistently at taking the necessary baby steps to get from who I am to who I want to be, the change will happen slowly but surely. It's all about mental impulse control. The hardest part is getting started and working yourself into a pattern where you don't allow the impulses to have free reign over your emotions or personality. For instance, when you want to become a more patient person, silently fuming at the old lady who takes 5 minutes to pay for her purchases by only opening her purse after the transaction is complete and then digging around for change for an eternity isn't going to contribute to making you more patient.

It's the little experiences which are where you start laying the foundation for becoming a better you. If you keep at it, one of these days, you'll find that you aren't fighting the impulses as often or as hard, and one day in the distant future, the impulses won't be there at all.

Knock-offs

Recently, I was perusing a web site which I hadn't visited in quite some time. This particular site is a shopping site which has some really nifty and attractive home items including the salt and pepper shakers pictured above called "Hug". They were designed by a New York design collective called Mint. They are clean-looking and cute without being too fussy. They are also a bit on the expensive side ($31 USD) for salt and pepper shakers.

When I ran across this particular item, I remembered that I had seen what I believed to be the exact same shakers in the local 100 yen shop. I had considered buying them before, but being very thoughtful about waste, I had passed on them many times. While 200 yen is nothing to spend, I don't want to buy things I might toss out later because they weren't as attractive as when I was first drawn to them.


Seeing them on the web site made me decide to give in and just buy them. I can't resist a good hug. (And I've found that they remind you to hug your spouse more often by providing a visual cue of what a nice thing such embraces are.) I figured it was also possible that the on-line store just had a massively inflated price because they're a designer boutique. When I brought them home and was able to compare the shakers pictured on the site to the ones I bought, I knew they were knock-offs. If you compare, the designer ones are a little longer and fit together better in their embrace. Mine are still cute, and I think that from a distance, no one can tell the difference. However, the "faces" line up differently such that theirs has more of a whimsical "face over the shoulder" look whereas mine looks like he's surprised because the "mouth" can be seen.

If you asked me if I feel good about paying so little for something that is 95% as good as something much more expensive, then I'd have to say "no". I feel bad about the fact that there are people out there who make very nice designer objects and then find that cheap knock-offs deprive them of revenues from those items. I always guess that the market that buys the knock-off isn't likely to fork over $30 for salt and pepper shakers anyway (I know I wouldn't), but that's probably just a justification.

In the end, I don't think it's the consumer who is ethically responsible for buying a knock-off, particularly when they do so and are unaware. I think that the person who imitates the design is ultimately responsible. If someone took my posts and slightly rewrote them to create content for a blog they were making money on, I couldn't blame the readers for reading it. I'd have to blame the thieves for stealing it.

Pancakes for Breakfast

My sweet and adorable CH works really hard. For 4 of the 5 days he works, he has to get up early, get some coffee in him and have a quick bite before heading off to work or for a pre-work swim. The only morning when he has anything resembling a real morning with time to wake up and eat at a reasonable pace is Friday. Since he's relegated to such a slapdash start to the day most of the time, I like to try and do something a bit better than ask him if he's like a slice of banana or pumpkin bread from the freezer on Friday mornings.

The ideal special breakfast is pancakes, but the summer is so hot that it's almost impossible to tolerate making them in the morning, especially since I always wake up feeling hot (all year round) anyway. Since the weather is mellowing out, I've been trying to get in more mornings with this nice breakfast treat. Unfortunately, I believe I have fibromyalgia and I wake up feeling like I was run over by a truck the night before so it's hard to motivate myself to get it all together.

The way I've worked around my morning limits is to set up as much of my own homemade "pancake mix" as possible the night before. Doing this and presetting the coffee machine makes it far easier to do a labor-intensive breakfast. While there are pre-made pancake mixes sold in smallish boxes in Japan, they are over-priced for their volume and not especially good. Homemade pancakes can be made for a pittance and are excellent. You can also make your own syrup to avoid the incredibly expensive syrup, though that only works if you're not a dedicated consumer of maple syrup.

The recipe I use is a modification of one from "The Joy of Baking". It's altered mainly to reflect a desire for fluffier, thicker pancakes as well as to streamline the preparation process. The original recipe is here and I'll type my modification in this post. These are the type of pancakes that are built for pleasure, not for nutrition. I have another variety that I make with oats which is a little better for you. The recipe for those is back on my old blog.


To make it easier in the morning, I mix all of the dry ingredients in a plastic bowl with a lid the night before. This avoids all the tedious measuring and half of the mixing. I also set up the oil, a whisk, measuring cup and spoon and a bowl for the wet ingredients to be mixed in. I've also been known to put the pan on the burner to remove that tiny step as well. When morning comes, I only have to reach for the eggs and milk to get the show on the road. It's worth noting that all of the dry ingredients could be made in bulk and set aside for just making pancakes any time. If you did this, you'd probably need about 1.25 cups of "mix" to make a batch of pancakes in the future.

Dry ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 tbsp. white sugar
  

Wet ingredients:

• 1 medium or large egg
  
• 3/4 cup milk (use up to 1 cup if you like thinner pancakes)
• 2 tbsp. Canola oil
• dash of vanilla (optional - it depends on your syrup or topping)
  

Add all of the dry ingredients to a container with a lid and either shake or stir up the night before. In the morning, whisk all of the wet ingredients together and add to the dry. Stir until incorporated, but not overly smooth. There shouldn't be any big lumps, but you shouldn't overmix it just to smooth it out or you'll end up with tough pancakes (because overmixing works up the gluten in the flour). Just mix enough to make sure that no little white spots of unmoistened dry ingredients don't end up in your pancakes.

Pre-heat your skillet over medium-high heat. When it's good and hot, either melt some butter or margarine in it or coat it lightly with Canola oil. It's important not to oil the pan up too much or your pancakes will deep fry around the edges. Drop a tablespoon and a half of batter per cake to make medium-size ones. Fry until the edges are dry and bubbles start to form on the top then flip and finish cooking. This recipe makes 8-10 medium pancakes.

Rocking the Plank

I've read that good writers should never write about dreams because they are of no interest to anyone else. This bit of "advice" for being a good writer subscribes to the notion that you have to write for your audience rather than for yourself. As much as I appreciate that other people take the time to read my blog (and I really am grateful), I think that I have to write for myself first and foremost. Part of what paralyzes other people when they try to write is that they concern themselves too much with the audience and what they are interested in. This can be self-defeating as you start to question how interesting everything you have to say is. It also makes you surrender to the idea that everything you say has to be of paramount interest to your readers. Someone once said, "they can't all be gems," and that's really alright. So, I'm going to write about my dreams when the impulse strikes me and hope my readers will forgive my yawn-inducing posts.

I believe dreams are important for several reasons. Some people believe they're just what your mind does while you sleep to keep you from being bored. While that is possible, very few things our bodies do are random and pointless (except possibly having an appendix) so the chances are that dreaming has some value beyond keeping us occupied while we sleep. I believe dreams serve multiple purposes including the oft-cited psychological theory that we're working out things in our unconscious. I also believe they are a muddled connection to our "higher" selves (or what I have called "the connected self" previously).

Sometimes I know my dreams are a reflection of difficulties in my life, but sometimes I'm sure there is a message in one of them for me. This is rare, but when it's there, it is pretty obvious to me. A few days ago, like many people, I was fretting about the LHC experiments. This was mainly because I don't trust scientists to draw the line at the right place because they, like many other human beings, are driven by ambition and a thirst for getting into the history books. What scientist wouldn't want to be as well known as Stephen Hawking or even Robert Oppenheimer? It's better to go down in history as a master of destruction for the sake of science than to have your work lost in a sea of nondescript scientists. Having scientists police other scientists is like asking a 10-year-old to police another 10-year-old. They're going to approve of each others actions even when they are risky.

All that being said, I do believe my fears, like everyone else's, are irrational. I think history will see the hoopla surrounding the use of the Large Hadron Collider as yet another example of the ignorance of the masses attempting to interfere in progress and trying to hold it back much as was the case with fears that the world was flat and you could sail off the edge of it. This is a little more sophisticated than such old fears, but the principle is the same. We fear the unknown consequences of our actions, even when they are reasonably foreseeable based on available evidence.

A few nights ago, I had a dream, which I believe was one of those muddled communications with my connected self and relates to these fears. In the dream, several other people and I were trying to walk on some planks perched on top of pillars that were not secured. The pillars were high enough that one could get hurt if one fell off, but not so high that injury was certain (about the height of the first story of a house). If one person walked along it and struggled for balance, the plank wobbled a bit, but held in place. As the next person reached the plank and added his attempts to find balance, the plank started to rock more. By the time the 4th or 5th person got there, it rocked violent. In the end, it came crashing down from the combined force of each person's struggle to find balance and the excessive rocking they applied to the plank in their attempts to find it.

How does this relate to the situation at hand? I believe we collectively affect our world with our fears, desires, and wishes on a level we cannot yet detect. Our fears can move reality one undetectable particle at a time. One person's fear has no discernible effect because it is too small to have an impact. The fears of millions of people combined though can start to distort the otherwise unimpeded course of reality. Just as one person's unsteady movement in a mentally unbalanced state can "rock the plank" but not cause it to fall, many people's fearful rocking can cause it to plummet.

Our fears about the LHC can assist in bringing about the disaster we wish to avoid. In a game of odds (which is what I've heard is the case with anything really bad happening), we can effectively skew them against us. By focusing on the worst, we can contribute to bringing it about. I believe my dream was telling me not to add the weight of my fear to this collective influence and remind me of something I already feel is true about the individual and the nature of mass events.

(Not) Taking Things For Granted

Imagine that you could only have ice cream once every three months. If you don't like ice cream, consider having some treat that you enjoy a lot in the place of ice cream. If you could have it only once in awhile, it'd be very special when you did have it and you'd really appreciate it.

One of my students is studying sociology and she had to write an assignment answering one of a number of questions. The question I recommend she consider was how social status affects your life. As we discussed the topic to help her flesh out an answer for her essay, she mentioned that her mother and husband, who are both physicians, often take gifts and acts of kindness for granted because they receive them so easily and often. I told her that this was an excellent example for her to use in her essay since doctors have high prestige in most cultures and this showed how their status both changed the way they interacted with others and others interacted with them.

While English teachers have far lower status than doctors, they do have rather personal relationships with their students and, Japanese people being the generous sorts that they are when it comes to gifts, they often give us nice things. One thing I can definitely say is that neither my CH nor I ever take the gifts we receive for granted no matter how often we receive them. Mind you, we don't get them nearly as often as doctors, but it is a steady trickle of generosity.

So many goodies, such weak willpower. The student who gave these cleverly put the Ho Ho's and Ding Dongs ("Ding Dong, man, Ding Dong, yo" - if you know where that comes from, here's a geek star for your forehead) in the Lipton green tea box to protect their delicious junk food integrity.

If you go back to my original example, imagine you can have something you love only about once a year or less. With that level of frequency, you are really going to enjoy that treat when you get it. Recently, one of my CH's students gave him the lavish assortment of goodies you see pictured above. I'm sure to people back home this is just a random assortment of goodies they can get any time (well, maybe not the See's candy which is a super incredible box of decadence and joy), but, to us, it's a rare parcel of fun from the U.S. that someone kindly procured for us. Suffice it to say, we do not take it for granted and are always very appreciative when students do such things for us.