Bleeding out our Reflections

So, it’s crunch time. I’m getting more focused. It’s becoming clearer and clearer what I need to do in this place. Soon there’ll be a list showing you what I’m up to. The lotus is coming out of the muddy mire, and all is coelescing speedily.

if i am to beome the kind of individual i want in society it has become clear that i must shed parts of myself i’m not currently aware of. I learn the same old lessons over and over again. And its humility, again and again, that I’m shocked to meet face to face again. The cause for redundancy behind my current writing, for some reason, must now be felt.

I spent some time a few days ago reading my old writings (luckily saved on this blog), and found a truer more maybe in-touch person writing advice for my future self. In many ways, it was a time when I was “in my element” and unhindered by circumstances that would challenge me in ways I didn’t want to be challenged. And thus, my writing, at that time, enters and exits with freedom. There is a completeness to every sentence I wrote because it was not only fully comprehended but also deeply thought through, and, more often than not came at moments of inspiration from the deep recesses of my mind.

Now, not only are the circumstances different but I’ve made some crucial choices to change myself; in some ways, just to see what I could become and what my potentials are. And maybe this fortunate/unfortunate journey has taken me to look into my bad habits, rather than my potentialities. The fact of the matter is that I’m a bad teacher, and that simple fact tears me to shreds. Because there is something going wrong here. Or I’m doing the right thing in the wrong way, or the wrong thing in the right way, or the wrong thing in the wrong way. Who knows!? And I’m not looking for counsel, my style is to hide inside of a cocoon until I’m ready to burst out again, a butterfly. The quest, now, is how to construct that small room of a cocoon, and what to equip it with. In this cave I am to make a harsh study of myself, my goals, my tendencies, my habits, my insights….have them all scrutinized under microscope.  Hold them tight, deconstruct them, milk them, etc.

But before this is all to be done, I’ve got to take it upon myself to look closely at the criticisms that have come as a barrage in my direction. My students don’t like my teaching style, or at least, find it strange. Although they like me, and ask me questions, although, maybe since I’m a Viet Kieu and not a foreigner and not a Vietnamese, it’s quite strange for everyone involved, and maybe most of all myself, because before coming here, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about being Viet Kieu or not. 98% of my friend’s are white/black/persian/mexican people.

And then there’s the thought that maybe my style just ain’t suited for education in general. I mean, my professor Raoul, was, as Tully and I always joked, the underdog at our University. Because his goals and methods in education were already quite unorthodox for our tidy American University. If this was my mentor, close friend, and teacher, how can I be expected to suit the Vietnamese system, which is of a class all its own? (Formality in appearance but not in the bureaucracy, and paperwork, Hard-core testing almost to the point of pointlessness, Lack of self-study,  So much work to the point of memory loss and incompetence, among others)  But how can i blame this institution? As far as teaching goes, it all comes down to me and how I do it. But you know, I learned from Raoul, to share and to just be with someone has a more rippling effect than the knowledge that one transfers. Some of my students get that. And they learn a lot from me outside of my class…but to be honest, I don’t know. I’ll look back on this writing and think I was a bit naive.

I feel I must comment on the Dalai Lama, China, Tibet fiasco.

If you wwere to ask me to sign some petition, or join some kind of club that supports His Holiness. I wouldn’t sign, nor offer my support. I think all the people who though, ought to read and try out practicing what the Dalai Lama has to say. If all the people wwho “supported” His Holiness, just cracked open a book by him that concerned practice, and really scratched their heads, thinking about its significance in their lives, I think that would be more helpful to the world than supporting Tibetan nationalism.

But then again, I have no idea what I’m talking about, and have only skimmed articles about the whole affair.

I can’t explain the loneliness that one feels when everyone around you doesn’t understand you.

I’m struggling here. For American know-how and empathy.Vietnam is tearing me to shreds! I talked to my friend Lillian about this, and how Viet Nam breaks you. Well, I’m being broken. And I’ve got to reform myself in a fashion that makes more sense here and that is more useful. I’m spent and I need more power. I’m quitting everything that is slowing me down, and doing reconstructive surgery on my theory, practice, behavior and essence. BAM!

One of my students gave me a word of advice: the more you give of yourself, the less of you will be there. And the way she said it didn’t come out like the way you hear most of the time in this hoidy-toidy “spiritually” bleeding heart way, but rather in this really gritty visceral way. Like I was taking a spoon and carving out my guts drip by drip. And I was like…eroding. WOW.

I love strategy, I always have. One thing I miss about having a microsoft windows machine is that there are just less strategy games. I mean, there’s a lot of great free strategy software out there, but it’s not the same. Anyways, the thing about playing chess is that you need to keep aware of all the pieces at the same time, so that you can be ready for what your opponent’s moves will be, in case anything happens. You have to make your defensive moves your offensive moves and you have to make your offensive moves your defensive ones. You have to keep everything in check. You have to watch for your opponent’s intentions and you have to hide your intentions. You have to progress where the ground is easy for you to move on and you have to be careful when the ground is bad.You need to know and think about at least five moves ahead (Ideally, 100 moves ahead, and if you were a God, or a Kung Fu Master, you’d have seen every move possible before it was made). This means you see all the possible good moves that you and your opponent will make, and then move accordingly. This kind of thinking is perfect for getting things done here in this bureaucracy.

The past two months have been a big chess game for me, and Thursday culminated in a checkmate that I engineered from beginning to end. The teachers at the English Department here had decided to take over ESC because, for some reason, they thought the quality was bad. I disagreed and proposed other ideas, but they didn’t really listen (only to a few of my ideas, but not the main point)…so, in line with my main over-arching plan (which is a bigger chess game, which I’ve only won a small battle of) I engineered a few measures that subverted the entire process of what they were trying to do, which ultimately worked out in the favor of the students. Consolidating more power with the students, and unfortunately, me as overseer/guide. But the truth is, if it’s in the hands of the students and a few of the teachers as guides, than things will move faster.

I’m not sure what the future will hold for this situation. I’m still playing the game. I’m a politician! haha. No, maybe it’s just that I udnerstand people well enough to use them to meet the ends that I think they need, (or maybe selfishly, the ends that I want to see).