Doubt well, do what you can, then let it be. Presidents, priests, wage slaves, hustlers, men and women, kids, we all live by the grace of those we love to despise...
Leidenschaft ist, was Leiden schafft
(passion is what makes you suffer - German Proverb) |
I don't care what you believe in, so long as you don't believe in it too strongly. A belief is a weapon in the armoury of your heart, and its razor edge will murder the innocent. The ice, the fire of your passion will seduce mundane men and women. Your clarity will excite respect. And the first demagogue who comes along with a key to your heart's armoury will wrest the weapon from your moral grasp. The first cause which wears the colours of your belief will enlist you as a soldier in ravaging crusades. Peace friend. Keep your passion to doubt with. Our civilization is a simple matter of live and let live, of giving dreams a go, but stepping back with a wry smile when we get it wrong. Let the fundamentalists perish in their own pillars of fire. Spare a dollar for the living, and have a nice day.
- Thor @1 November 1991 |
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<< too small to read? Press Ctrl + keys on your keyboard >>
Books for sale |
Teaching Productivity and Its Enemies
is now on sale for US$12.50 (click the title link)
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A study of factors affecting teacher productivity, supported by case studies in teaching English as a foreign or second language from Australia, New Zealand, China, South Korea, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia
© copyright Thorold May PhD 2011; All Rights Reserved
published by The Plain & Fancy Press
ISBN 978-0-9871390-0-9
e-mail thormay AT yahoo.com
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English for Mechanics (1st edition)
is now on sale for US$15 (click the title link)
Paragraph Units on Topics in Automotive Mechanics
for teaching to NESB students
(non-English speaking background) and others
Thorold May
© copyright Thorold May 1996-2005; All Rights Reserved
published by Lulu.com
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A further list of books that Thor has prepared to various stages of being 'publication ready' can be seen at Thor's Bookshop |
Feature
1. Thor's Australian Spaces
Australia is a spacious place. Take an evening flight from the scurrying ant heap of some city in East Asia, settle down for a fitful sleep in cattle class, then lift the porthole shutter at dawn and gaze from 10,000 meters upon a continent in blazing creation. You are an avatar, a messenger come for strange messages from other gods in a strange land. The sun rises like a meteor, the night chill upon the land below shrinks like plastic wrap on an oven plate, and in a trice you are hovering above a terrifying, trackless waste of shimmering browns and reds and yellows, bony ridges of old rocks, sometimes a scar where a river might have been a million years ago. It goes on and on for hours. It is Australia, and it isn’t home.... more
Domestic Bliss and an Australian Dream
In spite of waddling locals with voices like swamp frogs and the tattooed pub denizens, Australia is not such a bad place. Life is almost too easy, and the facilities are wonderful. It is a pity that it is so damned expensive. I could almost, but not quite, break even on the money front. By living frugally, I could gently sink into Australian poverty for a little time, while dreaming of heading off, perhaps, to live like a king on my pension in some low-cost corner of the world.
Stranded at yet another celestial bus stop on life's journey, I pondered on how to save cash. The solution was familiar: split the rent in a share house with some characters allotted by fate. This time it was three women and an apprentice upholsterer. When I moved in, the lady owner had messages to her god stuck all over the walls, so I had to decontaminate my room of holy spirits immediately. She was not a bad old stick, and one day suddenly fell head over heels in love with a plumber, who decided to take her around the world....
continue reading
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China Readings - Archived news and articles about China: I read a large number each year
a) General Readings on China from 2007 to October 2011; b) Readings on Education in China; c) Readings on Finance, Banking and Business in China
note: Readings for all the world up to 2009 are indexed => here
Work in Progress 
This website is now ancient, at least in the annals of cyberspace. In various forms, it has been accumulating with bits and pieces for around fifteen years. It is formatted haphazardly in basic html, categorized a bit forlornly into "interest areas" and therefore attracts (or fails to attract) readers from sometimes unrelated worlds. Mostly though the website has documented the journey of its author, Thor May, through time and almost imperceptibly become a part of his identity. At times there have been frequent additions, while for other extended periods I have been absent on different missions and readership has fallen away. Why anyone bothers to read along has always been a bit of a mystery.
The Passionate Skeptic website makes sense to Thor, but to you accidental visitors from outer space it might seem like a rambling mansion. In fact, I don't truly know what it seems like to you. The site statistics do show around half a million visitors this century. How many paused to smile, agree, disagree or wail we will never know. Since a tsunami of blogs began to sink the visibility of websites like this around a decade ago, few of you have bothered to email. The traditional static format really doesn't allow for comments to be casually posted.
For a long time now I have been aware that major renovations are necessary. Life is short however. Each day is a tiny sliver of time. The task of a makeover would be enormous. What to do? Compromise of course. I will leave the website here in all its shabby glory. Bit by bit though, large chunks of it will be copied to a stable of blogs as well. Their dynamic format should allow for proper discussion, and their separation will encourage each community of interests to develop its own ecology. The copying process will take months (years?), depending upon other distractions. As each new blog is brought online a link to it will be posted below. In the beginning, these blogs will be mere shadows, but at least anyone inclined can come back to the old site here to rummage through things past, if that is their fancy. That is, The Passionate Skeptic website will remain Grand Central Station for departures to all these brave new worlds.
Thor's Blogs (many more on the way; see explanation above)
Anchluss or ANZAC? - A Solution for Taiwan
What would be the consequences, to follow a crazy thought experiment, if the Peoples Republic of China were to formally renounce all claims to sovereignty over Taiwan? Well, at first there would be a very confused Chinese public in the PRC and a desperate need for some inspired domestic persuasion out of Beijing. However, once that contradiction had been finessed (they've had tougher knots to untie), my guess is that within a short time Taiwan would become China's best friend and ally. They have so much in common. A free Taiwan choosing between America and China? No contest. Of course they would choose China. Taiwan has already shown the world what its enterprise can achieve under conditions of great handicap. Give its people back their hope and spirit, then Taiwan would be the best little brother that China could ever wish for. China would win immense international respect and trust. It truly would be on the fast track in that new Great Game, the contest for competence.
.<> copies of this posting can be found on this website here, and on Thor's Wordpress blogs, Thor's New China Diary and Thor's Unwise Ideas
. Continue reading
Somebody Else’s Problem
The Peoples Republic of China has many faces, and its inhabitants come in every imaginable shade of character. The seven deadly sins are richly represented, and a healthy bouquet of virtues can be found as well. There are however some constants in public life. Whoever the PRC belongs to, it is not Joe Wang and Molly Liu on Jiefang Lu in any of the 700 cities or countless thousands of villages. It probably isn’t the old men in Zhongnan Hai either, or even the Black Hands that shadow every lucrative trade. Perhaps, in the tradition captured so well by Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the place is really owned by some prissy field mice wheeling a UFO above the Yellow River plains. In any case, it is totally predictable in every imaginable situation that in China nobody traceable is responsible for anything, ever.
continue reading
3. Thor's Language & Teaching Notes
20. Please Tell Me Some Idioms to Learn this piece is also on this site here
She was trying to be conversational. "Tell me some good idioms", she said.... This time I stonewalled the lady, not planning to be rude, just a kind of subconscious rebellion. "Some good idioms?" For what, when, how, why and under what level of threat? She was asking for a bucket of seawater to explain the world’s ocean currents. That’s the trouble with knowing too much about a subject for a 30 second sound bite (no arrogance intended). She went off in a huff, looking for her soundbite. After all, for a real answer there was always Google online, with zillions of sources and lists. The trouble is, they wouldn’t help her much unless she had a photographic memory, and even then not much either. Why not?
The simple answer is that so-called idioms flit in and out of fashion in the endlessly shifting galaxies of location, circumstance, social group, personality ... and so on. I actually see and hear new expressions every day, even after 66 years, or old expressions repackaged. The hard answer is another question: "what the hell is an idiom anyway?" To that there is no easy answer.
.... continue reading
4. Unwise Ideas (most content still remains here at http://thormay.net. All writings will take quite a while to transfer)
 .
58. Déjà Vu and Wicked Stories
This story is just a grumble about living in a world of predictable villainy and occasional charm. As pretty as snowflakes piling up on a bleak field, I've accumulated a passable knowledge of world history and international affairs (especially Asian). Yet snow is snow, while the seven deadly sins don't really change their cloaks regardless of the weather. No matter where I look and no matter at what time in history, the same underlying stories play out. Good ideas/ideals get subverted by the bad guys (in fact, one-time good guys are apt to be bought out and enlisted in the Evil Empire of the age), wealth funnels to the few, classes are entrenched, sex is exploited, trust evaporates ... If you are young enough, you KNOW that this sorry tale was yesterday: NOW the possibilities are different, right? Why else would we tune into the story again each morning? The grumpy elder speaks: in truth, NOW the possibilities are worse, but only because the number of players (world population) is destructively larger and the tools of oppression chillingly more efficient. The Muse sooths us: just to keep things ticking over, "Good", whatever that is, always fights back and the whole cycle of heroism and romance starts over.
Continue reading [The link above is to my Wordpress blog. The story is also here on this site, thormay.net]
47. The contest for Competence
If some people don't break the rules sometimes, then a normal society will cease to function. Breaking the wrong rules for the wrong reasons is like breaking legs though. And if everyone breaks the rules, then a society will disintegrate. A paradox? Yes. See how this cake is baked... more.
more unwise ideas (this website) OR here on my Wordpress blog Thor's Unwise Ideas
5. Thor's Videos & Recordings
This is a small collection of short biographical videos, a teaching demonstration, and some recitations of my own verse, together with several well-known verse ballads (for the benefit of learners of English). The blog duplicates material already on thormay.net at http://thormay.net/video/videondx.html
6. Thor's SHORT CUTS (Wordpress blog) OR the full list of short cuts on this site, thormay.net ....
241. Sell It!
Mon 07-May-2012
Over two thousand years ago, there was a philosopher, Laoz,i who was sure that people were naturally good (someone called Jesus Christ had the same idea). About the same time another character, Shâng Yâng, reckoned they were naturally bad and invented an impressive list of punishments. Funny, ancient history seems to give us no wise guys who thought that people were naturally suckers. How did they miss such a deep human truth? Give me a reason, any reason, that your scam or your widget will work and I can sell it. It's the story that sells, not the balm or the widget. (Well, except to a few boring characters who actually want facts). People always want to believe in something, tailored in simplicity to their intelligence. It just needs Joe Blogs to be given an attractive reason and he'll believe that the moon is made of cheese, so find out what he thinks adds up to an attractive reason. Few people will admit that their own judgement is poor. Actually the evidence for common bad judgement is overwhelming (e.g. exibit A: marriage with a 50% national failure rate). How lucky. Since so many individuals make such infallibly bad choices, the market has no rational boundaries. A crooked operator can parley almost anything into a dollar. Heck, even an honest man can sell fridges to Eskimos.
more short cuts ....
Research [Applied Linguistics] [Formal Linguistics]
 Language Tangle - Predicting and facilitating outcomes in language education
Doctoral dissertation in knowledge worker productivity (specifically, language teacher productivity), from the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, 2010. The thesis is on this website, and is also online in the University of Newcastle research depository at http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/804346 .
This thesis argues that foreign and second language teaching productivity can only reach its proper potential when it is accorded priority, second only to language learner productivity, amongst the many competing productivities which are always asserted by stakeholders in educational institutions.
A theoretical foundation for the research is established by examining the historical concept of productivity, and its more recent manifestation as knowledge worker productivity, especially as applied to teachers.
The empirical basis of the thesis is sourced from a chronological series of twenty biographical case studies in language teaching venues in Australia, New Zealand, Oceania and East Asia. The biographical case study methodology, although rare in applied linguistics, is justified by reference to its wide and growing application in other fields of qualitative research. The case studies are analysed for common patterns of productivity, as well as teaching productivity inhibition or failure.
Fluency and Accuracy in Language Teaching
Abstract : This is the outline of a seminar on teaching methodology given as a teacher inservice for Chinese English teachers in Zhengzhou, Henan, China, in November 2009. The seminar indicates a fundamental difference in objectives between language learning for certification and learning for live use. Whereas accuracy is an absolute goal within schooling contexts, its value on the street is highly variable. This difference is reflected in teaching perspectives.
... Other articles on language teaching here
Thor's Big Links List to
ESL Resources & Jobs
General Index to
Thor's stuff on language learning & teaching
FOR
TEACHERS
Lectures
on Second Language Acquisition
Lectures
on
Grammar in
EFLLinks to Online
Resources for Teachers
Articles
by Thor on Language Teaching
FOR
STUDENTS
Thor's
ESL Everything Index
The
Barebones Index - stuff from Korea & China
Poetry
 [ also see Thor's Poems
at http://thormay.net/literature/poems.html
]
Australian Blue
Centre
country scene: A
thousand miles of desert,
Ten thousand miles of
shimmering heat.
In and out the Dead Heart,
Only one great vastness;
Up and down the Diamantina,
Sand torrents stopped and stilled.
Hills dance like rainbow serpents,
Mirages race like
shadowed giants,
Trying to vie with the sun in their reach.
A wild eye is needed
To view this wilderness decked with blue
In all its unforgiving beauty.
Thor
(cheerfully ripping off Mao Zedong, “Snow”)
April 2008
WRITING 
Managing
Downward
Spirals - Getting from Here to There
Hey,
will you be here tomorrow? Seg back twenty years and all the news was
of a planet overrun by recklessly breeding humans. Today in the media
of rich nations, the slightly hysterical whisper is that liberated
women are on a baby strike and we’ll all be doomed to robot care in our
old age. This downward spiral of fertility is an almost sedate affair
in the grand scheme of things. Compare it to the supposed disappearance
of dinosaurs after the nuclear winter from earth's traffic accident
with a giant meteor. People though, count for more than dinosaurs,
don't they...
<> Bus
to Heaven (a
story for learning English) 
Every
morning Helen put her left shoe on before her right shoe. She combed
her hair before she put on any mascara. And she made her bed before she
ironed her dress. There wasn't any special reason for doing things in
that order. It was just a habit, and she never thought about it...
(continued
...)
<> Mr Dog
Looks for Breakfast
(a children's story for learning English)
Mr. Dog
woke up one Spring morning and yawned.He stretched his
legs and wrinkled his nose.Then he sniffed the
breeze. There were many
interesting smells in the air.He could smell the
jaoze steaming in Mrs. Li's
kitchen. That made his to tongue hang out, and he panted a little with
pleasure.Presently
he caught another scent. It was that damned Tabby cat. He frowned, and
growled deep in his throat.The silly thing was
watching him for sure, hiding
behind a fence or something. He looked around suspiciously, but Tabby
was not to be seen...
(...
continued)
Stumpy and the Decision Tree
~~~ a daggy epic from virtual space
Photos
A photo essay from students in Zhengzhou photo index
Thor's Videos .... index of videos & recitations here [ All of my videos are also now on a blog, Thor's Videos & Recordings, at http://thorsvideo.byeways.net/ ]
The following three short, and very amateur videos were made in China in 2010 for the purpose of giving me a current professional and personal identity. At least from that perspective it was a wasted exercise: the Chinese Public Security Bureau threw me out of China a little later for the crime of turning 65. Ce la vie. An earlier, further small collection of personal "identity" videos can be seen here.
see the video, "The Journey of a Passionate Skeptic " (4 minutes) here
see the video, "Born 1945 - Still Running Strong" (2.5 minutes) here
see the video, "Teaching English is Fun " (4.5 minutes) here
writing & photography on this site is
copyrighted © Thorold (Thor) May 2011
all rights reserved, http://.thormay.net
thormay AT yahoo.com |
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