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Trusting in the process

Draft number 1 done. Draft number 2 in the works.

Last time I checked, still a PA, though. When is this process going to end?

Fundamentalism in the time of crisis

He brought up an excellent point -- that self-worth is not pegged to any form of action. Self-worth is a state of being. It seemed that this action-oriented self-worth framework is causing me to pick up a sack and toss potatoes in it. One frustrated action per potato.

Now I’m at a crossroads of getting overwhelmed by the sheer weight of this potato sack.

“If you’re riding a horse and it dies, get off.”

caffeinegalore

buyaomifan

Really happy to see coffee that is not Dalgona coffee.

One section, just one fucking section.

I feel like I have spent more than 2 weeks just crafting the analysis and results section on my study. This ain’t good -- it means I need some sage advice/revisit the way I skin the cat. I should probably also do some other thing in the interim... Take my mind off of this for a bit. What do I do, though -- it seems that I am suffering from something that my participants are encountering too -- the paralysis of choice.

Too much time to do everything, don’t know where to start. Maybe one sentence at a time... bird by bird, as once was said.

But then again it’s just one section. I just need to get done with one fucking section. How difficult could it be??

Tenth time’s the charm?

Still not moving forward. Still not enough points to keep it in the game. Even the newbie beat me to it. How did he do it, though? Did he give them what they wanted?

The story, If You’re Riding a Horse and it Dies, Get Off resonates so clearly in this instance... I might be riding a dead horse. It’s that fucking simple.

I’m exhausted. What’s it worth to try, even? Been in this rut for two years now -- the longest two years of my life. Time is ticking, the target is not moving, I need a hit. I need the break.

On the topic of who I want to be...

And it has nothing to do with what one wants to do, but instead with what one wants to be... or would like to be. Isn’t there an aspect of doing in order to be? How do we assert our existences if we are told not to do anything? Our exigencies to be are predicated on what we do.

As a husband, how do you practice your craft of husbandry? I’m being facetious, but the question of who I want to be is just going to be hard to answer.

I want to be fulfilled? I want to feel fulfilled? There is a difference in wanting to be something, or wanting to feel something -- but both require action to do so. So this is what I want to be. I want to figure out this huge predilection for complex problems in life.

I want to be fulfilled. I want to be purposeful. I want to be intentional. I want to be Thoreau’s Walden as he chooses to go to the woods, to live with intent, to suck the marrow out of life.

Even Thoreau attributes his desire for being as grounded in action:

“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”

Tyranny from the top

“Do you think that the tyranny of your past successes are hindering you from seeking greater successes in the future?”

I recall a saying attributed (probably mistakenly) to Churchill, “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” Perhaps it is the same with successes -- my previous accomplishments in the sandbox -- that I should learn how these successes have been implemented to help me move forward.

It’s also a form of letting go, letting go of the views from the top.

At the crossroads

At the crossroads, or maybe I’ll make it out alive.

This work has been a constant reconstruction of myself – now coming to a point where I ask myself, “Who am I? What is important to me?”, and having these intentional conversations to shape who I am.

I am more than my past, present, and future. Who or what this is will be a long, uphill battle. But I get to shape the plotline of this narrative. This is fucking Invictus.

This is where things shift. This is where, block by block, bird by bird, I can start re-tooling the factory of thoughts.

This will be a constant struggle of finding who I am – and David was right – the awareness of myself, the mere acknowledgement of this struggle is the biggest takeaway of this work. The tensions of these identities is what’s probably keeping me afloat, like how surface tension of water keeps the structure of the body of the liquid! Holy shit.

And all the while I’ve been trying to carve out a new identity – attributing my own identity to a staid, immobile, external structure whose emergent structure I will never come to know because of my incessant need to persevere, persist, to be stubborn. I’ve hung on to this last spoon trying to carve my way out of this situation, when it could be better to just walk around it. Walk around it. I might even find a nice, lovely gap in the monolithic structure and walk through it.

There is a smarter way to go through this shithole of a situation.

And all the while the whole picture has been there. I am tired, and I have travelled such an incredible distance, and my wave is crashing into the shore. Finally crashing into the shore. Not to disappear into the abyss, but to rejoin the great tidal movement of nature.

And I’m not okay, I’m not okay

This is a plea, a call to action (and inaction), to agency and in-agency, to strength and helplessness...

I am tired. I am tired of fighting and wanting better hope. And I know nobody will ever read this, and I know that this will be yet another shout to the void, and I know this is where it all ends: a wave crashing into the sea. A breath dispersing into air. A sigh disappearing into the rustle of a chilly autumn wind.

But I am tired. My wave is nearing the shore. I have dug up enough trauma, frustrations, and broken realities that I feel that there is nowhere else to go. I think this has gone beyond the point of no return. But at the same time, there is no use to abandon ship -- I’ve started this work to resolve this all, but what seemed to have happened is that this has somewhat managed to consume me.

I am no longer myself -- I have lost proprioception of thought, action, and heartbeat. This is another abyss I am going through, similar to the one last summer, but back then I had strength and will to come back. I don’t think I have that will anymore.

I’ve tried. I’ve tried to fight so many times. But there comes a time when everything seeps your energy and life away, that this whole process makes you question your very existence -- and I am at that point.

I HAVE ONE SPOON LEFT. ONE FUCKING SPOON.

I tried to do good. I tried so hard to give what I can. As I am constantly being refused and rejected, I no longer think that there is anything else worth fighting for. I cannot wait for a Deus-ex-machina to swoop in and rescue me. I am tired. Let me go.

They can go party around while they watch me burn. I am no longer wriggling away from this bind.

Confusion...

I’m currently working on my project on IS experiences and intersectionality... and I do think doing a narrative inquiry would capture the lived experiences of IS much better, and framed in the lens of intersectionality, would provide a rich perspective on systemic oppression they face. However, I think there are also some psychosocial factors such as sense of belonging, acculturative stress, and strength of ethnic identity (all of which have reliable scales) that would be interesting to explore quantitatively.

On the other hand, there are also studies that problematize the notion of acculturation and adaptation to a host institution, and this perspective would inform the direction of my research, albeit in a more grassroots-emergent manner. It’s quite interesting to note how these two different paradigms not only differ in epistemologies but also in political leaning… Given this dichotomy in approaches, you are right; this context of research favours a qualitative approach. I would need to see emerging patterns within my data first before generalizing these observations in the general population. Since intersectionality-based studies on IS are still very recent, I think it’s too early to get started with a generalizable study… like a mixed-methods or longitudinal study... maybe save that for a further degree?

On another note, I would also like to speak with you about a project that has started to nudge me on the side... As I was working on my preliminary research on intercultural competence in international education, I found an article that calls for an assessment of intercultural competence in police recruit training. Having spoken to my manager and the director of the recruit program, I feel like this is another topic of interest with very sparse literature.

As of now, there have been no assessments made on the intercultural competence of police recruits. I have attached the article for your reference. As BC’s communities continue to diversify, and as the City of Surrey switches to a municipal police force, a culturally-competent police force is necessary to keep this diverse community safe. This is an extremely important work to tackle, and one that is not very difficult to pursue — I will need to do a broad conceptualization of intercultural competence, use a valid assessment tool (i.e. Intercultural Development Inventory, used in several industries besides education), and run this assessment on police recruits to inform curriculum designers and instructors on how to better assist ICC development in recruits.

However, I think I’ve dug my heels too deep in international education to turn back. I’d really love to hear any thoughts about this.. I know that this does not directly involve my passion, but this is related to a cause for diversity that is very close to me as an immigrant.

An a-ha moment

Over the past two weeks I thought that my research topic and question on ICC development in short-term students were solid and needed some tweaking on measurable outcomes of the study, only to find out that my convenience sample has disappeared, and so did millions of dollars in potential revenue for the institute.

Several days and a copious amount of existential scrambling took me to a point where I almost made a pact with the devil to sell my soul to the police academy and examine some nebulous outcome of intercultural competence in recruit training. As valid and important this research topic may be, I feel like it's going to end up being a disintimate matrimony -- a dastardly affair between haphazardly distraught lovers who have dispassionately chosen each other due to a lack of self-worth and sense of agency. But I digress. I think the catholic school grit training served its purpose well to keep me focussed on international students.

I came across one of our readings in the previous course about intersectionality -- the interlocking relationships of different identities and how these play a role in the multidimensionality of oppression and privilege. The oppression or privilege we experience in one facet of our identity might not be the same experience another individual may face due to their own position within this complex entanglement of other identities otherwise dissimilar to ours.

I then saw this as an opportunity for an alternative view of international students' struggles, and problematize their experiences of the multidimensionality of being a migrant sojourner, an academic sojourner, and most of the time an ethnolinguistic minority. This intersectional reality that IS face makes for a fascinating, yet punishing entanglement of identities that IS have to navigate. Put on top of this an expectation from the host cultures and institutions to 'acculturate', international students face the double burden of adjusting to a new culture while balancing different identities at the same time. Exploring these multiple positions and the intersectionality of these various identities will inform international education practitioners and policymakers in the institutional level to strategize support systems and policies that do not essentialize the IS experience as an acculturative process.

I could not believe it -- as vile as last summer's course was, it really led me to think outside the box and pull two things together. I have been browsing through some literature on identity formation of international students, distress caused by 'acculturation', and other factors that affect IS adjustment.

Still going on..

“Still alive, still here, my head’s still attached,” is now my new response to the perfunctory greeting, “How’s it going?” at work. Or outside work, or just in general.

I have been working hard to get my ‘whatever it is I lost over the summer’ back. Spirit? Mojo? Grit? Tenacity? La joie de vivre? Unfortunately this is not an issue that my usual remedies would fix. It has been a long summer, as short and un-summery it was, that I look forward to the inevitable rain and cold that belies us.

I still don’t know what to do with the lump of putrefying garbage that’s lying around the corner; maybe I’m starting to acclimate to the stench, maybe I don’t mind it as much anymore. Maybe I’m tired fighting. Maybe I’m still alive, and I’m still here, going through the quotidian motions of life.

It is not fun. It has been hard moving around these glass walls surrounding me. I do admit I might have stretched myself out too much, but what else is there to do -- Keith Payne was correct -- the broken ladder has too many rungs on it, and I am at the very bottom. It’s not a good place to be in. I don’t want this stench anymore. I need to move up.

I need to go on.

Tumblr as a sanctuary for the forlorn and helpless

David said I should continue doing this. Said doing this would uncover some deep-seated assumptions about myself and find some meaning within the patterns of this inescapable labyrinth.

The anger from the past month dissipated -- more like oozed through the cavities of my skull, settling on a plate, left to putrefy. And that’s what it’s been like since then. The waiting game for the mound on the plate to attract enough fruit flies and vermin that could consume it. I wait day by day, hour by hour, in putrid, dank solitude.

And that’s where we are today. We while our living hours away in the sanctuary of forlorn, helpless, unwanted gobs of existences. We are pushed, shoved, mangled, betrayed, all of us forlorn gobs, as a collective, in Tumblr, its cool quaint hue of dark teal or cyan serving as a wallpaper on which our collective gobs are contained. It reminds me of the ceramic diving bezel on my Omega Seamaster Diver 300M, an unassuming, flaccid hue of helpless blue.

It’s a comfortable place, this sanctuary. It’s a good place to wait for the putrefying mound of worn-out anger to be consumed by vermin.

And as if I still had more to ooze out, I just paid for my tuition fee this semester. That’s an investment I’m never getting back -- this purposeless attempt at a better life, to rejuvenate an exhausted existence that will never happen. I’ve tried three times -- nothing ever comes out of it. And yet I just throw my hopes that one might stick and not peel off, adding to the decomposing blob on the plate.

It was disheartening. It was more than I saved up for the past four months, when my bank account was last assaulted by this investment scam. And why am I doing this? I’m just about the only Program Assistant with a Master’s Degree. What the fuck. Was it worth it? Hell knows. Look at how much cash I have -- or rather the lack of it. Deflate. Deflate. Deflate. Burn. Deflate some more.

Deglaze with 35mL of gin.

Flaccid hue of helpless blue. Like my Seamaster. That’s who I am. A defeated, exhausted, consumed anger.

Back in the sanctuary of the emotionally void...

What did I do today:

- Paid bills

- Paid tuition fees

- Tomorrow I will get paid

- But that paycheque will go to fund the hole my tuition fees created

And yet I still cannot find a better paying job.

Regression and degeneration

Do you really have to be that fucking loud, all the time? Or is it that you absolutely have no work to do now...

Wednesday musings: Policing and intercultural competence

Today our office received a request to divest our academy’s training materials and curricula pertaining to Indigenous cultural awareness in response to an Indigenous interaction-related complaint in a department. The academy, unfortunately, could not come up with a defensible response to this concern.

This begs the question, then, how do we train police officers in equity, diversity, and inclusion? How do we inculcate intercultural competence in police officers, and how do we measure it?

The academy teaches in a typically strong para-military training structure, without giving much thought to personal reflection (although there are assignments peppered throughout the training modules). Now, we do know that key to EDI education is this notion of self-reflection and intellectual humility as proven by numerous social justice and behavioural science studies; but if we do the minimum to inculcate a self-reflective approach to police recruit learning, how do we teach intercultural competence and assess it?

An even bigger challenge is the notion of skill automaticity in patrol duties, where police officers are taught to use the minimum amount of cognitive resources to conducting patrol duties to efficiently attune to salient stimuli in the environment. Think of a patrol cop walking down a busy street prepped up to draw and execute the Farnam drill in case of a critical incident. The officer must not spend unduly time to assess the individual concerns of people around him; the safety of the general population comes to mind. There’s a reptilian reflex so amazingly ingrained during training that officers can respond to crises in a blink.

However, this does account for a failure to develop a more holistic, socially-oriented approach to policing. The academy only has one session in dealing with the public, which forms the first training module. How do we teach recruits to dedicate part of this automatized skill to recognize individual intricacies of community members? How do police educators introduce EDI and intercultural competence to recruit training in a complementary manner to the more hard-wired skills in patrol and investigations?

One must not let the mind wander too much

For within the emptiness of this vessel is a vast, lonely sea, exposed to the elements, no refuge, no respite.

For within the emptiness of this lonely sea is a glottal self-consumption, so reviled, so acrimonious

For within this self-consumption is a devouring inner peace of nothingness that feeds into itself

Fattening itself with its own nothingness, vile and visceral juices of nothingness oozing out of its own nothingness, chewing and gnashing of nothingness on nothingness

As it gives itself this day its daily nothingness

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