I just wanted to write a quick, but sincere, thank you to everyone who read and responded to my last blog. Honestly, I don’t think anything I have written in the last year has garnered as many responses. Your ideas and opinions are invaluable.
On the day I posted the blog and asked for views of it on my Facebook and Instagram pages, I was able to generate a large number of views. In the following days a good number of websites and a few bloggers started following the blog. I even had an offer to collaborate with someone.
Since then, I have taken some time to reflect on my blogging. I was thinking about the number of views I had for the year, but I really should have thought about the number of posts I wrote. By the year’s end, I will most likely have written fifty or sixty fewer posts than last year. Upon reflection, it is no wonder that I had fewer views.
That isn’t the real story. I was concerned about growing my blog when I should be concerned about improving my writing, editing, and engagement with other bloggers. I long ago gave up the idea that I was going to be some kind of influencer who got showered with free trips to exotic lands to review, but I never gave up the idea that this blog should be a place to improve my writing.
Thank You again everyone for your time and wisdom.
I am not sure why the Shawarma has eluded me until today. I am a pretty adventurous eater and I have ventured beyond my shores many times. Somehow, and someway, this delicious morsel has never found its way onto my plate.
If this was a secret to anyone, the post credit scene from the Avengers certainly did away with that. I have to admit it was a cool scene–not worth sitting through endless credits for, but certainly worth fast forwarding to when I inevitably purchased the Blu-ray.
I also cannot claim any kind of difficulty as these restaurants are all over the place. On my commute home from work there must be more than twenty of them. I have just never stopped at any of them.
Needing sustenance, but not desiring to make a big deal out of it, we found ourselves at a placed called Tasty Shawarma. While the name sounds inviting, I am not sure it is memorable or likely to spawn a chain. It was easy enough to spot last week when we were walking through the area, though. I guess that is what made it today’s choice. Knowing conclusively where something is usually means you aren’t going to be driving around in circles, spouting phrases like, “It’s around here someplace.” or “I could have sworn it was in this plaza.” Also, if you happen to be out for a walk on a cold Autumn (though with the snow you would think it was winter) day, you’d like to feel confident that you won’t freeze.
After ordering, I have to admit that it was rather tasty and didn’t leave me so full that I was going to struggle to get home. Luckily for me, my girlfriend ordered the beef when I ordered the chicken. This allowed us to share a few bites and gave me information to order the next time–yes, there will be another time–we go there.
The location was decently decorated and featured quite a few booths to sit in. I have to admit, I really like sitting in a booth rather than chairs. Sadly, the place was rather chilly. I don’t know why, but it seemed colder than it was outdoors. This is definitely something unappealing as we close in on true winter conditions.
So, Today’s Perfect Moment is not merely the Shwarma, but food adventures for everyone.
Is there a food you’ve been meaning to try, but just haven’t gotten around to yet?
A little while ago, I posted a picture my student drew of me. It was a quick sketch, but I think it captured me quite well. I thought she showed quite a bit of talent and other people reacted quite positively towards it. You can view that picture here or on my instagram account–which is called todaysperfectmoment.
Today, she presented me with a new picture. She said that this one included me smiling. I think it is a great picture and I am happy to show it here. The only think I am a little less than happy about is that she omitted my forehead scar. While I haven’t always liked it, it has been part of my life since I was three. I got it when I fell onto the edge of the staircase while chasing my older sister. It required stitches and left a scar that has grown along with me. As I said, I haven’t always liked it, butI have come to accept it and felt that it was missing from the picture. I guess she wanted to show me in the best light possible. I think I would rather she have given me more hair.
Obviously, this qualifies as Today’s Perfect Moment. I think I am going to frame it and then a year or so from now hang it on my wall.
Today’s Perfect Moment might be nothing more than timing. I saw a bird in the subway. Since there are numerous entrances and since the next station south is above ground, that probably isn’t such a big deal.
However, it got me thinking of omens and stories.
One of my favourite songs is Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The band was decimated when several members (Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, and lead singer Ronnie Van Zant) died in a airplane crash. They reformed and got Johnny Van Zant, the younger brother of Ronnie, to be the lead singer. He, initially, refused to sing Freebird and let it be an instrumental. This can be seen in the documentary of their 1987 tour.
I later heard a story that, somewhere, he came across a bird struggling to fly. When he got close the bird had either been tied up or tangled up in some string or something. He released the bird and it flew away, one would assume, joyfully. He took it as a sign that he could start singing Freebird. As far as I know, he has done so to this day.
I had the song in my head the whole way home…so I put my headphones in and listened to it and thought about good omens. I think I will take it as such.
I couldn’t decide which picture I liked better, so I included them both. I would love to hear what the photographically inclined have to say.
Though I could have chosen hitting the snooze button a bunch of extra times, or the extra time I had to enjoy my coffee this morning, I have decided to select something else as Today’s Perfect Moment.
Without further adieu, Today’s Perfect Moment is about accidently finding out about common interests. You see, as I have already explained, for reasons not entirely clear to myself, I have become a fan of US college football. It will never replace my love for the Canadian game, but it is a nice Saturday afternoon distraction. I am a big fan of Notre Dame. I had even considered making the pilgrimage to the stadium to watch a game this year–then I discovered how much the tickets cost. It may have to wait.
After discovering I am not the only one, a co-worker, who I discovered is a fan, has taken to quizzing me on team names. Being as there are a lot of colleges, this is quite the contest. I hung in there in the early rounds, but not as the colleges become less well know, I am losing ground quickly. Who knew that there were so many…..unusual team names there were. It is quite surprising.
I am holding back my Elon College Fighting Christians in reserve. Any help would be appreciated. Feel free to give your team a shout out.
Before I start this post, there ate two things you should know. The first is that I am not a book blogger or book reviewer. I like books but I rarely read reviews. I pick them off the shelf at the library (or occasionally the bookstore discount table) because the title or the author or (gasp) the cover looks good to me. I read the blurb and if it feels good, I take it home and start on it. I like talking about books, but rarely feel compelled to write about them. My blog is not really about books anyway.
The second thing that you need to know about me and books is that I don’t read a lot of non-fiction. It is pretty hard for the real world to compete with the fictional ones. Okay, a grisly murder or an incredible scam probably competes, but rarely can the real world assemble a cast of characters that a good piece of fiction can.
I rarely do book blogs/reviews, but in this case I will make an exception–because I enjoyed the book so much.
The Once-cent Magenta (subtitled Inside the Quest to Own the Most Valuable Stamp in the World) by James Barron is a great tale of how this stamp came to be, who has owned it and how it was sold throughout its history. You wouldn’t think the history of a postage stamp, printed only because the real stamps had been lost at sea, would be an interesting story, but it is. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a Dan Brown page turning thriller, but since the stamp carries such a high price tag, no doubt some interesting people have been interested in owning it. This is the only British stamp not to be part of the Royal stamp collection–since there’s only one of them and it is owned by an American.
I am not a stamp collector, but every time I read a book about stamp collecting, I become interested in it again. This happens when I read the Keller novels of Lawrence Block, which feature the stamp collecting hit-man Keller, and they happened after I read this book.
My coworkers were in disbelief when I told them this book was good. I guess it comes down to the writer James Barron. He is witty without being condescending, which seems harder and harder to do in this era. The jokes don’t come at the expense of the people in this book but rather the whole situation. I admire that about his writing above all else. He is a New York Times reporter, so I am sure he knows a good story when he sees one. He also knows that the story is the centerpiece, not his ego.
What is it about collecting something rare? What is it that makes people want it so bad? In the book, he wrestles with that question. I can’t say you will find an answer, but you will have at least gotten a better look at it than most people.
This book has stirred up an interest in stamp collecting in me. If it lasts, I guess I will be starting a new hobby. Please check out these two posts from my other blog to see what I mean. Hobby Inspiration. Inadvertent Collection.
Today’s Perfect Moment is a moment of taking in some Japanese TV programs. When a lot of people think about Japanese TV, they have the image of whacky game shows where people slip and slide all over. They think of weird stunts and lots of screaming. While these shows certainly do exist, they do not do credit to the other, brilliant shows on Japanese TV.
On Friday, one of my students asked me how well I speak Japanese. I am certainly not fluent, but I have a comfort level with the language. I even have a Kansai accent ,which in true Kansai spirit I take great pride in, when I speak. The student asked me how I practiced.
These days, I really don’t study enough, but thanks to technology, I have lots of Japanese programs at my disposal on the internet. This is a far cry from when I came back to Canada in the mid 90s. In those days, individual TV programs had to be rented from Asian stores. The price wasn’t so bad, but the hassle of taking them back on time….. well, it was a hassle.
Tonight, rather than do my typical time wasting, I came across one of my favourite Japanese TV programs. It wasn’t titled correctly in the credits or title, but I knew it instantly. I considered it a good omen and decided to watch a few. It is called Tantei Knight Scoop. While I cannot explain the name, I can give you an idea of what the program is about.
They start with someone writing a letter to the show. They could be writing about a general question, like why do birds fly in the V formation. They could be writing about their wish to eat a watermelon like it was an apple (true story) or they could be asking for some personal life help, like finding a lost love, or helping to find the owner of a piece of jewellery they found. Whatever the situation, they dispatch a reporter/detective to go and solve the case. In true Japanese style, these reporter/detectives are rather funny.
These cases are funny and interesting and even quite heart-breaking at times. Tonight, I enjoyed a few of these. It was a great break from the bleak and dreary news filling up my TV.
By the way, these ones have English subtitles and I suggest you click on the person who put them up to see the whole playlist.
Not what I got on my bus, but I just liked this picture (and reuse was permitted)
In truth there is no shortage of characters on my bus route. I have written about the ballerina, the balloon carrier, the two fisted energy drinker and dozens of others. They were somewhat mysterious and invigorating. Others, like the shouting woman and the obnoxiously loud couple recently released from jail, I have not found a way of capturing with enough sympathy to make them worthy of reading about. They would be merely caricatures, rather than real believable people.
Today, I think, I find myself in the middle of both of these literary worlds. I seek to describe someone who may be hard to believe, and also causes me some distraction for the implications of her behaviour and our response to it.
Onward
I boarded the bus, not unlike countless mornings before. It was the older of the two bus models, meaning there were no single seats for me to sit in and I risked later sharing my bench with a whole host of uncomfortable people. Nevertheless, I took the one to the left, which would afford me the better view of storefronts and eventually the railway tracks. To my left sat a diminutive woman slightly bent over a book. She was dark skinned and dark haired, though I suspected her hair should be quite grey.
I paid only a little attention to her as I was either absorbed in my book or quietly meditating on something positive (a bus ride is a good place for this). I probably wondered what book she was reading, if only because I am always looking for book recommendations, but left it at that. I might have forgotten her entirely if not for what followed.
I wasn’t looking at her, but I could hear her saying something. It was indistinct and I thought that she might be speaking softly on the phone. Though this is rare; speaking softly on the phone, not talking on the phone–you’d be amazed at how little privacy people require when talking on the phone in a public place. It is shocking really. I digress.
I glanced over to confirm my phone hypothesis, and discovered she was not on the phone. Her fingers were following something in the book she was reading. It had a rather solemn tone and I guessed she was reading from a book of scripture. It was barely audible, but the woman sitting in front of her changed seats across the aisle to sit in front of me.
Suddenly, she looked up from the book and started singing. At first it had the same low hum from the moment before. In time, however, the volume grew and we made our way to the next stop. The volume continued to grow. The voice was not continuous and strong, but scratchy and grating. The lyrics rather repetitive. I was impressed by the power of her faith that made her want to share this…but it wasn’t that pleasant an experience.
I could imagine a whole gospel choir bursting into song on the bus. There are probably hundreds of fantastic examples on YouTube, but this wasn’t going to be one of them. This was going to grate on me the whole trip if she could sustain it. I searched for my headphones and was already mentally picking something that could counter this–Velvet Underground, Metallica, Public Enemy…early Zeppelin…..Evanescence….
I could see the strain on some of the other passengers, but like myself, no one said anything. It got me to thinking, would the people have been so willing to put up with this if it were done by someone of a non-Christian faith? Would we have been so willing to endure it if it had been someone reading from the Koran in a loud voice? Those are tough questions, and I can hope that our legendary tolerance would prevail and the bus wouldn’t be swarmed by a “tactical police team” but I could imagine other scenarios of confrontation. Granted it was music….musical, but I am not sure the reaction would have been the same. There was definite tension, but nobody approached her to reproach her (a little internal rhyme for this piece).
She got off a few stops later and the tension in the bus seemed to ease.
Though I didn’t sit in this seat, I had a view of it…and the orchid came up in conversation.
I had Thai food yesterday, which could have easily qualified as a Perfect Moment. It was spicy and delicious and the restaurant was pretty without being ostentatious. (funny aside, I had a bit of a brain lapse and spelled the word incorrectly–“austentatious” and then, despite knowing I had completely spelled it wrong, started wondering if there was some connection to the novels of Jane Austen and wondering if the word originated out of some criticism of the lives of the wealthy as depicted in her book…..okay, maybe this is only a funny aside for me.)
So, if Thai food is not the perfect moment, what was?
During the meal, the conversation took many twists and turns, but somehow we ended up talking about jobs and careers. This is not really a favourite topic of mine. While I like teaching, its ups, its downs, its challenges and its uncertainties (as opposed to its rewards, its flashes of brilliance, its odd collection of characters and its unpredictability) don’t always resonate with my soul. I guess the real problem is that I have seen people who are doing something so central to their true being that I am jealous. There are people who are doing what they should be doing. Some of those are teachers. Some of those are writers and some of those are used car salespeople.
My dining companion, while being employed in something that they love, was speaking about a previous job. They spoke with such passion and energy that it was mesmerizing. I could clearly see that they loved the job they were speaking about. They were confident and engrossing. It was kind of like the defining speech of a main character in a movie. I don’t think I had much to say. I probably just nodded and stared. My friend and I don’t not often talk so deeply.
If I am being honest about it, I hope I get to make that speech some day. It was very inspiring.
Looking back on it (and introspection is a part of this blog), it did have a movie quality to it. There was the exotic setting. There was the sound of Thai pop music (at least I hope it was pop music) mixed with the visuals of Thai food labels. The smells of the food were wonderful, though they wouldn’t translate on an ordinary movie screen.
I should apologize for talking about a moment from yesterday as if it were Today’s Perfect Moment. It was a close second to Yesterday’s Perfect Moment, and much better than anything I did today.
Maybe one of the best things about teaching students from countries around the world is that they can marvel at things you take for granted in your own country–they can be incredibly harsh and critical too, but we’ll let that slide for now. I want to relate a recent conversation with my students that illustrates this positive aspect.
My student arrived in class on Tuesday, fully rested from the “Family Day” holiday. One of the first things he said to me was, “I really want to make a snowball. I’ve seen it in so many movies and I want to do it myself.”
He got most of the classes attention, and all eyes turned to the window to look out at the softly falling snow–except for those eyes that checked their phones for the hundredth time that morning. Knowing that this was his first winter that had snow and temperatures near or below zero, I let him go on.
He continued. “I tried to do it today but I couldn’t. The snow was….” He then had to resort to gestures which indicated the snow didn’t hold together and flew away like dust when he let go of his hands.
I explained the idea of packing snow and taught the vocabulary. It helped that I have a fully functional “smart board” to work with.
Crestfallen, he asked if it would ever be possible. I guess he interpreted the my explanation that somehow packing snow does not fall in this part of Canada. I explained that he would get his chance soon, perhaps when it warmed up a little.
I then made a suggesting that only caused more consternation and discussion. I told the class that although they couldn’t make snowballs and have a snowball fight, they could probably make snow angels.
The student jumped up and exclaimed. “I did that!” He then pulled up a picture on his smartphone and showed the rest of the class. I complimented him on his work and started to plan my exit from the conversation, so we could get down to salvaging the lesson plan I had worked out. I wasn’t fast enough for what happened next.
“That’s a snow angel? one of the more vocal/funny/charismatic women in the class asked. I was a bit nervous that this might cause some hurt feelings, but I also knew that these two had developed a friendship based on kidding each other, so I let it slide.” Her follow up was equally, if not more brilliant. “It looks more like a snow butterfly.”
The class cracked up.
I appreciated my student’s enthusiasm and we had a pretty constructive class.
Afterward, the student who so ardently wanted to throw snowballs asked me about building a snowman. He seemed surprised that it might actually be a lot of work.
I am not sure why the Shawarma has eluded me until today. I am a pretty adventurous eater and I have ventured beyond my shores many times. Somehow, and someway, this delicious morsel has never found its way onto my plate.
An Archive of Perfect Moments 