Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I am going to make my first attempt at giving English lessons tomorrow. The first group are like 7 and 8, the second group up to about 12, I think. I’m a bit nervous about it.
I’ve participated in Zoom discussions before, but this will be my first time hosting one.
I’ve taught English for over 20 years, but always face to face.
I’ve got a couple of activities planned, but “The Best Laid Lesson Plans of Mice and Men aft gang aglay” as the famous poet said.
And, I’m not really very good with tech stuff and it would be very embarrassing to get showed up by a 7 year old.
Still, we did a test run tonight, everything functions, and, in between the doubts and the possibility of it being sort of a disaster, there is the possibility that it will work fantastically well.
Holding my thumbs, as they say in Czech. Fingers crossed.

This little nugget of wisdom appeared on my Facebook page this morning and made my day, shared from someone who I’m almost certain their real name is not ‘bogleech’ but, anyway, a big Thank You to Christi Brooks for sharing it and here it is: “The neurodivergent experience is thinking you’re sharing fun, interesting or helpful information in a normal, human, conversational fashion while they think you’re an asshole looking down at them like they’re stupid and also that no matter how many times you have this experience you always think you’re doing it the right way this time.”
That sounded profound and right on to me, but before dedicating a blog to it I decided to look up the term. Psychologists and psychiatrists actually use neurodivergence more to talk about autism, and Asperger’s, and ADD and stuff like that, but both are true and I like Bogleeches definition better, so I’m focusing on that.
Like so many great thoughts, it’s just plain obvious when you think about it. We are individuals, so it’s obvious that no two of us experience the universe in exactly the same way. If you say you like ‘The Simpsons,’ for instance, we are in rough agreement, although we may have different favorite episodes, different favorite characters, and might have laughed loudest at entirely different moments.
We are individuals, and that’s a good thing. It’s one of our strengths, and we should embrace it. But how, then, can we communicate? Well, imperfectly perhaps, there is always going to be a bit of friction, as there is whenever two surfaces meet.
But, if we take our neural divergences into account, listen to all sides, speak (or type – ‘speak’ at this point is often a verb used metaphorically) politely, and examine evidence as needed, we can move forward into a brighter future together, even if it’s not exactly the same future for all of us.

A bit over a week ago, we decided to expand our television viewing, because we’ve nearly exhausted what we consider worth watching on Netflix. I enjoy Star Trek reruns, but the craving for something new is always there.
So, we signed up for Amazon Prime. I do not recommend it. It might not be so horrible for someone living in the U.S., because a lot of programs I wanted to watch just said ‘Not available in your region,’ but there were a lot of others which required more money. Netflix doesn’t do that shit.
Also, it’s truly badly designed and very hard to look through all that’s available.
I did binge watch one program, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which was good, original, unique, and intelligent, but it cut off in the middle of one episode, and every time I wanted to watch it after that it wanted to start at the same point, so I had to click ‘skip ad’ and ‘next episode’ an increasing number of times the further into the series I got and it got to be quite annoying.
You’d think, with the billions of dollars Jeff Bezos has, he’d be able to come up with something better than this. But, he hasn’t, so we’ll be letting it lapse at the end of the introductory period, and that’s that.

I just read an article on this, well, no, that’s a lie, I just saw the headline and dived right into the fray in the comments column with this poem:

When our primitive, primitive brains

find something they cannot explain

they don’t recoil, or refrain

instead they dive right in

mythology, theology, and lots of wild speculation

are all tools that we’ve employed in our investigations

We’ve had visions, insights, hunches,

and sudden inspirations

our thoughts will go wherever they may

and in their peregrinations

they’ve led us everywhere we’ve been

Our current situation

is one of great anxietyand self-examination

and some look back and think “Religion was an aberration,

perhaps we ate some mushrooms

and just had hallucinations”

I hear these things, it somehow seems to me

a weak attempt at a late apology

Sure, we were wrongand often we’ve been bad

but we did the best we could with what we had

because I’ve heard the theory before and have some thoughts about it but now that I’ve printed it out I realize that’s not a great poem, the tenses are off, the meter is a bit too variable for my tastes and sort of wonky, but whatever.
Of course, hallucinations played a role in the origins of our intelligence. So did those long periods of time with no hallucinogens because, while they appear on every continent except Antarctica, they’re still sort of rare, and seasonal, and back then we were kind of focused on finding food and avoiding predators, and the hallucinogens were probably a fairly rare treat. So did our five senses, our possession of thumbs, our ability to shape a wide variety of sounds with our superior vocal chords, and lots of other things.
“How much?” is a good question to ask. As to “whether” they were an influence, I see no doubt whatsoever. Of course they were.

To tell the truth, on principle, I don’t like the whole idea of ‘conspiracy’ as a criminal charge, because all conspiracy means is that a couple of people, or a few, got together and talked about doing something illegal.
People talk about stuff like that sometimes. “I’m going to kill him/her/my boss/thatsonofabitchwhoowesmemoney, etc…” We hear it all the time. It’s not, perhaps, the coolest thing to say, but most people don’t go to jail for it.
Also, free speech. Sure, a crime is a crime, but if talking about one is, then thinking about one won’t be far behind, and it’s hard to control what you think. And probably a bad idea.
That having been said, I don’t feel particularly sorry for the thirteen endangered white people in Michigan who were arrested for threatening to kidnap, and maybe kill (it was a conspiracy – they talked about lots of stuff) Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
They are all big white supremacist losers who love Trump, and they were already at the bomb testing and drawing up maps part of the exercise. Even if they weren’t sure of all their goals, kidnapping Gretchen Whitmer seemed to be one part of the plan they were particularly keen on.
Why Whitmer? Because she wanted to make them wear masks, that’s why. Not really enough to start a civil war over, is it?
So, despite my philosophical reservations, I hope all of these scumbags spend a good, long time in jail.