Far East

Moving On Up

            Taking to different digs, at least in the short term. Over and Out.

Scamoriffic

           Wow.  50% polled support impeachment, according to Ipsos.  Whoda thunk it?  And that number has nowhere to go but up.  Maybe after impeachment CNN will report that it happened.  One can dream.

Buying A Clue

            Divorced from the reality based community.  Stockholm Syndrome.  Enabling.  Or, as Woody Allen once said: 'Sex without love is an empty experience.  But, as far as empty experiences go, it's one of the best'.
(Crossing fingers that typepad will post this. Grrr.)

Buying A Clue

      Opting out of the reality-based community.  Stockholm Syndrome.  Enabling.  Reading way too much between the lines, but not the lines themselves.  Or, as Woody Allen said: "Sex without love is an empty experience.  But, as far as empty experiences go, it's one of the best". 

Sparrowgeddon

            Don't know if Taiwan will fare better in the coming Avian flu epidemic (I'd like to think so, esp. in light of how they handled SARS), but it looks like it's going to be really bad.  Like Black Plague bad.  At least there are no huge caches of handguns and other firearms here; I'd hate to be in Florida when this hits.  While using the military may be a good idea in the US, it seems a bit short-sighted as soldiers are in the prime risk age group to get hit, and may only serve as a further spread vector.  Hard to know what to think.

Wunderbar

            Fantastic.  Just got an email from some company saying that someone had tried to access their site via my IP address;  I thought WTF! and went over to my ISP's homepage, where I learned that someone has been hacking their database!  They had a written advisory to immediately change my password (which I did); seems using a Mac is only so safe, depending on whether or not it's connected to secure computers/competent ISP engineers.  Absolutely wunderbar.

TGFI

            Thank gob for the internets.  Otherwise I wouldn't know about the terra attacks (to come, according to CNN) on the NYC subway system.  Oh wait, that's not the internets.  That's the media.  The ones that haven't told me about the indictments of the most powerful congressional leader--something that might be considered newsworthy.  Never mind.

Rule Of Law 90, Torture 9

            Reading an AP article that described this vote as a "setback for the White House".  WTF?  Making torture illegal (again) is something not in the WH's interests?  Good to see the Senate show some spine.  At last.

Longwang

            Ok, no jokes.  Yes, that's really the name.  And naturally it's a super-typhoon.

Forewarned

            With the faltering economy of the past couple of years, many language (cram) schools have taken it upon themselves to become agents of their employees, farming them out to various kindies, junior high, and high schools.  They get a permanent 30% cut of our pay, just for introducing the work to us.  Sweet gig if you can get it.
            Some of these farm destinations go through foreign teachers like goose sh*t through a sieve.  They figure that if they're paying good money (they're not, btw) they can order us lowly drones around like dogs. Very few teachers enjoy working in those kind of conditions, so there is a very high turnover rate at some of these farmed-out locations.
            This is not to say that all the farm sites are nightmares; some of the schools are pleasant to work at, with ample support staff and teaching aids available.  Typically foreign teachers at such schools will stay many years before moving on.  Such schools are run primarily as educational institutions, with the primary emphasis put on students' needs.
            The worst of the lot, however, are run on much the same lines as cram schools, i.e., it's all about da bling, or milking the unsuspecting students for as much cash as they can, for as long as they can, while offering low quality teaching in return.  They key goal is to keep the students happy, and the parents off the administration's back.  Actual learning takes a very distant backseat.  Think nosebleed bleacher seats at the Astrodome.
            If anything upsets this delicate balance (the cash flying into their coffers), like for example the teachers truly trying to educate the students and not keeping them in a state of hypnotised bliss, then the admin hacks go into full CYA mode, anxious to protect their cash cow.  That their primary responsibility is to give the best possible education to the students never enters their minds; it's always about the cash flow.
            And of course who is more expendable then the hapless foreign teachers who aren't clued into this whole cynical manipulation of the parents and students, teachers who foolishly complain when students don't receive textbooks until months into the new term, teachers who demand class participation and measured improvement in their charges.  Thus the cascade of new teachers as the old ones shuffle out of the door.  No fuss, no muss, unless you're one of those unsuspecting fools.