I have been having a lot of burn-out at work. The kids are amazing, the school is fun, but at this point of the year I am just exhausted. By the time I get home I am just spent, and cannot function. My wife understands, and my children do to. But this makes me feel worse, because I wish I could spend more time with them.
When the children have gone down to bed, I am able to function mostly normal, but that is 4 hours after school. I get about hour or so where I can talk and play.
Another thing I do to decompress lately is write. I have re-discovered my high school passion for writing, and have been working on a novel. To be fair I have 3 or 4 novels started, and one that I had started but I cannot find my files for (But I wish I still had them).
I don’t know If I will finish my high school novels or not. I was looking through them and my writing has evolved a lot since then, but also the themes I am interested in have changed, and I don’t know if I would want to taint those stories or not. We will see in the near future.
I finished my 2nd draft of the most recent novel, and have sent it off to some friends to critique. I may have to have an editor rip it apart for me. But I feel like I shouldn’t publish it until 3rd or 4th draft have been fixed up. I would also have to find an artist for the covers, if I am to self-publish. No I don’t believe in using AI art if I am to publish it professionally. (I know I use AI Art here, but I don’t get paid here).
As soon as I am ready I will look into publishing. But now you know why I have been so quiet.
I just had a week long holiday from work for Spring Break. This extended from Easter, through Qing Ming (Chinese Tomb sweeping day) until the end of the week.
My family had a good time, as normal just relaxing, our Easter was lovely. During this holiday, however I seem to keep running into the topic of AI. My friends use it, my older two children use it, and I myself use it.
Did you know, that you can have a chat with a book character as if they were alive? There is an AI website for that. My daughter uses it to talk to characters before trying to draw them. That’s cool.
What was a bit unnerving was that the same website let’s you have fake conversations with celebrities and politicians… Yikes. This could lead to some strange situations if AI celebrity is realistic enough that someone believes they have a bond or friendship with Real celebrity, and tries to act on that.
AI is used in art. This use has been very loud in the news and social circles. And I think we can all agree that the systems that steal styles and art from living artists is not ok. However there are AI systems that help you with your own art. You upload samples, and it helps you tweak your own work, by either changing the angle or lighting. This I believe is a great use. And I am all for this use, but stealing is never cool.
There is AI out there to help songwriters, and prose writers. I personally have been tinkering with a writing assistant and it has helped me get back to work on novels I started years ago. I am working on 3 of them again. And if I get to publication level, I will mention it here first.
What I have noticed is that, if left to it’s own AI writing contradicts itself and repeats facts multiple times. I had a chapter where the main character’s wife is supposed to be manning a stall at a street market, but the AI had her walking around with her husband, at the same time she was explaining things to children at her stall… And characters that hated her were kind and giving free gifts for their anniversary (which was not even close the this event…) So it is important to not rely on it to write for you, but to use it to help write.
As a teacher, AI helps us with report card comments and lesson planning. When we go back to work tomorrow, there is a half day training for us waiting on the AI tools that are available to make life easier. I have to say, some comments were easier to write with the AI, some I just breezed through on my own.
Teachers and students have been exposed to learning algorithms for years. Most educational websites run them. The problem with these sites is simply they miss the human factor. Sure the reading app can analyze the speed of a child’s reading or their written response to a book. However it does not take into account that it is being read at 11:00 at night by a child that just spent most of their day in classes and should be asleep.
I have had to adjust student levels on reading apps enough over the years after sitting and listening to them read during the class time, and the assure the parents. I also have to keep reminding parents that children need 8-10 hours of sleep.
I know there has been a lot of fear about AI lately, and after looking into it myself I can say clearly that as long as the creativity and empathy stay human, let the machines deal with the slog. I know many people fear for their jobs and don’t want to be turned into an “AI prompt engineer.” Just remember, machines break down, and make mistakes do to not understanding reality. We will always be here for quality control, and realigning the machine.
I do however really hope that Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics are going to be forced to be included in the core code … Just in case…
For those who don’t know…
Law 1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Law 2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Law 3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Life keeps us busy, but some things I am unable to write about. It’s strange, how every couple of months, I sit to write about my life and realize that almost everything that is on my mind is things I cannot talk about publicly.
There are so many things I wish I could get off my chest here, but if I did, other people I care about would be hurt. I have turned into a kind of counsellor, it seems.
Rocking Chair
I love my school, It’s a great place. That said this school year has been off. Unfortunately at this point, I am unable to discuss the causes of stress for everyone, because it may negatively affect people I care about, or myself if published.
I have a rocking chair in my classroom. I have it in a secluded section of the room. It has “Huggables” or stuffed animals next to it. Books, some of my D&D Stuff, and my dice tower.
My classroom is a designated safe space and I try my best to keep it that way. When a child is feeling overwhelmed (Or a teacher), they are free to move to the back chair, and hug a Huggable. The only 2 rules are: 1) one person on the chair at a time (Because I have had 4 kids try to force themselves on it), and 2) if someone is on the chair, leave them alone until they feel better. (Don’t go report to anyone that they are there or try to talk to them). The 2nd rule is because some children need the chair during class periods, and they went there to be away from distractions.
I have my D&D stuff there for me, but I have some students in my class who have become interested in the game and they are free to look through it. The books are the same, some of them are teaching material, some are novels and relax books.
After school, and during breaks I often have teachers from my team come and use the chair as well. They often need to offload what is bothering them, or the difficulties they are running across. It seems daily that I have teachers come crash on the chair. Children daily use the chair. and sometimes they want to talk about their difficulties. I am open to hearing them, but some ask to talk with the school counsellors. (So glad we have them, but I feel we need more than we have)
Men’s Group
I attend a Christian Men’s group every week. It was sold to me as a Bible study thing, but it seems more like a support group for men in my area. We look over a verse or two of the bible, and discuss how it may relate to our life.
Then we read passages together and discuss. I find it helpful.
This week our starting questions were:
Name a friend that you can call a true companion.
Who do you talk to when you need to process things?
What is one hard time that you experienced? How did you get through it?
Everyone talked about their wives for the first one. (Which is great to see)
For the second one, I admitted that I often need to internalize things and process them alone. If I do talk to someone about it, it is my wife. She knows all my secrets.
For the last one I passed, because right now I didn’t think I could explain. Some of the men talked about their experiences in the military, or life and death situations, and times they were worried for their families after losing their job in a foreign country.
The bible passage of the week was from Psalm 23:4
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
If you would like to comment on the posted questions or just reach out, I would love to hear from you.
Baldwins Abroad 
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