[Rupert]

I have found that the secret to being happy is a decision to be happy and to not look for the alleged faults.

My belief has always been......"Happiness comes from within."

OK, I am talking about the value of intangibles, and if I owned shares in a company where the only value was in the intangibles I would want to be out of it,

Buy from Amazon! My stock is finally back to break even...almost! I think there is value in what Amazon has done to change retailing, delivery, and availability to the masses. Walmart can be included in this view. Perfect?...not hardly, but a welcome change over our past choices.

Regards!

[WPRESTO]

Once upon a time I loved teaching (college level) because I loved passing on what I knew to others. To me it was like sharing a fascinating anecdote or a joke with a great punch line. I wanted all those young people to see the wonderment of life and geology as I did, but they didn't. They saw learning as a burden and me as a villain out to force upon them something that was useless. Any exam question that called for the tiniest bit of thinking was "tricky," something I'd inserted to trap them. Then we got an administration that was big on "learning outcomes." A teacher's effectiveness was determined by what students learned (measured how else than by the exams I gave that students thought were designed to make them fail) and by student evaluations of faculty collected on end-of-semester questionnaires (talk about an invitation to pander to the make-it-easy-as-possible dream of the students). Those administrators told us point blank that: 1) the majority of you faculty do not know how to teach; and 2) unless faculty members are monitored constantly, unless we administrators hold faculty feet to the fire, the faculty will get away with anything and everything that they can. Students who were as responsive as wet sandbags, an administration who had neither understanding nor respect for what motivates and drives a teacher, small wonder that all my enthusiasm for knowing and sharing what I knew was beaten as flat as soft gum on a hot interstate. So I had no qualms or regrets when advanced prostate cancer triggered me into early retirement. Do I miss teaching? I only miss what I wish it had been, what I expected and wanted it to be, not what it actually was.

[tim60]

Your experience matches my experience at a university that was heavy on undergraduate teaching and was aiming for the bulk market, like Rupert's producer of grape origin shoe polish. I have had two stints working in masters level teaching of students sponsored by employers who are looking for them to do serious, big stakes, work afterwards. They are usually interested in learning. One of the most interesting challenges is enabling people who have successful careers in a very clear cut true/false kind of world to develop the intellectual skills to deal with ambiguity and judgement between good and better. And PhD students are fun. After 8 completions including early, mid and late career, I conclude every one of them has learned something significant (part from the subject matter they were officially studying) but at the beginning it was not obvious to me or them what that would be. And now I have a bunch of lovely people who I share good relations with, scattered all around the world. And it is exciting to see who has used my work for what purpose I never imagined when I did it. I moved from a university where one student complained that almost everyone in the department could not teach, and the Dean of Teaching and Learning continued to believe him rather that saying what he should have: "have you noticed the factor in common here, you? Maybe you cannot learn." Now I am at one where the and people put the students in line before the academic even hears about it. Kind of shocked me how rigid and faculty supporting this place is. For example, if a student wants an extension they request showing their supporting information to an administrator. As the lecturer I do not even get contacted about it. It the case fits policy the extension is granted, if it does not it is not.

[Rupert]

Walter, life is so full of disappointments.Triumphs I have encountered with improving people's lives through any form of education, even elementary fundamentals are few. Very few.
I've had helpers that worked with me for years and learned nothing, left with no more skill than they came with and never cashed in on the opportunities afforded them.
I take it all in stride, have to or it would eat at me to no end. Mrs Rupert lives in her "Perfect World" syndrome and it sucks a lot of joy from her life when she discovers continually that few are interested in a perfect world...only their little world.

In a perfect world people would think of the little squirrels when the weather got unseasonably hot....like this lady in Missouri did....Bless her heart...and yes, she has already received Otis' Highest Award for her kind consideration! The Citizen Squirrel Award was given in a big ceremony over in the Squirrel Thread earlier today....


Regards!

[Racer X 69]

Once upon a time I loved teaching (college level) because I loved passing on what I knew to others. To me it was like sharing a fascinating anecdote or a joke with a great punch line. I wanted all those young people to see the wonderment of life and geology as I did, but they didn't. They saw learning as a burden and me as a villain out to force upon them something that was useless. Any exam question that called for the tiniest bit of thinking was "tricky," something I'd inserted to trap them. Then we got an administration that was big on "learning outcomes." A teacher's effectiveness was determined by what students learned (measured how else than by the exams I gave that students thought were designed to make them fail) and by student evaluations of faculty collected on end-of-semester questionnaires (talk about an invitation to pander to the make-it-easy-as-possible dream of the students). Those administrators told us point blank that: 1) the majority of you faculty do not know how to teach; and 2) unless faculty members are monitored constantly, unless we administrators hold faculty feet to the fire, the faculty will get away with anything and everything that they can. Students who were as responsive as wet sandbags, an administration who had neither understanding nor respect for what motivates and drives a teacher, small wonder that all my enthusiasm for knowing and sharing what I knew was beaten as flat as soft gum on a hot interstate. So I had no qualms or regrets when advanced prostate cancer triggered me into early retirement. Do I miss teaching? I only miss what I wish it had been, what I expected and wanted it to be, not what it actually was.

The real question here is, did you beat the cancer?

[WPRESTO]

The real question here is, did you beat the cancer?

You get a score based on several indicators (PSA value, Gleason rating from needle biopsy, post-operative determination of cancer stage, whether the cancer had penetrated the prostate surface) which is then put on a graph with thousands of other men who had the same score. The graph gave me a 20% chance of being alive five years after the operation. I'm on my eighth year after, so I'm a fugitive from the law of averages. However, you are never cured of cancer. You go into remission until something else kills you.

[Rupert]

You go into remission until something else kills you.

Well hang in there, and beware of trucks when crossing intersections.......

I think we are always at more risk than we realize...and it's probably good we don't realize....

Years ago I hired a guy, about 35, and he looked to be a great employee. After less than a week, he went to his car to eat a sandwich for lunch. We found him dead two hours later. Heart attack. His wife said he had never had any prior trouble or symptoms.

Might be a good time for this?


Regards!

[robtcorl]

When my urologist found early stages of cancer in my prostate, 6 years ago, he was aggressive in his approach, get that thing out of there!
I went through a battery of tests to make sure it had not spread, and it had not.
So I got the Da Vinci robotic prostatectomy to remove it, and the results were that it was contained within the gland.
It's played hell with my sex life, but I'm alive and thankful for modern medical practices, right along with my pacemaker.

WPRESTO, I'm hoping yours stays in remission.

[WPRESTO]

How much time have I left? How many pictures do I want to take before then?

I've posted this philosophical notion before, maybe two years back, from Nikos Kazantkakis, "The Odyssey, A modern Sequel" which follows Odysseus from the slaying of the suitors until his death.

Life is like coming to a precipice where looking down you cannot see the bottom, and looking out you cannot see the other side, or even the horizon, just nothing, yet you must try to build a bridge across to that other side. No matter how carefully you build, your bridge will collapse before you can even see the other side, which may not exist at all, and you will fall into the abyss below, where there is also nothing, sharing the same fate as all the humans who have tried to cross the precipice of life before you. Yet you, and every individual before and after, must try to build your own bridge.

Better to exercise the Pentax and indulge your LBA,

---------- Post added 02-11-17 at 09:23 PM ----------

When my urologist found early stages of cancer in my prostate, 6 years ago, he was aggressive in his approach, get that thing out of there!
I went through of a battery of tests to make sure it had not spread, and it had not.
So I got the Da Vinci robotic prostatectomy to remove it, and the results were that it was contained within the gland.
It's played hell with my sex life, but I'm alive and thankful for modern medical practices, right along with my pacemaker.

WPRESTO, I'm hoping yours stays in remission.

I had about four months of chemo (kept teaching during this), then radical prostatectomy (during final exams, so I had to give mine early), then three months of external beam radiation together with hormonal treatment (not teaching Spring semester = my last semester, while enduring this part). Hormones were the hardest - they mess with your mind and change your personality. I knew it intellectually, but I could not control it. Eventually they put me on an opioid drug that did improve my mood and made my company tolerable for family members, but I got off it as soon as they'd allow after the hormonal treatment ended.

[MarkJerling]

Always remember that being perfectly healthy is just the slowest rate at which we die. As you say - best to get on with it and try to make the most of every day.

[Racer X 69]

Life is like coming to a precipice where looking down you cannot see the bottom, and looking out you cannot see the other side, or even the horizon, just nothing, yet you must build a bridge across to that other side. No matter how carefully you build, your bridge will collapse before you can even see the other side, which may not exist at all, and you will fall into the abyss below, where there is also nothing, sharing the same fate as all the humans who have tried to cross the precipice of life before you.

Perfect description.

[Racer X 69]

Always remember that being perfectly healthy is just the slowest rate at which we die. As you say - best to get on with it and try to make the most of every day.

Yesterday is but a memory.

Tomorrow just a dream.

This very moment is the only thing you know for certain and even that is debatable.

Live every moment to the fullest.

Live every day like it is your last.

[WPRESTO]

No question that time was the low point of my life, but on the other side of it I'm healthy, happy, not especially wise (but my wife is so I just defer to her judgement), not especially wealthy but enough $ to pretty much do or buy what I want (short of a complete set of digital Hasselblad equipment). I'm fit enough to do 30 minutes on a cross-trainer* and hike as far as M wants to go. Nothing in my life that could not be cured by being thirty years younger and holding the winning lottery ticket.

*after doing 15 repetitions each on several resistance machines (60lb biceps curl; 40 lbs overhead press; 80lb triceps straighten; 135lb latissimus pull-down; 185lb two-leg push, 180lb pull knees together; + a few others).

[robtcorl]

What we need here is some bacon McBobs!

[bertwert]

The current discussion calls for a Monty Python video.
Can you guess which one?

You Tube

You Tube