REACTIVEradio

3 days to Christmas. 3 days to that blissful day where every CEO on the planet does that half dance-half dollar signs in the eyes thing. 3 days until nearly every child on the planet wakes up their parents about 8 seconds after midnight, exclaiming that it’s now Christmas and that presents are awaiting them; calling out their names so loud that they penetrate the subconscious and wake them from their drug-induced slumber from the night before.

I’m going to step out on a limb here for a second and risk ostracization (is that even a word?) from my whole family, and probably many other families out there too. I understand the meaning behind Christmas, and that’s to do something nice for someone else. The question I posit is this: if you are expected to do something by someone else, when you do it, are you being nice, or are you simply submitting to their will? What do I mean by that? Well, if little Timmy keeps saying he needs this really cool G.I. Joe, when you finally break down and give into his demands (and let’s face it, kids today don’t ask, they demand), are you promoting the idea of Christmas, or are you promoting the idea that whining, complaining, and generally being an annoying little piece of dirt will still ultimately end in receiving a reward?

Unfortunately, that’s what Christmas has degenerated into: a parent’s excuse to buy their kids enough toys to keep them occupied long enough that they can go have a break, or a coffee, or a shot of heroin; whatever it is that parents do nowadays. But if you step back for a second and re-read that, is that really parenting? I was really lucky when it came to my family, my direct parents weren’t necessarily always there, but there was always someone that was active in my life. End result: I turned out to be a relatively normal human being. I’m no saint and am definitely not deluding myself into thinking I may have been one at any point in this or even in a previous life, but I’d like to think that I turned out alright.

Then we look at some of these kids who have grown up with a silver spoon in their mouths and a silver thermometer lodged firmly in their asses. They grow up with such thorough disdain for any kind of authority that you can walk up the street of any suburban community and audibly hear 8 and 9 year olds complaining that they should be independant enough to choose their own bedtimes. Kids 13 and 14 years old can be heard screaming “FUCK YOU [MOM/DAD/GRAMMA/MAILMAN]” as they slam the door behind them and set out on their epic journey to their best friend’s house for the night. Of course the crying 8 and 9 year olds can be heard just as clearly, crying loudly enough that most colicy infants on the street immediately become jealous, which is inevitably silenced moments later when (and I’m just guessing here) the parents give in to the child, and remove any credibility they may have once held.

I mean, I can’t understand why parents do this. If you’re going to say no 5 times, and say yes the 6th, just say yes the first time; all you’re doing is starting a fight, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being in fights. Just remove those first 5 no’s and skip to the yes, because that just means less arguing between the two of you involved, and less whining from the child which I know for a fact pisses even the most calm parent off. Put another way, if you’re going to lose the backbone eventually, skip the messiness and just skip to the child getting what they want yet again, avoiding the ensuing fight altogether. You may not care, but when I’m at the mall, the last thing I want to hear is some petulant child whining about how they just have to have and blah blah blah. If you’re going to be a terrible parent, just skip the part where I have to hear your child scream; it’s annoying as hell, and I shouldn’t have to listen to it.

However, if you want instill any kind of respect in your child: just say no. Let me repeat that again in case you were too busy typing out an e-mail flaming me for being a non-parent trying to give parenting advice: just say no. And one more time for those in the back who might not have heard me: JUST SAY NO. And I didn’t say “Say no the first <#> of times and then give in.” Say no. And then say no again. Then say it again. Hell make a song of it if you want. I don’t care if you put on a tutu and shout it from the rooftops. Sing no until the word yes doesn’t exist in your child’s vocabulary. The second you give in, your child has won, and will continue to exploit it for the rest of their lives. I mean, if they start a job and ask for a raise, do you think that if they pester their manager for long enough without improvement, that their manager is just going to give in and give the annoying little piece of garbage a raise? Absolutely not. You might as well prepare them for the perpetual disappointment of requests that we adults like to call “work.”

Now, enough ranting. If people can’t figure out what I’m trying to say by now, they’re long lost anyways. Let’s get to a cheerier subject, like Christmas in Bermuda – I cannot wait. 22 above (or so says www.weather.bm), champagne, and a whole lot of beach. Yes friends, you heard me right, I will be on the beach on Christmas. Starting Christmas Eve around 7, people will begin to make their way over to Sea Scene (our house; no we didn’t pick the name, it has to do with the fact that Bermuda didn’t even have street names until 10 years ago and all houses and buildings just had names) where we will have a huge barbecue (cost of extra tank and propane last night: ninety-six freakin’ dollars), followed by enough drinking to put a serious dent in the world’s alcohol supply, and then sleep. Once we wake up from our alcohol-induced comas, we will peel ourselves off whatever surface happened to catch us on our gravity fall the night previous, we shall orally insert 5 or more high-strength tylenols and wash them down with a bottle of water or two, and make our way over to Elbow Beach where nearly every ex-patriate (and a lot of patriates too) will be drinking themselves stupid again, and opening Christmas cards and the odd gift.

Oh yeah, and we’ll be swimming. No, the water isn’t actually warm enough to swim in, but do you really think that’s going to stop an island full of Canadians who are going to be near-dancing for joy at the fact that there will be not a flake of snow, a shovel or toboggan in sight? Of course not. Plus the fact that we’ll probably be drunk from the night before might have something to do with it, but I’m not a scientist. I’m not paid enough to know these kinds of things.

Finally, I would like to send Christmas wishes to my family, my friends, and hell, everyone who has happened across this blog at one time or other. You know that as much as I gloat about how great Bermuda is, I miss each and every one of you so much it hurts sometimes. I know that this is one of those life experiences that I need to do, but don’t think for a second that I don’t think about every single one of you every single day. Thank you for reading, have a great Christmas, an even better New Year, and I hope to see you all (and more) in 2007.

Merry Christmas

Happy Hanukkah

Happy Kwanzaa

and Happy New Year!

Well, for the first time since I got here, I can honestly say I had a really busy weekend. It’s not like we haven’t had stuff to do or that we haven’t done those same things, but it always felt like we were sitting around doing nothing for at least part of it. Not this weekend.

Friday was like any other workday: we got home and sat on the futon and watched a couple of movies and other random things to keep us from falling asleep at 8pm. We threw the idea of going out back and forth between the three of us, but in the end we all made the decision to just stay home thanks to the long weeks we’d all had.

Saturday morning, however, found us all awake around 8 or 9am. If you know me, you’d know that on weekends, seeing me up before the crack of noon (without assistance) is damn near unheard of. Even more so for Hazen. Yet here we were, bright and early Saturday morning, sun is shining, and for a change, we’re all awake to enjoy it.

We all decided to make it to Saturday brunch around 12:30 at Bistro 12, along with 5 other work guys and their girlfriends. We eat and talk about everything non-work related in an attempt to preserve any semblance of sanity from the previous week. Of course if you put 6 geeks in a single confined area, the topic of conversation will naturally flow back to computers, which meant that we all found ourselves quite upset, quite quickly, and realized that we needed to get our minds off anything with a keyboard for a while. We hummed and hawed over what to do. Finally we walked down to The Little Theater (yes, that’s its name) to check if there were any tickets to the new 007 movie left. There were. We payed.

I promise to only digress just a teeny bit here. Going into 007: Casino Royale, I was a little nervous about Daniel Craig as Bond. Not that he isn’t an amazing actor (you really should see Layer Cake if you want to see him at his best), but in my head, I’ve always had a picture of the dark haired, slick-as-an-oil-spill, debonair Bond. From the moment I heard that Craig had signed on, I was a bit apprehensive for a few reasons.

1. He’s blond. No, hair color shouldn’t matter, but blond (to me) just screams beach-volleyball-playing, surfer dude; not sophisticated special agent.

2. He’s never been in a role on the “good side” before. In movies like Layer Cake, Munich, and even Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, he’s always been on the wrong side of the law, and he definitely fit the bill. He was rough, scruffy, and was able to get the job done, even it meant using brute force. Becoming James Bond would require a transformation to a much more refined role; one that would require less brute strength and more cunning.

After seeing the movie, I found myself not only relieved of any misconceptions I might have had previously, but also wanting more. Craig was amazing as the latest double-oh-seven, and I cannot wait for the next one (which has already entered the production phaze).

Being that Casino Royale was about Bond becoming 007, the first scene didn’t begin with the trademark gun barrel and flowing blood. The movie begins and we find out that James has only had one kill in his entire SAS career. Within minutes, he has number 2, but I’ll leave that to the viewer to determine who dies and how. The fact that he doesn’t begin as a double-oh also explains the lack of Q and his nifty gadgets that always seem to save him just in the nick of time. A lot of people I’ve spoke to about the movie weren’t aware that this was the “prequel” to James Bond and as such were disappointed by the lack of traditional bits from the Bond universe, but believe me, it’s well worth it.

You see Bond (and perhaps since it was his first Bond movie, Craig himself) put between a rock and a hard place many a time, being forced to prove himself without any magic lasers or exploding gum, flying cars or voice replicators; he simply has his body, his trademark Walther PPK pistol, and a lot of ego.

I definitely recommend it to anyone who has ever had an interest in Bond films. It definitely brought the franchise back down to Earth (at least as far as Bond movies go) with some real emotion, and some great acting.

Now back to the weekend. Saturday night, Monbill (one of our co-workers) was having a Thanksgiving dinner, being that he’s from Boston. Instead of the usual turkey, he had turducken. Now for those of you out there who are lucky enough to never have tried or heard of turducken, let me explain what you are absolutely not missing. Turducken is quite simply duck, stuffed in a chicken, stuffed in a turkey. *barf* I’m pretty sure that starving children in Africa would turn down turducken just from the smell alone.

After the turducken was cleaned up, deserts were served which ranged from pumpkin pie, to ice cream, to all kinds of things really. We sat around for just a bit longer, before Georgina (a.k.a. “G”) showed up with her……wait for it…….ACCORDIAN.

“I’m sorry, what now?” Don’t feel weird if these were the first words out of your mouth. They were mine too. Thanks to the fact that 95% of ACT is made up of east coasters, singing drinking songs like Home For A Rest (by Spirit of the West) and Liquor and Whores (by Bubbles of Trailer Park Boys fame) is apparently the hidden national treasure that Bermuda was waiting to unleash upon the world and—No, wait. No they’re not. Not even a little bit. Getting 15 east coasters to drink their asses off while singing drinking songs is something like watching a drunk baby with a bucket on their head; for the first little while it’s entertaining, but sooner or later they just start going in circles, and break everything within arms distance.

Now I’m sure at least for a second, you wondered why I picked “Home For A Rest” and “Liquor and Whores” as examples of the names of the songs that they played. The problem was that those were the only two songs sung all night. Now I can hear you now: “2 songs? Justin, that’s not so bad, you’re over-reacting.” Yes I would be over-reacting if they’d only played each song once. Or twice. Or nineteen times. But no, I was subjected to accordion renditions of those two songs back-to-back-to-back-to-back (ad nauseum) from 8:45pm until somewhere around 3am. No stoppages in play, no smoke breaks, just six hours and fifteen minutes of the same two songs over and over and over. It was like the universe was burnt on a scratched CD, and was stuck on repeat. I really used to like “Home For A Rest”, honestly I did, but I swear to Ayesha that if I ever hear it again, the DJ will very promptly and very swiftly receive a crowbar to his face.

We woke up yesterday (Sunday) morning around 10am, angry that the sun had risen and poked its way through our eyelids. Cursing the stupid gravity that keeps our planet in orbit with the sun, Matt and I slowly started to get ourselves mobile (Hazen was called into work even earlier to deal with some massive system fault, like a screensaver not working or something equally as stupid) and went outside to surf the internet in the sun. After an hour or so of that, we decided that we would clean the house as it hadn’t really had a good one since we moved in. Out came the broom and cleaning supplies and we got to work. An hour and a half later, the house looked genuinely clean for the first time since we moved in, which prompted us to reward ourselves with an afternoon at the beach.

We got to Horseshoe Bay around 1:30pm after a good 35-40 minute scooter ride (it’s on the other side of the island; about 25km from our house) and laid on the beach while we waited for the usual weekend crew to show up and play beach volleyball. After waiting for a half hour or so and no one familiar walking by, we realized that our bodies were starting to get a bit crispy so we ran into the water and made the best of the 5 and 6 foot waves by body surfing them.

Body surfing (for those of you who have never had the chance to try it) is actually incredibly fun, but takes a lot of practice. You stand facing the shore, but watch behind you for a decent sized wave. When it gets to about 10 feet behind you, you start paddling toward the beach as fast as you can, and then straighten out and go stiff as a board when your feet almost reach the crest of the wave. It’s really hard to time, but if you can do it properly, you can ride a wave 100ft or more.

We body surfed for a couple hours and after realizing that our arms had maybe become a tad over-worked, we left Horseshoe and took the scenic route through the city and made the impromptu decision to stop at the Aquarium at Flatts Village. Unbeknown to us, the aquarium is also connected to the Bermuda Zoo. So for 10 bucks, we were able to see a ton of fish, and the cutest monkey of all: the golden lion tamarin (click here for image). They are maybe a foot tall, bright orange, and the cutest little faces. Matt and I are actually going to see about getting one as a pet because it would A) be freakin’ cool, and B) possibly be able to fetch us beers. It’s a double whammy. :)

After our bodies were sufficiently worn out from body surfing, we made our Jello-armed way back home where we proceeded to veg out long enough to find ourselves all very hungry. Rather than cook actual food, we decided we’d take Matt out for dinner to The Swizzle on the last night on the island before leaving for the real world this morning (Monday). The lucky SOB apparently wasn’t hot enough, because as of this morning, he’ll be spending a week in sunny Miami, Florida for some HP training.

And that brings us to today. Sore and sick of newfie songs, I sit here in my work chair hoping that no one asks me to do anything today because for the first time since I arrived here a month ago, I really just want to go home.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: I ended the previous sentence with "I really just want to go home." For those who didn't catch it, it was a play on words, being that previous to the go home sentiment, I explained that I had arrived here a month ago, which would hopefully instill in the reader that the two were related. They are not. When I say that I just want to go home, I mean in the sense that I would like to ride the 10km back to my house so I could go back to sleep and possibly regain some feeling in my arms. That is all.]

Well, for the first time since I’ve been down here, it rained the entire time I rode to work. Now with Bermuda rain, it’s quite different than rain I’ve experienced anywhere else. You see, the droplets seem to have some sort of supergravity within themselves which allows them to contain the same amount of water but exist in a smaller, more compressed space. What does this mean for the casual scooter driver? Well it means that at any given second, it feels like your being stung in the face by 100 bees.

The rain down here is also incredibly consistent. What I mean by that is that when you’re outside, you’re either being dumped on or you’re completely dry; “drizzle” or “light mist” don’t exist here. Thanks to the constant dump of water soaking everything in it’s path, the casual scooter rider mentioned above must do everything within his or her power to cover as much of their body in nylon- and plastic-covered materials as possible, to prevent from becoming one with nature (and by that I mean: drenched). This includes (from the top down) a helmet, sunglasses/goggles, a waterproof jacket (think of a really expensive snowboarding jacket, minus the ultra-thick lining) with hood on underneath the helmet, and matching rainproof pants. You essentially look like a plastic mummy making your daily commute to go reign terror on unsuspecting victims.

I want to take this moment to apologize for not writing much last week. Some time around Tuesday or Wednesday, I had something of an epiphany and realized that the life goals (or expectations) I had set for myself 10 or 12 years ago were not the same goals that I have now. I can vividly remember being in grade 5 and teaching Mr. Harper’s computer class, and not only teaching, but designing a web page (in notepad, none of this WYSIWYG crap like Dreamweaver) between instructions. Being a systems engineer or a network administrator was all I ever wanted to be, but somehow in the past 10 years, I’ve gone from loving computers to absolutely despising them.

I guess I should have seen this coming, and looking back, it’s pretty obvious to see that I’m just another burnout that the IT industry has used, abused and kicked to the curb, and my mental status is a very obvious reflection of that. I’ve become even more cynical than I used to be, I’ve gone to work with a pretty big chip on my shoulder, and I hate it; this is not what I wanted to grow up to be. Or if I pictured myself growing up to be this cynical, I would have pictured it being later in my life; like maybe 25.

I mean, the sheer fact that I’m not even 25 and I’ve already been burnt out from one industry really scares me. I know that IT has a huge burnout rate in and of itself, but I still worry about what could happen if I just pick another industry and end up “burning out” from that too. I know I’m still young and have a lot of idealism still stuck in me, so I really do want to experience what else is out there, but at the same time, I’ve had it stuck in my head from certain family members that doing something “crazy” like trying a completely new career path would be a waste of my “meal ticket”.

I obviously believe them (to certain a degree) because I know IT, I know how it works, I know how it runs, and I’ve made some great choices in terms of career opportunities, but I still have this part of me that wants to get the hell out of IT once and for all. Or maybe not “once and for all”, maybe just “once”. Since I started in IT, that’s all I’ve done. That’s not necessarily a problem, but I haven’t had the chance to experience what else is out there. Maybe I’d be happier as a beancounter. Or maybe I’d be happier as a factory worker. Who knows. What I do know, is that sometime in the next year or so, I’m going to start working towards getting out of IT.

How will I accomplish such an incredibly difficult task, considering that university is too expensive and that any job I might even find even remotely satisfying will almost require a degree of higher education? I know it sounds cliche, but I’d like to go to China and teach English. Those of you who really know me know that I do like teaching people new things, plus you probably heard about my possible move to be a junior high math and science teacher a year or so ago.  I think this would be a great move for myself personally, because I’d be able to use my (hopefully decent) teaching skills plus I’d be able to go to a country like China and experience a completely different culture.

I’ve been researching this teaching thing for about a week now, and while I obviously haven’t made any firm decisions on anything yet, I’ve definitely been looking into what would be required if I did decide to make one later.  One of things that is considered a benefit (but not required) is TESL Certification which stands for Teaching English as a Second Language.  There are accredited courses online which cost around $400-800 for a 40 hour program which will get you TESL certified, which is pretty darn good.  (I found these prices by using a site which is something like an Online Better Business Bureau, so I would assume these places are at least somewhat reputable).

On top of the TESL certification, I’ve downloaded two different computer courses that teach you how to speak Mandarin.  I have enough material that if I start before Christmas, I could be at least semi-fluent by Christmas of next year.  The courses are the Pimsleur Mandarin I, II, and III, plus the Rosetta Stone English-to-Mandarin class.

I know it probably sounds ludicrous that someone like me who has basically been given his career path to him on a silver platter would make the conscious decision to throw it all away, even if it’s only temporarily, just to “see what’s out there”.  To be totally honest, it’s a combination of being an IT burnout plus realizing that I haven’t experienced ANYTHING professionally outside of IT, and I feel so sheltered.  It would give me the opportunity to see the world, and would also allow me to come back (if I didn’t like it) with relatively little damage to my career path.  I know it’s easier to get a job when you’ve already got one, but it’s not 100% impossible, and if a prospective employer asks, I will be honest with them: I took some time off to explore other opportunities before I made a firm commitment to any particular industry.

Anyways, I should be getting back to work.  有一个早晨好!