To my friend Bonnie, A note for you, for what it means to me “to be an American” – as you request. It is a fraught notion. As you know, I’ve history of a third of my life living in Asian nations, allowing perspective, uncommon for most of our typical neighbors. As well, I left the first time, to build a book of poems for a collection of my pointed realizations, penned in our shared language in a way that…
Realistically, I hope to update this page more often (pictures are at the end today instead of interspersed), but sometimes (as the admin at my master’s program says) “life gets in the way” ~ However, this month, I have taken some time away from the education studies to work on my next book, help friends, study some more about other subjects, and spend time scanning and organizing bits of a genealogy project that I’ve been working on back and forth…
Recently, I’ve been within situations that have been difficult to maneuver individually, so I’ve looked outward for insights from my community. A smattering of good ideas were shared with me and I’d like to share thirty-five or forty of them here, so they can be appreciated as a group of focused thoughts by both you and me from time on from now. They are slightly abridged in a sense that I have abbreviated people’s names, adjusted the format from the…
Seemingly months have passed since I’ve written in this blog, but not for lack of momentum, more for lack of digital participation. Time spent to reflect has been brilliantly analogue lately. Carrying around a leather-bound notebook while traveling a piece of the planet I’ve never been has been a pleasure that I am happy to share a shard of today. The notebook still needs to be typed at another time, but this reflection that I can share is based on…
Now I’m writing the introduction to what it was like to leave the nation I’d lived for about seven and a half years during the Covid epidemic’s breakout. China was where it began. That’s not in question. Nor is it an issue to me beyond the fact that I was a resident of China at that time, so I was near some of the early real social earthquakes as they happened, and some of what I’m writing in this book…
Recently, my University asked for recommendations regarding books that would be valuable for a publication they are putting together in relation to Black History Month. Below are my submissions. Upper Hand, The Future of Work for the Rest of Us, by Sherrell Dorsey, speaks directly to Black people in the scope of participating in the broader, American business world. ~Once the relatively safer space of school is over and the gloves are off, so to speak, in the competitive world…
Creating my next book has me considering a Frame Narrative style for the fifteen/sixteen chapters in six or so main sections that I’ll be putting together a bit like the last book with the pictures of China. And, so what that made me think about is the Voice. The voice of the book needs to have particular ears perked for it, in my mind anyway. You’ll notice that I mentioned many who helped with that in the last one. While…
As my most recent history is with the Chinese system, that’s where my knowledge-base and tool-reflexes lay, but I won’t recommend that as a target this year as they have a system of isolation and quarantine that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. That said, depending on the goals of this student, there are still a lot of places to start that are more general than not. I used to use https://www.eslcafe.com/quite a lot, but that was many years ago, and it…
These days are full of reading, processing that material and creating projects that are the result of that material and other matters that are alternatively associated with my courses this term. Working towards a teaching degree is a major undertaking ~ Requires my focus and attention, away from other things. I am very much enjoying being fully engaged, and the fact that I’ll be able to put it all into use for others at the end of this side-track in…
Trilogy of Playa Magic, by Jimmer Shine With introduction by Jim Jordan Forgetting to write as a writer is something of a crime. Judging by the regularity of my blog, I could stand accused… Yet, I don’t feel guilty of anything. I have a brand new book you can purchase here. Also, I’ve been experiencing: New languages, Many people of various cultures, Oblectation. My new book, Sesame Glazed China, is now available for sale at local bookstores on their websites….