Bloggus Interruptus R Us

I have no idea who if any would notice, but it hasn't been a fantastic two weeks for the Peregrinator, at least not in terms of the blog itself.  I suppose that is to be expected: when there are papers to grade, then if I am not doing that task, I feel I should be doing that task--the task of judging, coaching, chastising, coercing, criticizing, cajoling, all with the knowledge that too many of the recipients of these comments and judgments will be unable or unwilling to process them productively.  Moreover, much of the time when I am not teaching or commuting or dealing with logistics of teaching or field trips, I am trying to keep a lid on the domestic pressure cooker.

That last one is a biggie I am afraid.  We are having a tough time with Alex, and when I am feeling bleak (which is too often) I get the impression that I am either preparing for an argument, or arguing, or recovering from an argument.  No matter how Zen I or we try to be, there is conflict--from getting out of bed on school mornings and getting out the door (how much money does he get for lunch? should we check on his homework? does he walk or take the bus?), to waking up super early on weekends to watch cartoons and stupid TV, to screaming fits about not liking whatever food is in front of him, to perverse and inexplicable jags about wanting to sleep outside on the terrace, or absolutely needing to use the USB modem "for homework," to whining about when he can get his iPod Touch back from quarantine (when he puts two no-argument mornings together).

Much of the conflict revolves around screen time, a phenomenon noted by many another parent.  Yet the problems and solutions are never simple.  Remove the TV (or in our case, hide or take the power cable) and you implicitly frame TV as a reward and everything else as drudgery that has to be done to get that reward.  IUn-restrict TV and you have a couch potato whose capacity for mindless cartoons and junk is seemingly endless--and whose surliness increases with each hour of watching.  I recall my mom's adamant refusal to have TV dictate family schedules (at least when we were growing up--in their retirement I recall my parents choreographing all manner of meals according to when particular programs were on, picked up amid horrendously bad reception through an antenna rotor mounted on a hundred-foot pine tree on their property)(what would they have said about hundreds of channels, on demand movies, instantly programmable screen-within-screen DVR?).

For an addictive personality, the screen is a drug with infinite possibilities.  High functioning as I am, I have experienced touches of this syndrome when I have zoned out in front of the big-screen here before A & A arrived, even without having discovered the channels beyond the broadcast ones.  But for Alex and his ilk, there seems to be no resistance.  Where is the drug that makes TV nauseating? Where is the operant conditioning modality that increases the electric shock with each passing quarter-hour? Almost everyone I know has gone through some phase of screen addiction, whether it was infantile Tetris binges that finally ended with the rain of shapes cascading your pre-sleep self-castigation, or solitaire on the sly, or borderline obsessive-compulsive Words With Friends--but there's usually an endpoint, a recovery, perhaps a realization that (just as my dad used to say about never having started smoking) "I don't want to try to prove I'm stronger than that."

I hear the same litany from so many other parents--at whatever stage of screen and game immersion thay happen to have landed.  We have so far held the line against xBoxes and Playstations and Nintendos, with only the infinitely-seductive Apple garden of iPod Touch to contend with at home.  And we are lucky to share basic values between both parents.  Pity those in post-nuclear families, where for example a feckless mom gives her eight-year-old an unlocked iPhone, just to spite the dad--it truly makes me wonder where we are headed.

Will there be a pendulum swing?  Or at least an equilibrium?  I truly don't know.  There's a toxicity of connectivity I see in other phases of Modern Life--witness the paucity of un-connected bus riders I see on my commute--but leave that aside and consider just the impact on youth like Alex.  Leave aside whether cartoons or reality TV are intrinsically degrading or merely insipid entertainment--I ask myself what are the opportunity costs of spending so much time that way.  Time in front of the screen is time not spent doing something else.  Time not reading.  Time not walking or exercising, time not building stuff, time not interacting meaningfully with others, time not getting practice dealing with anything except what a broadcaster wants to use to keep your face in front of commercials for a little while longer (until the remote is pushed with all the languid determination of the opium smoker).

Yet even here, a reversal suggests itself: we make his behaviors the pathology, yet we ourselves are increasingly in the minority, believing the way we do.  We are the abnormal, in the sense that we are resisting the dominant paradigm that every increase in screen connectivity is to be embraced.  I suppose that for parents like us the only response is to hold our own within a particular jurisdiction, to control what we can control, and not bemoan the rest.  Otherwise one goes mad.

So perhaps I can return to blogging about excursions and the vagaries of this three-ring circus they call study abroad.  But for a half hour I allowed myself to type without much editing, to reflect on a deep and distressing undercurrent in my life, and perhaps to help myself let go to focus on something else.

Cool things about Sydney: Sculpture by the Sea

There's actually a face inside that little hatch...

We had a great field class earlier this week, meeting at the southern end of the famous Bondi Beach and then enjoying a great Sydney tradition, the 16th annual Sculpture By The Sea competition / exhibition.  These installations ranged from quirky and whimsical to profound and disturbing, with a substantial smattering of pretentious art-speak in the creators’ commentary.  We totally lucked out with the weather, warm enough and not super windy, and then had a noisy dinner at the Coogee Bay Hotel, several beaches down the coast. 

You could own this 2-meter long pepper for $15,000

I found the artists’ sculptures quite entertaining and thought-provoking, but the sandstone cliffs themselves were beautifully sculpted, and the waves sending their foam over the rocks below the footpath were almost as dynamic and fascinating to me.  The whole thing was reminiscent of the in-situ installations we saw a few years back at Oliver Ranch near Geyserville, though without the scale or pomposity, mostly.  Sometimes the craftsmanship was impressive, sometimes it was carefully casual.  Mostly the commentary from the artists themselves was laughable, but Lorraine managed to make sense of things without being overbearing, and the crew hung in there long after the sculptures ended and the substantial walk to the next town of Coogee continued.

All in all, it was a great evening, though a late one getting home via bus ferry and bus, which unfortunately meant that Alex has been more than usually cranky.  Adding to his stress levels, his school’s big end of year exams have rendered everyone on edge, and even though he is not obliged to take them, he is probably feeding off the ambient angst levels.  I confess that the battles between him and Am have taken a toll on me, not just in themselves but because I feared they would occur, and they cost me in ways I feel I can’t afford.  Once things melt down completely they blow over for him pretty fast, but for us the effects are longer lasting. 

Things here have been a mixture: I’m typing this on Friday the 2nd on a coach ride to Canberra, the three hours-plus helping to show just how humongous this country truly is; we’ll tootle around the capital city for a few hours, guided by the ever-informative Lorraine (who used to live there), and then head home.  I’m pretty discouraged by a lot of things, not least of which is the chronic tardiness of a substantial fraction of the class--we departed from Central 25 minutes late.  It’s hard to put into words what goes through my mind at times like that, as I try to decide when or if to pull the trigger and just leave them.  I haven’t done that yet (except for the eejit who thought the Blue Mtns trip departed at 9 and not 8--at least she took enough initiative to find a train to Katoomba and joined us), but I should have today.  How do I get through to them?  Using the multiplier-effect that I explained on the very first day, they kept 23 others waiting--a total of more than 500 person-minutes.  So far, not a word of apology or explanation, even as I edit this in the evening as the DVD player butchers the video (the overblown epic “Australia”), flickering and rolling with dizzying frequency.  The landscape rolls by, pasture and bush punctuated by McDo’s and bizarre little roadside attractions...

[placeholder post for Cairns]

The crazy mini-vacation to Cairns exceeded all expectations.  I have to say I was skeptical that everything could work out, especially since we were so late in getting the planning started, but the travel guide Tasha who’d done the great job on the Blue Mountains excursion responded to an e-mail plea by Amelie, and miraculously conjured a long-weekend itinerary including airplane reservations to and from Cairns, three nights’ accommodation at a medium-priced hotel on the Esplanade, a reef day on Friday, a rainforest minibus day Saturday, and a bunch of suggestions for the morning of Sunday.  All we had to do was heat up the credit card (after some maneuvering of funds because of the second installment of our rent) and print out the boarding passes! 

I’d never done anything quite like this before--just trusting someone else to make all the arrangements without knowing at all what to expect.  We made our way to the airport with our gear, picking up Alex at school (not wanting to risk another transition), cleared security easily, and then started waiting, and waiting,and waiting, for Virgin Australia to get us onto a plane.  Well, an hour and a half later, we were on our way.