The two Daves

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Yesterday I had the first of a few retirement celebrations. What was wonderful about it is that I celebrated with my good friend, mentor, and brother-from-another-mother, Dave Sands. I started my career a few years after Dave and in my first year I was provided the opportunity to co-teach a student leadership class with him. That was the start of an amazing friendship, and although we only worked in the same building for 2 years, we have truly been colleagues who have had opportunities to collaborate and work with each other throughout our careers. As well, we have had countless breakfasts, lunches, and walks up the Coquitlam Crunch.

The retirement event was wonderful. There were a few fun stories…

A meme or two…

And an opportunity to celebrate our careers.

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However, what really made this wonderful were the people who joined us. Yes, we’ve both had pretty successful, and as was mentioned, influential careers in the district. And there were jokes about the different superpowers we possess. But if we actually have any superpowers it’s in connecting with some really great people. What made the event special were the people who joined us.

As I reach the end of my career I keep looking back at the wonderful people I’ve worked with, and the way that I’ve been supported by them. With every accomplishment I can think of there have been amazing people that have been part of the team or who have initiated an opportunity for me in some way. When I reflect on the collaborative journey I’ve been on, again and again, I feel blessed.

Celebrating my retirement with the other Dave allowed us both to appreciate the people around us, but also each other. We both had out-of-the-box kind of journeys and our careers for the past decade-plus have run in parallel. Having each other as friends made the journey so much easier, more enjoyable, and less alone. It was totally fitting to have our retirement celebration together.

Almost too much on the go…

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Yesterday I came back from a wonderful overnight school field trip to Merritt with a group of students, to go fishing for ‘Fish School’. I arrived home and was surprised by my mom, who came to celebrate my retirement, with events happening tonight and next week Thursday. I’m off with my wife and friends tomorrow night to see Mamma Mia! live at the theatre. And then I had planned to go to an event all day Saturday but I’m realizing that I need a break… and I’d like to spend the day with my mom.

Even when all the things that are happening are things you enjoy, sometimes they can feel like they are a little too much. I know this pace isn’t going to slow down too much (or at all) in June, and so I need to start really thinking about rest, sleep, and keeping up with all my healthy habits. The last thing I want to do is run myself down over the next month.

I can remember an age where I could metaphorically ‘burn the candle at both ends’ but I’m not that age anymore. No, I’m used to one, maybe two events a week. This non-stop series of events in a week is making me want to crawl under a blanket for 2-3 days… And yet I’m looking forward to the next couple days. That said, I am cancelling my event Saturday, I’m understanding the need to find some more down time… and I’m going to attempt to burn only one end of my candle at a time doing all the rest of the coming events.

A wonderful surprise

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I knew my oldest daughter was coming home from Victoria. She came over to the mainland for a retirement celebration I’m having tomorrow. So when I got home and she was there, it was nice to see her… what I wasn’t expecting was that my wife had flown my mother out from Toronto for the celebration as well. This is the second time my wife has completely surprised me. The first time was with a trip to Vegas for my 40th birthday… 9 months before my birthday!

Well, she did it again. Here is the video:

I feel so blessed. This is wonderful. <3

___

Here it is again from my younger daughter’s angle:

Cultural perspective

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I shared a few stories with a colleague yesterday about my time living in China. I spoke about the T.I.C. moments we had there… an acronym that we foreigners created for the term, ‘This is China!’

TIC moments had one of two distinct qualities. Either it was something that we experienced which would have been simple to do back home, but seemed impossible to get done in China, or vice versa, an experience that would never happen back home but was surprisingly simple to do in China.

Some of these things led to being flabbergasted and frustrated, others led to delight, laughter, or joy. I’m not going to share any specifics now. I have shared some in the past and I’ll share more later. Why I’m bring this up is to reflect on how valuable that experience was. To move to another country and to experience these unexpected moments of delight and frustration provided a perspective of how different cultures are.

It allowed us put some perspective on our own culture in a way that made us less judgmental and more open. It helped us realize that differences are to be celebrated, and that common sense is not always common, but kindness is. TIC moments were eye-opening experiences. Sometimes they made us feel like we entered a whole new world, other times they reminded us that deep down we are all the same.

Travel in general does that to you. It opens your eyes to how others live, why they believe what they believe, and yet helps us see the commonalities we all have. Cultural perspective requires experiencing the world from constructs outside your own culture. Travel allows you to recognize your biases, your norms, and even your privilege. And in the end your perspective on the world and all its inhabitants gets richer, along with your appreciation for others who come from different cultures.

Not evenly distributed

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Futurist Richard Campbell came to speak with Inquiry Hub students today. He’s presented here a few times. I wrote about his visit in 2022, and what I really enjoyed about his presentation is that while I often think of the dystopian possibilities of the future, Richard’s message was that ‘The future holds promise‘. To start his presentation today, he quoted William Gibson, “The future is here – it’s just not evenly distributed“.

There are a lot of things Richard discussed that I might elaborate on in the coming days, but this quote immediately started to churn in my mind. I’d heard the quote before. I’ve even used the quote before, but often in reference the uneven distribution of change… which is often connected to new technology that will be fully adopted in the future. What got me really thinking about this, hearing the quote today, is my suspicion that this is more exaggerated now than it ever has been.

Zoom out of your everyday life and take a look around the globe and you’ll see a very uneven distribution of technological advances. I recently heard about a live stream of a robot doing package sorting for days on end, comparing this activity to the same being done by a human.

This sort of manual labour is something that will be replacing humans sooner rather than later. That said, it is going to be distributed very unevenly. It’s already happening in China where their one child policy was leading them to a shortage in the labour market. China is winning the robotics race and we are going to see a lot of progress and development from China.

Here is my wonder: Will there be a massive divide of have and have-not states? Will the distribution of future technology be even more unevenly distributed, or will we see the costs go down and the technology spread even more evenly in the decades to come? I think Richard and I would disagree on this topic, although I hope he’s more right than me.

Delightful start to the day

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I usually work out at 6am. Before going to the gym I’ll have a protein bar, and when I get home I make myself a protein shake. A few weeks ago I added a little something extra to my shake and I’ve been loving it!

The usual ingredients are high protein milk, creatine, and either chocolate or vanilla protein powder. My new ingredient that I added to the chocolate protein powder is a double shot of espresso. A trick to it is that after pulling the espresso shots, I put two cubes of ice in it and swirl it until the shots are chilled. Then into the blender they go.

I’ve always enjoyed my morning shake, but now it tastes like an extra special treat. I showed this to my wife and she added another ingredient, a half of a banana. This is also delightful. With or a without the banana these are a ‘10/10, I would recommend’ kind of treat to start your day.

Sleep cycles

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I know that the one area of my life that I can most improve is sleep. I tend to sleep 5-6 hours a night when it should be at least 7 hours. For years I’ve convinced myself that I don’t need a lot of sleep, that I’m one of those rare few people who can live on less sleep than most people. It’s a nice narrative to have, but I’m really starting to question if this is true.

My Garmin watch consistently rates my sleep as ‘Poor’ with feedback like this:

“Shorter than ideal, not enough REM

You slept a bit less than recommended, and your amount of REM sleep was low. You may feel more tired or moody today.”

In the last 4 weeks I have had 15 days with a sleep score under 60 and only 2 days with a score over 80. Those are not numbers to be proud of.

And yet I still go to bed later than I should, and on days when I do get to bed early, I’ll often wake up an hour before my alarm and sleep poorly until my alarm goes off. I don’t know what I’m going to do differently, but what I can’t do is pretend that this is good enough. I spend so much time trying to take care of my body, I need to make sure a good night’s sleep is part of that routine.

Travel, travel, travel

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I went to a 30th Anniversary celebration today and met someone I knew who retired 15 years ago. When she heard I was retiring this year she went directly into ‘advice mode’ and said, ‘Tavel!’

She continued, “Travel as much as you can. In fact, there is no such thing as travelling too much. Book more plans that you think you need to and you still won’t travel enough.”

She then explained how travel changes over time. Her husband has mobility issues now so they travel with that in mind. But in travels earlier in her retirement there were hikes, and walking tours, and even hostels. “Do the things you can’t and won’t want to do later right away. Travel, travel, travel.”

I love hearing this. There is so much of the world yet to see, and more places I’ve already been to and would go back to if only the unexplored world were not so big. I know that at 75 my travel plans will be much different than the plans I make in the next 5 years. And so I hope to be quite adventurous in my travel over the next few years.

Time gaps

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I saw a social media post that was addressed to Gen X. It shared that:

The movie ‘Stand By Me’ came out in 1986 and it was about life in 1959. If ‘Stand By Me’ was made now, in 2026, it would be about life in 1999.

What??? That seems crazy to me. They would both about life 27 years before, but the gap from ‘59 to ‘86 seems so much greater in contrast compared to ‘99 to 2026. I couldn’t imagine someone trying to write a script about the nostalgic times of ‘99. Other than the panic around Y2K, what would the young friends in the movie experience ‘back then’ that would differentiate them from now, except maybe smart phones?

Is it only my lived experience that makes me think this way. Would someone my age back in 1986 feel about 1959 the same way I feel about 1999? I’m not sure, but I’d say ‘No’. The time gap of the movie seems so much longer than it would if we went back from today.

Hitting a lot of ‘lasts’

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As I approach retirement, I’m start to hit a lot of ‘lasts’. The last time I’m figuring out staffing. The last time I’m supervising a Spring Formal. And tonight was the last District’s Principal Association dinner. I’ve got a few more things that I’ve still got to do more than once, but it seems like every time I turn around I’m doing yet another thing for the last time.

I’ve honestly not thought too much of it in my day-to-day, and often realize I did something for the last time after the fact… But that has taken a recent turn. As my last day at work looms, I have to admit that I’m thinking about it a lot more. The last moment of the last day seems really surreal to me… and it’s getting a whole lot closer.