On greatness

Memes have supplanted captions.

I have decided to endeavor to dedicate time to write non-academically; [(un)ironically, this post mostly concerns professional academics].  This blog has nearly ceased to exist because every time I think to write, I am compelled to do so toward my PhD coursework and research.  Those of you whom have read this blog previously would likely surmise that I have a complicated relationship with doing things for myself.

The topic of this blog post has been brooding since I attended the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Regina, Saskatchewan, last May (2018).  It was a major milestone in my life as it was the first time that I engaged with the highest echelon of academics as relative equals in candid, authentic dialogue.  I attended at least five two-hour sessions per day for five days, which, if you've ever attended the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, might be considered... ambitious.

I absolutely loved the experience; I reflected that I'll likely make most of my name as a academic through conferencing.

More critically, the experience lended credence to a philosophical outlook that I had been incubating over the past several years.

I've observed that the more eminent the intellectuals in my presence, the more elucidated becomes the relative dichotomy among academics, between those whom embrace greatness as a means and those whom pursue greatness as an ends in itself.

To illustrate this relationship, I need to explicate what I mean by "greatness."  I'm not just referring to renown, but more primordially to power and influence; regretfully, my vision of this idealized quality probably roughly mirrors that of Trump and his infamous slogan.  If all human intentions and relations engage with power discourses as Nietzsche and others would have us believe, then "greatness" could be construed as prominence within these discursive power relationships.

Listening to other professional academics speak candidly among their equals, I became increasingly curious as to where they fell on this spectrum from "greatness" as ends to "greatness" as means.

Those engaged as scholars whom embrace greatness as a means have variously abstained from the seductive, self-affirming influences of egotism.  They pursue grants and tenure because they know that these resources and positions will enable them to do increased justice to their research and to the beneficiaries of their research.  They respect and appreciate their and their colleagues' reputations, not because they have a vested interest in representationalism, but, rather, because their reputability factors into their capacities to continue to build and to refine knowledge for civilization.  These academics are seemingly marginalized.

Indeed, the seeming majority are engaged as scholars whom pursue greatness as an ends in itself.  Each of the signifiers of those embracing greatness as means becomes self-serving: egotistically, materialistically, nepotistically, etc.  Research becomes a means to self-empowerment as opposed to a means to empowering others; (this genre of academic inquiry becomes especially alarming when said research ostensibly bears the banner of social justice and/or decolonization).  Collegiality, for this group, tends to be first and fore-most self-interested.  The development of knowledge is an after thought of careerism.  Unsurprisingly, the scholarship of this latter group tends to crack under the burden of instrumental CV stacking.

I'm sure social, psychological, cultural, and economic theorists have systemic and/or discursive explanations for this lived reality, but, arguably, this growing chasm between these two increasingly insulated and institutionalized groups of academics could be, at least partially, dispelled philosophically.

As the cliché admonishes, "absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Absolute power in academia is usually determined by reputation that immunizes individuals from governance, collegial, and student scrutiny.  Those of this caliber who have objectified greatness rarely risk their immunities for the sake of others, especially for the most marginalized.  Followers of this blog would probably guess that I would argue that the academics of this echelon have the greatest capacities and therefore duties to act.  However, my cursory exposure implies that these high capacity intellectuals rarely threaten and/or sacrifice their positionality if such actions might diminish their objectified greatness.

Succinctly, greatness should never be an ends in itself.  It should always be a means to empowering others.

Those whom have objectified greatness rarely authentically find it with integrity.  The fact that the preceding statement could be construed as sanctimonious speaks volumes as to the contemporary and growing institutionalization of objectified greatness.  They, and we, need to do better.

Notably, this philosophical insight may speak to the political movement down South.  Political actors often narrativize the pursuit of others' greatness, merely co-opting this narrative that portrays what they should be doing, increasingly serving themselves and/or their families.  It's a terrifying and damaging hypocrisy with higher consequences for the higher the stakes.

Moreover, it could be reasoned that the pursuit of greatness is antithetical to the condition's realization, given the associated egotism and disempowerment of others necessary to confer and to sustain "greatness."  Proselytizing "America First" concomitant with xenophobic racism and nativism for the "restoration" of American greatness invariably illustrates this trend.

The objectification of greatness nearly always anticipates its depreciation and eventual nullification. Historically, the "greats" immortalized their greatness through their empowerment of others: They supported others for others' support for yet others' greatness.

And so, I admonish the reader to chase their greatness and to find their place in the zeitgeist, but to channel that pursuit as a means toward an end for and with others.  It's a deontological necessity that academics vanguard your and our students' greatness.

The Fight at the End of the Tunnel: A Tale of Three Teloi

One of my many sources of inspiration

As I near the end of my yearly New Year's gaming staycation that follows my time with family and friends and get back into zero-sum work mode, I am lead to once again reflect on why I will re-invest myself into that lifestyle.  The last three years, I've spent the transition after Christmas into the New Year gaming as much as I can to get it out of my system while most people are partying and vacationing.

I began writing this blog post before the holidays as a reflection on some of my conversations with some of my closest friends and allies.  One of these allies is a professor with whom I confide with about some of the most topical issues globally.  When discussing the most recent tax bill in the United States which promises to negate the legacies of about half of the 20th century presidents while emboldening the historically deplorable, this professor concluded the discussion by insisting that "it will get worse."

As teachers, we both have the responsibilities to foster hope and the precedents for innovation for the future among our pupils.  However, the realities of our day require a degree and type of vigilance that has little historical precedent (with the possible exceptions of the contextual contingencies of the World Wars).  Furthermore, as I insisted in confidence with another friend and ally, we can't shelter these kids from these circumstances forever (although we'd prefer to).

Most educators seem to teach as though there's some sort of light at the end of the tunnel of institutionalized education, whether in new innovations for addressing old problems, new(er) mental models for conceptualizing existing systems, and/or in some sort of well-paying, secure job.  As a student of history, I'm inclined to argue that this may have been true of 1950s-60s (and even into the 1980s) but that this perspective would now plainly underestimate the gravity of modern circumstances.  Trump was elected, climate change is happening before our eyes, and we're at the greatest risk of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I could include an extended laundry list of issues that keep me up at night, but I'd admonish that you use your imagination.  

I'm inclined to challenge the assumption that we hold any privilege to certainty of any sort of utopian telos in or through education considering our collective situation.  Moreover, true humility lay in one of the first principles of existential philosophy: that our existences could be completely meaningless.  Naturally, a cognizance of this possibility has been the precursor of existential crises globally (mine included).  By extension, there's no means to certainty that there's a definitive light at the end of the educational tunnel in spite of adamant pursuit of education (Please note that I argue this as a practicing professional teacher who's taught across disciplines and as a full-time PhD student in the field of education; I don't make that claim lightly).

I'd remind the reader of one of the main ideas in astronomy: the Earth is a nigh impossible anomaly comprising a combination of factors conducive to the sufficient development of life into sentient beings.  As articulated by many authors and scholars before this writing, we are nearly negligible in the grand scheme of the observable universe.  Given our relative insignificance, it's a rare degree of arrogance to believe that the universe and/or its potential creator(s) care(s) about us.

No, we need to work with what's in front of us or else sociopaths and their sycophants will incorporate us into the front matter of their own narratives.

We can exercise a degree of free will, albeit heavily contextualized and coerced.  In my consistent reflections and discussions, I've narrowed our options into three general paths conducive to three different final ends (teloi) of education.  These options available to those who know enough to be responsible to those of the future represent three distinct responses to the question that I find myself asking recurrently, "to what end?"

1) Somewhere on the spectrum between exile and willful ignorance

In my experience, most of the people who bear the responsibility of knowledge of the potential consequences for posterity simply choose to ignore these very real threats to themselves and even to their own friends and families.  Others choose a self-imposed exile to try to put as much distance between themselves and the rest of human "civilization."  The remainder of those of this category of teloi fall somewhere on that spectrum, varying in degree of deliberate segregation and willful denial.  Who can blame them?  Well, I don't, but the people who will suffer through our legacies might.

2) Suicide/excessive drug addiction

Some people cannot accept reality for what it is.  Never forget that "O Captain! My Captain!", who played numerous roles as exceptional mentors and teachers, ended his own life battling with depression.  Suicide is one of the final consequences of our malaise.  I hear its echoes in social media and among my own graduate student communities in the gallows humour that keeps us sane.  I am faced with these questions myself, but, to this day, I still perceive it as the ultimate act of selfishness for someone in this position.  Which brings me to the logical option of

3) Fight

We all have parts in this narrative, and so we all have parts in how it ends.  Much of my re-investment in my daily commitment to service lay in my awareness of the reality that if the people with this knowledge have the capacity to choose not to fight, then all of us could choose not to do what needs to be done.  An existential philosopher might argue, needlessly fatalistically, that it could already be over.  I am simply unwilling to entertain that possibility.

And back to marking essays...

On the privilege of sacrifice

Earn this...

I suppose that it's inevitable that blogs contain autobiographical elements.
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Unbeknownst to most, I am actually a musician.  And I'm not just a musician but a song writer.  At least, I was.

Music still comprises the greater part of my life.  If I remember correctly, I was taking piano lessons when I was as young as 10 years old.  I didn't love it initially, but it grew on me.  I was extremely fortunate that my family could also put me through voice lessons.  By grade 11, I was writing songs monthly for the coffee houses held by the music program at my high school.  I always had to one-up myself, technically, melodically, rhythmically, and/or by refining my overall performance.  I became absolutely obsessed with writing music.  At one point in my life, I would spend over half of my waking hours trying to find underused chord formulas and rehashing traditional constructs.  I know that many people would kill to have my talent (at least that's what my mother always says).

And then I stopped.

It's a bit like ripping my own heart out, tossing it to the side, and knowing that it's still beating.

There has always been a part of me that just wanted to drop everything, join another band, write music, and perform live shows for the rest of my life.

But to this day, I have never regretted sacrificing that privilege.

The rest of this blog post will attempt to unpack that ^^^ statement.
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How was/is my capacity for music a privilege you might ask?

We usually talk about privilege in terms of skin colour, gender, class, wealth, and/or ability.  I'm referring to privilege in a much more wholistic and abstract sense.  I think that I would describe privilege as a certain kind of un/known capacity.

First, many, if not most, families cannot afford to put their kids through piano and voice lessons.  I am ever indebted to my parents for pushing me to attend lessons with an expert from the Royal Conservatory, let alone fund my classes.

Secondly, I know that I can contribute at least 10 fold more to others through schooling, research, and politics than I could ever contribute through a career in music.

Finally, and most importantly, it's possible that in sacrificing my capacity for music that I can bring myself closer to living a Good life.  Not everyone will have the chance to do that which Socrates and his pupils exalted within the Ancient Greek dialogues.

Although one of my greatest sacrifices, writing and playing music is now just one drop in the sacrificial bucket that has been my life.  And I'm not alone in this regard.  Some of my closest allies have forgone child bearing and even intimate relationships in order to treat others as they would have others treat them.  This lifestyle is not for everyone.  But I believe that for me, it is absolutely necessary.  Because my definition of "others" stretches off into the infinite.  My definition includes all potential sentient, feeling, life: all of those potential lives who might have acted differently if they were in my position with my known capacity.

If this capacity is privy to the agent wielding it,  then there are consequences.  For example, I have empirical evidence that I can work almost non-stop in the service of others; therefore, if I know that, then I have a responsibility to do it.  Put another way, someone in the future experiencing the brink of the total destruction of this planet would admonish me if he/she could.  It's a logical projection of our circumstances given the empirical evidence available.

Moreover, our individual responsibility for the future scales with our known capacity.  In this sense, known capacity refers to our knowledge of the causality that might impact the future combined with our knowledge of our ability to do something about it.

I don't expect everyone to adopt my moral universe and, to be honest, I never did.  I don't want my students to end up like me.  I don't want them to have to let go of parts of themselves in order to make this world decent.

But our context has no precedent in human history.  And if we empathize with potentiality, all of those potential lives, it's not an tremendous leap of faith to conclude that they would want, at least, the same chances that we had.  We have this responsibility as an extension of our awareness.  We have an obligation inherent in the universal values of the human species that have transcended time.

I'm only requesting that we try to be reasonable given the circumstances.  We have enormous power over the future of this planet.  And as the inevitable cliche suggests "With great power comes great responsibility."

Therefore, we can have the choice of whether to sacrifice our privileges for the sake of others.
I would earnestly request from my reader that, at the very least, we do that which we think would be reasonable.
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I didn't watch the entire movie, 'Saving Private Ryan,' until I was in China about a year ago.  The first time I watched the ending, I balled my eyes out.  I don't think I've ever cried that much in my entire life.  I want the people of the future to have Ryan's degree of appreciation for what we did.  (Un)fortunately, that means that we may need to sacrifice some of our privileges so that they might have, at least, the same opportunities that we had.
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My students once asked me "How do you define success?"  After some thought, I responded "If I can achieve a measure of decency, then that's enough.  If I can treat others the same way that I would have them treat me, then I've succeeded."

Do you really want to be popular?

In memory of those who said unpopular things.

Do YOU really want to be popular?

Well have I got the strategy for you!  It doesn't require money (although that would help), and physical beauty's not requisite.  All you need is the right approach.

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Storytime.  Last week I attended a Streetlight Manifesto concert with a good friend.  One of the opening acts involved a guy by the name of Dan P.  He's a well-known front-liner for Streetlight and he's great at warming up the crowd.  His strategy, which has occupied my mind since I attended the concert, involves pandering to the audience.  For the market of Toronto, his act involved telling us how nice we are.  People just ate it up.
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To say that we're terribly vain by nature probably doesn't surprise anyone anymore.  From advertising to live entertainment, people capitalize on this vanity constantly.  People have become so self-absorbed that bringing this to your attention might seem redundant.  But upon significant reflection, I've realized that the success reaped from pandering to people can involve much more than simply telling people what they like to hear.

If you really want to be popular, then give people exactly what they want to see, hear, think, and feel.  Moreover, give them what they need.

People have biases that can be traced to produced and to reproduced value orientations.  In my experience, our civilization is becoming ever more effective at satisfying your values.  To date, we've developed machine learning algorithms that shovel content to you in digital media for your consumption that has been tailored to your needs according to your exact digital footprint.  People are becoming ever more comfortable in their own skin, because companies capitalize on our desires for self-security.

Our world has become a bias confirmation engine with greater sophistication and efficiency every day.  I laughed when I saw this scene from Wall-E, but, the way things are going...

As I said in a caption for my last blog post, "I once told my entire school to never become comfortable."  The staff at my old school including myself were asked by our graduating class for some final advice.  Mine was that comfort sets a limit on your potential.

Growth, like change, is uncomfortable.  And when I say this, I'm not just concerned with the conservatives out there whom feel victimized.  I'm actually more concerned with the self-described radical leftists.  We are all capable of shutting people out if they don't satisfy our biases, whatever they may be.  I've lost friends on Facebook because of this reality in the past (ironically most of whom were social justice and peace studies students).

But I can't stress enough how important it is to maintain a level of uncomfort and the true danger of absolute self-satisfaction.  Absolute comfort creates an absolute stasis.  The internet and its current abuse has undoubtedly contributed to the normalizing of your thoughts and values.  And that's potentially dangerous, for everyone.

My spiritual mentor, one of the few people that I truly look up to, Socrates was famed for his self-affirmed "gadfly" approach to changing society.  He challenged people's conceptions by forcing them to think through their assumptions and beliefs.  He knew that moral education is uncomfortable.  As it should be; it concerns the most important aspects of our lives.  Moral education most often involves suffering ~ that's why we need to be careful as parents and teachers.  The things that we value most can destroy us, and so their deconstruction must be handled with the utmost care.

One of my favorite professors once said that we should "beware of the very notion of the popular teacher."  He had a pretty good argument considering that the most popular teachers tend to ask the least of their students and to do the most to make their students feel comfortable.

In sum, if you really want to be popular, then give people exactly that which satisfies their values.  Even if those values originate from or inculcate fear, hatred, ignorance, isolation, and/or insecurity.  It's that easy.

But considering this reality, and as a wannabe gadfly myself, I would ask you...

Do you REALLY want to be popular?

In pursuit of moral revolution...

I am about to embark on my craziest journey to date.  Craziest, in spite of working two-three jobs while counselling as well as building and directing Students Teaching Students in undergrad.  Craziest, in spite of starting my Master's in education before my teaching degree, and then writing and defending my thesis in four months to go to China.  Craziest, in spite of completing three degrees in six years.  And craziest, in spite of teaching sciences and mathematics full-time in China for a year and a half with a history and social justice and peace studies degree.  (These were the highlights.  I am eternally grateful to all of those who made these initiatives and those that I didn't mention a reality ~ especially STS.)

Yet, what I am about to do scares the hell out of me.  My feelings inform my resolve and reflect the gravity of what I am attempting to do.  I am gambling with all of my resources and with my future with the best intentions that I can muster.

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Before I continue, I should acknowledge a new caveat in my writing in this blog.  Since teaching in China, I now have a following of students who are adept when it comes to using (and sometimes abusing) the digital and social media explosion.  I have a much higher degree of responsibility to write in a way that respects those who were and continue to be influenced by my words and actions.

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Lately, Martin Luther King Jr.'s words have been ringing in my mind.  They have been the final word on my Facebook profile since I made it, and they will likely continue to guide me for years to come.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter."

It is with his words that I felt compelled to reinvigorate this blog.  I will continue to attempt to live those words with no less responsibility, and self-consciousness, than when I was teaching professionally.

I am heading to downtown Toronto in pursuit of moral revolution.  I have acquired a room in a condo a couple of blocks from Queen's Park after, sometimes, shameless self-promotion for a decent price without any contacts in the core.  I will be working all day, every day, to fulfill a dream that I had in high school.

I believe that harnessing the values discourse is the key to a kind of moral transcendence.  I didn't have the evidence to argue this before.  And in fact, I still don't have the evidence to argue this definitively.  I am heading to Toronto in order to pursue a PhD that will hopefully illustrate or condemn the utility of inquiring into the values discourse through values dialogue in educational institutions.  This research could change the way we think about and approach the edification of human beings.  And if so, then it could change the future.

I could be so very wrong on so many levels.

But if the most capable and willful among us choose not to do that which is necessary to ensure the future, then it's already over.

I decided against applying for vice-principal for my former school, after thinking of nothing but educational leadership for the past three years since I started my Master's in educational administration and policy, in order to pursue this dream.  For the kids, let's change the world.

It actually doesn't really matter if you're right.

This post has been months in the making.  I've wanted to say this for a long while, but I didn't have the words... or the time.

As you probably know, the world's not doing so hot.  And worse yet, very few of us are attempting to do anything about it, let alone care.

The ones who care are searching for better ideas.  The ones who act are trying to foster better habits.

Both are seeking and attempting to realize solutions.

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What if I told you that there's a significant chance that there is no "solution"?  No paradigm to shift to; no golden idea that will transform society; and no be-all end-all way to solve our problems?

These words are not those of a pessimistic fatalist.  Recently I've become tentatively confident that one could have all of the currently knowable knowledge in our world and still go through his/her entire life without making a positive impact on society.  This reality is less a reflection of the potential qualities and quantities of knowledge than of the day-to-day maintenance and function of the human race.  Our collective condition is such that one person could have an idea that could solve all of the world's problems and yet this person could forever live in a world full of problems.

I was lucky.  I stumbled upon the Meta-discourse at a relatively young age.  I'm speaking of the values discourse: the discourse that overshadows, informs, and shapes all other discourses; the first and last discourse of importance. I've often questioned whether my knowledge has been a blessing or a curse.  However, to this day, I continue to maintain that knowledge in of itself is neither good or evil; that the value of knowledge depends on what one does with it.

It's funny.  Knowledge of the highest discourse is actually meaningless given the parameters of planet Earth.  Even if one had an idea as to how every human decision is made, this knowledge in of itself is valueless.

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Exhibit Edward Snowden, our new modern middle-class hero.  He opened our eyes in ways that few have in our generation.  He gave us hard evidence that our governments in the West are not to be trusted and that our supposed representatives have a systemic distrust of the public they supposedly serve.  And yet here we are, almost years later living ostensibly the same lives we were living almost years before.  What really changed in the day-to-day habits of the masses?  The people who already distrusted our governments gleefully confirmed their biases, and the people of faith have yet to demand hard concessions.

Snowden demonstrated a reality of democracy that ironically few care to acknowledge.  You could walk into a crowded town square containing the majority of a society with a gold tablet handed to you from the highest God telling everyone how they should live their lives differently with the greatest wisdom, and almost no one would change their day-to-day routine.  If one cannot market that understanding, sell it to the masses comprehensibly, and institutionalize it for future generations, then that knowledge in of itself has no value to the future of humanity.

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In fact, it actually doesn't really matter if you're right.

This is my problem with some of the people who continue to look for that gold tablet, the so-called whistle blowers.  Practically speaking, these martyred actions change almost nothing  In fact, they will likely change less and less the more bureaucratized and institutionalized society becomes.

That's not to say that the situation is hopeless.  We just need to accept the situation for what it is, and use the resources at our disposal.  Particularly, we need to target structures.  And first and foremost, we need to stay practical.

I continuously hear my friends and colleagues demanding for better ideas.  But many of the ideas have been here all along.  "An absolutely new idea is one of the rarest things known to man."

People need to make better use of existing good ideas.

We need less armchair humanists and more people carefully leading on the front lines.  We need less concern for new ideas and greater execution of ideas that have been around for millenia.  We need less people concerned with being right and more people concerned with making us right.

...on creating real change.

The office is pretty quiet...

It's time for me to get back to the roots of this blog.  The flaming "social justice warrior" that initiated this collection, especially its forerunner Facebook notes, has aged considerably.  I'm much more diplomatic and reasonable than I was when I first started writing; however, the flame that originally ignited my passion still burns strong.

It's time that I put my thoughts about what it means to create real change into writing.

If you're one of the few that has read most of this blog, then you're probably aware of the "methods" label that I've attached to many of this blog's posts.  I've consistently believed that improving the world requires far more than the heart to do it; I believe that it requires careful consideration of methodology and of actual execution.

To truly improve the world, one needs to genuinely change it.  However, I think that real change remains far rarer than most people would have you believe.

To understand why, we must examine the notion of the normal.  The normal is defined by and depends on a set of habits of thought and of behaviour.  This status quo consists of routine and can be identified by recurring signifiers such as milestones in people's lives (graduation, marriage, children, etc.).

It's important to grasp the breadth of the former definition: it's important to consider what can fall within the purview of normalcy.  For example, resistance, in all of its various forms political or otherwise, is practically normal.  Social movement theorists going back as far as Max Weber, (and earlier, depending on who you talk to), identified the emergence of resistance in the face of hegemony as a natural occurrence.  Resistance emerges as a means to balance power; its emergence is causal and therefore predictable.  Resistance is normal.

Therefore, if change is that which separates from, or alters, the normal, then resistance is not in-of-itself a form of change.  In fact, resistance is usually an aspect of the status quo.  Moreover, resistance fosters or becomes change depending upon what's done with it.

If normal is the habitual norms that would continue macro- and micro- institutionally in spite of any one person's actions, then change would be that which alters or separates from the routine.  Change is therefore before or after the status quo and actions that cause change are performed above or below normalcy.

Notably, many self-proclaimed and self-asserting "change warriors" are simply a part of the status quo.  They neither harm or aid normalcy; some of these professional activists spend their whole lives changing little to possibly nothing.

To affect change is to act beyond the normal: to act beyond the cycle of dominance and resistance.  This rule applies regardless of one's station.  From  professional activists to professors to factory workers, we can all be an aspect of normalcy if we choose to do so.  To truly create change is to go above and beyond the easy, the usual, and the routine; in other words, to really change something is to genuinely do and be more than what you could do or be otherwise.

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Then how does one know that he/she is creating real change?

It's impossible to know with any significant certainty, as with most things of importance.  After all, the legitimacy of change depends on the legitimacy of the normal and both realities are constantly shifting.  These categories are dependent on, and ultimately relative to, one another.

Still, there's some useful questions to ask yourself if you're genuinely concerned about whether or not you're creating real change.

Here's a short list:

Are you, at this moment, comfortable?  If yes, then you're probably currently reaffirming the status quo.
Are you consistently more committed to performing well than your colleagues?  If yes, then there's a good chance you're contributing to genuine change.
Are you awake relatively early every day?  If you are awake early most days, then you're probably having a different impact than most of your peers.
Do you take your own reflective self-criticism seriously?  If you don't, then there's a significant chance that you're contributing to normalcy.

So in sum, if you're uncomfortable, relatively over-committed to good performance, waking up with the birds, and actively responding to your own practice, then there's a decent chance that you're creating real change.

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The picture at the top of this post depicts my office at my high school in China.  The piles of books on my desk contain the three assignments from three of my classes that I've been marking for the last 40ish working hours throughout the Chinese New Year holiday.  My colleagues maintain that I'm spending too much time preparing for lessons and marking.  But I maintain my commitment to real change.