Thor toasts Chinese New Year in Brisbane, 2012 (phone photo)
[The language in this summary is slightly simplified to help readers whose first language is not English]
Contact: Thor May
Brisbane, Australia
e-mail: thormay AT yahoo.com
homepage: http://thormay.netOccupation: Writer, teacher, teacher trainer, lecturer (English language & linguistics).
[At the end of 2010 the Chinese government refused to renew my work visa for the crime of turning 65. In practice on this issue, Australian institutions are not so different from the Chinese. Now the Australian government pays me a means-tested age pension (barely enough to live on in Australia), with an incomprehensible caveat not to leave Australia for two years (i.e. until 2013). It is all insane. I'm jumping with energy, so I can't see this "retirement" gig lasting. When you get past all the politically correct blah about equal opportunity, for any atypical individual our civilizations are zombie obstacle courses .... ]
Origin: I was born in Australia in 1945. My ancestors seem to have come to Australia around 1845, some from England and some from America. Since I left home at 17 years of age, I have lived outside Australia for a total of about 24 years as of 2011, though mostly as an agent of Australian culture (that is, as a lecturer and language teacher). I like to dwell in places where cultures meet. I therefore see myself as a 'citizen of the world'.
Teaching: I have been teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language since 1976. For twelve years (1978-1990) I also lectured linguistics in universities. Besides that, in 2003-2004 I lectured linguistics to Korean postgraduates in a TESOL program.
Background Experience: I have taught in these countries: Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Indonesia, China (5 years overall), South Korea; (I was in South Korea from September 2000 until September 2007, then returned to China). I have also visited perhaps twenty other countries, but prefer to have a purpose in travel rather than just log in to the standard "famous places". In Australia over many years I taught thousands of immigrants from what seemed like every country in the world. Before I became a teacher in 1976 I had many other jobs (about forty!), including aircraft dispatch officer, shipyard ironworker, office worker, commercial cleaner, newspaper copy boy, truck driver, taxi driver ... and so on. Perhaps because of this, I am more interested in your personality than your bank account, your job position, or how important you think you are. I respect anyone if they try to do a good job, and don't respect them if they are lazy or dishonest! Having said that, as I look back some rather bad guys (women too!) have left me with strong memories. Like them, no, but they are wonderful story material ^_^. I have a rather wry view of my own failings, a tendency to laugh at myself, and find it hard to really dislike anyone who can also have a good laugh at their own dumb mistakes.
Wealth: I have pretty simple tastes, moneywise, but probably spend too much on computers !! I'm usually frugal (women hate this ^_^ ), but hopefully not mean. Being frugal is a necessity. I started poor, have never been rich (by Australian standards), and seem likely to retire and die someday without a lot of money. However, I have never been in debt. Many people have security + a career + a boring life. Some folk have the lucky option of wealth + an interesting life. I have usually chosen interesting work + interesting personal activities like writing stories + rather little money + very little security. The main drawback, I suppose, is that not having hung out in expensive hotel lobbies with a credit card overdraft, an Armani suit and a big fake smile, I have also failed to meet some of life's more interesting villains and fast living ladies ... No big regrets, but donations gratefully received (smile)!
- Preferred Intellectual style: playing Devil's Advocate, i.e. as a friendly provocateur challenging accepted wisdom. I'm delighted to be argued down and proved wrong every time, but every government, business, college, colleague, student and friend needs this kind of challenge to grow! If you can graciously defend your practices, actions and beliefs they might be worth something. I'm with Socrates on this: "the unexamined life is not worth living."
Interests and affections: I am an active person who stays fit with exercises every day. I've been distance running for fifty years, walk wherever possible, and prefer stairs to escalators (which seems to put me beyond the pale amongst most members of the human species). Luckily, humans come with all kinds of shapes, sizes and dispositions, so it is an awful waste of possible friends and associates to cut them off for not meeting some silly ideal. I do try to value the women, men and children in my life. On the other hand, I have never married. Why not? No easy answer. There is hardly a person alive who wouldn't like a special 'perfect partner', but I learned long ago that the frantic search which obsesses so many finally rewards so few and frankly leaves too many other opportunities neglected. It is like the tourists who throng tourist spots, too busy photographing everything to actually savour the living experience. There's a huge marketing machine out there working full time to seed and water "relationship hunger", just as there is to create "needs" for every other kind of consumer product. As well of course, large numbers of folk, fearful of their own harsh or empty mental desert where imagination should be, are desperate to fill up the space between their ears with any sort of noise. Then the peer pressure cuts in and snowballs... Yep, biology sets the foundation. In the end though, it's up to you and me. For me, friends, even lovers are fine but not the only important measure of what life's game is all about. In other words, I have always been open to finding that "perfect partner", but refused to let the notion interfere too much with other ideas and choices. (Yeah, OK, for what it's worth I'm attracted to slim, very bright and courageous women who can also manage a spark of humour and compassion. Say, Shakespeare's Portia might have come pretty close with a little softening. Sometimes complicating this instinct, my particular life experience has left me more attuned to many Asian women than a lot of their Australian sisters). Anyway, the way things stand, I am rarely lonely or bored personally because life is so fascinating. I am interested in computers, technology and new ideas of all kinds, as well as languages, history, geography, sociology, economics and current affairs. I'm occasionally moved by music, but it is not a big deal in my life. Pop culture, spectator sports and TV are almost total blanks (which makes me a very unpromising character in your typical bar scene chatter ^_^). There is a very big, "homepage" site at http://thormay.net. Some entries run back 15 years - ancient in cyberspace. Much needs to be spun off into other, less self-centered content, but that would be an enormous job! Some of the files on this site are of book length. Another major interest is writing stories, essays, articles and sometimes poems. Over the years I have also produced a lot of English language teaching material and lately have been worrying away at the problem of how to put it in front of non-classroom learners, hopefully to make a dollar or two. To do that, it looks as if I'll have to learn how to program iPod and Android applications - a bit of a challenge for a newby programmer!
Big questions: Everyone has at least one important question in their life. For me, the important question is "how does it work?". That is, I always want to find out how everything works: a watch, a car engine, the human brain, China, Korean culture, you ... Learning about new things, and creating new things is facinating enough to fill up a human life. I noticed long ago that many people ask and worry about "why am I here?" I have no answer to that, and believe there is no answer. Therefore, it is a waste of time worrying about "why am I here?". The important thing is to have an interesting life while you are are alive. At the time of the Roman Empire, a couple of thousand years ago, average life expectancy was apparently about 22 years. In Elizabethan England of the 1500s-1600s, a person could expect to live around 32 years. No wonder the big deal was to "have a good death", preferably with honour, such as having your head cut off while defending the king or saving a noble lady from bandits. Well, now we have an extra 50 years or more to fill in, and it is surely an abuse of the gift to waste it start to end with a couch potato TV existence.
I understand that religion is important to many people for many reasons. I respect that, but have no religion myself. Maybe that comes from being comfortable as an independent thinker. In any case, looking at both history and the world today, I see that bad people use religion as an excuse for what they do, and good people use religion as a reason for what they do. Many people use religion as either an excuse or a reason to hate other people. I don't need excuses like that, and I don't need reasons like that. I have lived what seemed to be a good and decent life since stage entrance in 1945. I have clear values and enjoy helping other people to grow (which is why I am a teacher).Business: The Plain & Fancy Language House is "my electronic editing and publishing enterprise". The quotation marks are there because it is really nothing at all nowadays. It was once officially registered in Victoria, but remains more of a personal imprint than a business. Maybe that will change sometime. The original idea was to specialize in making perfect English writing from material created by people whose first language is not English.
Qualifications : Click here to see Thor's Résumé, and click here to see a List of Thor's Publications . My main qualifications are :
a) Accredited :
1. PhD : My doctoral dissertation on language teaching productivity was awarded in 2010 by the University of Newcastle, Australia.
2. Master of Applied Linguistics - 2005; the University of Newcastle, Australia; => transcript.
3. Postgraduate Diploma of Teaching , Auckland, New Zealand, 1975. This one year postgraduate program would be called a coursework Masters in many places today.
4. RSA/Cambridge CTEFLA (certificate in teaching English as a foreign language to adults; a syndicated course from Cambridge, done in Melbourne, Australia, 1996).
5. Bachelor of Arts degree, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 1974. Majors in linguistics and social anthropology.
b) Non-accredited : the following material is useless for getting jobs or satisfying bureauracies, but does reflect a lot of extra knowledge and insight, earned at great expense of time and money.
1. ABD (?): Thor has worked on two other PhDs (besides the one finally awarded in 2010) :
a) The first one, in the early 1980s was not finished, but later turned into an M.A. That was about Generative Grammar (topic: Grammatical Agency).
b) I have written about 50,000 words, and done a lot of research on a second PhD in Cognitive Linguistics (about Formulaism and Collocation in Language) at the University of Melbourne, Australia. I also stopped doing this formally, but now pick away at it informally when time allows. See my material on Generative Oscillation, and also the article "Postsupposition and PasticI Talk". All this work probably amounts to something like the American concept of ABD ("All But Dissertation").
2. Master of Arts in Formal and Applied Linguistics, Hawaii, 1994. It is based on PhD work from the University of Newcastle, plus some other content. The examiner was the head of Linguistics at Newcastle, who accepted that it was one solution to an unfair situation at the U. Newcastle itself (whose restrictive rules at that time would not allow withdrawn doctoral work to be resubmitted for a Masters). The university which awarded the qualification, Greenwich University in Hawaii, seemed like a good and recommended choice in 1994, but went out of business in 2004. Therefore the degree is now difficult to use officially (transcripts are available however). What a waste. Eventually I decided that it was best to do a second Masters degree (above).
A video autobiography of Thor in five parts called "The Ages of Man" can be seen on the Video Page. These are Youtube.com videos.
