Okay kids, the vocabulary word of the day is "wry." Who can tell me what it means? We've all heard of and probably seen a "wry" smile, or a "wry face," but what Webster or Roget amongst you can put it into words? A little lit. for ya, Victor Hugo in Les Miserable said of Paris, "Its hurricanes spring sometimes from a wry face. Its outbursts, its great days, its masterpieces, it's prodigies, its epics fly to the ends of the universe, and so do its cock and bull stories also."
I don't know much about Paris or France, certainly not as much as old Vic did, but I can tell you a little bit about Asia and take it from me it's much the same here. "Wry" can mean dry and mocking. It can be used to describe an expression of disgust, disappointment or mockery. Here is a pretty thorough definition.
As most people know, "face" can have a different meaning when applied to Asia. Saving "face" has historically led to people doing any number of extreme things not excluding suicide. Japanese culture brought us "hari kari" or "seppuku" a ritual suicide that consisted of a person shamed, or a person who has "lost face" plunging a dagger into his/her abdomen in a slicing motion from left to right. It was originally used as part of the Samurai honour code as a way to die an honourable death rather than be killed by one's enemies. But it was also used as a way to make amends for a perceived disgrace.
Korea abounds with stories, (hurricanes? masterpieces? epics?), of businessmen caught in financial scandals killing themselves; students failing to achieve high scores on college entrance exams holding hands and jumping off the school roof; even recently a former president, Roh Moo Hyun throwing himself, (?), off a cliff in what many believe was a suicide due to the allegations that he took 6 million bucks or so in bribes from businessmen while in office. I am skeptical about that one. I believe it could just as easily have been a murder committed by any of the many businessmen exposed by Roh's vigilant fight against corruption that is at the heart of business in Korea but Koreans prefer to memorialize Roh in an honourable way so we won't get into that right now. And as you know if you've read this blog a time or two, I believe this "face" has degenerated into not much more than a great cock and bull story used by "clever" people to lie to, steal from and cheat the not so "clever."
I guess it's because I am in the "education" racket here. Nowhere is "face" more aparent. Now you may be thinking, "Dave, what about the business world?" Well, dear reader, as I've said a thousand times if I've said it once, the very reason I never type the word "education" when referring to what it is the Koreans have here without quotation marks bookending it is because education IS business here. It has been since '45 when the Japanese occupation was brought to an end. At the end of WWII Koreans thirsted for education and they still do. But rather than use that as a way to create a free thinking, well adjusted population, it was perceived as a great demand that could be used to make big bucks. It's hard to blame Korea for this since the country was pretty poor in '45 and since then it has become an economic miracle of sorts. So you can say the approach worked. But where I find fault is the little, if any, progress that has been made educationally since.
This is a huge jump in logic, but it's my blog and I can jump if I want to: I watch a LOT of Korean baseball and one of the biggest differences is the reluctance of scorers to give errors. I saw an absolutely hideous game a few days ago when Kia played LG and both teams were booting balls, throwing wild, missing catches and at the end of the game there were 2 errors on the board when there should have been about 10. "Face" is even made a part of things that are NOT Asian over here. Bunting in Japanese baseball, (and the source of most of my frustration with the Kia Tigers strategy), is done not so much strategically, but as a way to appease fans who expect it. Or so the story goes. If the coach doesn't call a sacrifice bunt with a guy on first and nobody out, it might be perceived as a failure. And nobody fails in Asia.
This brings us back to "education." I can't tell you how many times I've been told to fudge grades and attendance here. It's midterm exam time and I have three Hotel Cooking classes who performed abysmally on their midterms. In class A, (which I call class F), 5/45 passed the midterm. Class B 10/45. Class C 9/45. That's less than 18%of my students who were able to get 50% on their tests. And I was a bit surprised those numbers were so high. This is with an incredibly easy curriculum dumbed WAY down and MASSIVE hints given a few days before the exam virtually telling them what was going to be on it.
I have no doubt that at the end of this session after they have similar results on the final exam I will be presented once again with a list of "amended" grades upon which every student has been magnanimously given no less than 75%, including the ones who never saw the inside of my classroom, and asked, with a wry smile, to sign it. This has always been what I figured would be the death of my career in teaching here in Korea.
Another big jump: What are the currencies of Korea, China and Japan, or at least their Anglicized equivalents respectively? Won, Renminbi, and Yen. Look at the first letters of those currencies and you will see the point of this blog entry. The wryest smile I've seen is from administrators in the various "schools" where I've worked telling me I need to grade on a curve; I need to have a minimum of 10 A's, 10 B's and a maximum of 10 C's; asking or demanding that I sign fraudulent grades or attendance and all because they are trying to save "face" for the students. What a crock of shit! It's all done to increase or maintain enrollment numbers, or what I more accurately refer to as, "recidivism" numbers.
So if ever this post comes to public attention and it is perceived as having cost the Korean "education" system face, do you suppose the Seoul Superintendant of Education, (who is pretty much in charge of everything because he's in charge of the budget and curriculums), will blow his head off to save face? Ha ha. Get it? Blow his head off to save face? I think not. But what would be for more likely is some thugs coming to my room and killing me then leaving a suicide note that says I was shamed by the many false grades I turned in and the crimes of academic fraud I had perpetrated over my years in Korea. This is what caused me to stab myself. In the back. 17 times.
I want you to know I will never commit suicide or do anything drastic like that to "save face." Furthermore I never have, nor will I ever sign the phony grades or attendance I'm continuously asked to sign. And I won't commit any other kind of academic fraud whatsoever. But I guess this post could be altered too.
But if I make it out of Korea before that happens and I return to Canada, (and the day is hastened by the phenomenon of which I write), and I am interviewed by a school for a position most likely as a substitute teacher they might ask me how many years of experience I have. My reply will be something like, "About 15 years, but only the years in Canada really count." You can bet I'll say it with a wry face.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Gods in the machines
It's been a while since I waxed philosophical on yer asses. I guess it's been a while since I've waxed a lot of things. Poetic, romantic, a car, my bikini line... But that's probably because lately I've waxed lethargic.
It's my Thursday classes. They aren't so much peopled with students as succubi and they drain every ounce of life out of me so that by Thursday night I just say, "Calgon, take me away! Serenity NOW! Balloonball!" Or whatever works. Usually I have barely enough power remaining to drink lots of beer and try to devise ways to stop kids from coming to class or to catch an illness that will last until the end of the semester. That combined with accomodation hell, the absolute absence of educational standards and practices at my workplace and the unconditional certainty of meeting with some xenophobic, ignorant and stupid treatment EVERY time I leave my room, leads to a lot of time wasted in my room watching movies and TV on my computer. A lot of time.
But today after a reasonable amount of sleep that was only interrupted a few times by rude, noisy, drunken students, I feel like I have a bit more physical and mental energy than usual. And I thought I'd get back to putting that excess marblage to work solving the problems of the world.
I saw a TV commercial recently for a Ford truck that featured computerized braking, fuel injection, guidance system, climate control, collision sensors the whole deal. And I recently chatted with some people about a hideous losing streak my character was on in a facebook role playing game I play. They all told me it was just the random roll of the die. These things got me a-thinking.
Are we really putting that much trust in computers nowadays? For my money the smart automobile shopper steers clear of all the extra wiring and computerization because it all just leads to extra headaches. And they are expensive headaches. I know from experience. I think all the specialized computer shit in vehicles nowadays is actually DESIGNED for the purpose of making vehicles impossible to repair at home, making them more expensive to repair at the service centers and making motorists visit those service centers a lot more frequently. And if you get scumbag mechanics like the ones I always seem to find, they can temporarily fix problems so that you'll have to fix the same problem a dozen times. Why not just buy a new vehicle altogether? There are lots of improvements and technoligical breakthroughs on the new models!
How often does your computer need servicing? If you're like most people it breaks down regularly. Even Bill Gates' computer screws up regularly! People believe it's because of these mysterious viruses and hackers and crap but really it's just that they aren't well made yet. Maybe they never will be. The same goes for those car parts we put all our trust in. But if we knew how volatile and undependable electronics really are we probably wouldn't buy so much. Maybe we would but we certainly wouldn't pay so much for this junk.
Here's a question for you: How many TV Repairmen do you know? How about people who fix phones or video cameras or even cameras? Nobody does this any more! Things are made poorly and repairs are hard to find or too expensive if you find them. And new updates and improvements come along just often enough to keep us buying new shit every couple of years. Whether we want to, need to or not. Here's a word to look at: capitalism. Capital means money. Ism is a doctrine or practice of support or even love. Folks, capitalism is the love of money and that is the root of all evil. Isn't it?
But the more we get herded into the electronic culture, the more we settle for the mediocrity of the products. Computer generated "random" is the best example I can think of. If you've ever played computer poker and real poker with actual concrete paper made from trees cards, you'd know beyond a doubt that there's a massive difference. There has never been a good "random" program created and there never will be. And I've played a lot of computer games with "random" card flipping, dice rolling etc.
It's like baseball. I've seen and played enough of it to know beyond a doubt that when the leadoff hitter gets on first, sac bunting him to second is never a good play. I don't need statistics to back me up, I just know from experience. But we don't trust fallable human beings any more do we? We need a computer to figure it out. Same with dice rolling or card dealing or any other supposedly "random" actions computers are designed to perform. They aren't random, they are highly organized, orderly, and structured sequences that are programmed to give the appearance of "random." It's easy for any human to tell the difference. If you look hard enough and keep statistics long enough you can find the patterns. This is how people came up with the probability matrix that PROVES a runner on first base with nobody out is more likely to score than a runner on second with one out. And this is how guys can "cheat" slot machines in Vegas.
But really, who are the ones being cheated? People are more and more reluctant to recognize the obvious limitations of electronics as they become more willing to accept, (and pay thru the arse for), the latest technologies. We are willing to replace reality with something synthetically designed to simulate it. And soon we will have been told so many times that there IS no difference that we'll believe it. And we'll be cheated out of reality.
Just look at another word: TECHNOLOGY. Tech is technical like made up of lots of parts that do things that are just magical to the average person. No means no. Negative. And one of the meanings of "log" is to achieve. Tech no achieve...y.
Okay, having said that, I use my computer a lot. I have a cell phone an X-box and a Wii. And despite the many problems I have with ALL of them, in general I get more pleasure than pain out of them although sometimes I wonder...
BUT, who are these lunatics trusting computers with their lives as they're hurtling down the road at 70 M.P.H.? Trusting computers to keep their life's savings safe? Believing that computer random is just as good as real random? These are people who'd probably rather whitewater raft or bungee jump in virtual reality; rather see the pyramids, Angkor Wat or the Great Barrier Reef on a 60 inch plasma screen; rather have sex with a robot than a real person. Well, okay there IS something to be said for that last one since the robot doesn't come with any baggage. But come on!
The longer I stay in Korea and am bottlenecked into this dependancy on electronic living the more I understand the Ahmish. I wouldn't go quite as far as them but maybe someday I'll marry a nice Ahmish gal and we'll compromise. We won't abandon technology but we'll only use the old stuff. We'll drive only vehicles we can fix ourselves. We'll play games with real cards and dice and spinners and bubble poppers and such. We'd do activities with other real people instead of e-friends. We'll chat offline. Tweeting will be the sound in our back yard. We'll virtually have sex, we won't have virtual sex. We'll raise a family of humans not Sims. We'll have a couple of dogs not a Zhu Zhu or a Tamagotchi. We'll buy things with cash, if it's still available to use. And we'll go to the store to get them instead of looking at a 3-D image of them that is "even better than the real thing."
Ahhh but who am I kidding. This would be so Thoreauian and potentially harmful to our owners that we'd be declared either insane or criminal. Or criminally insane. And we might be arrested or institutionalized if somebody can be found to leave their house long enough to go get us. It would have been worth it though. And I'd shout it from my jail cell every day.
But now I'm waxing idyllic. Even romantic. Lotta waxing today.
It's my Thursday classes. They aren't so much peopled with students as succubi and they drain every ounce of life out of me so that by Thursday night I just say, "Calgon, take me away! Serenity NOW! Balloonball!" Or whatever works. Usually I have barely enough power remaining to drink lots of beer and try to devise ways to stop kids from coming to class or to catch an illness that will last until the end of the semester. That combined with accomodation hell, the absolute absence of educational standards and practices at my workplace and the unconditional certainty of meeting with some xenophobic, ignorant and stupid treatment EVERY time I leave my room, leads to a lot of time wasted in my room watching movies and TV on my computer. A lot of time.
But today after a reasonable amount of sleep that was only interrupted a few times by rude, noisy, drunken students, I feel like I have a bit more physical and mental energy than usual. And I thought I'd get back to putting that excess marblage to work solving the problems of the world.
I saw a TV commercial recently for a Ford truck that featured computerized braking, fuel injection, guidance system, climate control, collision sensors the whole deal. And I recently chatted with some people about a hideous losing streak my character was on in a facebook role playing game I play. They all told me it was just the random roll of the die. These things got me a-thinking.
Are we really putting that much trust in computers nowadays? For my money the smart automobile shopper steers clear of all the extra wiring and computerization because it all just leads to extra headaches. And they are expensive headaches. I know from experience. I think all the specialized computer shit in vehicles nowadays is actually DESIGNED for the purpose of making vehicles impossible to repair at home, making them more expensive to repair at the service centers and making motorists visit those service centers a lot more frequently. And if you get scumbag mechanics like the ones I always seem to find, they can temporarily fix problems so that you'll have to fix the same problem a dozen times. Why not just buy a new vehicle altogether? There are lots of improvements and technoligical breakthroughs on the new models!
How often does your computer need servicing? If you're like most people it breaks down regularly. Even Bill Gates' computer screws up regularly! People believe it's because of these mysterious viruses and hackers and crap but really it's just that they aren't well made yet. Maybe they never will be. The same goes for those car parts we put all our trust in. But if we knew how volatile and undependable electronics really are we probably wouldn't buy so much. Maybe we would but we certainly wouldn't pay so much for this junk.
Here's a question for you: How many TV Repairmen do you know? How about people who fix phones or video cameras or even cameras? Nobody does this any more! Things are made poorly and repairs are hard to find or too expensive if you find them. And new updates and improvements come along just often enough to keep us buying new shit every couple of years. Whether we want to, need to or not. Here's a word to look at: capitalism. Capital means money. Ism is a doctrine or practice of support or even love. Folks, capitalism is the love of money and that is the root of all evil. Isn't it?
But the more we get herded into the electronic culture, the more we settle for the mediocrity of the products. Computer generated "random" is the best example I can think of. If you've ever played computer poker and real poker with actual concrete paper made from trees cards, you'd know beyond a doubt that there's a massive difference. There has never been a good "random" program created and there never will be. And I've played a lot of computer games with "random" card flipping, dice rolling etc.
It's like baseball. I've seen and played enough of it to know beyond a doubt that when the leadoff hitter gets on first, sac bunting him to second is never a good play. I don't need statistics to back me up, I just know from experience. But we don't trust fallable human beings any more do we? We need a computer to figure it out. Same with dice rolling or card dealing or any other supposedly "random" actions computers are designed to perform. They aren't random, they are highly organized, orderly, and structured sequences that are programmed to give the appearance of "random." It's easy for any human to tell the difference. If you look hard enough and keep statistics long enough you can find the patterns. This is how people came up with the probability matrix that PROVES a runner on first base with nobody out is more likely to score than a runner on second with one out. And this is how guys can "cheat" slot machines in Vegas.
But really, who are the ones being cheated? People are more and more reluctant to recognize the obvious limitations of electronics as they become more willing to accept, (and pay thru the arse for), the latest technologies. We are willing to replace reality with something synthetically designed to simulate it. And soon we will have been told so many times that there IS no difference that we'll believe it. And we'll be cheated out of reality.
Just look at another word: TECHNOLOGY. Tech is technical like made up of lots of parts that do things that are just magical to the average person. No means no. Negative. And one of the meanings of "log" is to achieve. Tech no achieve...y.
Okay, having said that, I use my computer a lot. I have a cell phone an X-box and a Wii. And despite the many problems I have with ALL of them, in general I get more pleasure than pain out of them although sometimes I wonder...
BUT, who are these lunatics trusting computers with their lives as they're hurtling down the road at 70 M.P.H.? Trusting computers to keep their life's savings safe? Believing that computer random is just as good as real random? These are people who'd probably rather whitewater raft or bungee jump in virtual reality; rather see the pyramids, Angkor Wat or the Great Barrier Reef on a 60 inch plasma screen; rather have sex with a robot than a real person. Well, okay there IS something to be said for that last one since the robot doesn't come with any baggage. But come on!
The longer I stay in Korea and am bottlenecked into this dependancy on electronic living the more I understand the Ahmish. I wouldn't go quite as far as them but maybe someday I'll marry a nice Ahmish gal and we'll compromise. We won't abandon technology but we'll only use the old stuff. We'll drive only vehicles we can fix ourselves. We'll play games with real cards and dice and spinners and bubble poppers and such. We'd do activities with other real people instead of e-friends. We'll chat offline. Tweeting will be the sound in our back yard. We'll virtually have sex, we won't have virtual sex. We'll raise a family of humans not Sims. We'll have a couple of dogs not a Zhu Zhu or a Tamagotchi. We'll buy things with cash, if it's still available to use. And we'll go to the store to get them instead of looking at a 3-D image of them that is "even better than the real thing."
Ahhh but who am I kidding. This would be so Thoreauian and potentially harmful to our owners that we'd be declared either insane or criminal. Or criminally insane. And we might be arrested or institutionalized if somebody can be found to leave their house long enough to go get us. It would have been worth it though. And I'd shout it from my jail cell every day.
But now I'm waxing idyllic. Even romantic. Lotta waxing today.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Here's something weird about me: when I'm ready to quit a job I know subconsciously before I know it consciously. I'll splain what I mean. I've quit several jobs teaching here in Korea. I don't recall ever missing a day with legitimate sickness, but when I'm getting to the end of a contract with a crappy school before I decide that I won't be re-signing I'll go out drinking on a Wednesday night when I have class at 8 Thursday morning. Or something like that that I almost never do. And I'll fake like I have the flu or something when I call in sick Thursday. Before going out I don't intend to miss the classes Thursday; I don't even intend to go out drinking on the Wednesday; these things just happen and they're brought on by a subconscious awareness that my job sucks and I just don't care about it any more.
Also, I find myself dreaming about the job, whatever it may be. So not only do I go to work for my regular shift, I work another 8 hours in my sleep. It's like I'm working all the time. And that ain't cool! This was the worst with drilling and KFC. I was drilling every night in my sleep while I was a driller and breading chicken in my sleep when I was a cook at KFC. I wonder if my arms were doing the motions. heh heh.
I had a fantastic weekend! Friday I went to the Tigers game and I also went on Saturday and Sunday. I walked there and back all three times so I got lots of exercise and I only drank beer at the Sunday game. A LOT of beer! Then I went out to drink some more. By myself. I hooked up with the usual bar crowd in downtown Gwangju but I really didn't go out with anyone. I teach at 2 PM on Mondays so it's not like I have to get to bed early but I've never gone out drinking on a Sunday night until yesterday. And it was the right choice.
I think my subconscious was trying to tell me something because lo and behold when I got back to the dorms the back door was locked. I've lost count how many times I've been locked out but this was probably the fifteenth time. I thought I had solved the problem when my supervisor finally relented and got me a key for the doorknob lock on the back door. I have the deadbolt key but 15 times or so one of the Idon'tcaretakers has locked the doorknob lock so I can't get in. Last night was the first time in a long time I got locked out. The doorknob had been changed! The new knob had no keyhole at all! But it still locked from the inside. And last night it was locked. I started reefing on the doors trying to open them and one of the caretakers woke up and let me in. I blasted him, (and it probably wasn't even his fault), for changing the doorknob then went to bed.
I didn't feel too great in the morning but I was okay to work. I could have gone in no problem at all. But I chose not to. I figured management would notice my absence and then I'd tell them that either we fix the doorknob problem once and for all or I'm outta here. I was almost giddy with excitement at finally getting the park out of this dump! I was even thinking that maybe if they DID change the knob, appologize, fire the asshole who's been locking me out and everything I'd STILL get the park out of here. I waited and waited. Erin called and told me some of my students asked her about me so I told her what I was doing. She just told them class was cancelled. Then I waited some more.
I decided to go out and check the doorknob just for kicks. I saw some round pieces of that blue plastic lining paper you get on stainless steel stuff that's new but the new doorknob was gone. The old one with the keyhole had returned. I figured that maybe the caretaker I blasted the night before changed the knob back.
I was pretty sure news of my strike had not been the cause for the knob switchback. Normally I think I still would have given management a piece of my mind about the slap in the face the new doorknob was. But since the problem was solved, (for now), I decided I'd just try to avoid the confrontation and stress that would be involved in yet another attempt at talking sense into the management here. So when my supervisor Peter called I did the Korean thing: I lied. I said I got too much sun the day before and had sunstroke. He told me he'd have to report it to Director Park, that I should have informed the head of the department and that it better not happen again. I didn't bother to bring up the fact that nobody informs me of anything. I had a deaf girl in my class for 6 teaching hours before I was informed about it! Exam schedules I find out from my students. Anyway, I just said, "Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. Bye."
I am obviously subconsciously just calling it in at this job now. Living for the bell. I'm done trying to make things better here. I'm gonna get out. At least that's what it seems like. I'm just tired of fighting. These guys. I know it'll be new fights anywhere else I work but at least I'll have better pay and accomodations. And I doubt I'll ever get locked out. Probly be able to shower or wash my dishes any time I want too. I may have to work a few extra hours a week and I may lose a few weeks of vacation time but I think my conscious mind is starting to come to grips with the fact that 3 years here is my limit.
So I guess I should start looking for work. I absolutely hate moving and sending out resumes and doing the immigration hula hoop jumps but I think I'll probably quit my job at Seokang even if they want me to come back. That's what my subconscious seems to be telling me. I am reminded of the old Fleetwood Mac song that says, "When the rain washes you clean you'll know." I think I know. If I start teaching in my sleep I'll know for sure it's time to go.
I added this later: The next night I had a dream in which I was teaching.
Also, I find myself dreaming about the job, whatever it may be. So not only do I go to work for my regular shift, I work another 8 hours in my sleep. It's like I'm working all the time. And that ain't cool! This was the worst with drilling and KFC. I was drilling every night in my sleep while I was a driller and breading chicken in my sleep when I was a cook at KFC. I wonder if my arms were doing the motions. heh heh.
I had a fantastic weekend! Friday I went to the Tigers game and I also went on Saturday and Sunday. I walked there and back all three times so I got lots of exercise and I only drank beer at the Sunday game. A LOT of beer! Then I went out to drink some more. By myself. I hooked up with the usual bar crowd in downtown Gwangju but I really didn't go out with anyone. I teach at 2 PM on Mondays so it's not like I have to get to bed early but I've never gone out drinking on a Sunday night until yesterday. And it was the right choice.
I think my subconscious was trying to tell me something because lo and behold when I got back to the dorms the back door was locked. I've lost count how many times I've been locked out but this was probably the fifteenth time. I thought I had solved the problem when my supervisor finally relented and got me a key for the doorknob lock on the back door. I have the deadbolt key but 15 times or so one of the Idon'tcaretakers has locked the doorknob lock so I can't get in. Last night was the first time in a long time I got locked out. The doorknob had been changed! The new knob had no keyhole at all! But it still locked from the inside. And last night it was locked. I started reefing on the doors trying to open them and one of the caretakers woke up and let me in. I blasted him, (and it probably wasn't even his fault), for changing the doorknob then went to bed.
I didn't feel too great in the morning but I was okay to work. I could have gone in no problem at all. But I chose not to. I figured management would notice my absence and then I'd tell them that either we fix the doorknob problem once and for all or I'm outta here. I was almost giddy with excitement at finally getting the park out of this dump! I was even thinking that maybe if they DID change the knob, appologize, fire the asshole who's been locking me out and everything I'd STILL get the park out of here. I waited and waited. Erin called and told me some of my students asked her about me so I told her what I was doing. She just told them class was cancelled. Then I waited some more.
I decided to go out and check the doorknob just for kicks. I saw some round pieces of that blue plastic lining paper you get on stainless steel stuff that's new but the new doorknob was gone. The old one with the keyhole had returned. I figured that maybe the caretaker I blasted the night before changed the knob back.
I was pretty sure news of my strike had not been the cause for the knob switchback. Normally I think I still would have given management a piece of my mind about the slap in the face the new doorknob was. But since the problem was solved, (for now), I decided I'd just try to avoid the confrontation and stress that would be involved in yet another attempt at talking sense into the management here. So when my supervisor Peter called I did the Korean thing: I lied. I said I got too much sun the day before and had sunstroke. He told me he'd have to report it to Director Park, that I should have informed the head of the department and that it better not happen again. I didn't bother to bring up the fact that nobody informs me of anything. I had a deaf girl in my class for 6 teaching hours before I was informed about it! Exam schedules I find out from my students. Anyway, I just said, "Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. Bye."
I am obviously subconsciously just calling it in at this job now. Living for the bell. I'm done trying to make things better here. I'm gonna get out. At least that's what it seems like. I'm just tired of fighting. These guys. I know it'll be new fights anywhere else I work but at least I'll have better pay and accomodations. And I doubt I'll ever get locked out. Probly be able to shower or wash my dishes any time I want too. I may have to work a few extra hours a week and I may lose a few weeks of vacation time but I think my conscious mind is starting to come to grips with the fact that 3 years here is my limit.
So I guess I should start looking for work. I absolutely hate moving and sending out resumes and doing the immigration hula hoop jumps but I think I'll probably quit my job at Seokang even if they want me to come back. That's what my subconscious seems to be telling me. I am reminded of the old Fleetwood Mac song that says, "When the rain washes you clean you'll know." I think I know. If I start teaching in my sleep I'll know for sure it's time to go.
I added this later: The next night I had a dream in which I was teaching.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The early worm gets eaten
It's 6:30 Sunday morning as I type this. That's AM. I know it's hard to believe but here we are. I'm a guy who doesn't get out of bed at 6:30 unless there's work, golf or fishing involved. Or unless I can't sleep. For my whole life that's never been a problem. Until now. And although there are things about the job I have right now that make it so sweet I really shouldn't complain about it at all, IT'S 6:30 in the friggin' mornin'!!! I'm grumpy, so here I go:
The early bird, it's often said, gets its reward when it is fed.
It's meant to get you out of bed; lift your spirits; clear your head.
It works just fine for farmers' toil. Cooler air and softer soil.
I favour the comedic foil. This saying sets my blood aboil.
What's in it for the lowly worm? I cannot fly but I can squirm.
So speaking in poetic term, I'm less a bird and more a worm.
I thank you.
I was up yesterday at 6:30 too! This is just crazy! It has to do with many things. Students in the dorm are the first reason. Out in the courtyard they sometimes raise such a clatter that I spring from my bed to see what's the matter. Two days ago when I did that I was spotted and then I had half a dozen students asking me through my window to please let them in. I reckon it was about 3 or 4 in the morning. So I have a choice: I can reveal to them that I have a key to the back door and CAN let them in but then they'll be all the more likely to come a knockin' on my window in the future. Or I can tell them the truth, that I really can't open the main doors for them. Then they'll just sit at the picnic tables and continue drinking soju, smoking and making racket enough to keep EVERYBODY awake. So what did I do? I let them in.
I didn't hear them making any racket in their rooms. They probably saved their soju for another time and went right to bed that night. But it'll probably come back to bite me in the ass. In fact just a short time ago today when it was still dark outside and I was trying to ignore the noise and get back to sleep I could have sworn I heard someone out there say, "Dae ee beet." That's me. David. The cat's out the bag! I'm in trouble folks.
But it's not only the students keeping me awake. The room I have is as dusty as Dead Man's Gulch in a sandstorm. I don't know how it happens. Last vacation I stayed away for a month and came back to a room that was so dusty it killed my computer AND my printer. I had my windows and door closed. How does this happen?
And breathing in all this dust does me no good. It makes for some pretty clogged sinuses. I've taken to rubbing Vicks Vapo Rub under my nose before going to bed but that's only a temporary solution. The clogged sinuses just make my snoring worse. And some days, like today, I find myself dosing off only to wake myself up with the first snore. Then going back to sleep again to be instantly awakened again. I don't need to tell you how frustrating that can be.
I find that by midweek I'm exhausted enough that I can get a good night's sleep. But then comes Thursday, the only day I have to get up early. On Thursday it would be helpful to get up at 6:30. But, of course, that's the day I can't seem to do it.
Oh well, on the bright side I'm up early enough today to wash my dishes in warm water and take a hot shower. We get hot water from about 7:30 to 9 am and pm.
But as long as I'm complaining I should bring up the latest here. I have a girl in one of my Thursday classes that has told management she's deaf. I say it that way because I'm still not convinced she is. But that doesn't matter, management IS convinced. So what does that say about the standards of this place? They will admit a deaf girl into a program that has a mandatory conversation class! She should have been put in another program or given special exempt status. Well, it's been the practice of the management since I've been here to just take the money from every customer and let the teacher, (now teacherS), deal with the fallout. That's why I say my main duty is to pick up the ball every time management drops it. On my facebook profile I describe my job as "Catcher in the rice."
I told somebody I was chatting with the other day that the deaf girl didn't show up to my last class. Probably because she was noticing a pretty big gap in communication ability between herself and my other students and she just couldn't deal with their ineptitude. I'm only kidding there a little bit. My Thursday classes are all from the Hotel Management Cullinary Arts program. They're all nice but smart as sacks of hammers. I didn't think it would ever be necessary but I find a need to dumb down my already dumbed down lessons. And of course it doesn't help that all three of the classes are 45 kids in a small room for two hours.
They all have at least 10 years of English training from public school and hagwans and they've all miraculously come out of that all but unscathed by any foreign tongue. Only to land in a class where they don't even have a teacher who can communicate in Korean or give them the answers to their tests! It's gotta be a hellish experience for them! Poor souls.
But like always I've pinpointed a few students from each class who are following along and actually learning. They'll keep me sane through the semester. And I know there's an expensive, (but awesome), trip to Canada waiting to happen in the long summer break that'll more than likely bolster my constitution for the next year I teach here. If I get re-signed, that is.
Oh and also the Kia Tigers will have their home opener on Tuesday. I've already made plans to go with about 6 or 7 other folks to that.
My struggle and my coping mechanisms. And on and on it goes.
The early bird, it's often said, gets its reward when it is fed.
It's meant to get you out of bed; lift your spirits; clear your head.
It works just fine for farmers' toil. Cooler air and softer soil.
I favour the comedic foil. This saying sets my blood aboil.
What's in it for the lowly worm? I cannot fly but I can squirm.
So speaking in poetic term, I'm less a bird and more a worm.
I thank you.
I was up yesterday at 6:30 too! This is just crazy! It has to do with many things. Students in the dorm are the first reason. Out in the courtyard they sometimes raise such a clatter that I spring from my bed to see what's the matter. Two days ago when I did that I was spotted and then I had half a dozen students asking me through my window to please let them in. I reckon it was about 3 or 4 in the morning. So I have a choice: I can reveal to them that I have a key to the back door and CAN let them in but then they'll be all the more likely to come a knockin' on my window in the future. Or I can tell them the truth, that I really can't open the main doors for them. Then they'll just sit at the picnic tables and continue drinking soju, smoking and making racket enough to keep EVERYBODY awake. So what did I do? I let them in.
I didn't hear them making any racket in their rooms. They probably saved their soju for another time and went right to bed that night. But it'll probably come back to bite me in the ass. In fact just a short time ago today when it was still dark outside and I was trying to ignore the noise and get back to sleep I could have sworn I heard someone out there say, "Dae ee beet." That's me. David. The cat's out the bag! I'm in trouble folks.
But it's not only the students keeping me awake. The room I have is as dusty as Dead Man's Gulch in a sandstorm. I don't know how it happens. Last vacation I stayed away for a month and came back to a room that was so dusty it killed my computer AND my printer. I had my windows and door closed. How does this happen?
And breathing in all this dust does me no good. It makes for some pretty clogged sinuses. I've taken to rubbing Vicks Vapo Rub under my nose before going to bed but that's only a temporary solution. The clogged sinuses just make my snoring worse. And some days, like today, I find myself dosing off only to wake myself up with the first snore. Then going back to sleep again to be instantly awakened again. I don't need to tell you how frustrating that can be.
I find that by midweek I'm exhausted enough that I can get a good night's sleep. But then comes Thursday, the only day I have to get up early. On Thursday it would be helpful to get up at 6:30. But, of course, that's the day I can't seem to do it.
Oh well, on the bright side I'm up early enough today to wash my dishes in warm water and take a hot shower. We get hot water from about 7:30 to 9 am and pm.
But as long as I'm complaining I should bring up the latest here. I have a girl in one of my Thursday classes that has told management she's deaf. I say it that way because I'm still not convinced she is. But that doesn't matter, management IS convinced. So what does that say about the standards of this place? They will admit a deaf girl into a program that has a mandatory conversation class! She should have been put in another program or given special exempt status. Well, it's been the practice of the management since I've been here to just take the money from every customer and let the teacher, (now teacherS), deal with the fallout. That's why I say my main duty is to pick up the ball every time management drops it. On my facebook profile I describe my job as "Catcher in the rice."
I told somebody I was chatting with the other day that the deaf girl didn't show up to my last class. Probably because she was noticing a pretty big gap in communication ability between herself and my other students and she just couldn't deal with their ineptitude. I'm only kidding there a little bit. My Thursday classes are all from the Hotel Management Cullinary Arts program. They're all nice but smart as sacks of hammers. I didn't think it would ever be necessary but I find a need to dumb down my already dumbed down lessons. And of course it doesn't help that all three of the classes are 45 kids in a small room for two hours.
They all have at least 10 years of English training from public school and hagwans and they've all miraculously come out of that all but unscathed by any foreign tongue. Only to land in a class where they don't even have a teacher who can communicate in Korean or give them the answers to their tests! It's gotta be a hellish experience for them! Poor souls.
But like always I've pinpointed a few students from each class who are following along and actually learning. They'll keep me sane through the semester. And I know there's an expensive, (but awesome), trip to Canada waiting to happen in the long summer break that'll more than likely bolster my constitution for the next year I teach here. If I get re-signed, that is.
Oh and also the Kia Tigers will have their home opener on Tuesday. I've already made plans to go with about 6 or 7 other folks to that.
My struggle and my coping mechanisms. And on and on it goes.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Counting my blessings
It's a good day here in Korea. It's a Saturday. I haven't gone outside my room to meet with any untoward Koreanness today. I've just been catching up on my TV. What's with TV these days anyway? It seems to be yet another thing that's passing me by. The Friends are no longer friends; Old Christine isn't old in my books; the race isn't so Amazing any more; I only watch the Daily show about once a week; Hockey Night is in the morning and it's not in Canada; Lost lost me long ago; House isn't up in dis here house; I scrubbed Scrubs; Middle Man was cancelled while it was still in the beginning; pickins are slim.
I still have my old favourites: Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park (the new Tiger Woods episode was awesome!), 30 Rock, The Office, Big Bang, Cougar Town, Modern Family, Survivor, Daily Show, Colbert Report, and occasionally a Letterman or Man vs Nature. American Dad and the Cleveland Show are wearing a bit thin.
I watch America's next top model out of morbid curiosity as much as anything. To me it looks like Tyra always picks chicks who are nowhere near as good-looking as her. It's tough to find anyone as good-looking as Tyra Banks but these girls are just not attractive to me most of the time. When a few girls who I think are hot sneak through they get voted out early for reasons that are fascinating to behold. It's reminiscent of the old TV channel I watched in Calgary when I lived there, Fashion TV, mostly for the sexy outfits and occasional boob falling out but between catwalk models we were forced to sit through designers fashionspeak and if it wasn't such an affront to the intelligence of the average person I might have appreciated it a little bit for it's poetic, lyrical quality. They tended to shovel the shit like, I dunno, people who are trying to sell invisible clothes to the King. For a lot of money.
The judges on ANTM are exactly the same. They will tell one girl to stop doing the expected and to think outside the box and tell another that her traditional modeling poses are classically beautiful. In the same show. Two girls will do the exact same thing with their eyes and one will be told she is squinting while the other is applauded for "smizing", (which is smiling with her eyes). Today one girl was told she should stretch out her neck all the time and another girl was given compliments for the fragile feminine effect she got by hiding her head in her shoulders.
What's funny is when two of the judges say opposing things about the same picture or model. They're just trying to make an asbtract idea like beauty concrete and the more they talk the harder they work. But these beauties aren't usually geniuses so they get away with it. It's like me telling someone that hot dogs taste better than hamburgers and trying to create what seems to be an explanation as to why by stringing sparkly word circles together. It's sad to me that there are people who like hamburgers better than hot dogs who would BELIEVE me! These are the people who pay for and wear high fashion. The expensive prices are their punishment for being mentally impotent enough to allow someone else to convince them that this blue dress is $20,000 better than that other blue dress.
But let's talk about shows I like for better reasons. My favourite new show is the Ricky Gervais Show and, surprise, surprise, it's animated. It's the simplest idea in the world: three guys talking. But this Carl Pilkington they have on the show is a cottage industry of oddball insight that is absolutely hilarious. WIthout even trying to be! The other two just wind him up and watch him go. This show would be the greatest conversation teaching aid ever if there were any hope of my teaching a class that could follow even 10% of the conversation. It's tough for me to explain how conversation can be the most entertaining thing in the world if you're talking to people whose brains are not identically programmed. I don't know about this Pilkington guy but his programmers seem to have crossed some wires.
I also like the new show called The Marriage Ref. I can't imagine many people who aren't enjoying that one. I like it for the same reasons as most but much like the model show I also watch it from, shall we say a tangential viewpoint. A single man's angle which makes it all the more entertaining to me. It's not just that I am happy in the knowledge that I'll never need a marriage ref or have stupid fights about the things these people fight about. I am also noticing something that perhaps is my imagination but perhaps not. It looks to me like when the woman wins and the man loses, he will actually do what the marriage ref tells him to do. But when the man wins and the woman loses, in every case I can remember to this point the woman has looked like not only is she not going to heed the advice of the marriage ref but hubby is in the doghouse for a week, she's gonna throw out all the DVD box sets of Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Office, and burn all the Madonna cd's. And she will go on the trip they give couples on the show, but she's GONNA steal some bathrobes and soaps from the hotel.
This is not to say that I'm not married because women are too controlling. It's just a real plus about NOT being married. I don't want to win arguments, I just don't want to have them. And there's no such thing as a woman who could deal with me without changing things, or suggesting changes that would eventually result in fights. And I know now that she would always win because I can't stand the fighting. I'd be so whipped if I were married! This show makes me glad I'm not.
To bring this entry full circle there aren't many ladies who would have "allowed" me to sit around all day watching TV the way I did today if they were married to me. And if I could find this gem of a woman who would allow me to sacrifice a full day to the TV gods, 1. Would she spend it with me or would she work really hard around the house to shore up some guilt points for later? 2. Would she spend it watching TV with me and allow me to watch 50% of the shows I want to see? 3. Would she disappear for the whole day and make me wonder if I'd get my head bitten off for asking where she was? (You'd know if you weren't watching TV all day!/I can waste a whole day just as good as you buster!/I was out looking for a new TV cuz THAT one's gonna be worn out soon! and so on) 4. Would I be able to scratch, nap, fart, and eat spaghetti and meatballs TWICE like I did today?
It's probably the greatest blessing I have being single. I just don't think about that enough.
Another new show I think I'm going to like is yet another animated show called Ugly Americans. Looks like it's gonna be quirky enough to remain interested in.
Other than these shows I've been watching some old classics. Red Dwarf. Wish I had the box set of that. I found an old show that I didn't know ever existed called Strangers With Candy. It has Amy Sedaris and Steven Colbert. Every time she says, "I stole a Tay Vay" it kills me. ha ha ha. I like the Mind of Mencia too. Comedy all the time. I laugh so much I should have abs of steel. But I guess I'm more than compensating with the food I eat while watching.
I'm so lucky to be able to just waste a day sitting around on my own watching every show I want to watch, eating what I want, wearing what I want, just being me. In fact I can be me more often than most people I know. And people have told me that when they are around me they feel that same way. I don't guess there are many greater blessings I could give to anyone or have. I think I'll go indulge in this blessing a bit more.
See ya.
I still have my old favourites: Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park (the new Tiger Woods episode was awesome!), 30 Rock, The Office, Big Bang, Cougar Town, Modern Family, Survivor, Daily Show, Colbert Report, and occasionally a Letterman or Man vs Nature. American Dad and the Cleveland Show are wearing a bit thin.
I watch America's next top model out of morbid curiosity as much as anything. To me it looks like Tyra always picks chicks who are nowhere near as good-looking as her. It's tough to find anyone as good-looking as Tyra Banks but these girls are just not attractive to me most of the time. When a few girls who I think are hot sneak through they get voted out early for reasons that are fascinating to behold. It's reminiscent of the old TV channel I watched in Calgary when I lived there, Fashion TV, mostly for the sexy outfits and occasional boob falling out but between catwalk models we were forced to sit through designers fashionspeak and if it wasn't such an affront to the intelligence of the average person I might have appreciated it a little bit for it's poetic, lyrical quality. They tended to shovel the shit like, I dunno, people who are trying to sell invisible clothes to the King. For a lot of money.
The judges on ANTM are exactly the same. They will tell one girl to stop doing the expected and to think outside the box and tell another that her traditional modeling poses are classically beautiful. In the same show. Two girls will do the exact same thing with their eyes and one will be told she is squinting while the other is applauded for "smizing", (which is smiling with her eyes). Today one girl was told she should stretch out her neck all the time and another girl was given compliments for the fragile feminine effect she got by hiding her head in her shoulders.
What's funny is when two of the judges say opposing things about the same picture or model. They're just trying to make an asbtract idea like beauty concrete and the more they talk the harder they work. But these beauties aren't usually geniuses so they get away with it. It's like me telling someone that hot dogs taste better than hamburgers and trying to create what seems to be an explanation as to why by stringing sparkly word circles together. It's sad to me that there are people who like hamburgers better than hot dogs who would BELIEVE me! These are the people who pay for and wear high fashion. The expensive prices are their punishment for being mentally impotent enough to allow someone else to convince them that this blue dress is $20,000 better than that other blue dress.
But let's talk about shows I like for better reasons. My favourite new show is the Ricky Gervais Show and, surprise, surprise, it's animated. It's the simplest idea in the world: three guys talking. But this Carl Pilkington they have on the show is a cottage industry of oddball insight that is absolutely hilarious. WIthout even trying to be! The other two just wind him up and watch him go. This show would be the greatest conversation teaching aid ever if there were any hope of my teaching a class that could follow even 10% of the conversation. It's tough for me to explain how conversation can be the most entertaining thing in the world if you're talking to people whose brains are not identically programmed. I don't know about this Pilkington guy but his programmers seem to have crossed some wires.
I also like the new show called The Marriage Ref. I can't imagine many people who aren't enjoying that one. I like it for the same reasons as most but much like the model show I also watch it from, shall we say a tangential viewpoint. A single man's angle which makes it all the more entertaining to me. It's not just that I am happy in the knowledge that I'll never need a marriage ref or have stupid fights about the things these people fight about. I am also noticing something that perhaps is my imagination but perhaps not. It looks to me like when the woman wins and the man loses, he will actually do what the marriage ref tells him to do. But when the man wins and the woman loses, in every case I can remember to this point the woman has looked like not only is she not going to heed the advice of the marriage ref but hubby is in the doghouse for a week, she's gonna throw out all the DVD box sets of Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Office, and burn all the Madonna cd's. And she will go on the trip they give couples on the show, but she's GONNA steal some bathrobes and soaps from the hotel.
This is not to say that I'm not married because women are too controlling. It's just a real plus about NOT being married. I don't want to win arguments, I just don't want to have them. And there's no such thing as a woman who could deal with me without changing things, or suggesting changes that would eventually result in fights. And I know now that she would always win because I can't stand the fighting. I'd be so whipped if I were married! This show makes me glad I'm not.
To bring this entry full circle there aren't many ladies who would have "allowed" me to sit around all day watching TV the way I did today if they were married to me. And if I could find this gem of a woman who would allow me to sacrifice a full day to the TV gods, 1. Would she spend it with me or would she work really hard around the house to shore up some guilt points for later? 2. Would she spend it watching TV with me and allow me to watch 50% of the shows I want to see? 3. Would she disappear for the whole day and make me wonder if I'd get my head bitten off for asking where she was? (You'd know if you weren't watching TV all day!/I can waste a whole day just as good as you buster!/I was out looking for a new TV cuz THAT one's gonna be worn out soon! and so on) 4. Would I be able to scratch, nap, fart, and eat spaghetti and meatballs TWICE like I did today?
It's probably the greatest blessing I have being single. I just don't think about that enough.
Another new show I think I'm going to like is yet another animated show called Ugly Americans. Looks like it's gonna be quirky enough to remain interested in.
Other than these shows I've been watching some old classics. Red Dwarf. Wish I had the box set of that. I found an old show that I didn't know ever existed called Strangers With Candy. It has Amy Sedaris and Steven Colbert. Every time she says, "I stole a Tay Vay" it kills me. ha ha ha. I like the Mind of Mencia too. Comedy all the time. I laugh so much I should have abs of steel. But I guess I'm more than compensating with the food I eat while watching.
I'm so lucky to be able to just waste a day sitting around on my own watching every show I want to watch, eating what I want, wearing what I want, just being me. In fact I can be me more often than most people I know. And people have told me that when they are around me they feel that same way. I don't guess there are many greater blessings I could give to anyone or have. I think I'll go indulge in this blessing a bit more.
See ya.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Week two: big changes
I'm settling into the second week here at my beloved job. Monday was a red letter day here I think. First I was called into Peter's office because he had to tell me that the book needed to be changed back to the book he suggested then told me I could deep six. It's a good thing I didn't throw it in the garbage. The students may have though. I told them all last week to buy a different book. That's about 175 students.
Now I have to tell them all this week that we're going back to the original book. Sigh. But I won't see 135 of them because they have Membership Training this week. So I don't know how many of them will buy the new, wrong book in that time and I'm not sure of the exchange policies in book stores around here. I think I've just lowered the soju budgets for a lot of students. I won't be Mr. Popularity for that especially with this being MT week when they all get together and drink themselves into inibriated states of bonding.
Plus this means the curriculum I had already planned, (and for which I already had hundreds and hundreds of copies made), has to be shelved and I will have to make a new one. I was already busy making a new curriculum for the Flight Attendants anyway. Now I will have to do another one.
But there IS good news. I'll have a long weekend to do them in. Since Thursday is MT day and since Friday is hangover day, I get a four-day weekend! Yeehaw!
Also, just to show you how incredibly GOOD I am, enrollment in the English program, (for which I was the one and only teacher last three semestres), has exploded. Not only are my class numbers WAY up but there is a new teacher here named Erin who from what I've heard has similar or even higher class numbers. So it has more than doubled thank you very much. I'm sure it's not just because of me but I'll toot my horn a little.
Yeah, I have another soul to share with. I've really missed Kasia since she's left the hallowed halls of Seokang University. I'm sure Erin won't take her place but it'll be nice to have somebody to speak sober English to. The only other time I speak English is on card nights, (Tuesdays at the German Bar), quiz nights, (every second Thursday at the Speakeasy), and weekends when everybody seems to do the same thing: drink. Although, this past weekend I DID enjoy a night out with Amber, Maria, Chris and Kimmie bowling and for some odd reason there was NO BEER at the bowling alley. And I've played tennis a couple times with Andy. So things are getting better there. Actually Maria and Amber play tennis too. We're tentatively talking about getting together with Andy for a game of mixed doubles some day.
However, these are not the events that made Monday a red letter day. I asked Peter if I could change the scheduling for my Physiotherapy class. They were scheduled for 3 hours a week, 2 hours on Tuesdays and an hour on Wednesdays. The class has 45 students and the room is not big enough for that many, especially if we're doing activities like I have planned. So I asked if I could split the class into two classes of 22/23 and teach two hours on Tue and 2 hours on Wed. I told Peter I would teach the extra hour for free. His knee-jerk reaction was, "Impossible!" which he said a number of times while I was vehemently stressing the educational benefits in a class of 22/23 as opposed to the drawbacks of a class of 45 especially in a class where the teacher isn't lecturing or training, he's EDUfuckingCATING. I admit I got a little riled up. I'm passionate about my work.
Finally he agreed to visit the Dean of Physiotherapy, no longer Prof. Shin, who I have a great rapor with, but a new guy, Prof. Jung. So I lost one Jung and gained another. Anyhoo, we went in and in a few minutes Prof. Jung agreed to the arrangement on a "probationary" basis. Lo and behold, POSSIBLE!
I could see Peter's point that the three hours were needed to get the students the full credit for the course but I told him that if I taught 45 students three hours a week we'd finish the curriculum. If I taught 22 students 2 hours a week, we'd finish the curriculum AND do LOTS of other educational activities.
His mistake in the debate was stating that Seokang is not a hagwon. I said he was acting naive and that if Seokang really wanted to be better than a hagwon they should be thinking of the educational value for the class, not the monetary value. There's no way he could argue with that since I've tried things both ways. Classroom dynamics is no mystery to me after all the years I've been at this. Then I went as far as to suggest 3 hours Tue and 3 hours Wed. I'd be teaching FOUR hours for free! I think Peter might have gained a little respect for me when I offered this. I'm not sure if I would have followed through on it... but probly. I gained a little respect for Peter for actually abandoning the almighty RULES here and making things better.
So that's going to be awesome. Today I sent half the class home and they were, to a student, over the moon with the new arrangements. This means they only have English once a week. And we did some Oscar conversation and played a game of celebrity Headbanz. The students all had a good day. I didn't hear much English being spoken but we'll work on that as time goes by. The thing is, EVERY student did EVERY assignment. There was a group of girls in the back who would have fallen asleep if there were 45 students today. That's why they chose those seats at the back. I'm not a dummy. I've BEEN in those back seats before. In this class the desks are jammed so tightly together I can't even REACH the back of the room. The students know this. And the people at the back are always the ones who don't listen the first or second time I explain how to do something then talk to the students in the front, (in Korean), asking what the hell they're supposed to be doing, thus wasting EVERYBODY's time. What I'm saying is I couldn't have gotten through what I did today in two hours with a class of 45 in THREE hours. And even if I had, there would have been several students who didn't do a thing.
Anyway, it's going better for that class. Now I have to work on trimming the fat on my other three classes of 45. They looked like they were none too interested so I think it'll be a case of locking the doors at go time and if someone shows up and they don't have homework, notebook, textbook, and writing utensil - BUBYE. You'd be surprised how many students will actually come to class here with nothing. Not even a pencil or pen or crayon or whatever.
One way or another I'm determined to keep the educational value in my classes and force this place to do things the right way and make shitloads of money. At least in the English program.
Now if they'd only let me do camps in the vacations we'd all be swimming in cash!
We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. One victory at a time.
Now I have to tell them all this week that we're going back to the original book. Sigh. But I won't see 135 of them because they have Membership Training this week. So I don't know how many of them will buy the new, wrong book in that time and I'm not sure of the exchange policies in book stores around here. I think I've just lowered the soju budgets for a lot of students. I won't be Mr. Popularity for that especially with this being MT week when they all get together and drink themselves into inibriated states of bonding.
Plus this means the curriculum I had already planned, (and for which I already had hundreds and hundreds of copies made), has to be shelved and I will have to make a new one. I was already busy making a new curriculum for the Flight Attendants anyway. Now I will have to do another one.
But there IS good news. I'll have a long weekend to do them in. Since Thursday is MT day and since Friday is hangover day, I get a four-day weekend! Yeehaw!
Also, just to show you how incredibly GOOD I am, enrollment in the English program, (for which I was the one and only teacher last three semestres), has exploded. Not only are my class numbers WAY up but there is a new teacher here named Erin who from what I've heard has similar or even higher class numbers. So it has more than doubled thank you very much. I'm sure it's not just because of me but I'll toot my horn a little.
Yeah, I have another soul to share with. I've really missed Kasia since she's left the hallowed halls of Seokang University. I'm sure Erin won't take her place but it'll be nice to have somebody to speak sober English to. The only other time I speak English is on card nights, (Tuesdays at the German Bar), quiz nights, (every second Thursday at the Speakeasy), and weekends when everybody seems to do the same thing: drink. Although, this past weekend I DID enjoy a night out with Amber, Maria, Chris and Kimmie bowling and for some odd reason there was NO BEER at the bowling alley. And I've played tennis a couple times with Andy. So things are getting better there. Actually Maria and Amber play tennis too. We're tentatively talking about getting together with Andy for a game of mixed doubles some day.
However, these are not the events that made Monday a red letter day. I asked Peter if I could change the scheduling for my Physiotherapy class. They were scheduled for 3 hours a week, 2 hours on Tuesdays and an hour on Wednesdays. The class has 45 students and the room is not big enough for that many, especially if we're doing activities like I have planned. So I asked if I could split the class into two classes of 22/23 and teach two hours on Tue and 2 hours on Wed. I told Peter I would teach the extra hour for free. His knee-jerk reaction was, "Impossible!" which he said a number of times while I was vehemently stressing the educational benefits in a class of 22/23 as opposed to the drawbacks of a class of 45 especially in a class where the teacher isn't lecturing or training, he's EDUfuckingCATING. I admit I got a little riled up. I'm passionate about my work.
Finally he agreed to visit the Dean of Physiotherapy, no longer Prof. Shin, who I have a great rapor with, but a new guy, Prof. Jung. So I lost one Jung and gained another. Anyhoo, we went in and in a few minutes Prof. Jung agreed to the arrangement on a "probationary" basis. Lo and behold, POSSIBLE!
I could see Peter's point that the three hours were needed to get the students the full credit for the course but I told him that if I taught 45 students three hours a week we'd finish the curriculum. If I taught 22 students 2 hours a week, we'd finish the curriculum AND do LOTS of other educational activities.
His mistake in the debate was stating that Seokang is not a hagwon. I said he was acting naive and that if Seokang really wanted to be better than a hagwon they should be thinking of the educational value for the class, not the monetary value. There's no way he could argue with that since I've tried things both ways. Classroom dynamics is no mystery to me after all the years I've been at this. Then I went as far as to suggest 3 hours Tue and 3 hours Wed. I'd be teaching FOUR hours for free! I think Peter might have gained a little respect for me when I offered this. I'm not sure if I would have followed through on it... but probly. I gained a little respect for Peter for actually abandoning the almighty RULES here and making things better.
So that's going to be awesome. Today I sent half the class home and they were, to a student, over the moon with the new arrangements. This means they only have English once a week. And we did some Oscar conversation and played a game of celebrity Headbanz. The students all had a good day. I didn't hear much English being spoken but we'll work on that as time goes by. The thing is, EVERY student did EVERY assignment. There was a group of girls in the back who would have fallen asleep if there were 45 students today. That's why they chose those seats at the back. I'm not a dummy. I've BEEN in those back seats before. In this class the desks are jammed so tightly together I can't even REACH the back of the room. The students know this. And the people at the back are always the ones who don't listen the first or second time I explain how to do something then talk to the students in the front, (in Korean), asking what the hell they're supposed to be doing, thus wasting EVERYBODY's time. What I'm saying is I couldn't have gotten through what I did today in two hours with a class of 45 in THREE hours. And even if I had, there would have been several students who didn't do a thing.
Anyway, it's going better for that class. Now I have to work on trimming the fat on my other three classes of 45. They looked like they were none too interested so I think it'll be a case of locking the doors at go time and if someone shows up and they don't have homework, notebook, textbook, and writing utensil - BUBYE. You'd be surprised how many students will actually come to class here with nothing. Not even a pencil or pen or crayon or whatever.
One way or another I'm determined to keep the educational value in my classes and force this place to do things the right way and make shitloads of money. At least in the English program.
Now if they'd only let me do camps in the vacations we'd all be swimming in cash!
We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. One victory at a time.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Back to school
Well I taught my first new class today. It was much the same as always. I think it's about 15 Celsius outside today. I walked into the classroom that was about 30. My glasses fogged up for crying out loud! And all my students were sitting there in their winter jackets looking like they were ready to climb Everest!
Tomorrow it'll be 25 Celsius and they'll turn on the air conditioner so that it's 10 degrees in the classroom. The modern Korean is a creature of extreme temperatures.
Other than writing on the whiteboard and hoping the sweat running down the trough in my back hadn't yet made a big stain on the ass of my pants, I had other concerns today. The new management, (Peter), gave me a new textbook. It has no publication date or author's name on it so I can only suspect that somebody has suggested this to earn some extra dough. Possibly somebody at the school or a friend of somebody at the school. Regardless of who wrote it, it's not very good. It's designed for ESL and I'm teaching EFL. It's pretty much the same lame stuff they've learned over the average 10-12 years they've taken English classes at hagwons or in public school. So you'd think they'd be good at it. This is in part why this same crap is suggested. They WANT the students to get good grades. But they're not very good at it because it was boring to them THEN and it's boring to them now.
However, I have a better book with better lessons that I have been using successfully for years. I have lots of extra copies of my lessons too so it would save me some money on copying. Also, I won't have to create any new lessons and print them out at the store where I do my copying. I went there yesterday to copy out a new introduction Mad Lib I made for this week and there was some problem using my zip drive. I've used it many times in their computers but over the winter vacation they installed some new "security" programs that won't allow me to use my zip drive on them.
What we did was turned off the new anti-virus "protection" program, (I forget what it was called. Some new Korean thing. NOT Ahn Lab I don't think), and my zip drive worked fine. But today when they turn on their computers that program will tell them that there are new "viruses" recognized. These fake programs "recognize" viruses just to keep the buyers feeling warm and fuzzy thinking their computer safety is increased when actually their speed, RAM, and efficiency has decreased. It's just another example of the mentality that complicated is better. It seems to be very popular in Korea particularly with electronics.
Anyhoo, if I use the curriculums I have already designed I will be able to bring in copies of all my lessons to photocopy instead of printing out new ones which would require me to use my zipdrive, which has been identified as evil by their new anti-virus program. Most likely because it doesn't like English. No kidding.
As far as that class is concerned, I'm going to see if I can divide it in half. There are 45 of them and they get two hours on Tuesdays from 11-1 and one hour on Wednesdays from 11-12. What I'll suggest is cut the class in half and I'll teach half of them on Tuesdays from 11-1 and the other half on Wednesdays from 11-1. I'll have one extra hour a week. So instead of 11 hours a week I'll have 12. I think I can live with that. And instead of one class of 45 I'll have two classes of 22. MUCH easier to work with, (and the class won't be so dang HOT).
But I have to talk to Peter to change the book, and I have to talk to the dean of the physiotherapy department, (this class's major), to get permission to change their class hours. I have THREE two-hour classes on Thursday that I think I might have to do the same things with. I sure hope those classes have reasonable numbers!
That's par for the course around here though. I have been doing my teaching AND administration since I came back here. It's just easier that way for everybody. I tried telling Jung how to do things more efficiently but we always ended up arguing. That's most likely why he quit. But I am glad he quit. For him as well as me.
The nice thing is I got a schedule WITH ROOM NUMBERS! For the first time ever! I was very happy about that. Peter even gave me a map of the campus AND something else I've been asking for forever, a school calendar. Now I know when holidays and sports week and scheduled events are taking place and I won't be going to class and finding it empty any more. So things are looking up here I think. I'll know better as we settle into classes.
And you can be sure I'll let you know.
Tomorrow it'll be 25 Celsius and they'll turn on the air conditioner so that it's 10 degrees in the classroom. The modern Korean is a creature of extreme temperatures.
Other than writing on the whiteboard and hoping the sweat running down the trough in my back hadn't yet made a big stain on the ass of my pants, I had other concerns today. The new management, (Peter), gave me a new textbook. It has no publication date or author's name on it so I can only suspect that somebody has suggested this to earn some extra dough. Possibly somebody at the school or a friend of somebody at the school. Regardless of who wrote it, it's not very good. It's designed for ESL and I'm teaching EFL. It's pretty much the same lame stuff they've learned over the average 10-12 years they've taken English classes at hagwons or in public school. So you'd think they'd be good at it. This is in part why this same crap is suggested. They WANT the students to get good grades. But they're not very good at it because it was boring to them THEN and it's boring to them now.
However, I have a better book with better lessons that I have been using successfully for years. I have lots of extra copies of my lessons too so it would save me some money on copying. Also, I won't have to create any new lessons and print them out at the store where I do my copying. I went there yesterday to copy out a new introduction Mad Lib I made for this week and there was some problem using my zip drive. I've used it many times in their computers but over the winter vacation they installed some new "security" programs that won't allow me to use my zip drive on them.
What we did was turned off the new anti-virus "protection" program, (I forget what it was called. Some new Korean thing. NOT Ahn Lab I don't think), and my zip drive worked fine. But today when they turn on their computers that program will tell them that there are new "viruses" recognized. These fake programs "recognize" viruses just to keep the buyers feeling warm and fuzzy thinking their computer safety is increased when actually their speed, RAM, and efficiency has decreased. It's just another example of the mentality that complicated is better. It seems to be very popular in Korea particularly with electronics.
Anyhoo, if I use the curriculums I have already designed I will be able to bring in copies of all my lessons to photocopy instead of printing out new ones which would require me to use my zipdrive, which has been identified as evil by their new anti-virus program. Most likely because it doesn't like English. No kidding.
As far as that class is concerned, I'm going to see if I can divide it in half. There are 45 of them and they get two hours on Tuesdays from 11-1 and one hour on Wednesdays from 11-12. What I'll suggest is cut the class in half and I'll teach half of them on Tuesdays from 11-1 and the other half on Wednesdays from 11-1. I'll have one extra hour a week. So instead of 11 hours a week I'll have 12. I think I can live with that. And instead of one class of 45 I'll have two classes of 22. MUCH easier to work with, (and the class won't be so dang HOT).
But I have to talk to Peter to change the book, and I have to talk to the dean of the physiotherapy department, (this class's major), to get permission to change their class hours. I have THREE two-hour classes on Thursday that I think I might have to do the same things with. I sure hope those classes have reasonable numbers!
That's par for the course around here though. I have been doing my teaching AND administration since I came back here. It's just easier that way for everybody. I tried telling Jung how to do things more efficiently but we always ended up arguing. That's most likely why he quit. But I am glad he quit. For him as well as me.
The nice thing is I got a schedule WITH ROOM NUMBERS! For the first time ever! I was very happy about that. Peter even gave me a map of the campus AND something else I've been asking for forever, a school calendar. Now I know when holidays and sports week and scheduled events are taking place and I won't be going to class and finding it empty any more. So things are looking up here I think. I'll know better as we settle into classes.
And you can be sure I'll let you know.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Gold Canada Gold!
Wow! We aren't "owning the podium" but we DO seem to have put a lot of our athletes onto the TOP of it. 13 gold medals! That's amazing! And Team Canada might get another one tomorrow morning in hockey.
I'm watching cross country skiing right now and if I'm not mistaken there are two gals in this race named Sauronen and Schmiegel racing for that PRECIOUS ring of gold. I'm probably misunderstanding the names though. Not watching intently really. I'm just wating till noon when the Fins play the Slovaks for hockey bronze.
I always find this time of the Olympics weird. The winners of the bronze will no doubt be happy and jumping around for joy but the silver medalists will undoubtedly be depressed tomorrow. I'll be quite happy with the silver but MAN it'd be sweet to get the gold!
I guess it depends on Team Canada's play though. If they play well and lose I'll be happy. But if they self-destruct like the Canadian women did in curling, I will be pretty disappointed. I couldn't believe that when our girls went into the 10th end with a two point lead AND I think they had the hammer! Sweden stole two to get into the 11th end and then they stole one for the gold medal. That's just impossible odds! I remember thinking that the Swedes had only two rocks left, nothing in the house and they were down by two. And SOMEHOW they got both those rocks to score! Absolutely unbelievable!
BUT the Old Bear, Kevin Martin and the boys got the gold today so I'm pretty happy aboot that!
Things have worked out really well for me as far as watching these Olympics! I thought I was going to have to start teaching this week but I've only been doing administrative stuff and lesson planning so I've had lots of time to watch. The site I've been watching, MyP2P, has been solid throughout, until today. The NBC and Eurosport coverage I've been watching has been great. I've seen a bit of Danish, Russian and Italian coverage too. All excellent. The only problem I had was when this morning I tried to get into MyP2P and they asked me for a password. I joined and my password didn't work. Then I did an anti-spyware scan and was able to get in just in time to see Canada take the lead over Norway in the gold medal curling match never to look back. So that was lucky.
If ANYthing happens so that I am unable to watch the gold-medal hockey game tomorrow I'll be gutted! It's on at 5 in the morning here so it's not like I can go out to a bar to see it on TV.
However, I have to count my lucky stars that tomorrow, (Monday), is a holiday here in Korea so I won't be at work while the game of the century takes place.
I've heard that this is going to be the most watched hockey game EVER. I hope it's a good one. I expect the U.S. to come out guns a-blazing but I'm not sure whether Canada will give an effort like they did against the Russians or if they'll play the defensive style that almost lost them the game against the Slovaks. There's no question which style is more effective, it's just a matter of convincing all the hockey traditionalists who worship defence and always seem to make big games like this or Stanley Cup playoff games SUCK by forcing skilled players to play not to lose instead of playing to win. I guess we'll see tomorrow.
Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to it BIG TIME. And since I lost a bet with Heather so I had to use the American flag as my facebook photo, (which I cheated on and changed for the Canada/Slovakia game), I am going to post the following pic and say one final time GO CANADA GO!
I'm watching cross country skiing right now and if I'm not mistaken there are two gals in this race named Sauronen and Schmiegel racing for that PRECIOUS ring of gold. I'm probably misunderstanding the names though. Not watching intently really. I'm just wating till noon when the Fins play the Slovaks for hockey bronze.
I always find this time of the Olympics weird. The winners of the bronze will no doubt be happy and jumping around for joy but the silver medalists will undoubtedly be depressed tomorrow. I'll be quite happy with the silver but MAN it'd be sweet to get the gold!
I guess it depends on Team Canada's play though. If they play well and lose I'll be happy. But if they self-destruct like the Canadian women did in curling, I will be pretty disappointed. I couldn't believe that when our girls went into the 10th end with a two point lead AND I think they had the hammer! Sweden stole two to get into the 11th end and then they stole one for the gold medal. That's just impossible odds! I remember thinking that the Swedes had only two rocks left, nothing in the house and they were down by two. And SOMEHOW they got both those rocks to score! Absolutely unbelievable!
BUT the Old Bear, Kevin Martin and the boys got the gold today so I'm pretty happy aboot that!
Things have worked out really well for me as far as watching these Olympics! I thought I was going to have to start teaching this week but I've only been doing administrative stuff and lesson planning so I've had lots of time to watch. The site I've been watching, MyP2P, has been solid throughout, until today. The NBC and Eurosport coverage I've been watching has been great. I've seen a bit of Danish, Russian and Italian coverage too. All excellent. The only problem I had was when this morning I tried to get into MyP2P and they asked me for a password. I joined and my password didn't work. Then I did an anti-spyware scan and was able to get in just in time to see Canada take the lead over Norway in the gold medal curling match never to look back. So that was lucky.
If ANYthing happens so that I am unable to watch the gold-medal hockey game tomorrow I'll be gutted! It's on at 5 in the morning here so it's not like I can go out to a bar to see it on TV.
However, I have to count my lucky stars that tomorrow, (Monday), is a holiday here in Korea so I won't be at work while the game of the century takes place.
I've heard that this is going to be the most watched hockey game EVER. I hope it's a good one. I expect the U.S. to come out guns a-blazing but I'm not sure whether Canada will give an effort like they did against the Russians or if they'll play the defensive style that almost lost them the game against the Slovaks. There's no question which style is more effective, it's just a matter of convincing all the hockey traditionalists who worship defence and always seem to make big games like this or Stanley Cup playoff games SUCK by forcing skilled players to play not to lose instead of playing to win. I guess we'll see tomorrow.
Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to it BIG TIME. And since I lost a bet with Heather so I had to use the American flag as my facebook photo, (which I cheated on and changed for the Canada/Slovakia game), I am going to post the following pic and say one final time GO CANADA GO!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Super Thursday?
It's 5:30 AM here in tropical Gwangju, South Korea and I'm up sipping tea and watching the first of four monster Olympic hockey games. So far it's 0 - 0 between the U.S. and Switzerland. Next is Canada/Russia, then Fin/Czech and finally at 2 in the afternoon the Swedes will play the Slovaks. Should be a fun day!
This game wasn't 2 minutes old before one of the announcers made the bonehead comment about the American defenceman Brian Rafalski and how "dangerous" his pinching is. First of all the pinch Rafalski made today to bring about that stupid statement didn't hurt the Americans; secondly, Rafalski got back and broke up a false two-on-one the Swiss had; and thirdly take away Rafalski and his "dangerous" pinching and the U.S. would have lost to Canada on Super Sunday at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Yes, Brian Rafalski. Everyone is talking about Ryan Miller as the guy who beat Canada. He was spectacular, no doubt about it. The Canucks outshot the U.S. 2 to 1 but I would have given Rafalski the player of the game. He didn't get any award. In fact he probably got a stern talking to from the coach after the game for providing the offense that won the U.S. the game.
Defencemen like Rafalski who are pinching are playing offense and defence and they're expending a lot of energy. This is not lazy hockey. But guys who stay out there for a lot of minutes tend to be the defensive defencemen. They're not getting as tired because defensive play is easier to play.
We've seen a lot of lesser teams taking on the giants by employing a simple strategy: drawing the highly skilled teams into a defensive mode that suits the underdogs. It's a very easy thing to do against a team made up of NHL stars who have played a ton of games already this year in the NHL. I have a funny feeling that I'll be watching games like this all day long today.
I just hope we have ONE defenceman on team Canada who pulls a Rafalski and starts taking offensive chances. I don't even care if he is the cause of a goal or two by the Russians. If he's good enough, he'll likely be the cause of 2 or 3 goals for Canada. And it'll most likely be one of the young guys like Drew Doughty if it's anyone.
This is exactly why the highest scoring defenceman in the NHL, Mike Green, wasn't chosen for the Candadian team. He's not even on their list of reserves for crying out loud!
Last game, (Canada/U.S.), I saw guys like Weber, Kieth, Pronger, etc. BEHIND the blue line when Canada had puck posession in the U.S. zone! What is THAT nonsense? It makes for some low-scoring hockey that if not for the fact that the score is close, would be a bit boring. If I were shelling out the kind of dough the fans are paying to watch this I think I'd be a bit upset.
The pattern in most games, and I've watched them all, has been the stronger team coming out and playing the first few minutes of energetic, offensive hockey and after that settling into the lower energy, defensive, "safe" hockey they are mistakenly calling "old time hockey." That's when teams like Germany, Switzerland, Belarus and Norway have been making these unlikely runs at the giants of hockey. As I type there's less than a minute left in the second period, shots are 32-8 for U.S. but the score is 0-0. This, believe it or not, is exactly where the Swiss want to be. Oh wait a minute now, there's a goal. What do you know, Rafalski was pinching. Is it a goal or had time expired? I guess it's still 0-0.
So here we go again. This is a perfect example of the kind of hockey I was hoping we wouldn't see at these Olympics. I'm still enjoying it but I could be enjoying it more if the Offensive stars were allowed to shine. 32 shots might sound like they're playing offense but the shots aren't the quality you'd get if the defence was pinching and the stars were allowed to freewheel. A stat more indicitave of the actual play in the game has been the ZERO shots that have made it through on the 5 power plays so far. That's hard to watch for a guy like me who likes offense.
I'm actually enjoying watching the women's hockey. They seem to be doing all the stuff that I've been saying the boys should be doing. They're scoring a lot of goals from one-timers by left wingers who shoot right or right wingers who shoot left. They're taking wrist shots from the point and allowing players to deflect them in. The men's hockey I'm watching has included a lot of slap shots from the point that are being blocked or the player's sticks are breaking or the shots are going 2 feet wide. Danny Boyle has done this a lot for Canada.
Having said all that, Team Canada might actually try to play the defensive game against the highly skilled Russians. This might just be the correct way to play them. But I'd still rather see offense.
Well what do you know! The U.S. scored. On the power play they got a shot through and Parise put in the rebound. Guess who shot the shot from the point. Rafalski of course.
The thing about playing this defensive hockey is that you have to depend heavily on your goaltender. Even though the goalies for Canada have big names, I'd say the Canadian goaltending hasn't been good enough for the defensive style they've been playing. Just another reason to score some more goals.
Anyhoo, I sure hope I don't have to suffer through another 1-0 game when Canada faces the Russians. It's a shame one of these two great teams will be going home without a medal but I guess that's what happens when you don't play to your strengths.
Nonetheless, go Canada go! I'm nervous!
This game wasn't 2 minutes old before one of the announcers made the bonehead comment about the American defenceman Brian Rafalski and how "dangerous" his pinching is. First of all the pinch Rafalski made today to bring about that stupid statement didn't hurt the Americans; secondly, Rafalski got back and broke up a false two-on-one the Swiss had; and thirdly take away Rafalski and his "dangerous" pinching and the U.S. would have lost to Canada on Super Sunday at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Yes, Brian Rafalski. Everyone is talking about Ryan Miller as the guy who beat Canada. He was spectacular, no doubt about it. The Canucks outshot the U.S. 2 to 1 but I would have given Rafalski the player of the game. He didn't get any award. In fact he probably got a stern talking to from the coach after the game for providing the offense that won the U.S. the game.
Defencemen like Rafalski who are pinching are playing offense and defence and they're expending a lot of energy. This is not lazy hockey. But guys who stay out there for a lot of minutes tend to be the defensive defencemen. They're not getting as tired because defensive play is easier to play.
We've seen a lot of lesser teams taking on the giants by employing a simple strategy: drawing the highly skilled teams into a defensive mode that suits the underdogs. It's a very easy thing to do against a team made up of NHL stars who have played a ton of games already this year in the NHL. I have a funny feeling that I'll be watching games like this all day long today.
I just hope we have ONE defenceman on team Canada who pulls a Rafalski and starts taking offensive chances. I don't even care if he is the cause of a goal or two by the Russians. If he's good enough, he'll likely be the cause of 2 or 3 goals for Canada. And it'll most likely be one of the young guys like Drew Doughty if it's anyone.
This is exactly why the highest scoring defenceman in the NHL, Mike Green, wasn't chosen for the Candadian team. He's not even on their list of reserves for crying out loud!
Last game, (Canada/U.S.), I saw guys like Weber, Kieth, Pronger, etc. BEHIND the blue line when Canada had puck posession in the U.S. zone! What is THAT nonsense? It makes for some low-scoring hockey that if not for the fact that the score is close, would be a bit boring. If I were shelling out the kind of dough the fans are paying to watch this I think I'd be a bit upset.
The pattern in most games, and I've watched them all, has been the stronger team coming out and playing the first few minutes of energetic, offensive hockey and after that settling into the lower energy, defensive, "safe" hockey they are mistakenly calling "old time hockey." That's when teams like Germany, Switzerland, Belarus and Norway have been making these unlikely runs at the giants of hockey. As I type there's less than a minute left in the second period, shots are 32-8 for U.S. but the score is 0-0. This, believe it or not, is exactly where the Swiss want to be. Oh wait a minute now, there's a goal. What do you know, Rafalski was pinching. Is it a goal or had time expired? I guess it's still 0-0.
So here we go again. This is a perfect example of the kind of hockey I was hoping we wouldn't see at these Olympics. I'm still enjoying it but I could be enjoying it more if the Offensive stars were allowed to shine. 32 shots might sound like they're playing offense but the shots aren't the quality you'd get if the defence was pinching and the stars were allowed to freewheel. A stat more indicitave of the actual play in the game has been the ZERO shots that have made it through on the 5 power plays so far. That's hard to watch for a guy like me who likes offense.
I'm actually enjoying watching the women's hockey. They seem to be doing all the stuff that I've been saying the boys should be doing. They're scoring a lot of goals from one-timers by left wingers who shoot right or right wingers who shoot left. They're taking wrist shots from the point and allowing players to deflect them in. The men's hockey I'm watching has included a lot of slap shots from the point that are being blocked or the player's sticks are breaking or the shots are going 2 feet wide. Danny Boyle has done this a lot for Canada.
Having said all that, Team Canada might actually try to play the defensive game against the highly skilled Russians. This might just be the correct way to play them. But I'd still rather see offense.
Well what do you know! The U.S. scored. On the power play they got a shot through and Parise put in the rebound. Guess who shot the shot from the point. Rafalski of course.
The thing about playing this defensive hockey is that you have to depend heavily on your goaltender. Even though the goalies for Canada have big names, I'd say the Canadian goaltending hasn't been good enough for the defensive style they've been playing. Just another reason to score some more goals.
Anyhoo, I sure hope I don't have to suffer through another 1-0 game when Canada faces the Russians. It's a shame one of these two great teams will be going home without a medal but I guess that's what happens when you don't play to your strengths.
Nonetheless, go Canada go! I'm nervous!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Shut the &^$%&*+@@!! up about Tiger Woods already!
I know it's been said before but I'd like to say it one more time: what the smeg is going on in the world? Specifically this Tiger Woods public apology. This is the biggest waste of media time and energy in the history of mankind. Leave Tiger alone! It's a travesty. And ironically Tiger mentioned in his PUBLIC APOLOGY that his actions were because HE felt an unreasonable sense of entitlement. Who are these idiots who feel entitled to an apology from Woods? And who are these JAGOFFS who have the ass to say, "No, I'm still not satisfied." "He didn't seem genuine." "It's not enough."?!?! Come ON!
I too admit to being interested in his sexual behaviour and his off course driving but it has in absolutely no way detracted one iota from my reverence for Tiger Woods' mastery of the hardest sport in the world. If anything this will probably have a Clintonesque effect on me to where I, through abject pity for the man, end up liking him a whole lot more. I certainly don't feel entitled to any apology for anything he's done in his personal life. I don't recall him ever promising me that he will be a dutiful husband, be faithful to his spouse, and never cheat on her. I don't recall him swearing that even though he's a young, attractive sexual stud with women throwing themselves at him and more than enough money to show them ALL the times of their lives, he will not shag them five at a time in his heart-shaped limousine hot tub. I don't recall that. These are not prerequisites to the acquisition of a PGA Tour card.
If he used steroids or cheated at golf somehow, then I could understand a public apology but the only people who deserve a PRIVATE apology for his private affairs are the people in his private life.
What if Tiger Woods were a famous rock star? We would almost expect this kind of behaviour. If you want a warped but valid slant on this, listen to Bill Hicks. PLAY FROM YOUR HEART!!! Who cares if a lot of rock stars are violent, promiscuous, suicidal, deviants who die in pools of their own vomit, THEY ROCK! Why can't we extend this same courtesy to athletes? Don't tell me it's because watching Tiger Woods hit a 300-yard two iron is any less artistic than a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo! Cuz I love rock and roll, but I'd say they both ROCK just as hard!
To quote another famous comedian, George Carlin, "I'm tired of being told who to admire in this country!" Amazingly enough he actually uses Tiger Woods as an example here. Because that's really the problem isn't it? Why are we supposed to look up to Tiger Woods? He hits a golf ball for a living. Why should he have to be as pure as the driven snow?
Why do so many athletes have this same problem? It's been going on forever too. Look at Babe Ruth. He drank a quart of whiskey with his daily breakfast of a big steak, 6 fried eggs and potatoes. He blacked out on a train once after eating 18 hotdogs. He drank, smoked, swore, played and lived harder than most people. He probably wouldn't have been so great otherwise.
And how many basketball players are frowned on for drugs, guns, sexual affairs and such? Hello? Most of these guys were recruited in the hood not the Hamptons. And this is not to say things in the Hamptons are any more moral.
Then there's Ross Rebagliati, the Canadian snowboarder who had his medal stripped because he smoked some weed. Maybe that's a bit different because marijuana is against the rules but we have to question why that is. It's not like it's a performance ENHANCER! We're forcing social expectations on athletes that are just ridiculous. The fault is not in the athlete, but the society.
I'm trying to think who I am more upset with, Tiger Woods or the guy who wins 30 million bucks in the lottery and goes back to his job at the box-making factory for the rest of his life. If you have the good life, live it! That's what I say. And it's almost mockery of us poor paycheck to paycheck people if you don't! Isn't it?
And it's not like he was slumming it. Look at the list of girls he's been with! WOW! I'm not saying Tiger should have cheated on his wife. I think everyone should honour the commitment of marriage. Or just don't do it. Maybe, like half the people in the world, (maybe more), who get married, Tiger did so because it's the thing to do. Then he realized later maybe it wasn't. Who knows? Either way he doesn't owe me an apology for what he did.
We owe Tiger the apology. And so many other public figures whose sex lives are none of our business. I think this is just sad. Sorry about that, Tiger.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Olympic Thursday
I just got up. It's 12:45 AM and I have been up for about an hour. I am now fully committed to Olympian hours! Wake up at midnight, sleep at supper time. It makes it tough to know when or what I should eat or drink. But I've figured out a good system: for curling I drink tea, for hockey I drink beer. And I eat between periods or after the 5th end. It's possible that by the end of these olympics I'll have a long beard, long nails and I'll be storing my urine in bottles, but these are the sacrifices a Canadian sports fan needs to make in Korea.
I'm now surfing the web trying to find a good place to watch the Canadian women's curling team go up against the Japanese. I watched the Japanese team yesterday. Because they played the Americans. It's pretty easy to find online streams of American curling. But thanks to our lame, Canada-only coverage on CTV/TSN/CBC it's pretty hard to get the Canadian stuff. They have live streams for all the people in the world who don't need them: Canadians.
I think I'm gonna have trouble finding this stream. It's gonna start at 2 so I have time to search around but it may end up being like yesterday when I watched CTV coverage of Canada vs Germany in men's curling pirated by a dude in Russia and voiced over in Russian. And of course before the end of the game they switched over to the Russia/Latvia hockey game.Luckily the game was no longer in doubt.
I'm truly loving the globalism of the internet! I watched the entire men's snowboard cross in Italian. And by the way it was awesome! I still can't figure out how our boy Robertson didn't get the gold. It was like a sudden gust of wind blew the American guy past him right at the end. Great silver though!
But before I could grieve for too long, outta nowhere Maelle Ricker jumps to gold in the women's snowboard cross. I'd have to say that this is my favourite winter olympic sport to watch besides hockey and curling. And it's so nice that Canadians are GOOD at it! That beautiful pic at the top is of her. It's a photogenic sport though isn't it? I love the shots of the four people going over the jump at the end with the Olympic rings in the background! It's just too bad I can't seem to move pictures around on my blog any more or I'd be able to put them at the appropriate places rather than all at the beginning. But like many things involving electronics, my blog is getting harder and harder to work with as it gets more and more "advanced".
But I won't complain about that. This entry was gonna be about curling. I am very happy that our men's and ladies teams, (pictured WAY above), the Martin and Bernard rinks respectively, have gone undefeated so far. I've watched some pretty good shot making from them. I would not be surprised to see them sweep the golds in curling. It'd be great to see!
It's too bad so few people like curling. I've been a fan since my high school days in Ignace, Ontario where I first slipped on a slider and grabbed a broom. And it WAS a broom back then, not a brush or one of those Swiffer-looking things they're using now. I was actually sweeping and making noise and working up a SWEAT while curling back in those days! It's such a great sport! They called it "chess on ice" a few times in the English coverage I've seen. It IS a real strategic game too. That's the part of it I'm worst at. I'd say that, like Marge Simpson, my strength is my sweeping, or brushing. I played mostly lead in my brief high school/university foray into the sport so I also throw up a mean guard. But I can't claim to be any good. Still and all, it's a sport that I really miss. I think it would be VERY popular in Korea too. I wish it would catch on. I wonder why it's not popular around the world. I have a few theories.
Could it be, like women's tennis, that the screaming and yelling turn people off? There are some good-looking women in curling, (the Japanese team I watched yesterday has a couple of REAL hotties), but when they start screaming "HURRY HAAAARD!" it's not too attractive. But then we're not supposed to be watching women's sports for the babes anyway are we? Ha ha, yeah right! I actually think I liked the cute way the Japanese team called their shots. "Ceu leeen! Ceu leeen! Niceu syot" But they are the exception. There are some real howlers and catterwhallers in the sport that admittedly don't do much for its image.
Could it be that because it's a really long game and it seems to the untrained eye like very little is going on, people are reluctant to watch? It's possible. You don't see a lot of triple take-outs or spectacular shots in a game. There is no body contact or fighting. (although there's no such thing as a curler who doesn't drink and if they showed the pub after the games I bet there'd be some contact sports going on).
Or maybe it's just not getting enough exposure. People tend to like what's put in front of them even though we no longer have to get off the couch to change the TV channel any more. Well, as I've said so many times before, thank God for the Simpsons! The most recent episode of the Simpsons was about Marge and Homer going to Vancouver to play in the mixed curling there. Marge was the star sweeper and Homer was the star drinker. Which is important! It was pretty obvious the writers and animators didn't really know a lot about curling but the attempt was valiant. For example all the stones were the same colour and people were picking them up like they were filled with air. Also there was a Zamboni on the ice at one point. But I liked it.
Anyway, I sure hope I can catch more of the curling. From what I've seen, or heard, so far it's been really good. I had to settle for the US/Japan game the other day because I couldn't find the Canadian game. But I could tell how Canada was doing by the cheers I heard. I hope I don't have to do that again this morning. Speaking of which I better go see if I can find some.
Go Canada Go!
I'm now surfing the web trying to find a good place to watch the Canadian women's curling team go up against the Japanese. I watched the Japanese team yesterday. Because they played the Americans. It's pretty easy to find online streams of American curling. But thanks to our lame, Canada-only coverage on CTV/TSN/CBC it's pretty hard to get the Canadian stuff. They have live streams for all the people in the world who don't need them: Canadians.
I think I'm gonna have trouble finding this stream. It's gonna start at 2 so I have time to search around but it may end up being like yesterday when I watched CTV coverage of Canada vs Germany in men's curling pirated by a dude in Russia and voiced over in Russian. And of course before the end of the game they switched over to the Russia/Latvia hockey game.Luckily the game was no longer in doubt.
I'm truly loving the globalism of the internet! I watched the entire men's snowboard cross in Italian. And by the way it was awesome! I still can't figure out how our boy Robertson didn't get the gold. It was like a sudden gust of wind blew the American guy past him right at the end. Great silver though!
But before I could grieve for too long, outta nowhere Maelle Ricker jumps to gold in the women's snowboard cross. I'd have to say that this is my favourite winter olympic sport to watch besides hockey and curling. And it's so nice that Canadians are GOOD at it! That beautiful pic at the top is of her. It's a photogenic sport though isn't it? I love the shots of the four people going over the jump at the end with the Olympic rings in the background! It's just too bad I can't seem to move pictures around on my blog any more or I'd be able to put them at the appropriate places rather than all at the beginning. But like many things involving electronics, my blog is getting harder and harder to work with as it gets more and more "advanced".
But I won't complain about that. This entry was gonna be about curling. I am very happy that our men's and ladies teams, (pictured WAY above), the Martin and Bernard rinks respectively, have gone undefeated so far. I've watched some pretty good shot making from them. I would not be surprised to see them sweep the golds in curling. It'd be great to see!
It's too bad so few people like curling. I've been a fan since my high school days in Ignace, Ontario where I first slipped on a slider and grabbed a broom. And it WAS a broom back then, not a brush or one of those Swiffer-looking things they're using now. I was actually sweeping and making noise and working up a SWEAT while curling back in those days! It's such a great sport! They called it "chess on ice" a few times in the English coverage I've seen. It IS a real strategic game too. That's the part of it I'm worst at. I'd say that, like Marge Simpson, my strength is my sweeping, or brushing. I played mostly lead in my brief high school/university foray into the sport so I also throw up a mean guard. But I can't claim to be any good. Still and all, it's a sport that I really miss. I think it would be VERY popular in Korea too. I wish it would catch on. I wonder why it's not popular around the world. I have a few theories.
Could it be, like women's tennis, that the screaming and yelling turn people off? There are some good-looking women in curling, (the Japanese team I watched yesterday has a couple of REAL hotties), but when they start screaming "HURRY HAAAARD!" it's not too attractive. But then we're not supposed to be watching women's sports for the babes anyway are we? Ha ha, yeah right! I actually think I liked the cute way the Japanese team called their shots. "Ceu leeen! Ceu leeen! Niceu syot" But they are the exception. There are some real howlers and catterwhallers in the sport that admittedly don't do much for its image.
Could it be that because it's a really long game and it seems to the untrained eye like very little is going on, people are reluctant to watch? It's possible. You don't see a lot of triple take-outs or spectacular shots in a game. There is no body contact or fighting. (although there's no such thing as a curler who doesn't drink and if they showed the pub after the games I bet there'd be some contact sports going on).
Or maybe it's just not getting enough exposure. People tend to like what's put in front of them even though we no longer have to get off the couch to change the TV channel any more. Well, as I've said so many times before, thank God for the Simpsons! The most recent episode of the Simpsons was about Marge and Homer going to Vancouver to play in the mixed curling there. Marge was the star sweeper and Homer was the star drinker. Which is important! It was pretty obvious the writers and animators didn't really know a lot about curling but the attempt was valiant. For example all the stones were the same colour and people were picking them up like they were filled with air. Also there was a Zamboni on the ice at one point. But I liked it.
Anyway, I sure hope I can catch more of the curling. From what I've seen, or heard, so far it's been really good. I had to settle for the US/Japan game the other day because I couldn't find the Canadian game. But I could tell how Canada was doing by the cheers I heard. I hope I don't have to do that again this morning. Speaking of which I better go see if I can find some.
Go Canada Go!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Olympic$
As promised on my facebook updates, I fixed my computer and now I am all ready to sit in my room and watch Olympics in any way I can. I am checking all the live feeds and they're very disappointing but exactly what I expected. Canada's main Olympic coverage is done by CTV and, (as expected), it's not available outside of Canada. I've said this before but WHY BOTHER if it's not available outside Canada?! It's gotta have something to do with money. INSIDE Canada you don't need a computer or even CABLE to get CTV. STREETpeople in Canada are watching Olympic coverage on their TV's in alleyways for the love of GOD! Well actually right now the only place in Canada warm enough, (and without snow), so you could live on the street would BE Vancouver so the homeless are probably all going to the events live. Unless it's hockey. They'd have to collect bottles and cans for a lifetime to buy the CHEAPEST hockey ticket. I heard from a friend in Vancouver that you can pay 30,000 dollars for a hockey ticket there. 30 THOUSAND dollars! And if it happens to be Canada and Russia or Canada and U.S. in the final who knows how high the prices could go? It's obscene if you ask me. The Olympics is supposed to be amateur sports. This is what happens when you let the pros play. Damned exciting, but obscene. I don't like to see the evil of filthy lucre perverting and corrupting something as pure as sport. It sickens me. But I'm kinda used to it.
I went to the site available to Koreans to watch coverage in Korea, SBS. Of course, (as expected), you need a password. You need a password for everything in Korea. TWO! At the camp I just finished I had a list of about 10 passwords I needed to get into places or computers. And the only way you're gonna get a password on SBS is if you live in Korea and know a Korean who can navigate their way through the password process, which is hard even for a Korean. Also, SBS is available in Korea without a computer and I think without cable. So why bother? Gotta be some money involved! But I'm not too concerned. It'd be short track, short track and more short track with brief glimpses of figure skating and maybe ski jumping. Not my favourites to watch.
So how can I watch hockey games? I was able to catch the third period of the Canada/Slovakia game in women's hockey today because my brother in the U.S. told me, (chatting on facebook), he was watching it. That's the only way I could tell if it was on. The problem is times. I go to the official Olympic site and times are listed there but I'm not sure if they're Vancouver time or the time most things are listed in, Eastern Standard Time. It doesn't matter because no Canadian sites have live streaming video anyway. That I've found. So I go to the sites like JustinTV. There times are listed in Eastern Standard Time. I think. Cuz most people streaming there are from the States. I think. Or I could go to MyP2P. But I think most of the people streaming on THAT site are from the U.K. I think! It's frustrating so far.
But it's okay as long as I don't miss any of the men's hockey and I have a list of the times for those games already. No worries there.
I haven't noticed any demonstration sports yet. Doesn't the host country get to do a demonstration sport? Something popular in their country? I have an idea for Canada. And it comes from watching MANY MANY years of Canadian disappointment at the Olympics. I think we should introduce a new thing at the Vancouver Olympics but it's not a sport, it's a fourth place medal. Like maybe tin or aluminum or something Canadian like beaver pelt, moose antler, Saskatchewan sealskin, or how bout wood? The wood medal goes to Canada! We have had medal hopefuls every year, sometimes favoured to win gold, even HEAVY favourites, who came in fourth place. I think we'd be way up there in the medal count if we could introduce a wood medal. Should we call it a wood medal or a wooden medal? Too confusing, let's just hang a pancake around the fourth place finishers' necks. How much more Canadian could you get?
I guess so far the story of the Olympics has been a tragic one. That luger from Georgia named Nodar Somethingorother took a grisley spill didn't he? And I admit to looking it up on youtube and watching voyeuristically. I only watched once and felt a bit guilty about it. But it was very interesting to see the reactions of people from around the globe. I'm not talking about the fact that it's now the number one hit on youtube and other sites like it, I'm talking about the comments I read about it. I read "R.I.P. from France", "R.I.P. from Sweden", "R.I.P. from Canada" among them. That's nice isn't it? People from all over the world expressing their deep sorrow at the passing of an athlete. Well not deep enough to write the words "Rest In Peace" in full, but pretty deep. And I'm so glad at the girl from Canada taking it upon herself to express my, and millions of other Canadians' views on the tragedy in three letters!
And I heard they changed that part of the track where a lot of people wiped out and where Nodar died. Disappointing autosport enthusiasts and other death sport fans everywhere. Well honestly, it's like the fights at hockey, who looks away when there's a dangerous crash? Luge could have maybe taken a run a hockey for the most watched sport at these Olympics otherwise.
The second biggest story for Canadians will be getting gold. We already have a medal! This is brilliant for Canada! And it's a silver! Way to go Jennifer Heil! Canadians must be ecstatic! They must be chanting her name all over the country. Let's hope it's her FIRST name. Jen - ni - FER, Jen - ni - FER! We're all proud of her! But the story remains, no gold for Canada in Montreal and no gold for Canada in Calgary. We got lots of fourth place medals in '76 and '88 I'm sure but no gold in our two previous Olympics in Canada. And we have some good shots at gold in 2010. But as we can read from the link, this is only based on how much money we've been spending on our athletes. MONEY! Again!
But if our women's hockey team, women's and men's curling teams, and speed skaters don't win a gold I'll eat my gotch! We are gonna get some soon. And we have all kinds of other chances in short track, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, and other stuff. Some people think we might even win the medal count this year! It would be nice but I only care if we get ONE gold medal really. And that's in men's ice hockey. Ha ha ha. It sounds so funny saying it that way. I just call it HOCKEY and so does the rest of Canada. This will be the best thing to ever happen to Canada. Yeah sure there were a few nice political things like becoming a nation, getting our own constitution, joining NATO and silly little things like that but pppbbbttthhhhbbbtttt! Peanuts compared to this!
But men's hockey doesn't start till Feb. 16th. Feb. 17th here! I gotta wait three more days! It's gonna be rough. But for now I'll try to watch other stuff online to tide me over till the hockey starts.
GO CANADA GO!
I went to the site available to Koreans to watch coverage in Korea, SBS. Of course, (as expected), you need a password. You need a password for everything in Korea. TWO! At the camp I just finished I had a list of about 10 passwords I needed to get into places or computers. And the only way you're gonna get a password on SBS is if you live in Korea and know a Korean who can navigate their way through the password process, which is hard even for a Korean. Also, SBS is available in Korea without a computer and I think without cable. So why bother? Gotta be some money involved! But I'm not too concerned. It'd be short track, short track and more short track with brief glimpses of figure skating and maybe ski jumping. Not my favourites to watch.
So how can I watch hockey games? I was able to catch the third period of the Canada/Slovakia game in women's hockey today because my brother in the U.S. told me, (chatting on facebook), he was watching it. That's the only way I could tell if it was on. The problem is times. I go to the official Olympic site and times are listed there but I'm not sure if they're Vancouver time or the time most things are listed in, Eastern Standard Time. It doesn't matter because no Canadian sites have live streaming video anyway. That I've found. So I go to the sites like JustinTV. There times are listed in Eastern Standard Time. I think. Cuz most people streaming there are from the States. I think. Or I could go to MyP2P. But I think most of the people streaming on THAT site are from the U.K. I think! It's frustrating so far.
But it's okay as long as I don't miss any of the men's hockey and I have a list of the times for those games already. No worries there.
I haven't noticed any demonstration sports yet. Doesn't the host country get to do a demonstration sport? Something popular in their country? I have an idea for Canada. And it comes from watching MANY MANY years of Canadian disappointment at the Olympics. I think we should introduce a new thing at the Vancouver Olympics but it's not a sport, it's a fourth place medal. Like maybe tin or aluminum or something Canadian like beaver pelt, moose antler, Saskatchewan sealskin, or how bout wood? The wood medal goes to Canada! We have had medal hopefuls every year, sometimes favoured to win gold, even HEAVY favourites, who came in fourth place. I think we'd be way up there in the medal count if we could introduce a wood medal. Should we call it a wood medal or a wooden medal? Too confusing, let's just hang a pancake around the fourth place finishers' necks. How much more Canadian could you get?
I guess so far the story of the Olympics has been a tragic one. That luger from Georgia named Nodar Somethingorother took a grisley spill didn't he? And I admit to looking it up on youtube and watching voyeuristically. I only watched once and felt a bit guilty about it. But it was very interesting to see the reactions of people from around the globe. I'm not talking about the fact that it's now the number one hit on youtube and other sites like it, I'm talking about the comments I read about it. I read "R.I.P. from France", "R.I.P. from Sweden", "R.I.P. from Canada" among them. That's nice isn't it? People from all over the world expressing their deep sorrow at the passing of an athlete. Well not deep enough to write the words "Rest In Peace" in full, but pretty deep. And I'm so glad at the girl from Canada taking it upon herself to express my, and millions of other Canadians' views on the tragedy in three letters!
And I heard they changed that part of the track where a lot of people wiped out and where Nodar died. Disappointing autosport enthusiasts and other death sport fans everywhere. Well honestly, it's like the fights at hockey, who looks away when there's a dangerous crash? Luge could have maybe taken a run a hockey for the most watched sport at these Olympics otherwise.
The second biggest story for Canadians will be getting gold. We already have a medal! This is brilliant for Canada! And it's a silver! Way to go Jennifer Heil! Canadians must be ecstatic! They must be chanting her name all over the country. Let's hope it's her FIRST name. Jen - ni - FER, Jen - ni - FER! We're all proud of her! But the story remains, no gold for Canada in Montreal and no gold for Canada in Calgary. We got lots of fourth place medals in '76 and '88 I'm sure but no gold in our two previous Olympics in Canada. And we have some good shots at gold in 2010. But as we can read from the link, this is only based on how much money we've been spending on our athletes. MONEY! Again!
But if our women's hockey team, women's and men's curling teams, and speed skaters don't win a gold I'll eat my gotch! We are gonna get some soon. And we have all kinds of other chances in short track, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, and other stuff. Some people think we might even win the medal count this year! It would be nice but I only care if we get ONE gold medal really. And that's in men's ice hockey. Ha ha ha. It sounds so funny saying it that way. I just call it HOCKEY and so does the rest of Canada. This will be the best thing to ever happen to Canada. Yeah sure there were a few nice political things like becoming a nation, getting our own constitution, joining NATO and silly little things like that but pppbbbttthhhhbbbtttt! Peanuts compared to this!
But men's hockey doesn't start till Feb. 16th. Feb. 17th here! I gotta wait three more days! It's gonna be rough. But for now I'll try to watch other stuff online to tide me over till the hockey starts.
GO CANADA GO!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
If you put bamboo shoots under John Yoo's fingernails, would he cry like a Bybee?
I recently watched the news. To me the news is the Daily Show with John Stewart. He had John Yoo on the show. John Yoo is a law professor at Berkeley. He also is infamous as the co-author of a little memo called the "Bybee Torture Memo" by some. It's a memo that tries to define the limits of interrogation techniques that are allowable by the U.S. military in overseas combat. It was written shortly after 9/11 and it has been pretty contraversial. One of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques that has been up for discussion is "waterboarding" in which a person is tied to a board with his/her head tilted back and water is poured over his/her face so that it goes into the nose and the victim feels the sensation of drowning.
Yoo admits in the John Stewart interview that he was approached to write it a year after 9/11 and shortly after the capture of a very high ranking, (#3), Al Qaeda terrorist who was resistant to standard interrogation techniques.
John Stewart suggests that he was asked to increase the limits of what is legal to do in an interrogation and Yoo claims he was asked to simply define what was legal to do. I wish John Stewart had pursued this more because it seems to me, after reading up, that Stewart was right and Yoo was stretching the truth a bit. For example, if I have a gun in my hand and there's a pitbull attatched to my leg who is gnawing his way up to my crotch and I ask a lawyer who is passing by, "Hey, dude, can you define what it is legal for me to do in this situation?" I'm really not asking for parameters and the lawyer knows it. I'm asking if it would be legal for me to shoot the dog.
This is something like the line of questioning I wanted J.S. to take. He didn't. He seemed thrown by Yoo's calm demeanor and his sparkling rhetoric.
A little background that will give you an idea of why I wish J.S. had slam dunked this guy. And this is to the best of my knowledge. I'm going by my own internet research so it might be wrong. The Bybee memo was co-written by Yoo and a judge named Bybee. It was an attempt to give the U.S. military a wider range of interrogation techniques by using simplistic and flawed logic to justify these acts under existing laws as "allowable" and burying the flawed logic so deep in legal jargon that it wouldn't be noticed by the general public. If you read it closely it IS permission to torture. At least that's what I get out of it.
The existing laws that govern the limits of interrogation techniques are referred to as Sections 2340 and 2340A. Yoo and Bybee conclude in the memo that taken as a whole these sections prohibit only "extreme" acts declining to require criminal penalties for cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. These are all okay.
They reason that "extreme" acts result in "severe pain" whether mental or physical and they go ahead and use their own misguided, (and I think intentionally misleading), methods to better define what these mean legally. They decide that they need to look elsewhere in the U.S. Code to see where Congress had previously used the phrase, "severe pain." They found it in statutes defining emergency medical conditions. An emergency medical condition is one "manifesting itself by acute symptoms of blah blah blah including 'severe pain' such that a prudent lay person, who possesses an average knowledge of health and medicine could reasonably expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in placing the health of the individual in serious jeaopardy, serious impairment to bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part." So severe pain is an indicator of a medical emergency.
Nothing wrong so far.
Then they make their giant leap. "The statutes suggest that 'severe pain' as used in section 2340, must rise to a similarly high level in order to constitute torture."
To me this is either a stupid mistake or purposely flawed logic. And we can see from the Daily Show interview, John Yoo is no dummy.
Let's simplify this in case you haven't noticed the logic leap. Imagine these jokers were writing a medical manual on what to do in case of a brain aneurism. A headache is one indicator of a brain aneurism so by their logic every patient with a headache should be operated on to get their brain aneurisms removed.
Medical emergencies and torture both involve severe pain but they are completely different things. That is pretty obvious. So it needed to be written in legalese that nobody would bore themselves to read in order to make it less obvious while accomplishing the objective of legalizing torture.
If you think this is wrong, take the guidelines proposed by this memo and apply a technique commonly agreed upon as torture to them: putting bamboo shoots under the fingernails. This will not put the victim's health in serious jeopardy, it won't impair any bodily functions, (unless you include typing or piano playing as bodily functions), and it will not result in a serious dysfunction of a body organ or part. So it's cool! Same with waterboarding. Same with a LOT of other things that are only limited by the torturers' imaginations.
It's too bad John Stewart concentrated so much on the President's ability to just do whatever he wants anyway in war time. This is something I agree with Yoo on. If there's a guy who has the knowledge to disarm a doomsday device that will kill a billion people waterboard the shit out of him! I don't care! 1 bad guy compared to a billion innocent people is a no-brainer of an executive decision. But as for torture, I think everyone, including guys the Americans call terrorists, deserve humane treatment.
Throughout the interview, and I watched the entire interview, I sympathised with J.S. Yoo, (who is Korean American), is VERY much like a lot of the people I deal with over here. They have their dishonest objectives and even though I totally noticed their not-so-clever ways of trying to hide them, they talk in circles to the point where the stress of trying to explain your point to them far outweighs the suffering created by the dishonest objective. I can't tell you how often I've felt like soaking my head in ice water after meeting with the supervisor here trying to explain how they are supposed to do things that they promise to do in the contract, or other such things. Now Jon Stewart knows what it'd be like to work in Korea.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
The holiday virus
JONG! JONG! JONG JONG JONG! ... JONG JONG! Jong. That's the JONG! sound I got when I JONG JONG got back from JONG JONG JONG JONG vacation and started up my computer. It's the error sound. I got a barage of about 15 of them. Only one error message came up though. It was a RUNDLL, Error loading fimp.elo The specific module could not be found.
Of course I have no idea what that might mean so I ran it through google and it turns out I have a virus. I also checked all running programs and found "userini" was using up a lot of my computer memory. Ran THAT through the old google search too and THAT'S a virus.
Used to be when I caught a virus it meant I was sick. And I've always been one to catch them during the holidays. Nowadays I get computer viruses and they ALWAYS seem to pop up when I get BACK from holidays. It's happened almost every time I've traveled around SE Asia. I used to wonder if somebody was sneaking into my room and contaminating my computer but just how sick a person would that have to be? But my computer is fine when I leave and messed up when I get back. Even NHL Gamecenter Live, which I had bought wasn't working. The video was grainy and jerky. How does that happen?
Anyways, I started doing everything I knew how to do to try to fix things up cuz I wanted to have a smooth running computer for the NFL playoffs this weekend. I watch the games on streaming TV. If my computer isn't working the games are all herky-jerky and they're not worth watching.
So I scanned disks. I defragged. I downloaded the programs the experts on google mentioned that would get rid of these viruses. I got SuperAntiSpyware and ran a full scan. 3 hours later it finished. Then I had to restart to kill all the bugs. So I rebooted and sure enough the same warning came up. But this time with only one JONG. PROGRESS!
Then I went to Microsoft and downloaded the anti spyware program MADE for Windows XP and ran that. 4 hours later it finished. Same thing - I had to reboot to get rid of all the bad stuff. So I did. There was no more warning! Yeehaw! I'm a genius! I am a computer EXPERT! Thank you Bill Gates!
Then I decided to go online and see how the video streams were working. But I couldn't get on the internet. For some reason I had lost my internet connection. I tried to repair my internet connection, then manually install my IP address again and neither worked. So I had to do a system restore.
I did that and wouldn't you know it... JONG JONG JONGJONG JONG! Jong JONG JONGJONG! So I started all over. After doing all the other stuff again I found ANOTHER program from Microsoft that does a scan for viruses. Specifically designed for Windows XP. That took another 3 hours. Then I had to reboot.
JONG JONG JONGJONGJONG! etc. Another system restore.
I got my computer working so that video streams are good now. But I still get that warning when I start up. And a few weird things are happening. I'm still not rid of the viruses. But I watched the football games this morning. The Jets beat the Bengals and Dallas whooped the Eagles.
Tomorrow morning at 3 AM the other two wildcard games are on. I'm gonna try to watch them both. Go Cards go! And I'm not sure who I want to win between the Patriots and the Ravens. I have a feeling New England will win though.
Anyway after all that I really need to figure out how to fix this computator of mine. Anyone have any hints for me?
Of course I have no idea what that might mean so I ran it through google and it turns out I have a virus. I also checked all running programs and found "userini" was using up a lot of my computer memory. Ran THAT through the old google search too and THAT'S a virus.
Used to be when I caught a virus it meant I was sick. And I've always been one to catch them during the holidays. Nowadays I get computer viruses and they ALWAYS seem to pop up when I get BACK from holidays. It's happened almost every time I've traveled around SE Asia. I used to wonder if somebody was sneaking into my room and contaminating my computer but just how sick a person would that have to be? But my computer is fine when I leave and messed up when I get back. Even NHL Gamecenter Live, which I had bought wasn't working. The video was grainy and jerky. How does that happen?
Anyways, I started doing everything I knew how to do to try to fix things up cuz I wanted to have a smooth running computer for the NFL playoffs this weekend. I watch the games on streaming TV. If my computer isn't working the games are all herky-jerky and they're not worth watching.
So I scanned disks. I defragged. I downloaded the programs the experts on google mentioned that would get rid of these viruses. I got SuperAntiSpyware and ran a full scan. 3 hours later it finished. Then I had to restart to kill all the bugs. So I rebooted and sure enough the same warning came up. But this time with only one JONG. PROGRESS!
Then I went to Microsoft and downloaded the anti spyware program MADE for Windows XP and ran that. 4 hours later it finished. Same thing - I had to reboot to get rid of all the bad stuff. So I did. There was no more warning! Yeehaw! I'm a genius! I am a computer EXPERT! Thank you Bill Gates!
Then I decided to go online and see how the video streams were working. But I couldn't get on the internet. For some reason I had lost my internet connection. I tried to repair my internet connection, then manually install my IP address again and neither worked. So I had to do a system restore.
I did that and wouldn't you know it... JONG JONG JONGJONG JONG! Jong JONG JONGJONG! So I started all over. After doing all the other stuff again I found ANOTHER program from Microsoft that does a scan for viruses. Specifically designed for Windows XP. That took another 3 hours. Then I had to reboot.
JONG JONG JONGJONGJONG! etc. Another system restore.
I got my computer working so that video streams are good now. But I still get that warning when I start up. And a few weird things are happening. I'm still not rid of the viruses. But I watched the football games this morning. The Jets beat the Bengals and Dallas whooped the Eagles.
Tomorrow morning at 3 AM the other two wildcard games are on. I'm gonna try to watch them both. Go Cards go! And I'm not sure who I want to win between the Patriots and the Ravens. I have a feeling New England will win though.
Anyway after all that I really need to figure out how to fix this computator of mine. Anyone have any hints for me?
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Congratulations to the U.S. but wait till the Olympics
Well as expected the Canada/U.S. game today at the World Jr. Hockey Championships in Saskatchewan was great! I was on the edge of my seat the whole game and out of it at the end of the 3rd period. The Canadian boys have no reason to hang their heads. They had a good tournament. They were outplayed in the last two games. The Americans deserved the win. I thought the Canadians were lucky to get the win in the game before and they would have been very lucky if they had won this one. U.S. earned the gold medals.
Now I'm not one to say, "I told you so," but... Okay, yes, I am one. So I'm now gonna. If you read my blog entry about the Canadian Olympic team you will see where I mentioned two things that I am noticing this year and that are changing hockey for those teams who pick up on them. One is the fact that the big, booming shot from the point is fast becoming a thing of the past because of all the players dropping in front of pucks. Shot blockers are better, and more to the point, faster than slap shot takers. The wind up gives shot blockers plenty of time to drop down and get in the way. I said that the wrist shot from the point is better for 3 reasons: 1. It's tougher for shot blockers to drop in front of because it takes virtually no time to get the shot away. 2. It's easier for teammates of the wrist shooter to tip the puck into the net because the speed is just a bit slower. 3. It's still just as hard for a goalie to stop a deflected wrist shot because the reduction in speed makes a direct shot easier to stop, but not a deflected one. Unless we're talking about a really BIG difference in speed, which we're not.
We saw this all game long. It was the story of the game really. Team Canada all tournament long had been taking wrist shots from the point and tipping them in with regularity. Probably because of adrenalyn, this game they were going more for the big wind-up slap shots and the U.S. team were blocking them with regularity.
The second thing I mentioned in that blog entry was how dangerous a right handed shot on the left wing can be. Take a look at the last three goals of the game. The 5-4 goal and the 5-5 goal by Jordan Eberle, (a right hander one-timing a shot from the left wing), had me jumping up and down here! I'm sure all over Canada it was the same. Then in O.T. if I'm not mistaken the game winning goal for the States was scored by a right handed shooter coming down the left wing.
I'm telling you, it will be NO different in the Olympics. These things will STILL be MAJOR goal generators and the teams that miss out might be going home. It's too early to tell who will be linemates for the Olympic teams so there's no way to know who will have the dangerous right handed left wingers but I'd be willing to bet, especially on the power play, the Fins will take advantage of this by putting Teemu Selanne on the left side getting set up by his teammate Saku Koivu.
Canada has the possibility of setting this up. They got Bergeron on the team because of his phenomenal chemistry with Crosby at '04 World Jrs and '06 World Championships. I think Gerome Iginla will play on a line with those two so either Iginla or Bergeron will be a right handed shot on the left side. Also Getzlaf and Nash have shown great chemistry at past world championships. If they make up a line with Perry, who is magic with Getzlaf for the Ducks, he'll probably go on the left wing and being a right handed shot - DEADLY!
The Czechs will have Krejci, Hejduk or Hemsky they could put on the left wing shooting right.
The U.S. has Langenbrunner, Callahan, Drury, and Pavelski who could play this role. A lot of people were wondering at these choices for the U.S. team. Maybe this is why.
The Swedes just might throw Daniel Alfredsson there.
But I think the team that will most take advantage of this phenomenon, and it could win the gold for them, will be the Russians. The number one player on their team and the number one goal scorer in hockey, Ovechkin, a right handed shot who plays left wing. A lot of folks think Alex Semin would be just as good if he didn't play on the same team as OV. Can't have two first line left wingers. And many people will tell you the best pure goal scorer isn't either one of them, it's Kovalchuk, who is a right handed shot on the left wing playing in Atlanta. That's three lines with a deadly left winger who shoots right. But almost as deadly is a right winger who shoots left. They have Radulov and Morozov. And with guys like Datsyuk, Malkin, Fedorov and Kozlov at center watch out for a LOT of one timer goals from the Russians.
However, don't give up yet. I'm not sure the one-timer to the off-handed winger is quite as effective as the wrist shot from the point being tipped in. And EVERY team has an even chance of getting a lot of goals THAT way.
So it'll probably still come down to depth, goaltending, special teams, and basic things like face-offs, shot blocks, chemistry, not taking penalties, and even penalty shooting. And there's always those elusive "intangibles"... For almost all of these I give the nod to our Canadian boys. Here's why...
The U.S., Finland, Russia and maybe the Swedes have a better number one goalie statistically with Miller, Kiprusoff, Bryzgaloff and Lundqvist but we have Marty Brodeur playing at home! Could be better than all of them. Or we could even have Luongo playing in his home country AND home NHL city. You never know how much that could help.
For depth NObody comes close to Canada. It's always that way. Canada's second team is as good or better than the other teams. Canada could quite possibly win the gold if every single one of their first team players gets injured between now and Olympic time. And there ARE a lot of players on every roster who will be injured. This could be a large factor. This benefits Canada who have far superior second choices for every position. It's not likely any other country's second team would even win a game.
Chemistry is something I put a lot of stock in. You need to play the game to know that no matter how good a guy is, sometimes he clicks better with players who aren't the best players for that position. The best example will be Bergeron with Crosby. If anyone had seen these guys play together Bergeron would be a no-brainer of a pick. I'm embarrassed that I forgot about him when I picked MY Team Canada.
Same thing happened with Nash/Getzlaf/Heatley in the World Championships. I think it would be crazy to put this line together since we have the power play for the San Jose Sharks in Thornton/Marleau/Heatley and I think Getzlaf/Nash/Perry would be just as good. But we'll see.
Canada also has defensive chemistry, which just might be MORE important. They have Keith and Seabrook who play together in Chicago. And they have Neidermayer and Pronger were nominated for the Norris trophy while on the Ducks together! That's some powerful chemistry!
When you look at special teams you have to give the power play to the Russians. Theirs should be the best, NO question about it. But I don't think other teams will be far behind especially when you get into the second line of the power play. I would have to give second place to Sweden. Daniel/Henrik/Forsberg then Zetterberg/Holmstrom/Backstrom or maybe throw Alfresson out there? He'd be awesome with the twins! But Canada will be third at worst.
When it comes to penalty killing Canada will be number one. If I were to pick a perfect penalty killing line I think I might pick Kris Draper, Jordan Staal and maybe Tyler Kennedy, Darren Helm or Matt Cooke. But I only think ONE of those guys has the skills to be picked for the Canadian team. Coincidentally, his brother is on the almost perfect HIGHLY SKILLED penalty killer line for team Canada, which includes Brenden Morrow, Eric Staal and Mike Richards. This is a coach's wet dream of a checking line and it's even better for killing penalties. They will be rock solid on D and they will score short handed. Mark my words! This is why these guys were picked by Yzerman and his crew. These guys will make other teams wish they can wave off penalties called against Canada. That's if they're used in this role and I can't imagine they wouldn't be.
Penalty shooting is why we have Jonathan Teows. He hasn't played well enough this year to get on the team but a penalty shot could win an Olympic hockey game. As much of a travesty as some people think that is, you have to prepare for it. Teows is the best. Anywhere. Bar none. And he DOES have the skills to make the team.
One more thing to watch for on team Canada. I've been noticing Scott Neidermayer this year looks like he's at the end of his career. He's not making mistakes defensively but he's nowhere near the threat he used to be offensively. I've watched a TON of L.A. King games this year. In fact I've seen them play more than any other team. Drew Doughty belongs on this team and he will take over more and more of Neidermayer's minutes as the Olympics wear on. At least he should in my opinion. He is just a kid but he has plenty of international experience and he knows almost all of the guys on this team. I was very happy to see him picked.
So here's what I expect to happen at the Olympics. And, of course, this all depends on injuries.
Team Canada - Gold medal at home! Fans go crazy! Canada wins not one but 23 gold medals in Canada after getting shut out at Montreal and Calgary.
U.S. - Best defensive team in the tourney. They'll be REALLY hard to score on. But just can't put it all together. All their players will perform well but Parise, Kane, Brown, Kessel, Malone, Pavelski, Stastny, Ryan will be too young and will make too many small mistakes. They only have three guys with Olympic experience: Rafalski, Langenbrunner and Drury. Parise, Kane and Brown should finish near the top in scoring but the U.S. will finish out of the medals. At least I hope they will because I hate defensive hockey and I REALLY hate seeing offensive stars playing it. These guys won't be able to let their stars out. I fear that's what this team will be. Offensive guys being forced to play D. The U.S.'ll have to be satisfied with beating Canada at the World Jrs.
Russia - I always expect so much from Russia because they usually have the best offensive team in the tournament but then the players look like they're on vacation in the games and get knocked out early. Not this year??? They TURNED DOWN Yashin and Kovalev for this team. Not to mention Zherdev and Khabibulin. They're deep and when you look at their best players, they ARE the best players. Why they won't easily win the gold is because of the little things. I think Canada just plain has more heart. But Russia will give them a run for the gold. I think they'll have to settle for silver though. Can't wait to see Sergei Fedorov again!
Sweden - Any team that can refuse Franzen, Samuelsson and Hedman must be pretty good. They'll be great to watch but they'll wish they had picked Hedman for some extra offense from the D and to add some youth to an old bunch of guys. Not to say slow. They'll be skated around a lot and Lundqvist will be expected to stop a LOT of rubber. He can but I don't think he'll be good enough. I think they'll score a lot of goals but they'll have a lot of goals scored on them. In one of the shockers of the tournament they'll be beaten by the Czechs in round robin but will get revenge in the bronze medal match. It will be AWESOME to see Peter Forsberg play again!
Finland - A solid team. Just not spectacular. Kiprusoff will have to win the tourney MVP if they have any chance at a medal.
Czech Republic - The surprise of the tourney. If they had chosen Kotalik and Prospal for their team I think they might even have won a bronze. I will be REALLY interested to see Jagr play again. Is he a porked up floater or does he still have that Lemieux-like dominance. If he does, (which I highly doubt), Czechs will contend for a medal. They have a lot of guys that are, (or were), great NHLers but little known like Vasicek, Krejci, Fleischman, Michalek, Hejda, Erat, Plekanic, Polak, Cajanek and some who are well known like Jagr, Kaberle, Elias and Havlat. But I just don't think that'll be enough to beat the well established stars on the Swedish, Russian or Canadian teams.
So there you have it: Canada beat Russia for gold and Sweden beats the Czechs for bronze.
And I just hope Canada lays a beating on the U.S. for breaking our string of 5 World Junior Championships in a row. How dare they!
Now I'm not one to say, "I told you so," but... Okay, yes, I am one. So I'm now gonna. If you read my blog entry about the Canadian Olympic team you will see where I mentioned two things that I am noticing this year and that are changing hockey for those teams who pick up on them. One is the fact that the big, booming shot from the point is fast becoming a thing of the past because of all the players dropping in front of pucks. Shot blockers are better, and more to the point, faster than slap shot takers. The wind up gives shot blockers plenty of time to drop down and get in the way. I said that the wrist shot from the point is better for 3 reasons: 1. It's tougher for shot blockers to drop in front of because it takes virtually no time to get the shot away. 2. It's easier for teammates of the wrist shooter to tip the puck into the net because the speed is just a bit slower. 3. It's still just as hard for a goalie to stop a deflected wrist shot because the reduction in speed makes a direct shot easier to stop, but not a deflected one. Unless we're talking about a really BIG difference in speed, which we're not.
We saw this all game long. It was the story of the game really. Team Canada all tournament long had been taking wrist shots from the point and tipping them in with regularity. Probably because of adrenalyn, this game they were going more for the big wind-up slap shots and the U.S. team were blocking them with regularity.
The second thing I mentioned in that blog entry was how dangerous a right handed shot on the left wing can be. Take a look at the last three goals of the game. The 5-4 goal and the 5-5 goal by Jordan Eberle, (a right hander one-timing a shot from the left wing), had me jumping up and down here! I'm sure all over Canada it was the same. Then in O.T. if I'm not mistaken the game winning goal for the States was scored by a right handed shooter coming down the left wing.
I'm telling you, it will be NO different in the Olympics. These things will STILL be MAJOR goal generators and the teams that miss out might be going home. It's too early to tell who will be linemates for the Olympic teams so there's no way to know who will have the dangerous right handed left wingers but I'd be willing to bet, especially on the power play, the Fins will take advantage of this by putting Teemu Selanne on the left side getting set up by his teammate Saku Koivu.
Canada has the possibility of setting this up. They got Bergeron on the team because of his phenomenal chemistry with Crosby at '04 World Jrs and '06 World Championships. I think Gerome Iginla will play on a line with those two so either Iginla or Bergeron will be a right handed shot on the left side. Also Getzlaf and Nash have shown great chemistry at past world championships. If they make up a line with Perry, who is magic with Getzlaf for the Ducks, he'll probably go on the left wing and being a right handed shot - DEADLY!
The Czechs will have Krejci, Hejduk or Hemsky they could put on the left wing shooting right.
The U.S. has Langenbrunner, Callahan, Drury, and Pavelski who could play this role. A lot of people were wondering at these choices for the U.S. team. Maybe this is why.
The Swedes just might throw Daniel Alfredsson there.
But I think the team that will most take advantage of this phenomenon, and it could win the gold for them, will be the Russians. The number one player on their team and the number one goal scorer in hockey, Ovechkin, a right handed shot who plays left wing. A lot of folks think Alex Semin would be just as good if he didn't play on the same team as OV. Can't have two first line left wingers. And many people will tell you the best pure goal scorer isn't either one of them, it's Kovalchuk, who is a right handed shot on the left wing playing in Atlanta. That's three lines with a deadly left winger who shoots right. But almost as deadly is a right winger who shoots left. They have Radulov and Morozov. And with guys like Datsyuk, Malkin, Fedorov and Kozlov at center watch out for a LOT of one timer goals from the Russians.
However, don't give up yet. I'm not sure the one-timer to the off-handed winger is quite as effective as the wrist shot from the point being tipped in. And EVERY team has an even chance of getting a lot of goals THAT way.
So it'll probably still come down to depth, goaltending, special teams, and basic things like face-offs, shot blocks, chemistry, not taking penalties, and even penalty shooting. And there's always those elusive "intangibles"... For almost all of these I give the nod to our Canadian boys. Here's why...
The U.S., Finland, Russia and maybe the Swedes have a better number one goalie statistically with Miller, Kiprusoff, Bryzgaloff and Lundqvist but we have Marty Brodeur playing at home! Could be better than all of them. Or we could even have Luongo playing in his home country AND home NHL city. You never know how much that could help.
For depth NObody comes close to Canada. It's always that way. Canada's second team is as good or better than the other teams. Canada could quite possibly win the gold if every single one of their first team players gets injured between now and Olympic time. And there ARE a lot of players on every roster who will be injured. This could be a large factor. This benefits Canada who have far superior second choices for every position. It's not likely any other country's second team would even win a game.
Chemistry is something I put a lot of stock in. You need to play the game to know that no matter how good a guy is, sometimes he clicks better with players who aren't the best players for that position. The best example will be Bergeron with Crosby. If anyone had seen these guys play together Bergeron would be a no-brainer of a pick. I'm embarrassed that I forgot about him when I picked MY Team Canada.
Same thing happened with Nash/Getzlaf/Heatley in the World Championships. I think it would be crazy to put this line together since we have the power play for the San Jose Sharks in Thornton/Marleau/Heatley and I think Getzlaf/Nash/Perry would be just as good. But we'll see.
Canada also has defensive chemistry, which just might be MORE important. They have Keith and Seabrook who play together in Chicago. And they have Neidermayer and Pronger were nominated for the Norris trophy while on the Ducks together! That's some powerful chemistry!
When you look at special teams you have to give the power play to the Russians. Theirs should be the best, NO question about it. But I don't think other teams will be far behind especially when you get into the second line of the power play. I would have to give second place to Sweden. Daniel/Henrik/Forsberg then Zetterberg/Holmstrom/Backstrom or maybe throw Alfresson out there? He'd be awesome with the twins! But Canada will be third at worst.
When it comes to penalty killing Canada will be number one. If I were to pick a perfect penalty killing line I think I might pick Kris Draper, Jordan Staal and maybe Tyler Kennedy, Darren Helm or Matt Cooke. But I only think ONE of those guys has the skills to be picked for the Canadian team. Coincidentally, his brother is on the almost perfect HIGHLY SKILLED penalty killer line for team Canada, which includes Brenden Morrow, Eric Staal and Mike Richards. This is a coach's wet dream of a checking line and it's even better for killing penalties. They will be rock solid on D and they will score short handed. Mark my words! This is why these guys were picked by Yzerman and his crew. These guys will make other teams wish they can wave off penalties called against Canada. That's if they're used in this role and I can't imagine they wouldn't be.
Penalty shooting is why we have Jonathan Teows. He hasn't played well enough this year to get on the team but a penalty shot could win an Olympic hockey game. As much of a travesty as some people think that is, you have to prepare for it. Teows is the best. Anywhere. Bar none. And he DOES have the skills to make the team.
One more thing to watch for on team Canada. I've been noticing Scott Neidermayer this year looks like he's at the end of his career. He's not making mistakes defensively but he's nowhere near the threat he used to be offensively. I've watched a TON of L.A. King games this year. In fact I've seen them play more than any other team. Drew Doughty belongs on this team and he will take over more and more of Neidermayer's minutes as the Olympics wear on. At least he should in my opinion. He is just a kid but he has plenty of international experience and he knows almost all of the guys on this team. I was very happy to see him picked.
So here's what I expect to happen at the Olympics. And, of course, this all depends on injuries.
Team Canada - Gold medal at home! Fans go crazy! Canada wins not one but 23 gold medals in Canada after getting shut out at Montreal and Calgary.
U.S. - Best defensive team in the tourney. They'll be REALLY hard to score on. But just can't put it all together. All their players will perform well but Parise, Kane, Brown, Kessel, Malone, Pavelski, Stastny, Ryan will be too young and will make too many small mistakes. They only have three guys with Olympic experience: Rafalski, Langenbrunner and Drury. Parise, Kane and Brown should finish near the top in scoring but the U.S. will finish out of the medals. At least I hope they will because I hate defensive hockey and I REALLY hate seeing offensive stars playing it. These guys won't be able to let their stars out. I fear that's what this team will be. Offensive guys being forced to play D. The U.S.'ll have to be satisfied with beating Canada at the World Jrs.
Russia - I always expect so much from Russia because they usually have the best offensive team in the tournament but then the players look like they're on vacation in the games and get knocked out early. Not this year??? They TURNED DOWN Yashin and Kovalev for this team. Not to mention Zherdev and Khabibulin. They're deep and when you look at their best players, they ARE the best players. Why they won't easily win the gold is because of the little things. I think Canada just plain has more heart. But Russia will give them a run for the gold. I think they'll have to settle for silver though. Can't wait to see Sergei Fedorov again!
Sweden - Any team that can refuse Franzen, Samuelsson and Hedman must be pretty good. They'll be great to watch but they'll wish they had picked Hedman for some extra offense from the D and to add some youth to an old bunch of guys. Not to say slow. They'll be skated around a lot and Lundqvist will be expected to stop a LOT of rubber. He can but I don't think he'll be good enough. I think they'll score a lot of goals but they'll have a lot of goals scored on them. In one of the shockers of the tournament they'll be beaten by the Czechs in round robin but will get revenge in the bronze medal match. It will be AWESOME to see Peter Forsberg play again!
Finland - A solid team. Just not spectacular. Kiprusoff will have to win the tourney MVP if they have any chance at a medal.
Czech Republic - The surprise of the tourney. If they had chosen Kotalik and Prospal for their team I think they might even have won a bronze. I will be REALLY interested to see Jagr play again. Is he a porked up floater or does he still have that Lemieux-like dominance. If he does, (which I highly doubt), Czechs will contend for a medal. They have a lot of guys that are, (or were), great NHLers but little known like Vasicek, Krejci, Fleischman, Michalek, Hejda, Erat, Plekanic, Polak, Cajanek and some who are well known like Jagr, Kaberle, Elias and Havlat. But I just don't think that'll be enough to beat the well established stars on the Swedish, Russian or Canadian teams.
So there you have it: Canada beat Russia for gold and Sweden beats the Czechs for bronze.
And I just hope Canada lays a beating on the U.S. for breaking our string of 5 World Junior Championships in a row. How dare they!
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