Toronto to Niagra

I did not get to spend a lot time in Toronto. There for a just a few days and adjusting my clock the maximum 12 hours, I had trouble doing much of anything besides enjoying early morning runs by the lake and walking around the downtown area. I was there for an IB conference and that was productive

I learned a few things about IB Econ, but probably equally as well I met a lot of good teachers. One in particular stuck out. He was going on his first teaching job abroad, to Hong Kong, and was very excited. He expressed how nice it was to be among teachers who were globally minded rather the teachers he had been around for the past few years. He expressed it very succinctly by saying something like, these people do the same thing all the time you know? Every year they look forward to the same vacation in the same place because it’s something safe that they know. Lots of teachers in the states don’t like the state of education, have a hard time finding a job, don’t feel respected by their students, but they are afraid to try something new and foreign. I think in many ways he is right. Besides getting to spend time getting to know the teachers I spent some time getting to know Toronto. Toronto transit is too expensive and too small. In addition, not many people were riding. Even during peak times it wasn’t hard to find a seat. Probably because of the aforementioned reasons. Lots of people smoke on the streets. You would think coming from Shanghai, where you can smoke almost anywhere, this wouldn’t strike me as odd, but it did. One day on the way back to the hotel I had that thought and the next day it was confirmed as a fellow classmate from Montreal said he was surprised by the number of smokers, or at least their lack of hiding it. The people here are diverse. I was quite impressed with the diversity I could see and more so with what I could hear. Korean, Indian (hindi), Spanish, and French were very common, but I also heard some Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, and German. The city itself was nice. There were plenty of parks and open areas. I really noticed this when running. In Shanghai it is hard to run a longer distance because the buildings hem you in and you can’t see your horizon. It feels like you run to nowhere. In Toronto horizons were broad. I could pick a point a few miles away and see it for most of my run. I like that as my destination markers are constantly in my vision. Since I was in Toronto I decided to go to Niagara Falls as well. It was probably one of the most anti-climatic things that I have done. I don’t mean to say the falls were not impressive, they did look very nice and I think they are the biggest falls that I have ever seen. What was anti-climatic was the way I approached it. I took a bus and walked to the falls. No tour, no big thing. I sat looking at the falls for a short time and then got lunch before heading back to the bus terminal. I could be completely wrong, but I have a nagging notion that my grandfather spent his honeymoon at the falls and so I was thinking of him a lot when I was there. Something clicked for me as I was leaving Toronto. I no longer wish to come back to the U.S. I still miss my family and the friends I have there, but for all the reasons that teacher I met said, I don’t want to come back. I don’t want to come back to a profession that is not respected. I don’t want to come back to insubordinate students. I don’t want to come back to pay/benefit cuts. I think more than anything else I don’t want to come back because now I am enamored with the idea of seeing the world. It's better than any perk I could get in the US. I am moving on to my 5th country in a few weeks. That will be the 22nd country I have entered and I am sure it will lead to seeing a bunch more in Southeast Asia. I have to wonder what this will mean for my future. Since leaving the U.S. 5 years ago I have had a vague feeling of, at the very least an obligation that I would return. Now that that is gone, what will the next chapter bring?