One of the most important things I learned in school is that if a word or term can mean anything, it also means nothing.
And so it is with “long-form journalism” in an age where web series, podcasts, blog posts and more can be created easily and quickly. Scrolling through social media I’ve had to ask myself, “What isn’t long-form?”
Languages have never been my strong suit.
An assumption many Canadians have run into abroad, myself included, is that most people in our country are bilingual. I’ve found that many non-Canadians believe this in spite of knowing that exactly one province in our federation is majority francophone.
“But isn’t it taught in all the schools?” they ask.
It is — poorly. At least, I felt it was taught poorly to me. I can’t pin all of the blame for my monolingualism on Ontario’s public school system: my dad actively discouraged my French language education. But I feel as though a pretty important element that nine year-olds should know before they’re taught a second language was conspicuously absent from my first French class in fourth grade.
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I’ve been back from Southeast Asia for about three weeks now. Many of you have wondered what’s happened to my serialized memoir on this blog. You’ve probably seen a lot of my posts on social media, so you might have a sense of my experiences over the past month or so, but little reflection on them. I’ve missed about 20-30 posts. I hope this one will make up for that. It’s just a more concise version of what I would have written anyway, and brevity is always a good thing.
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A lot’s happened since I last posted.
For one thing, I’m now writing to most of you from the other side of the world! Second, and more important, I just finished my first week training at an authentic muay Thai camp.
In less than 24 hours I’ll be off to explore a new continent, off to fulfill a decade-long dream. I would do the normal thing and say that it feels “surreal”, but it doesn’t. I don’t want to ascribe myself some sort of high-minded quest. I’m just a farang from the suburbs of Toronto trying to understand muay Thai in its authentic form for a couple of weeks.
On Monday, I got a Facebook message from Kiatphontip Gym in Bangkok. I can only assume I was speaking with the owner/manager. He wanted to confirm my plans for next week and arrange transportation from the airport to the gym.
Shit, this is, like, real.
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So yeah, Southern Ontario got hit with an ice storm Saturday. I went to class Friday, couldn’t make class Saturday and the gym was closed because of the weather Sunday. It’s Monday afternoon as of writing. I’m not sure if I can even safely get to class today, given that a lot of government services are telling people to stay off the roads if possible. As much as I love going, it’s not worth risking a car accident. We’ll see in a few hours.
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