5 December 2008 (8 Kislev 5769)
[no update due to a computer problem]
12 December 2008 (15 Kislev 5769)
My notebook computer, which I had sent for repair, was finally sent back home in the middle of this week. I hoped that I would be able to return to normalcy after having been forced to lead a very hard life without a computer and the Internet connection at home, thus also causing inconvenience to many people, for almost 20 days. My hope did not last long, and after I turned on the computer, it soon turned into disappointment and anger; the problem with its hard disk had not been fixed at all! I had no other choice this time but to buy a new computer, which I did this week. I had a few options to take with this still relatively young "fixed" computer, but I did not hesitate to discard it physically together with a printer I had bought at the same time in order not to leave anything that might remind me of HP, which manufactures lousy products (everything I bought from this company got broken within one year) and offers, at least in Israel, a lousy technical support. It took me too whole days to install all the programs I need and customize them as well as checking and answering thousands of accumulated messages.
Although I suffered from lack of communication with others and constant updates about the world, I could find much more time at least to one thing - reading books - as well as more serenity through it. In addition to books for my brain, I also read the kind of books I cannot generally read except on Sabbath for lack of time - books for my soul. One book I reread after reading it for the first time several years ago was especially rewarding and nourishing spiritually. It is Destiny of Souls by Michael Newton and a sequel to his Journey of Souls. Both try to give an empirical answer to the question about what happens to our souls between lives in our physical bodies. Both are based on case studies of people who underwent his regression therapy. The first work in chronological order (i.e., Journey of Souls) is arranged by stages of the development of our souls, while the second (i.e., Destiny of Souls) is structured around aspects of life between lives (in the world of souls), so I found it more systematic and decided to read it again.
Having read this truly amazing book with such vivid and mutually congruent testimonies for the second time, I have stopped believing in reincarnation and afterlife, as I am convinced now that they do exist; belief always entails doubt. What I see as one of the main messages of this book is that we reincarnate into physical bodies in various social and cultural settings for many years for the sole purpose of training our souls and perfecting them through things only physical bodies can experience. Each incarnation has a specific purpose adding up to this general goal, and our souls choose specific bodies each time that can maximize the study of each specific lesson. I am curious to have such a regression therapy not only to recall past lives and find what lesson I am supposed to learn in the present incarnation but also to see what I have been doing the world of souls.
19 December 2008 (22 Kislev 5769)
Our emotion is attached to the specific time and space of an experience we undergo. The greater the distance becomes from that point in time and space, the less attached we become emotionally to that experience. On the other hand, intellectual curiosity can be free from such an influence of time and space; it can transcends time and space. I am sorry to admit this, but I am witnessing these days how true this generalization is.
The moment I discovered about a year ago that the next World Congress of Esperanto would take place in Bialystok, where Zamenhof was born, I told myself that I would definitely participate in it, mainly out of intellectual curiosity. But after taking part in the annual Yidish-Vokh this summer, I changed my mind. I had such a strong emotional experience there that I told myself to take part in it again next summer. Four months have passed since then; during this period I also experienced some bitter "aftertaste" of this emotionally unforgettable event. Now that my emotion has calmed down and is less affected, I am starting to listen to my intellect.
Of the five languages I use on a daily basis, Hebrew, English and Japanese are already beyond emotional attachment or intellectual curiosity; they are inseparable from myself and my daily life. The two other languages, which I use far less frequently, are Yiddish and Esperanto; I am attached to the former more emotionally, while I am curious about the latter more intellectually, though both are precious assets for me both emotionally and intellectually.
What is good about languages unlike women is that I can live with more than one at the same time. So in the meanwhile I have made a temporal intellectual (and not emotional) decision to participate in both gatherings, which can be a perfect solution to my emotional and intellectual dilemma. The only possible problem, however, is budget, but I really hope that I will somehow afford both trips. I am also thinking of giving a talk in Bialystok on the comparison of these two "diaspora languages", which were born and/or developed in the land where the the World Congress of Esperanto will be held, then have scattered in the four corners of the world, partly in order to reconcile this dilemma.
26 December 2008 (29 Kislev 5769)
Both as a student and as a teacher I have often been surprised, whether pleasantly or unpleasantly, to find that the atmosphere in class can be totally different from group to group even when the same teacher teaches the same course. Although I like to teach (and to learn through it), I seem to have at least one serious shortcoming as a teacher - I can be too sensitive to what others may consider trifles. When the same course I teach has a cosy and relaxed atmosphere in one group and a hostile and tense one in another, I cannot help asking myself what is wrong with me in the latter.
What I teach is more or less the same, and how I teach is also basically the same. What I can think of as a possible answer to this often annoying enigma is that I can be too sensitive to subtle differences in students' verbal and nonverbal behaviors in class and become slightly (but perhaps significantly) different from group to group in the way I react to them. Of course, I am not trying to blame them.
Although I have been teaching at university for almost twenty years, I have not learned to cope successfully with those students with no or little prior motivation. As I am poor at marketing myself, so am I poor at marketing what I teach to these people. I have not deciphered how the atmosphere in class is affected by highly and poorly motivated students. This is not so much a matter of mathematics as that of chemistry. Sometimes even one highly motivated student can overwhelm a number of other poorly motivated ones and contribute to creating a lively atmosphere in class, and at other times even one poorly motivated student can create a tense atmosphere.
One thing I know for sure is that once the atmosphere in class is "polluted" for whatever reason (including poor teaching by a teacher), it is mostly irreversible. So I always invest a maximum amount of energy in the first lesson in order to create an atmosphere which is good enough to be "polluted" later (sometimes by myself). I have not fully mastered this "chemical" skill in spite of almost twenty years of experience as a teacher. One human being is enigmatic enough, all the more so when two or more interact with you and affect you at the same time.