Don't Pet an Angry Porcupine, The Blogger Offers Advice to You Young Whipper Snappers

Don’t listen to anyone who says: “when you get out into the real world.” The whole world is real, even if you’re in college.

If you’re working someplace where there’s a CEO and a custodian, treat them both the same. Neither is superior or inferior to you. We’re all equal.

Speaking of treating people….Treat people the way you want them to treat you. Simple.

If you’re talking to someone and they start going on about astrology as if it’s a real thing, get out of the conversation as soon as you can. You don’t want to waste time with such nonsense.

Vote for candidates who are going to help the disadvantaged. Don’t vote for those who would help the already wealthy or those who sow fear.

It’s great to enjoy sports and become invested in a team, but if a sports result depresses or angers you, you’re doing it wrong. 

Spend as little time as possible talking about people behind their backs, particularly if you’re being negative. Also avoid those who like to trash other people.

Learn from your mistakes but don’t dwell on them. 

Don’t simply move on when something bad happens, it’s okay to process it and experience your feelings. Take your time and when you’re ready, then you can move on.

One of the greatest strengths a person can have is the ability to ask for help when needed. It’s not a sign of weakness to seek help, it’s a sign you care about yourself and recognize that none of us can do it alone.

Another strength is the ability to sincerely apologize. Don’t write a note. Don’t say: “sorry if I,” leave that “if” out. Look the person in the eye. We all make mistakes, an adult acknowledges them and makes amends.

Look for the good in people. Try to find reasons to like a person. It’s lazy to find a single fault and write the person off for it.

Don’t spend too much time looking at your phone or computer screen. They are valuable tools but don’t stare at them for the sake of it. Sometimes when you’re standing in line, instead of scrolling through your phone try thinking. It’s good for you.

You’ll be a happier person if you’re not doing anything to excess, this includes, drinking, watching TV, working, eating. Moderation is healthy.

Drink plenty of water. Get exercise. Have a regular sleep schedule. Watch the amount of sugar you eat. Eat vegetables, fruit, beans, legumes and nuts.

I strongly recommend being a vegetarian. It’s better for your health. It reduces the number of animals that are slaughtered and it helps reduce the effects of climate change.

Pet a dog or a cat as often as you can. Better yet. Have one in your house, if possible.

Enjoy music, it’s good for you.

Hugging is good for your too. Try to have people in your life to hug regularly.

Laughter is good for you too. Find some comedies or comedians to enjoy. Have a hearty laugh with friends. In fact, find friends who like a good laugh. 

Remember that “a lot” is two words and that there’s no s at the end of the word “anyway.” You don’t want to come off as a rube. Also watch out for redundancies like “past history” “pre-planning” and “more hotter.” While I’m on the subject, don’t say “sounds like a plan” when someone suggests a plan.

Read books. It’s good for you in so many ways. If nothing else, reading a book instead of scrolling through social media helps maintain your attention span. But reading does so much more for your brain and for your heart.

Keep a journal. It’s a great way to release your feelings. It helps your later decision-making and memory and can be fun to look back on, not to mention instructive.

Generally speaking if you’ve got a choice between going out and doing something with friends and staying home and taking it easy, get the hell out of the house. When you’re old you’ll have plenty of time to sit in the house.

Never brag about being busy. Nobody’s impressed. If anything, boast about having carved out free time. Don’t be afraid of relaxing.

Try finding a career that you’re going to love. If all it does is pay the bills then it serves a purpose but it’s not going to give you  psychic income.

Do the best you can to resolve disputes within family. You need each other.

Follow current events. At least have a sense of what’s going on in the world. We need as many informed citizens as we can get. Also, vote -- after studying the candidates and issues.

If you suffer from depression or anxiety do not hesitate to ask for help. There are a lot of things you can do for both such as exercise, meditation, yoga, and walking.

Be wary of doctors prescribing medications. Sometimes they’re literal life-savers but some doctors are overly-reliant on getting out the prescription pad. Be particularly aware of possible side effects.

If you feel guilty about something you’re doing or are hiding what you’re doing, maybe give it a rethink.

Don’t be one of those people who tries to do eighty per cent of the talking in any given conversation. Avoid those people who tell you every detail of their lives and don’t in turn ask after you. Conversations are to be shared, not dominated.

Travel. Especially outside of the country.

One of the hardest things to master is acceptance, but you’ve got to be able to accept that some things can’t be done and some things can't be changed. If anyone tries to tell you that “nothing is impossible” ask them to pick up a bus.

Learn the difference between sharing good news and bragging.

As I used to tell my players when I coached youth sports: play hard, have fun.

It was a Helluva Lot of Fun: Reflections on Teaching Students From All Over the World

That was fun. Three weeks ago today I retired after 40 years of teaching. The last sixteen of which I spent at international language schools teaching the English language. 

During my ESL (technically I was an EFL teacher — English as a foreign language, ESL is for people who have moved to the country Itteaching career I had students from over sixty different countries. I had lots and lots and lots from France, Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy. Colombia, Brazil. I had a fair number from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Spain and Turkey. The most unusual was Canada (French Canadians). I had one each from Luxembourg, Palestine, Mongolia, Bhutan, Uzbekistan and Iceland. Usually my classes were a plurality of French or Chinese or Japanese but once it was Vietnamese. I had three in that class from Vietnam and no more than two from any other country.

I did not have too many from countries such as Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark or the Netherlands because in those countries English is taught in public schools from an early age. Students from those countries tended to be in the advanced or university prep classes which I did not teach. When I did have a student from a Northern European country it was when I was teaching upper intermediates. 

I worked with a lot of teachers who didn’t like French students. I had a  word for these kinds of teachers: bigots. The truth is that the French do not always have the same level of respect for teachers as people from other countries do. Many students from France were arrogant and could be uncooperative. Because they often came in groups they could be quite clannish and you’d often have to deal with them speaking to each other in French in class. 

The number one problem I had as an ESL teacher was students staring at their goddamned phones. The second biggest problem was students speaking their native language and the French were the number one offenders. But I was taught to judge people based on their best qualities and the best of their groups. I had one helluva lot of terrific students from France. I often wondered how my colleagues who complained of the French would have dealt with my earlier job as a public school teacher where — in great part due to socio-economic issues and cultural differences — many of their disciplinary issues would have been with students of color. The obvious conclusion is ….well, I’ll let you put two and two together.

The best classes had a good mix of students and in fact I’d often have a class of, let’s say, fourteen, with ten different countries represented. That was pretty cool.

I really liked Japanese students but you wouldn’t want them to comprise half your class. Once our school had a special group from Japan and I had all nine of them comprise an entire class. Any questions? I’d asked. None. Once I prepared them for a vocabulary test going over each word carefully. No questions. They insisted that they understood. The next day they collectively did terribly on the test and no individual got better than seven of ten. I read them the riot act and did entire activities centered around asking questions. They also retook the test after I grilled them on each word and practically forced them to ask me for clarification. They did brilliantly. You take four Japanese students and sprinkle them in a class with Europeans and South Americans and they’ll be great. Japanese students were diligent, hard-working and polite. But they were reluctant to ask questions. This was — to a lesser degree — a problem among EFL students in general. There was a great reluctance to say: “I don’t understand.” I had cases of students who wrote on their departing evaluations of me that I didn’t explain grammar well enough. I always, always thoroughly reviewed grammar points and practically begged for questions. Their failure to ask for clarification was their own goddamned fault. 

Who were the best students? Germans. They had all the wonderful qualities of Japanese students, plus they asked questions and were always eager participants in class discussions. I was told that in Germany today it is a point of pride to be a good student. 

There was no nationality that I didn’t like to have in class. However I should add that Saudis could be…let’s say a challenge. They were prone to cheating which is a really silly thing to do when you’re trying to learn or improve on a language. I once saw a Saudi student cheating on a practice test. No kidding. The Saudis we got were always rolling in dough. They expected special favors. I’d constantly be asked to excuse an absence because…you know, nod, wink. At the same time they were among the nicest people in any classroom and if a Saudi student saw you on line in a cafe your coffee was paid for. 

Chinese were all over the map. Lots of them were quiet and shy, much like the stereotype of the Asian student. Others were loud, brash and maybe great company, maybe obnoxious. Some were pixilated. I think the great diversity of types reflects how massive the country is.

I liked Vietnamese, Thai and Laotian students a lot. They were particularly gracious and charming.

Some of my funniest and most fun students were from Italy. Italians seem to really enjoy life.

I got to where I learned accents. I could tell where many students were from before they told me. I was able to recognize the difference between South Americans and Spanish, between French and Belgians — usually. The people you could never pick out based on accent, appearance or anything else were the Swiss. You had Swiss German, Swiss French and Swiss Italians. Their names didn’t help either.

The weirdest accents were the Brazilians, which made them easy to pick out. I had a lot of great students from Brazil and a few who were arrogant. Older South American men could be chauvinistic and try to dominate conversations. But they could also be terrific students and a lot of fun in class. 

Compared to your average citizen of the U.S. I found our students to be what we’d call over here, liberals. I only ever met two who expressed any admiration for Trumpy and most were quite open about their fear and/or hatred for the man. As best I could tell most of my students were progressive on social issues, whether it be climate change, LGBTQ rights, health care. However they weren’t always so liberal about immigrants coming to their countries. The only trouble I had was a few instances when Saudi students expressed disdain for homosexuals. When I was teaching the word phobia and mentioned different kinds of phobias one Saudi student said proudly: “this is me, homophobia.” I explained that this was not considered something to boast about and such opinions are best not expressed in classrooms.

Speaking of trouble, I had next to none. Especially if you put aside cell phone abuse and students speaking their native languages. Those two issues represented about ninety-five percent of the trouble I ever had with students. Students would occasionally chat while I was talking but it never took much more than a clearing of the throat to get them to stop. I had one student once who refused to spit out his gum. He stormed out of the class rather than get rid of it. Another student followed him out and calmed him down. Clearly the young man had something else going on in his life. Anyway he never got out gum again.

About a month ago — just weeks before retiring — I had a student get all hot and bothered because I asked him not to use Google Translate for a vocabulary term that I was at the very moment explaining. He got quite angry at me, accused me of being “aggressive” and stormed out of class. He went to the school director to complain about me. This was clearly a case of the student in question being a complete and total jerk. Such people made up less than one percent of all students I taught.

Most of my students were between seventeen and twenty-five years old. However I had plenty of students in their later twenties, thirties, some in their forties and even older. A lot of them were university students taking a semester off or delaying starting school. Many had graduated and were getting ready for graduate school. Of course students were working to improve their English for their studies and/or for their future careers. A lot of students were already working and needed to improve their English for their work. Many students wanted to improve their English for travel, English being the lingua franca in most of the world. 

I had doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, professors, lots and lots of people in one form of business or another. I had students who ran companies. I had one newscaster. I had a few models. (I had two fashion models who resembled mannequins and one sportswear model from Switzerland who was vivacious and lovely.) I had an actor and a Belgian footballer recovering from a serious knee injury. I had a violinist in the Vienna Symphony. She was born and raised in Austria but was of Japanese parents. I had shop owners, ski instructors, med students, taxi drivers, I had Saudi Arabia’s minister of finance. I had bankers, accountants, chefs, chemists, software designers and nurses. 

My favorite students were the aforementioned Japanese and Germans as well as South Koreans and Spanish women and Italian men.

I loved being warmly greeted by students in the morning. I also appreciated that they thanked me constantly and gave me nice goodbyes and have a nice weekends. 

Teaching students from all over the world was a life-affirming experience and it was a privilege and an joy.

Wherein I Yell at Youth Sports Coaches Who Yell At Kids

My niece was telling me about her son’s middle school flag football coach. He makes the team run sprints so much in practice that some of the get physically ill. Again, this is middle school. It’s important to be in shape and indeed good for you, but at the same time you’re working with twelve and thirteen year-olds who are playing goddamned flag football, not running ultra marathons.

That’s not the worst part. If they lose a game this same coach makes them run extra. That’s right, he punishes children for the sin of losing a game. As a youth coach you know what I did when my team lost a game? I told them not to feel bad about it, learn your lessons and move on. I also told them that I was proud of their effort and that they should be too. By the way, I coached several teams to championships and had a perennial winner and it never occurred to me — not once — to punish players because the other team outscored them.

All my life I’ve seen evidence of youth coaches who get it all wrong and frankly I’ve been appalled. It hasn’t gotten any better since I was a kid. Actually, youth sports in general is in worse shape than it was fifty years ago. There’s a tremendous emphasis on winning, far out of proportion to what it should be. There’s also a proliferation of pay-to-play teams. Economically disadvantaged children (that’s a euphemism for poor kids) miss out. Baseball in particular has become a sport dominated at the youth level by privileged white kids. But that’s a topic for another time.

One of the worst things I’ve seen in the new uber competitive world of youth sports is that in this overwhelming desire to win teams are limiting playing time to their starters while other kids are spending entire games on the bench. Kids — whose parents are often shelling out money for the privilege — busting their little asses to play, going to every practice are sitting on the bench for all or most of games. Kids! Again when I was a coach everybody played in every game — period. Like I said, my teams won championships. Many coaches, and this goes up through college all the way to the pro level, are afraid to use their back-ups because they lack confidence. Not in the players but in themselves. 

Another thing is that here we are in the 21st century and we still have youth coaches who chew out their players. I’m not talking about yelling at players to “hustle” or barking instructions, I’m talking about using demeaning language, using profanity, insulting kids. That’s not even acceptable at the professional level let alone with ten-year-olds. What does it say about a forty-five year old man that he screams at a teenager for a mistake made on the playing field? 

It’s not just that. My older daughter was on her high school volleyball team. I attended home games. Once after a game the coach wasn’t happy with the way the team had played, despite the fact that they won. She kept the team on the court after the match and chewed them out in front of us remaining spectators. Seriously. After a match I would send my teams home with a hearty congratulations. If there were problems in their performance I would address it at the next practice with zero people watching. Even after a loss I wanted my players to feel good about themselves and I sure as hell didn’t want to air problems in front of other people.

Even if there were issues to be addressed I would always start practice on an upbeat note and then end it that way. These are young people. They have fragile egos. Many are sensitive. I wanted the experience of being on a team to be a positive force in their lives. I wanted to build their self-esteem while guiding them in being part of a team. My motto: play hard, have fun. If a player was late or someone interrupted me while I was talking the whole team ran to the fence and back (just once, enough to get a message across but not make them throw up). I was teaching them that they were all in it together. No one ever complained.

I was never perfect as a coach, far from it. But I also was not — not even close — a goddamned jerk who thought “punishment” was part of my job. I suppose I had an advantage as a coach because I was also a teacher and thus recognized that coaching and teaching are similar. (When a kid got the year the Civil War started wrong I never made them run until they vomited. Basic principle.)

Youth coaches need to relax, get over themselves and be there for the kids. Support them, nurture them and yes, push them, try to get the maximum out of them. But you don’t need to yell, cuss or name call. A pat on the back is more effective than a kick in the ass.

Championships Are Forever -- With Much Love to Arsenal

“𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘣, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳, 𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦; 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨.” - 𝘋𝘦𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘴 𝘉𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘬𝘢𝘮𝘱.

The pinnacle for a sports fan is when their favorite team wins a championship. In most sports for most teams they are extremely rare. I was in my fifties before I experienced the San Francisco Giants being World Series winners. I have never seen  the University of California football team win a conference championship and they’ve never come close to a national title.

A few days ago Arsenal Football Club of the English Premier League won their first league championship in twenty-two years. It came after three successive years of finishing second. 

I fell in love with Arsenal on May 2, 1971. I was an excellent "soccer" player in those days. I’d been good at a lot of sports, but in this one I excelled. It’s a heady feeling being superior to most everyone you face in a sport (and yes, it very much went to my head, humility was a stranger to me as a young man). But I had no team and no hero. There was "soccer" in the U.S. but just as it is today it was of inferior quality. It was hard to get excited about the Bay Area’s entry in what was then the North American Soccer League — the Oakland Clippers. They were made up primarily of players from Yugoslavia. No disrespect to that former nation, but it was hard to relate to them. If they had players from a variety of countries maybe with an emphasis on Brits, it would have been a different story. Also the stadium wasn’t exactly packed. In fact it was mostly empty and had all the atmosphere of a picnic. 

But on that fateful Saturday, Wide World of Sports was showing the FA Cup final from London. Arsenal was playing Liverpool. It was an extremely rare to see soccer on TV, especially from Europe. It was decades before the World Cup was televised here.

Though I don’t recall for certain, at the outset I was likely rooting for Liverpool  because that was where The Beatles were from. The game went to extra time and a chap named Charlie George scored a beautiful goal to put Arsenal ahead, 2-1. His celebration culminated with him laying on the ground with his arms spread. Charlie had long flowing locks, eschewed shin guards and his socks were rolled down. He looked like a rock star. I had a hero and a team. As the next match I played in began I tossed my shin guards aside and rolled down my socks.

Two years later I was standing in the terraces of the North Bank section of Highbury cheering Charlie George and The Arsenal on as they thrashed Manchester United, 3-0. It was (and remains) one of the great days of my life. I’ve been a Gooner ever since. The atmosphere in the stadium was unlike anything I'd experienced and at that point in my life I'd already been to a lot of different kinds of sports event courtesy of my father. Fans were not merely cheering, they were chanting and singing -- constantly. These supporters weren't just rooting  for their team, they loved them.

For much of my life it wasn’t easy being an Arsenal supporter. This had nothing to do with how good or bad the team was and everything to do with living in a different continent. I was left looking up scores in the paper the day after matches. It was hard to feel a connection. Thankfully in the late '90s, games from England began to be televised in the States and we got the internet in our house. I could not only watch matches, I could read about them, watch videos and connect with other fans — many in England — via forums. One such person who became a cyber friend. I finally met him in person earlier this month in Copenhagen where — fittingly enough — we watched an Arsenal match in an Arsenal-dedicated pub.

In 2006 I made a pilgrimage to London to see Arsenal in their last season at historic Highbury Park. The Gunners were 2-1 winners over Liverpool. In 2008 I saw them in their new stadium, The Emirates and again in 2017 (both victories). In 2017 I went on a stadium tour led by Charlie George -- I met my hero! I’ve been to matches the last four years (one draw and three wins) including three weeks ago, on the 55th anniversary of Charlie George’s goal. The Gunners won, three-nil. I always get choked up when before the match the fans sing part of Louis Dunford's song Angel, specifically the part known as North London Forever.

Charlie George's iconic celebration

Today every match is available on U.S. television for a modest fee added to the cable bill. (Remarkably not all matches can be seen in England. I find that bizarre.) I also listen to an Arsenal-dedicated podcast (appropriately called the Arsecast) follow the team and individual players on Instagram, follow other Arsenal lovers on Bluesky, read about the team on various sites and watch videos related to the club.

I’m obsessed.

Indeed my obsession with the team has become so all encompassing that I only closely follow two other teams: Cal 's football and Cal women’s basketball teams. I barely pay attention to other sports and watch none. 

So you can imagine my reaction on Tuesday when second place Manchester City dropped points at Bournemouth thus clinching the title for my beloved Arsenal: I was happy. I’m still happy. I’ll remain happy for a long time. 

Interestingly I did very little jumping up and down with joy. I only barely shed tears. I’ve felt more of a contentment, a deep satisfaction, a relief and immersion in a warm glow.

Once you’ve won a championship either as a player, coach, parent or fan (and I’ve experienced it as all four) it’s yours forever. It can’t be taken away. If you lose all your games the next season you still were title holders the year before. It’s permanent. Wins and losses are that way. You suffer a painful loss to a rival and it’s there forever and winning ten in a row against that team will not wipe away that loss. You do your best to forget those defeats while  holding those wins and championships close to your heart. 

The team you love becomes part of your identity. That’s why it can sting when someone says that they hate the team you love, they are saying that there’s part of you that they despise. It feels personal.

Some people don’t like sports. I can appreciate that. They’re saving themselves a lot of time, frustration and anxiety. But for me the positives of loving a team far outweigh the negatives. There are few joys to match that provided by sports. Also there’s the love. To really care about a team is to love them. And goodness we need all the love in our lives that we can possible get. You're  part of a community. I feel that every time I go to a match. Everyone there is like an old friend. 

I'm proud to love Arsenal. They've always been known for their multicultural fan base, for their early embrace of Black players, their early support for the LGBTQ fan base. And now they're champions of England. In my heart they always have been and always will be champions.