Reflections on My Digital Existence in South America

I once wrote that I would reflect more on my professional life in Colombia. That hasn’t happened, because: life. My new year’s resolution has been to write more each of the last three years, and each year starts out with a strong January, and then by March the casual observer may think me dead. Sometimes writing does not come so easy, more often than not of late, I think due to lack of practice and this unsettles me, but I expect it is what all writer’s and hack writers like me, experience.
Those who know me, know that despite my personal life goal of money for nothing, I have often chosen the hardest path because I seem to only function when I have more than I can handle on my plate. When I am idle I am restless. So here are musings on my latest foray down that trail.
While re-establishing my Canadian roots last year, I settled into a top of the grid teaching job that contributed to my long term security via a pension, and allowed us to quickly pay down debt, while living in a relatively cheap, albeit cramped, apartment. (However, the fact that it was in a locale that I loathed with every fibre of my being complicated this rosy picture). My wife also went back to work semi-fulltime and reconnected with friends and family. This was for me, too easy, so I decided we had to uproot ourselves again and go and completely immerse ourselves in a foreign country with a foreign language, for 1/3 the pay. This alone was not enough, so I decided to further myself professionally by starting my Masters. I mean, how hard would it possibly be to balance new language, culture, 5am wakeups, and crying culturally shocked children who couldn’t grasp the chaos I had thrown them into.  All this while writing graduate level assignments and relying on strangers around the world to help me through my academic journey?

 No problem.

I happy to report that nearly one year on, we are more or less adapted, and it is only now that my Masters journey is starting to take its toll on me: que venty reflection.

University is hard. Much has changed since I was a student ten years ago. Learning by distance is not for the unmotivated that much is for certain, it also requires placing trust in people that you have never, and may never meet, but who will have significant bearing on the outcome of your academic journey, all the while trying to balance the subtle cultural norms of society and learning online. Much of your contact is asynchronousistic, which means you must wait for delays in communication and hope that the person on the other end has their shit together, you have to also hope that the fact that they have seen, but responded to your latest WhatsApp message means that they’re busy: driving, eating sleeping or having a life outside of the all-consuming program. But, in times like these, you can’t help but let your mind wander to the possibility that they are actually filled with murderous rage about what you did/didn’t do, said/didn’t say, or how you said it. The latter is more often my thinking. But, just because I am paranoid, doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone, isn’t, out to get me.

Add multiple people to this experience, with different lag times between communication, and things can get confusing. Just as two people come to an agreement, a third and fourth chime in and it changes. Then the third agrees with the first, loses the second and things can unravel in a hurry. Compounding this issue in the digital age is my all thumbs no proof-reading texting style that ends up throwing insults accidentally in place of compliments, and I have now incited afore mentioned murderous rage in my fellow classmates – who are likewise trying to balance their own mixed cocktail of life’s slings and arrows (these of course are, never, as serious/important as your own psychological issues, right?). You’d think I’d have learned my lesson from all of the social civil wars I have started/exacerbated on Facebook over the years, especially in light of gun-control, the election of Nottley/Trudeau/Trump and climate change. But a handful of Facebook de-friendings suggest otherwise.

It has been interesting this journey I have been on. Even though much of what I have said suggests that there has been a serious disconnect, and lack of personal interaction, which comes with any sort of digital communication, in some ways I feel I have formed some very strong connections with these random strangers who have digitally entered my life, and I can’t rationalise why this has happened beyond maybe shared experience/stress/misery that somehow transcends the geographical and personal divide between us? I know there is research into it, I have come across it, but I won’t bore you with that here, I just felt a desire to reflect on the journey a little, and cheers to all the digital strangers who have been a part of my journey!