Part II

I see "my type" all the time. Over-educated, under-employed twenties hanging around in coffee shops, or lounging in bookstores, listening to music on oversized headphones with a tattered copy of The Stranger, or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, jammed into their back pockets. My type - not wanting to take meaningless desk jobs so we take meaningless crap jobs while we wait for the big break, the bolt of lightning, the epiphany on the road to Damascus. We want to change the world but don't know how, so we simply whinge and complain about how shite everything is. (N.B. Turn ordinary words into British slang by adding an "e").

So I've spent my time sitting in coffee bars looking at the people and wanting to go up and ask them, "You look like normal, well-adjusted people...how do you do it? Is something wrong with you?" But even I wouldn't know what I meant by that. I say, I want to help the autistic children. And he says, How about sweeping out their classroom. Isn't that helping them?" And I say, "That's not helping big enough."

The problem, you see, is sizing.

Song of the moment: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips

The Simple Living Guide tells me that when looking for employment I need only consider two things: 1) Decide on something you love to do and get paid for it; 2) Live below my means. This will not only lead to a fulfilling, well-adjusted life, but it will also change the lives of those around me. Because when I'm happy, those I associate with will be more inclined to be happy as well.

I understand that taste, as in food, is something you're probably born with, but I really have a problem with people who don't like onions. During a recent trip to an upscale market I listened while a man had all of the ingredients for certain dishes listed out to him. He wasn't allergic to anything; he just didn't like onions. For a few of the dishes he would start to get excited ("Mushrooms, good, green peppers, excellent, cilantro, very nice") until the server would inevitably say onions and his face would fall. He asked them if there was anything without onions in it and they pointed to the macaroni and cheese. I wanted to suggest he eat a lot of bread. I have similar feelings towards people who hate garlic. I know they are not choosing to dislike garlic. Allegedly.

Part I

Recently I have reached an impasse in my life. For the last three years I have been a substitute teacher in Vancouver and Richmond, and I have hated every single minute of it. I've spent those years trying to come up with all kinds of reasons for why I hate teaching so much--it's the system; the current economic climate is no good; all other teachers are morons--but I've come up with a much more reasonable answer. I simply don't like it. I don't like classrooms and I don't like planning and I don't like writing tests and I really don't like marking them. I don't like textbooks and I don't really like Shakespeare, which is a bit of a handicap if you're planning on teaching high school English.

Unfortunately I have no alternate occupations in mind. Part of me wants to be a writer, but who doesn't these days? Thanks in no small part to Oprah, every middle class yabbo is writing the psuedo-autobiographical account of why his or her family is messed up and why we should care. Two autobiographies "written" by wrestlers spent weeks on the bestseller lists. There's so much writing out there that even if you spent the rest of your life polishing off a book a week you wouldn't even make a dent into your local library. And by that time more than that number of books would have been added.

So where is a literary minded person to go? I'm giving thought right now to journalism school, but the job prospects there are about as rosy as education. I could get a masters and try teaching at a college, but then it's teaching again. I could shave my head and join the Raelians. I could work at the GAP again (everyone is always so happy there). I've also been giving a lot of thought to moving to Hong Kong, if for no other reason then to encourage change. Hell, the world is an impermanent mess anyway.