New School Here I Come!?!?; My Minneapolis Connection; Communist Country?; My Political Views; Ernest Hemingway Documentary; Nerve-Wracking Document Process;

I did a demo class for a Wuxi school where I would like to get a new job. They told me they would make me an offer.

I have cousins in Minneapolis. I exchanged messages with one of them; and she told me that she lived about a mile from where the George Floyd killing took place.

At least one person in Canada that I have talked to said that the Covid restrictions there made them wonder if they were now living in a Communist country. A few times I have said in response to news about the restrictions that I thought I was the one living in a communist country.

The election of Trump has changed where I am politically. Now, I am still very anti-left and very anti-progressive, but I find that I am now also against many who claim to be on the right and claim to be conservative. I now find myself loathe to admit that I ever supported the presidency of the second Bush. I now shudder when I hear the words libertarian.

I have come to accept the argument that many so-called conservatives haven't conserved anything and serve the sole purpose of being foils to the left.

I see that I need to purge so much of my political thought that is based on some stupid assumption of the Left. For example, there is this assumption that racism is a thing or even a bad thing or even a thing that we should concern ourselves with.

I am watching the Ken Burns documentary of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway like to write sparse prose that got to the point of writing a piece of prose quickly. I have always thought about this dictum when writing and how easy it should be --using only the necessary words -- for me thus to become a writer. But Hemingway lived a life and had a lot of material upon which to draw. I don't. My life has been safe and full of self-indulgence. (I'm also watching the following series: Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent) and Too Old to Die Young.)

Later: the offer from the school more than I could have imagined. My pay could double. But instead of being elated, I felt butterflies and a pit of worry in my stomach. I have to get through the process of getting documents authenticated and I have to make the break with the place I am working currently, a place that I have been with since 2004. I feel the nerved inspite of knowing that I have good reason to leave the school I am at and that I would be dumb not to. Change is hard.

The process for getting the documents I need to change schools is nerve-wracking. I need to get my degree authenticated (after being in China since 2004) and have a legalized criminal records check done (the process involves going to the RCMP, going to a notary public and then going to the Chinese embassy in Canada). I was stressed for a few hours when I was told that besides my passport, I needed a second valid, unexpired, government-issued identification for my application for a criminal records check. I was told of the requirement while I was at work and had to wait till I got home that evening to see if I had something. Thankfully, I was able to find an old BC healthcare card and my forty year old SIN card when I got home.

But the stress I felt which was brought on by government bureaucratic requirements and strictures, was a small taste of the stress that must be experienced by the people suffering from the Covid strictures being imposed in the West. I can believe that the stress, that I experienced for a few hours, could kill if endured for months on end. There are reports that suicide rates have gone through the roof the past few years.