I Ching Reading: Revolution

I often use the I Ching as a way find out where I'm at emotionally. Today I got Hexagram Number 49: Revolution. It implies that chaos rises out of order. The I Ching is based on Taoist philosophy, which teaches us how to find balance in a world that may seem out of balance. I'm not involved in a political revolution right now, but I believe we are all in a time when the COVID-19 global pandemic is forcing people to think in ways that were once considered revolutionary. Andrew Yang, the presidential candidate, was considered revolutionary for suggesting that every American should get $1,000 a month from the government. It seemed that our government would never try any policy that seemed so socialistic as too be impossible and yet Congress just passed a bill to give everyone at least $1,200 to help us get through the economic difficulty that social distancing has caused. But in what way am I supposed to find balance in this hexagram?

Ever since I graduated from a coding boot camp last December, I've been avoiding substitute teaching and staying home so I can apply to web development jobs and study whatever technologies I might need for a new job. Now that the world has turned upside-down, everyone else in California is living a lot like the way I've been living. For me, the main difference is that I can't study at Starbucks or go to the gym to workout. Everyone else is applying for unemployment like the way I've had to apply for unemployment when I can't get teaching jobs. In a strange way, everyone has been brought into my world. It's a little disorienting. What am I to make of it?

This hexagram came with what's called a "changing line," which means that there is an extra hexagram after this one, in this case Number 63: After Completion. I've seen this before. After a project is completed, there is always more to do. I knew it would take some time for me to find a job after I graduated from boot camp, but now that the economy is paralyzed, it's hard to tell if I can even hope to get a job.

Today, I had a phone interview with a lady who works for a company called 8th Light. They offer apprenticeships to junior coders. We talked about how much I would be paid and the company's philosophy of coding as a kind of craft. I told her about how I would prefer a front end job, which has to do with the way a web site works. She seemed nice and we had a good chat, but when we ended the call she said that there are many candidates and only one position available. That doesn't make me feel optimistic, but this is part of the process. I'll just have to keep applying and hope I can get more interviews.

Wake Up Call

I woke up at about 3:30 this morning. It was my friend Alycia calling. She had just rear-ended a parked car. The police had already come to deliver their report and left. This was bad news for more than the obvious reason that her car no longer worked. She had been living in her car after having left the halfway house she had been living at for a year. Before that, she had been living with me because she had no place to go after she got out of jail. Long story short, she was convicted of the crime of being mentally ill. Since she was taking medication this time, I had agreed to help her. When she was living with me, she was anxious and depressed all the time, which was a burden to deal with. After she moved to the other place, she changed. She became a completely healthy person. She was even joyous, a lot of fun to be around. Lately, she had been taking steps to improve her life. She had passed a mortgage license exam. She was applying for jobs. This picture of her and me was from her birthday last month. But then, unexpectedly, she turned to the dark side again and left the halfway house. This issue, according to her, was a dispute with the owner about her medication. With the pandemic becoming worse, the was the perfectly wrong time for her to be living in her car. I've heard that there is a correlation between pandemic infections and psychosis, but the true cause may never be known.

I kept falling asleep while she was talking to me. I couldn't let her stay with me due to the governor's call for social distancing. I told her it's too late for me to help her and we ended the call.

After lunch, she called me again. She wanted me to help her get cash because her debit card was no longer giving her cash from ATM's. Her car was parked six miles away in a neighborhood in Calabasas. She told me to call her when I was almost there because she would be getting something to eat and wanted time to walk back to her car. I told Siri to call her and text her warnings when I was was on my way, but she didn't answer. I parked my car up the street from her car. She wasn't in it. The front end was totaled. I took a picture of it and went back to my car. After I texted the picture to her sister, Alycia called me. She didn't even know that I had tried to call her. I drove to the Denny's where she was waiting for me in front of the restaurant, not inside, since it was closed, like most other businesses these days. We didn't hug. That's a bad idea now. I was wearing the mask and gloves I wear when I go shopping. She sent me some money online and I gave her the same amount in cash. She left to get something to eat and I said I'd see her later. I felt empty when I walked back to my car.

People are dying from the coronavirus. It has killed about 2,400 Americans so far as of this writing, and about 34,000 worldwide. As terrible as that as, we have to remember that mental illness is also a disease that destroys lives.

Energy Man Production Log 5/28

I just got out of a comic book store called Collector's Paradise in Winnetka to do a little research into the comic book world for my play, Energy Man. I talked to a man who worked there and told him that I was wondering what kind of symbol Energy Man should have. My initial thought was that it should be a letter or a couple of letters. He said that superhero symbols usually are not letters. Yes, Superman does have an "S" on his chest, but that's also the Kryptonian symbol for the word "hope." Most of the time, superheroes have an image for a symbol, like the Spider-Man's spider symbol. I had the idea of using a lower case "e," but he said that if I used that, it would have to be some really fantastic "e." I also had the idea of using a lightning bolt symbol, but it would have to be different from the lightning bolt symbols used by Shazam and The Flash. Before I left, he talked me into buying a short stack of comic books called "Incognito." The description I gave him of Energy Man reminded him of the down-and-out loser who is the hero of Incognito.

Back at home, I searched for electrical symbols on a search engine and noticed one symbol that might work, a lightning bolt with an arrow head on it. I'll have to discuss this with Geoff and Heather.

Middle School Drama Competition

As with with the high school competition, most groups were average. Still, I was surprised to see how creative and talented the middle school students could be. I was impressed early on with the lead actor in a piece about the Holocaust. I gave that group a good score, but they didn't advance for some strange reason. Another group did a good job with that scene from The Crucible when Mary tries to confess to faking the affliction from the "witches" and Abigail goes nuts with visions of birds attacking her. Some actors were weaker than others, bringing down the overall quality of the piece.

I noticed a curious trend in the large group comedies. Many groups seemed to favor obscure pieces of bizarre writing. I'm not against the use of such writing. Some of my own writing is very similar to one such piece which featured a kind of existential game show. The problem I found with some of these pieces that their experimental nature seemed a bit beyond the grasp of some of the students. Either that, or the writing was simply deficient. Sometimes the quality of the writing was hard to determine because the performance of the group was loud, fast, and frantic. I have no objection to such an artistic choice, except that several groups that I saw seemed to cling to this choice throughout their performance. The noise became a monotone, the speed was uniformly fast and therefore lacking in variety of pace, and the frantic energy eventually became tiresome and also lacking in variety. It seems to have become a common trend, and I find that disappointing.

I did enjoy the musical finals. Avenue Q and Suissical surprised me with their inventiveness and strong performances.

A Jack Sparrow Halloween

I dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween and joined my cousin and his family for a Fall Festival event at there church. There was a chili cook off and some trick or treating. I mostly just wanted a chance to show off my new costume.

Later, I went to Sardo's, a local karaoke bar. Two people I didn't know came up and asked to take a picture with me. Cool.

High School Drama Competition

I went to Valencia High School in Placentia, California, to work as a judge at drama competition for the Drama Teachers' Association of Southern California. Most performances were about average. Some of the student-written scenes were interesting. One scene was about the Japanese internment camps in California where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. The subject matter had merit, but the performance and direction were lacking. Another piece with merit was about Rosa Parks, but, for some reason, portrayed her planning in advance to sit at the front of the bus. That doesn't fit the facts. Strangely, two of the student written pieces were about Charles Manson. I placed one of them as my first place choice. Some of the monologue actors achieved a fine depth and range of emotion in their pieces. The last show I saw was an amazing performance of two young actors who did a scene from Moliere's Forced Wedding - in French! Almost no one understood what they were saying, but the scene was still hilarious. Of course, they won.

Yes on 87 Party

I spent the whole day yesterday trying to give my apartment a quick makeover. I was about to host my first party in my place and I wanted it to look good. The party wasn't really a party. It was a get together of sorts for Yes on 87. I ran out of time for the home makeover and ended up moving the mess in my living room into my bedroom.

The get together was nice. My five guests were mostly free-thinking people who, like me, would like the State of California to get the extraction fee from oil drilling companies that other states get. The oil companies have been getting a free ride for years and it's time for that to stop. We watch a video on my internet connection, but the conference call didn't work. The number wouldn't take a call from my Skype internet phone program. Whatever. It was still the first successful party at my place.

First Blog

This is my first time using Blogger.com for blogging.

I have other blogs at songwright4ever.livejournal.com and www.myspace.com/songwright.

The Problem With Education

This was my last day in that assignment as the yearbook advisor at a middle school in the San Fernando Valley. When this school offered me the job of substituting for a computer teacher, they didn't tell me that I'd be adopting a dysfunctional yearbook staff. They didn't tell me that I'd have to be the one to dislodge the yearbook from the pit of apathy and neglect where the last advisor dumped it. They gave me almost no help at all. I told the kids in the staff that if it hadn't been for me, they would have had a different substitute teacher every day. They asked me why I cared, as if I shouldn't. I cared because it's just wrong for the school to let things get this bad and I hate that. I didn't tell them that, though. I was struggling to lock them out from the computers to keep them from playing games.

I wrote letters to all the parents of the yearbook staff as well as the principal. Only one parent called me, and that was only because I had called her. If the other teachers don't care, and the principal doesn't care, and the parents don't care, why should I? This speaks to the problem with education in Los Angeles, and also with America. The parents just want school to be a place for them to dump their kids, a day care center. The principals are too busy to care about what's going wrong. The teachers who I thought were all saints turn out to be just as apathetic as anyone else. The students who just want to party in the classroom win, and the good students who really want to learn lose. I'm starting to think that I need to get out of education.

My Bronze Medal

The International Society of Poets sent me a bronze medal. I won third place in the monthly online contest for the poem I posted on poetry.com, "My Microwave." That's nice, but it would have been even nicer if I had gotten a little money with it.

Once again, here is the award-winning poem, "My Microwave":

My microwave helps my cooking achieve simplicity
I don't see complicated recipes on my horizon.
I choose my frozen dinners by their ambience.
Otherwise, I could only approach my cooking with courage.
The garlic salt and ketchup I use have such fortitude
That my digestion must occur with a sense of faithfulness