The Ides of March

The Ides of March for me at Shenyang Aerospace University was actually my last day as a resident on campus. This was the third time I set a date that was not implemented, the first and second times when admin folks tried to find a way around the age issue. They did not find one. I gave them “A” for the effort.
For those who had not caught a previous telling of why we are no longer formally teaching, here’s a recap. I planned two more years on polishing our pedagogy on englisCHe, English with Chinese characteristics with my capitalized CH on the Dutch spelling, but when the university submitted my signed contract and a request for an extension of my annual working visa to the Foreign Affairs office, it was denied. I was affected by the current push by government to go by the book, and it clearly states that foreign teachers were not going to be older than 65. I am three going four bends on the river past the waterfront on that one. So I retired.

I offered to be an available resource as an emeritus with no salary and remain resident at the Friendship Villa where I was staying but unless I had a working visa, the admin had their hands tied. Since I previously held a resident visa and had just gotten another one good until my passport expires, I thought the school might find a way to retain my services. I was told that they can use my services but I could not remain a resident at the university housing.

But I am delighted to be off the 11th floor. Last year, tectonic plates shook us twice in Shenyang, a first in 35 years. I have offered the explanation that perhaps the warming of the polar caps had been adding more fluid into the ocean floor, loosening nooks and crannies on the tectonic plates. My experience at being shaken on the 11th floor of the university housing was not one of my more pleasant days in Dong Bei.

To be on the second floor of a community with the din of children playing in the playground, even in the cold of spring (yes, Marushka, we are supposed to be getting warmer into summer but folks are still wearing scarves), I am in a different setting than the antiseptic surroundings of the International Center at the Friendship Villa of the university. I could see off my front window (I face south so we are good on the feng shui) into the neglected playground and the unpicked garbage piling up at every corner. My summer is really cut out for me as I will have to find colleagues who will come out either in the morning or late afternoon to sweep the commons clean. From previous experience, I do not think this will be difficult as folks naturally do that when someone takes the lead.

Of course, I will have to start with the stairs to my floor, which could use a broom and a scraper to get off all the flyers that had been pasted on the wall, a rather unfortunate but common practice, and a coat of paint over the bold telephone numbers of folks hawking this or the other. In my neighborhood, my building is a fourth generation, the oldest within 10 square blocks in my community, still pricey for my pocketbook but only two blocks to the subway, so I do not mind.

On cleaning up the commons. One of the delights I had on my last day at school was the absence of pasted ads outside my building, the four-story cafeteria building, the south shopping center, and two of the dorms. It was my habit to carry a scraper and took off ads on my way to and from classes that were posted where they were not meant to be. I started with the bulletin boards. It used to be a battle of wills as folks replaced ads as fast as I can remove them. It is now into the third week of the semester and I noticed that the shopkeepers themselves keep the outside of the shopping mall clean.

One of the groundskeepers last semester stopped me and showed me his scraper, not a standard issue from the repertoire of tools from the university. The bulletin board by the soccer field had not had a misplaced ad since. I will visit the campus once a week to check if the buildings on my regular route stay ad-free! Conversely, I hope that my neighborhood will be a bit tidier and cleaner by the end of the summer and I shall not be the only one with a broom.

Now, to the ides of March. Shakespeare’s “Beware the ides of March” uttered to Julius Caesar in the play by his name, is an ominous one, and Octavian who ushered the Roman Empire as Augustus Caesar sacrificed (more like slaughtered) 300 senators to the newly deified Julius five years later in revenge of his uncle, so the foreboding sense of danger has been attached to the phrase. In the earlier Roman calendar, however, March is the first month of the year, and the ides (from the 13th to the 15th) was the transition days between the end of the two-week celebration and the reality of a new calendar year itself. Thus it was more of an auspicious beginning rather than the Shakespearean meaning we know of today.

Obviously, my ides of March is of the second kind. I face a new beginning. The word for me is not the “ides” but of the “march,” a foot forward one step at a time. Right on!

Jaime Vergara previously taught at SVES in the CNMI. A peripatetic pedagogue, he last taught in China but makes Honolulu, Shenyang, and Saipan home. He can be reached at pinoypanda2031@aol.com.