A Teacher at a Jumping Off / In Point

©Shers Gallagher 2010


Lately I’ve been in a bit of a funk, responding to others’ thoughts and blogs with feelings that I’ve really not much at all to write of my own. Perhaps it’s because I’m quietly overwhelmed by the notion that I’ll soon be off to teach in another part of the world – the other side of the world – as I’m back to China for five months of intense instruction in writing and communication. In the past, I’ve gone prepared by putting together syllabi, laying it all out beforehand as more a roadmap for me to calm my own ‘pre-teaching’ jitters than to honestly have honed a stimulating curriculum.


But something has happened to me in my middle-age that now reels at thoughts of regurgitating principals of 5-paragraph essays defining the writing process just as much as I would faint at the sight of 4-spiritual law tracts crammed down my gullet to define my faith.


So, what am I going to do as I return to teach in the East after such a long hiatus? By God, I do believe I’m going to jump into the unknown and do the unimaginable: I’m going to go as a teacher unprepared. Perish the thought that I arrive as an empty handed pedantic wanting to listen and learn what her class truly needs instead of having a predetermined programme to shove into their eager faces and young minds. Instead, we’ll interact and learn from one another while I attempt to draw from all my years of education and experience to present to them what is ‘real’ and ‘appropriate’ to their current needs, wants and desires. A wake up plan, as you will. What a novel idea! :)


As I’ve come to a crossroads with the development of modern education and my place in it, or the lack thereof, should I be experiencing nightmares of challenging my own ideas, skills and desires? One thing is for sure, I am truly at a ‘jumping off’ or ‘jumping in’ point in my life. And I am ready to test the untried and unknown, even beginning to grow somewhat excited again after a long and sleepy duress over education and ‘unlearning’ all the drudge that I have learned and ignorantly called ‘enlightenment’ over the years.


Today I am: I live and breathe and am alive and well on this planet. As for the rest, I’ll just have to report back to you with my progress....


www.aislingbooks.nl

Peking Heights - a prelude to madness

Shers’ Soap Opera – Part One

Peking Heights – a prelude to madness
© SM Gallagher 2010

My future director and I are currently in the midst of online battling, with him claiming that he spelled out the initial coursework duties to me early on as I only attempt to have clarity regarding assignments and expectations. In the midst of all this is the haggling over salary, and working for the Chinese never makes one rich, that is, unless you’re working for a Western company within China. But this is not my case.

A wise and wonderful friend has cautioned that it's ‘good to get everything in writing before you jump into the pool'. And I couldn't have said it better. This, however, appears hard to do with the Chinese. Why? IMO, they have such a bureaucratic set up of networking and internetworking that it’s often the case that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. In that way, if there is a question about schedules and salaries, expect to hear the buck being passed to this department and that with nothing settled and little done until perhaps the time when you’ve given up all hope and just don’t give a damn anymore. Aha! Perhaps this is exactly the plan, and a cunning one, indeed. In my case, I’ve been waiting on my work visa for two months before I can process it and stamp my passport to be approved to work in China. What that initially entailed was a month of discourse till I was finally approved. Now, it’s a month longer wait for the work application to be stamped and sealed, as it’s being processed amidst the piles and piles of other visa applications. Well, as long as I make my flight, no worries. Right? Arrggh! (But ‘little arrggh’ :). The fact is that, in a bureaucracy, and a communistic one at that, nothing can get done until it’s approved. And, if there's a question, the person(s) involved is often referred to another department because the one s/he’s presently dealing with has no authority to take care of such matters. As for me and my current ‘arrggh’, I’ve accepted an assignment without clarity till now as to what my schedule and duties would entail. And they’ve only now been spelled out to me, equalling too much and too many for too little pay. Why is this? Well, have you worked in China before? If so, there is your answer. :)

I’m also haggling over salary and reimbursement issues as I’m steered from one department to the next. As you might have guessed, I was told the department I’ve been dealing with has no jurisdiction over such matters, and I’ve been steered to the department head like a naughty schoolchild sent to the Vice Principal. Will I be thrashed with the school paddle? God forbid, but I still have the selfsame butterflies. These days one in such a social position can no longer chop off my head, but they can surely make life miserable. And that I don’t want!

As it stands....

I can either ‘piss off’ the director by cutting and pasting – as a reply – addressing the vagary he’d initially written when I accepted the assignment; or, I can graciously say nothing about the ‘cut and paste’ he’s now sent me with claims that I’ve been told EXACTLY what my expectations are. Yes, okay, but this disclosure of scheduling of class loads and such had been only given me the day before yesterday. When I’d initially asked about them, I’d been told I must wait for the other department who handled such things.

Like many of you, I too know that the rightness and wrongness of the 'he said / she said' game. It’s always a no win situation, especially if you’re the underling and not the boss.

I’ve now ‘let sleeping dragons lie’ with the director while drafting a gracious letter to the Chinese department head, hoping to get what I want – which is extra pay – meaning a more relevant compensation, as the workload of my present understanding is larger than first expected. In doing this it’s my hope to be properly compensated, which will make me happy and able to work under a director who doesn't end up ‘hating my guts’ and attempt to sabotage my every move for challenging his own. If the department head writes back that he doesn't agree on the extra salary, well then, I can tell them all not to expect me on that slow boat to China. ;¬D

That's all the news so far from Peking Heights.

Tune in next week for more of Shers' Chinese Soap Opera.

Till then - zàijiàn!

www.aislingbooks.nl

A Writey Taggy Post

(generated from Life at Willow Manor)
© Shers Gallagher 2010

1) What’s the last thing you wrote? What’s the first thing you wrote that you still have?
In novel form, I last wrote Murder On The Rocks! – a suspense set in a sleepy Irish harbour town, involving a visiting lecturer from Holland.
I still have some of the ‘angst’ poems I’d written in my early twenties while recovering from a counterculture lifestyle and mainstreaming into a world I found scarier than the one I’d recently emerged from.

2) Write poetry?
I love the terseness of the poetic challenge and how its demands one to invade the senses. So, yes, I love writing poems and songs...always.

3) Angsty poetry?
Of course! Why not, that is when I’m feeling ‘angsty’?!

4) Favorite genre of writing?
Novels – mainstream fiction – I love the feel of creating a world of characters out of empty space. I always smile to myself, thinking that the experience causes me to empathise with God. :)

5) Most annoying character you’ve ever created?
Myself – when I get autobiographically pedantic. And some of my ‘preachy’ characters , who definitely annoy me with their cocky ‘know-it-all’ attitudes.

6) Best plot you’ve ever created?
The one about the two musicians from immigrant families - modern ‘star-crossed lovers’ - caught up in the turbulent ’60s -‘70s of the American counterculture movement.

7) Coolest plot twist you’ve ever created?
I don’t know if it was the ‘coolest’, but it was definitely the most fun to write, which was the antiquity smuggling scene in Dancing Spoons and Khachapuri.

8) How often do you get writer’s block?
I would say that I have a heavy dose of it right now, as my current perspective on life is so unsettled that I’ve become quietly reflective and have lost a lot of energy and laughter. Yet, I see this as only a phase, a rhythm of life that I truly feel I’m travelling through gracefully enough.

9) Write fan fiction?
Only to Fred Wolf, AKA, Dr Quantum – a zany quantum theorist and delightfully quirky brain who was featured in What the Bleep Do We Know? A few years back we shared a few thoughts on the notion of quantum physics. He’s a personable soul, who also admitted that he could never quite figure out what the ‘WTB’ movie was all about. Hahaha

10) Do you type or write by hand?
I suffer from horrible penmanship – all over the page, literally. My students can never read my handwriting. Not only that, but I’ve had a secret fear half my life that a writing analyst would get a good look at my handwriting and stamp me ‘verifiable’ - LOL. That is, until I read about another prolific writer who had a similar fear. Birds of a feather? I’d like to think so, anyway.

11) Do you save everything you write?
I have no problem tossing material I deem substandard. Then again, I keep material that may not be publishable but includes sections worth fleshing out later.

12) Do you ever go back to an abandoned idea?
Always. I hash and rehash like a good psychiatrist.

13) What’s your favourite thing you’ve ever written?
My poem: ‘Angel in Distress’. It touched a lot of people, which gave me a secret thrill. As for me, I loved how it just seemed to flow out of me and bounce along the virtual streets the poor angel was travelling through.

14) What’s everyone else’s favourite story you’ve written?
I think that ‘Death of the Saint’ hit a raw nerve when it first came out around Christmas time year ago last, causing me to be Irish Abroad’s featured blogger. Sláinte

15) Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?
Oh, yes. Those are fun and silly pieces, which I wrote mostly when I was of the selfsame age. Later, I never laughed so hard when watching Bridget Jones Diary – equally silly, but of a girl stumbling and bumbling through life in her twenties. What could be more humorous? But I get a kick out of young girls, now watching with such delight my young stepdaughter adventuring through her first pregnancy.

16) What’s your favourite setting for your characters?
Colorado has been my favourite character setting – going back and tapping into rich memories of such beautiful landscape, clean skies and clear-headed people while painting the scene of what it was like in the ‘60s and ‘70s during the writing of Boulder Blues.

17) How many projects are you working on now?
I’m supposed to be preparing lesson plans before my return to China, teaching at a language and culture university. Yet, I’m being so lazy these days, procrastinating while thinking: What’s with me?

18) Have you ever won an award for your writing?
’Candy Lee Osgood’ and ‘Colorado Scholars’, paying off a big chunk of my student loan in my last year of university. It was a great honour and some well needed cash.

19) What are your five favourite words?
Miasma, aesthetic, obtuse, prosaic, ululate – not for their meaning, but more for their rhythm and flow.

20) What character have you created that is most like yourself?
Stevie Kelly in Boulder Blues.

21) Where do you get your ideas for your characters?
Like many here, I get my ideas from my own background that I’ve, of course, fictionalised and embellished on. The fictional characters resemble nobody in particular; yet, I’ve drawn upon memory of composites of types I’ve known and others I’ve interacted with in my life’s journeying.

22) Do you favour happy endings?
Yes, actually, mostly because I’m such a sensitive soul with too many sad endings in my own life. But my characters usually go through hell to get there.

23) Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
Unfortunately, yes. It’s just been drilled into me, but I think it can really block writers and should be low on their priority list. Save all the corrections till later – think about crafting first, and then correct mechanical errors after the story is written and plots are shifted around and firmly placed.

24) Does music help you write?
Because I’m a musician, myself – or, should I say, I have been for many years, now retired - I find music a great distraction while writing. I need complete silence. Music comes later with the rewrites, which can be a stimulus to create more mood while fleshing out pieces. With that said, I admit that I’m keenly aware of the music of words, their rhythm and flow – or not – across the written page.

25) Quote something you’ve written. Whatever pops in your head.
“When you walk in truth you become dangerous to a sleeping world” (SM Gallagher 2006)

*I'm tagging the ONE person I know who’ll really get into this: Jacqui Binford-Bell.

www.aislingbooks.nl

The Mindset of Knowing

©2010 SM Gallagher

Gathering thoughts that centre on going back to teaching in my own field again – yes, I am NOT schooled to be an EFL teacher – I’m thinking about my own methodology and how it fits, or doesn’t fit, in with the present mindset of academic scholars. Students these days, I’ve noticed, are complaining more and more about the predominant ‘rote’ learning they’re receiving while feeling that their ‘untouchable’ lecturers are regurgitating knowledge that is becoming unpalatable and, thus, unacceptable.

Many would rather experience a more experimental approach to learning, where the teacher in charge plays the role of a learned guide, listening to and working with students rather than being a mere dictatorial font of pedantic trivia. At least in the world of education, the times are ‘a changing’ once more, I feel. Perhaps this is a good sign that we are evolving still and not, as some fear, de-evolving. Or perhaps a little of both is necessary, as is always, when one grows and changes, develops and adapts, which I would call ‘symbiosis’ rather than ‘osmosis’.

What are your thoughts here?

www.aislingbooks.nl

'MURDER ON THE ROCKS!'

Extra, extra...am I flying high today with the news that my latest novel - a murder mystery set in Ireland - has just been made available through Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble online bookstores.

It's been a long haul - this writing project - and being a novelist is as hard a profession to pursue as that of any creative artist. I grew up performing on-stage and later did my bit as a professional folksinger before quitting the scene altogether, choosing instead to pursue the more mainstream profession of teaching, where I'm currently unemployed. Ha! Go figure! But, as anyone who's been a performing artist can tell you, the long and dusty road of little progress and limited success seems to be common fare, as it is for most creative souls who are not honoured in the hectic throwaway societies of our modern world. Yet, we do what we do best - our first loves and talents - and we are rewarded back in full in so many, many ways that do not always yield a cash crop. I know I have been. And thank you all for 'hanging in there' with me with your kind words, kudos and support. I've treasured all the love and encouragement you've given me.

Today I'm dancing with HAPPY FEET - woohoo!

ARTISTS' CORNER: Who is the Artist?

ARTISTS' CORNER: Composites and Discoveries of Personal Theme
©Shers Gallagher 2009

Through the Artist's Looking Glass

I've recently been amassing stories, poems and songs that I’ve collected over the years. And I’ve done so with the full knowledge that such composites are typically not best sellers. However, the magic of doing so is in the discovery of a personal theme pulsating throughout – of common threads of ideas, literary symbolism and ponderings. Such awareness can be absolutely magical! But not only has this discovery been interesting, it has also proved slightly disturbing. How so? There are many areas in our being, I have found, that have grown irritated by an unwillingness to let go. Be it the memory of a loved one, personal triumph, defeat or even the inability to recognise and let go of the passing of youth, such memories are those we cling to until they fester within, such as what physically happens to one suffering from diverticulitis, which is a physical blockage in the colon.

During the process of accumulating what I call 'creative expression in written form', I've recognised so acutely all the places that I too have been lingering in and not letting go of. In a nonlinear world, you might say that this is where I dwell. And these are images played and replayed like slides and film reels of people, places and things that are no longer a part of my reality. Yet, they exist just the same as if they are genuinely there. I can see them, touch them, feel and even sometimes taste them. And they have taken up enormous 'virtual space'. Simply said, these are what the mind’s eye sees of lost youth and loved one’s passed on, even situations run and rerun that are no longer happening and haven’t occurred in a very long time. Honestly, there is nothing wrong with a healthy dose of rehashing the past now and again. It is the very bulk of personal history and storytelling after all. Yet, such feelings and emotions surrounding memory can be blinding, even blocking us from moving on and experiencing the fullness of our present life as we prepare for and anticipate what is around the corner.

In so many ways, I’ve found this act of gathering personal work into a cumulative body an enlightening experience. It has allowed me to see with clarity where I’ve been ‘dwelling’ – perhaps too long – and enabled me to hopefully let go of the virtual spaces that are truly no longer a part of my reality.

www.aislingbooks.nl

ARTISTS' CORNER: Does Commercialism dampen Creative Energy?

[Photo: Kees plays accordian with Jan on guitar while Marianne listens appreciatively]

The Artist and Feelings of Selling Out
© Shers Gallagher 2009

To me it seems this particular topic can be a big struggle for every artist who likes to create for the sake of creating. Yet, when all is said and done, I've never met anyone who doesn't appreciate feedback. During the holiday season, especially, feelings are mixed while trying to sell one's product and/or receive kudos of recognition, whether one is a performing or fine artist, and not get caught up in the sense that worth is only by how it is measured and by whom. It's a dilemma for sure that requires a fine balance. I've even known musicians who've quit just when attention begins to reach an uncomfortable level, claiming it was interfering with their enjoyment of just gigging. Hmm, I can see their point, but....

www.aislingbooks.nl