Making the bell toll for us while we still can

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio version of this blog story click here.]

'You can't unring a bell.'

Of the many quips former Ireland men's rugby coach, Eddie O'Sullivan, has uttered, that one regularly reverberates in my mind.

What's rung is rung!

A different ball game

In more common parlance it's expressed as, 'what's done, is done'. It can't be undone. If it's something that needs fixing, requires a remedy, this may be possible afterwards but we can't go back in time and re-do the original action. The best we can do is try to learn from it and not make the same mistakes again.

Certain events, however, allow one shot only. Yes, similar situations may arise in the future where we can adopt a wiser approach based on experience but no two scenarios play out exactly the same.

Returning briefly to O'Sullivan and the Irish rugby team that he once coached, followers of the game are well aware of Ireland's failure to make it to a World Cup semi-final after nine attempts.

In rugby's professional era, from 1995 onwards, Team Ireland has by now pretty much achieved everything that can be achieved in the sport, except those significant shortcomings at World Cups. 2023 presents another opportunity to address this.

Of course, the personnel involved in each World Cup selection changes, as does the location and the makeup of the other competitors. A new bell is being rung each time, so to put it.

And so it is with every new challenge. None is exactly like another because there are so many variables at play.

'That I have these uncomfortable dreams could be due to my largely stress-free, relaxed-paced life on Bogotá's Mediocre Lane.'

Over the last four years, I've had, if I recall correctly, eight online job interviews. Three of those were for positions that I'm fairly certain I would have said yes to had I been the preferred candidate. Obviously enough, I wasn't.

Naturally, I've done mental postmortems on each of them. One usually has a sense of where it goes wrong in such things, so this gets played over and over in the mind ahead of the next interview.

As somebody who prefers in-person meetings over online ones, being forced into the latter is a negative before a virtual ball is kicked. My job interview record suggests I have to be seen to be truly believed — or hired, at least!

'It's not us, it's you'
My most recent interview gives a nice illustration of this. I had a technical problem that simply couldn't happen in person: my laptop's camera wouldn't work when it had worked fine just moments before I connected to the "video" call.

As it transpired, I have it on good authority that this glitch had no bearing on the outcome. After all, the interview was for a job where it was much more about my voice, my current affairs/news sense and my ability to write news bulletins. How I looked was not of major importance.

That aside, I did have to write up and record a news bulletin against the clock. When my low-spec laptop has to multitask online, it often throws a tantrum. Its temperament on this occasion made an already stressful task somewhat more taxing than it needed to be.

This might sound like a not-very-skilled workman pointing his finger at the tools at his disposal, but it's not. I'm just stating the facts, these aren't excuses.

In any case, that I wasn't offered the job may have as much to do with my distance from where the gig is based than my interview performance. I say this because I was told that if I happen to be in the city where the work is in the coming months, I should contact the interviewer for potential freelance opportunities.

As rejections go, this was one of the gentler ones I've received. Or could it be that the company in question is just being overly and unnecessarily nice?

Don't dream it's over

Whatever the real reasons are, I am left with the feeling that I didn't give the best account of myself on the day. My performance could have been a few percentage points higher. The bell that I rang on this occasion just didn't sound quite right for its target.

More specifically, the news task did remind me why I prefer interviewing and presenting programmes, i.e. a format that allows for some unscripted dissection of current affairs, to composing bulletins. Alas, such paid gigs are thin on the ground.

I still have the occasional nightmare of rushing from a radio newsroom to the studio for a live bulletin with just seconds remaining to broadcast time. Or, worse again, actually being in the studio with no news to read at all.

I'm fairly sure that second scenario never happened in reality. Well, not to the extent visualised in my nightmares. I did, though, have to make up the weather forecast once or twice. In Ireland, one is rarely wrong in prognosticating wind and rain.

That I have these uncomfortable dreams could be due to my largely stress-free, relaxed-paced life on Bogotá's Mediocre Lane.

Time, perhaps, for some more daring bell ringing while I'm still in a position to do so. Better to have rung and lost than never have rung at all, right? And there's no avoiding the eternal empty silence that awaits us all.
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Listen to The Corrigan Cast podcast here.

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Not so gaga for physical footy

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio version of this blog story click here.]

If somebody had told me in November 2008, just before I embarked on my first solo bout of world travelling, that I'd become indifferent to being involved in Gaelic football, I would have suggested they see a psychiatrist.

It's been nice to play some "footy". The injuries have been less fun.

At that time, in addition to playing, I'd started training my club's under-21s and I'd served as public relations officer. To say I was gaga about Gaelic football is pretty much, um, on point.

Nipped in the rib
Of the myriad concerns I had about leaving home for a protracted period, abandoning Irish football was chief amongst them.

My absence from the game could hardly grow my fondness for it — my heart was pumped full of it. Thus, it was probably only natural that travelling would begin to weaken the bond, even though I didn't think it at the time.

The love was reignited on my return to Ireland in late 2009, but it was of a different beat. Work took me to Belfast and with it a change in club. While I enjoyed playing for Naomh Bríd, my outlook had changed. Gaelic football was now a pastime, not a vocation.

Leaving Belfast in mid-2011 to base myself, eventually, in Gaelic football-free Bogotá ensured my playing days ended.

The odd game of fútbol (soccer) filled any ball-shaped void but it was with surprising speed that I kicked to touch the "need" to play such sports regularly or join a club.

Merely making ends meet became my Bogotá sport; that and travelling around Colombia when I could. Thus it has largely remained.

Yet, while Gaelic football may have been out of sight in a real-life sense, it has never been out of my mind.

'With no health insurance, I would have to be close to death to see a doctor right now. Anyway, I had a fair idea that the best treatment is ice, rest and time.'

Even so, when the game made a brief appearance in Bogotá recently thanks to the guys at Go Gaelic, I was somewhat surprised at my excitement to be reunited with an O'Neills size five — the ball used in the men's game, that is.

More surprising, if I do say so myself, was that my touch was fairly sharp, all things considered.

Glory days with Belfast's Naomh Bríd in 2010! A slightly bulkier Wrong Way is wearing No. 5.

Playing a compromise rules exhibition game with the well-established Australian (Aussie) Rules football club, Bogotá Bulldogs, my enthusiasm to play some "footy", as our antipodean acquaintances affectionately and boisterously call their game, was reignited. (Aussie Rules and Gaelic football are seen as close cousins.)

This enthusiasm was dampened when, adrenaline abated, I noticed I'd picked up a bruised rib or two. It's really only when you suffer such an injury that you realise how intrinsically involved your rib cage is in every movement of your body.

Nonetheless, invited to train weekly with the footy folk with an eye on playing in an upcoming Colombians versus The Rest internal club game, I was determined to show commitment to my new cause.

Solo fun
While the bruised ribs were still bothering me, I managed to take in a few training sessions before the big game.

Indeed, it took all four weeks between the compromise exhibition match and this internal game for the injury to heal; and not even fully at that.

One heavy, late hit later — if it was rugby, I'm sure the tackler would have been sent off — and it seemed as if my whole rib cage had been shattered.

To give an idea of my suffering in the days that followed, I was compelled to take painkillers. This is something I rarely do. I hadn't taken any for the previous rib injury. I usually take a grin-and-bear-it approach to pain.

Some barrio friends, seeing me in such a state, suggested I seek medical help. With no health insurance, I would have to be close to death to see a doctor right now. What's more, I had a fair idea that the best treatment was (still is!) ice, rest and time.

Health insurance or not, getting these rib injuries within a month of each other has certainly made me less eager to play such a high-contact sport. (Gaelic football is a little less physical.)

I'm not as bulky as I was in my early 20s and I am, naturally enough, a little slower, so both factors make me more vulnerable to getting smashed up.

OK, I did enjoy being back in the heat of battle but I haven't enjoyed the aftermath, injured to the point where I've struggled to do low-intensity activities, meaning I've been less active overall. And I'm not the most patient patient, particularly when my everyday movements are curtailed.

Thus, I won't lament a return to being indifferent to such team sports. I had been more than happy engaging in my own physical fun this past decade.
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The panadería's pudgy pauper

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio version of this blog story click here.]

A boy, about 12 years old, regularly comes into one of my panadería offices asking for food.

Unfortunately, such a scene is not unusual in these parts.

Rather than helping the bread-begging boy, are we killing him softly?

Pan out
However, what makes this particular pauper stand out from the stream of other mendicants is that he seems well, nay overly, fed and is rather neat in appearance. Also, he doesn't appear — thankfully enough, especially considering his youth — to have a drug problem.

He might, though, have a sweet-bread addiction. This would help to explain both his pudginess and penchant for the panadería.

Now, before I am accused of being both cruel and a hypocrite — I've previously documented my predilection for certain panadería delights — I'm not completely begrudging the boy of this farinaceous favour.

An occasional — occasional that is — bit of bread isn't the worst thing he could consume. And because he's plump doesn't mean he's sufficiently satiated.

One concern, however, is that if his diet consists chiefly of highly processed bread, then he's most likely facing into an adulthood of health problems.

Were I to offer him a serving of one of my vegetable stew specials, I wager he'd turn it down. (He never actually approaches me, though. I must have a mean look to me.)

So, there's a chance that he's a foti — fat on the outside, thin on the inside — but in a negative way (the standard view is that a foti is healthier than a tofi, thin on the outside, fat on the inside). This is to say, he's not getting the right nutrition. He's got plenty of company on that front.

'It's a sign that I've been in Colombia too long that I have doubts about the bona fides of the boy's begging.'

Indeed, most of the fare on offer in Colombia's ten-a-peso panaderías should come with a health warning. In addition to high quantities of salt and/or sugar glued together with poor-quality flour, the majority of bakeries use what are in essence poisonous margarines and preservatives.

The giveaway is in the shelf-life. I don't think I've ever seen panadería products go mouldy. One can only wonder what these powerful preservatives do to one's microbiome.

Beg to differ
As for eating wholesomely, some argue that pursuing a healthy diet is far more difficult for society's less well-off. Unhealthier foods are cheaper and more convenient.

That doesn't fully hold true in Colombia. Here, when it comes to diet, it's not always money that does the talking. Convenience often does the "conversing", coupled with, I guess, cravings.

This is because one can buy fresh fruit and vegetables at competitive prices all year round.

Colombia's fruit & veg: Cheap-ish and cheerful (if they're not overly laden with chemicals).

In my part of Bogotá, it's common to see a range of such foodstuffs retailing at around 1,000 pesos per pound — bananas, butternut squash, carrots, green beans, papaya, peppers, potatoes, pumpkin, tomatoes and much more besides.

Throw in the amazing avocado, regularly on offer for five for 2,000 pesos, and we've got the makings of a fairly cheap salubrious snack. (One only hopes, naively perhaps, that these natural goodies aren't laden with harmful pesticides.)

OK, fish, meat and poultry aren't quite as economical but they're not off the charts either, not when compared to what one might fork out for a nutritionally poor panadería treat.

This is why I say convenience and cravings do the conversing, not monetary concerns.

Fair enough, not everyone has access to kitchen facilities to cook food from scratch. And Colombia's worst-paid urban workers often have little free time on a typical day. Between the commute and work itself, 14-hour shifts are common.

As for my panadería's pudgy pauper, I'd have to engage in some espionage to find out his exact circumstances.

A sign, perhaps, that I've been in Colombia for too long that I have doubts, owing to his overall demeanour, about the bona fides of his begging.

Would he take a banana as readily as he takes a bit of bread? Maybe if it was deep-fried he would.
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Little thirst to teach English in these thinking times

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio version of this blog story click here.]

Earn per hour what many Colombians would be doing well to make in a day. Largely be your own boss, decide how often you want to work and, for the most part, dictate the course of affairs.

Teaching English: It's not all bad, particularly with high-level learners. 

Outside of some sinecure or getting money for nothing, that job description sounds as cosy as the best of them, doesn't it?

Didactic doubts
Yet, I have little interest in pursuing it. For some reason, when I get asked if I teach English, I shudder at the prospect.

Even in these financially lean times — in fairness, I haven't really known any other — when, in theory at least, teaching English can provide a bit of a cash cushion, I tend to shy away from it.

I should be honoured and humbled that people ask me to give classes. And no, it's not that they're so utterly desperate that they seek me out. Honestly, it's not. Well, maybe in the odd instance that's the case but it's not the norm.

Of those who've used my didactic services, most seem to be satisfied with my method. Just don't ask me exactly what that method is. It's case-dependent. Bespoke English classes in a sense. What works for Camila may not work for Camilo, so to put it. One size does not fit all.

Also, the idea that any native English speaker can be a teacher of the language isn't exactly correct. As I explained before, some qualified teachers in whatever subject area lack the ability to impart knowledge. What's more, some tutors work well with certain students and not with others.

Most importantly, the person taking lessons has to be prepared to do some grafting. As it is for honing any skill, becoming competent in another language requires dedication. If this is lacking, the task becomes next to impossible.

'Maintaining a rather minimalist lifestyle — would I have it any other way? — and being able to charge a decent hourly rate in a Colombian peso context for various jobs means I can have more "me time" than the average worker.'

While this mild defence of my didacticity may appear to be at odds with my overall disinterest in teaching English regularly — for I still do it occasionally — there are certain types of "clients" and situations that I don't mind as much as others.

The ideal scenario is a face-to-face class within a 30-minute walk from my base, with a student who contacted me for my services — I don't feel comfortable advertising as a teacher, per se — and one who already has a fairly decent level i.e. can hold a conversation, read newspaper articles and suchlike without too much difficulty. I generally dislike the idea of online classes but I can do them at a push.

With a high(ish)-level speaker, classes are often more like a chat or a podcast interview — the odd correction excepted. In fact, I often think such types don't really need classes, but hey, if they want to pay me for them, fine.

A few pesos for my thoughts?
Having said that, if I never gave an English class again in my life, I wouldn't lament the loss.

I would, though, be somewhat saddened if I were to be denied access to publish my musings. Monetarily speaking, this makes little-to-no sense. My blogging is a gratuitous gig with a minuscule reach. (Although, if this reach were to expand exponentially, Google AdSense might actually start to pay dividends. It's the hope that kills ya!)

Yet, we don't really get to choose what ignites our passions and more often than not pursuits that we enjoy aren't financially rewarding.

So that I have to occasionally do certain tasks that I find tedious to keep in the black is far from revelatory (even the "super extra" roles are now often more in this tedious bracket than stimulating, for various reasons).

And occasionally is key here. Maintaining a rather minimalist lifestyle — would I have it any other way? — and being able to charge a decent hourly rate in a Colombian peso context for various jobs means I am able to have more "me time" than the average worker.

That, however, might be a problem in itself: too much time to ponder on life, on what's happening and, more pertinently, what isn't happening. The busier one is, the less time there is to ruminate.

If only during these frequent downtimes I got a peso, or better yet a penny, for each of my thoughts. Rather than being dead, philosophy may be about to have a golden age. I'm positioning myself accordingly, just in case.
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