A new direction

January 17, 2008

I’ve been tempted to close down this blog since I have not written anything in such a long time. Some major changes are coming in my life, namely our (my family) migration from this Formidable island to Calgary, Canada. The decision to move was instigated by our serious consideration of what we wanted for our kids’ education and how we would achieve these goals here in Taiwan. The final conclusion was that it would be impossible if we stayed. There is a good post about the education system in Taiwan here, which aside form being a great post in its own right, quotes other posts on the failings of the educational system in Taiwan. My friend Mark at doubtingtoshuo feels differently than I do about the state of affairs. He is impressed by both the academic and artistic output of his students. As a fellow teacher and administrator, I will grant that exceptions, even many exceptions, do abound. However, even the exceptional cases must follow, by default, the needlessly demanding schedule imposed on Taiwanese youth. There are those parents, the few contrarian lemurs who fight the system. But these brave souls often end up fighting their own children, too. Kids WANT to go to bushiban until 10 pm, because that’s what all their friends are doing. It’s New Year’s Day, and our neighbor’s 6 year old daughter came over to play with our son. “Where’s your sister?”
“Oh, she had to stay home to do homework.” She is nine.
Moving to Canada, after not living there for roughly 17 years, is a daunting prospect for me. Impending change is always a catalyst for some serious self-examination. I haven’t felt this fearful in a while, having opted instead to “eat my marshmallow” for the past few years, both professionally and personally. It’s easy to hide behind the excuse of being busy at work and having to devote the rest of my spare time for “family time”. But the truth is also that a fair amount of inertia has settled in, more than I wanted to admit. In response to this discovery, I’ve been–*gasp!* reading personal development stuff. One blog I discovered a few weeks ago was stevepavlina.com. I am still not sure how I feel overall about his blog, but it is mostly positive. He has monetized his blog and he claims to be turning a fair profit from it. I know many people have reservations about monetizing a blog, but I don’t. He is a “try anything once” person, like I am–or at least this is the way I see myself. This month, Pavlina has been on an all raw diet. I decided to mirror his experiment. I did go almost raw for a couple of weeks after a fast a couple of years ago, I hadn’t done any research. Although I am not eating the exact same foods as Steve, I am trying as hard as possible to stick to an 80/10/10 diet. (this is a number representing the caloric ratio between carbs/protein/fat) . 80/10/10 is a diet popularized by Dr. Doug Graham. His website is www.foodnsport.com. I’ve been doing lots of reading on raw foodism for the past two weeks, and certainly there is controversy, but overall I think going raw is an extremely good choice for my health, social constraints notwithstanding. I am on day 16 and I feel fabulous, mostly. There were INTENSE headaches for the first week, but they were detox headaches, which have now subsided. The only problem is money! The quantity of food I have to ingest to meet my caloric needs is very high. I get most of my carbs (and fat, and protein!) from fruit–not cheap. I’ve had difficulty in finding unroasted/unboiled nuts in Taichung. That is the only “cheating” I’ve done so far. Anyhow, I will keep it up until my wife screams at me, or I start feeling worse.
Speaking of my wife, We started doing yoga together 2 weeks ago. This is the first time we both do something together on a regular basis that doesn’t involve a) kids or b) a screen. Yesterday, I suggested tantric yoga every Wednesday, you know, to change it up a little. When she laughed I also laughed, but didn’t have the balls to tell her I wasn’t joking.

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Tags: personaldevelopment raw food new beginning

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