Battling Philosophies

I'm a pretty stubborn dude. Most of you are likely reading this and asking yourselves why I point out the obvious. I do so because I seem to run into situations where, no matter how vehemently I present a perspective about something, someone will simply tell me I'm wrong (or even just ignore me). I don't even really need to convince them... just persuade them enough for them to think I have a reasonable position. This is generally enough to pacify the rise in blood pressure I face from time to time.

Most of the time, I like to think that I'm open-minded. I'm sure there are a few of you who are asking yourselves, "How can he kid them like that???". I'm sure I can think of instances where this is not the case, but I don't like to focus on those moments. I'm much happier thinking about the times where I think/know I'm correct and I've convinced people of a perspective. Ask my parents... they've known this passion (read: "obsession") for arguing and spouting off about things in a slightly (read: "ridiculously") enthusiastic and vehement way. Others have seen this as well. Anyway, enough about me...

I'm living in a country that doesn't exactly embrace this passion for conflict management. And I'm definitely teaching in an environment where I can see faults and flaws in a big system, and I've been told that I need to learn to just live with it. Of course, I've said it before: TIC. As you can imagine, though, this ain't no easy pill to swallow. I like to have my chance to voice my perspective and I like even more to convince people that things need to change (if, of course, I think I've found a flaw or gap). In China, this is not only discouraged, but it's systematically removed from the whole equation. It's not easy to bring up grievances when no one is available to listen. And the few voices who I expected to listen (read: my fellow foreign ESL teachers from Canada) have their own dictatorial regimes that they're unwilling to change. Or they're feeling drowned by this system so they tell me to move on and forget about it because the system is much larger than I can see and I don't have the power to fix. The only thing left is to work within it.

I understand the truth of this sagely advice. I also know I'm speaking very generally here. I guess I don't want to get too far into it for professional reasons, and so I'm attempting to get past it all. It's just not that easy. I'm already dealing with a variety of personal challenges relating to my life both in and out of the school (mostly out), and this is only compounding the frustration. Maybe I seek out this sort of conflict (because I sure seem to find it easily enough... maybe I pursue this sort of "safe" confrontation because it helps me battle my demons. I don't know.

There is a bit of sunshine in this rant. It's FRIDAY. And because the Chinese teachers are stuck at the school all weekend (our school is hosting a national meeting of Chinese public school teachers) there were some complaints among the staff and the admin is taking everyone in the ESL departments out for dinner. So the equation is such: Friday + Free Food = Satisfied T. Maybe life isn't so bad. Sometimes I just gotta wait out the rain. I don't know if it's time to come out yet, but I'm on the way.

T