Happy Dragon Boat Festival.
I went to the Canal, which can be seen in the above standard view photo, after I drove my wife to work. I took a few videos.
I drove back home and saw this near where we park our car.
Parking the car would have entailed maybe driving over it and crushing it. So, I had to stop the car and move it out of the way.
How did it get there? Was it dropped by accident by cleaning staff? Did some nebbish put it there for nefarious purposes? It was annoying to me either way.
And now a confession and reflection:
As much as I express my emotions about things on this blog, like my dissatisfaction with how my teaching career in China has ended, I still hold things back. I can think of lots of things I did in my past that I regret, truths about myself that I overlook, and assumed conceits on my part that are just not warranted and are in fact the opposite of the truth. I don’t openly discuss many of these things because they pain me or shame me or embarrass me or minimize me.
But here is a confession I will make about myself because the recollection of it was so long ago and I can disavow my younger, immature self. Still, it does somewhat embarrass me and may say something about the point of my present blogging and vlogging activities. I was in Primary School in Valcartier, Quebec. We had a sports day and I didn’t win any ribbons, and I suppose I was sad about it: it is hard after over fifty years to remember exactly what my mindset was, but I did this embarrassing thing: I bought a ribbon off some kid who did. I look back at that act of mine and want to slap my head and say dumb! dumb! dumb! I suppose that I needed recognition or felt left out.
So, what does this act of mine from the early 1970s say about the sixty year old blogger and vlogger? I still crave that recognition and am doing it while all the evidence indicates I am wasting my time — and my money like the much younger me. Life is the sum total of all one’s acts.
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