We all need weekend getaways, and when given a three day weekend, we all like to jump on the opportunity to go take some time for ourselves. This is what I did this weekend. I did not have enough time to fly out of the country, but I still wanted to find a nice place where I could relax for a bit. I also wanted to experience something new. A friend of mine told me about these hot springs by the Dead Sea, so I thought that I would try that out.
Heading there, I instantly felt that this was the perfect place for a getaway from Amman, especially during the winter months. Amman has been hit with cold weather, and bouts of snow, but just an hour drive away locked away in a hidden canyon, the weather is perfect. It feels like a crisp fall or spring day with just enough sunshine to leave you comfortable. It is a very relaxing atmosphere, and the best part is, when you feel a little too cold, you can always hop into the warm, soothing water of the pool. It is like stepping into a hot tub, except there is enough space for everybody to find their own little corner. It is perfect on a day like the ones we experienced. I don’t know if it would as great during the summer months, but there is another pool there that was closed in February. I believe that this is the regular swimming pool, so during the warmer months, you could go there to cool off.
Some people drive down from Amman, just for the day. The pool is open to the public from nine o’clock in the morning until seven at night. But if you are looking to have a little privacy with the pool, there is a hotel attached to the pool. If you stay there at night, the pool is made available to you at six in the morning, so you can have the pool to yourself for a couple of hours before the crowds arrive. It is a little expensive, but a night’s stay does include dinner and breakfast, and the buffet does make the stay worth the price. The rooms are also really comfortable with amazing views of the valley.
The Ma’in Hot Spa is a great getaway, or even a nice night stop if you are traveling around the Dead Sea. It is only Qwant kilometers off highway 40 next to the Dead Sea. You just take the turnoff for the Panorama Plaza and follow the signs until you reach the hotel. It is a nice addition to any holiday, an definitely the perfect weekend getaway from Amman, Jordan.
For my regular readers, this should not come as any surprise that the English teacher in me does not like this new technology. Many people will dismiss that as another English teacher spouting out the dangers of technological advancement. We have experienced many different advancements in communication, and ChatGPT is just another example of another advancement. I should not fear this move, but rather embrace it and figure out a way to live in this new emerging world. Some will even point out the fact that Socrates, at one time, considered writing to be the most dangerous thing in the world because it prevented intellectual discourse, and the only way that we know this is because his student, Plato, wrote it down. So essentially what I am being told by these people is to not be Socrates.
But I do not think my fear about this new AI that makes writing easier is actually the same thing as Socrates’s fear of writing. It comes down to this idea of convenience that we are always striving for in our modern world. We want things to be as easy as they can possibly be. I get that. The struggle is not always an enjoyable experience, and it sometimes takes many years of work and effort to see any payoff. I know this better as teacher than most people do. I watch as my students struggle, get frustrated, take their frustration out on me, and then years later when they finally realize why I created that struggle for them in the first place, then they thank me for it. Some new teachers give up on teaching long before they ever get to experience this reward, and I can understand why. Teaching itself is a struggle.
How does this fit in with ChatGPT? Well, it eliminates the struggle. The struggle is a good thing. It is within the struggle that we learn the most about ourselves, and are given the capacity to grow. If we are never presented with this opportunity to fight through something and come out the other end as a better individual, then as a society, we can never grow, and we will become stagnant. Our new mantra will be, “If it is too hard to do, then it isn’t worth doing.” In a time in our existence where we need to face these difficult things to do, this is hardly the mantra that we need to take.
But there is something deeper going on here. It is not just convenience, but what we are giving up for this convenience. It goes back to what Socrates feared with emergence of writing. He thought it would take away intellectual discourse. There is a certain insight that emerges when people talk with each other, and I could see how losing that ability would scare somebody. But writing is also a form of discourse. Even as I write this post, I stop and think about what I want to say next, and why it is important for me to say it. I want to reach a certain audience, and get them to understand this issue in the same way that I do. To do this, it requires critical thinking, craft, and art. It is not convenient. It is a skill that I have worked years to develop, and I still work on improving this craft today. It is what makes me a human being, worthy of this intellectual discourse. What type of world do you create if we take away humans’ ability to do this?
This is where the advocates of ChatGPT will want to tell me to put down the dystopian novels that I have been reading. They are corrupting my mind, and making me think that any advancement is a bad thing. But to that argument, I counter with the fact that they are making me think. ChatGPT offers us an opportunity not to think. A great majority of society, when given the opportunity not to think, they will jump on that opportunity. They would rather be mindless drones who are easily influenced by whatever mass media throws at them. This is already a problem in our society, and ChatGPT does not solve this problem, but makes it worse.
I will use a recent example from my class. My students were given a simple task. They were to watch two different productions of the same scene from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Afterwards, they were given a series of opinion based questions about costumes, lighting, and performance about which production they liked better and why. Rather than think about what they had just watched and comment on it, they ran to ChatGPT to do the work for them. They couldn’t even take the time to give me their own opinion on a subject matter. I view this as a significant problem brought on by this new technology, and if you don’t see it the same way, I fear for the future of this world.
Society keeps on heading in the wrong direction. We are pulling further apart from each other, and pulling further into ourselves. Mental health problems are growing at an extreme rate, especially among the younger generation. A lot of these problems started around the same time as new technologies were created that did our thinking for us. Our brains cannot process the information as fast as some of these computers can, and we already seeing this becoming a problem. So, why would we release another artificial thinking entity into the world to do our thinking for us without asking what its agenda might be, and where that would leave us? We need to slow down and start thinking about what we are doing and why we are doing it, rather than just throwing it out there because we want to know if we can do it.
I know that the genie is already out of the bottle, but even genies need people to interact with it for it to be able to do anything. By not interacting with this new technology, it will not give it the power to influence society in the way I fear that it can. I am aware that by my writing about it, it helps to promote it, but at the same time, I do believe that this tipping point in society is so important that if the discussion is not opened to talk about this, then we open the door to allow it the power that it could have.
Please tell me what you think down below, share your stories about your encounters with this technology so far and tell me whether I am overreacting or not. Thanks.
There are a couple of places in this world that are known for their tuk tuks, and India is one of them. Basically a tuk tuk is a motorcycle that has a backseat attached to it, so some driver can speed tourists around a busy city. They are called tuk tuks because of the noise they make as they putter around. They are fun to take, but depending on where you are, you need to make a deal with the driver before you leave about how much you are going to pay, and where they will be taking you. There are many scams surrounding these vehicles, but if you stick to your guns, you can get a reasonable price, and have a driver waiting around for you as you go from place to place. The trips are usually short, but the feeling of being rushed around in an open air vehicle is one that is too much fun to pass over if you find yourself in one of the countries that relies on these as a form of transportation.
I recently took a trip to Chennai which, in retrospect, was a lot like a tuk tuk ride. I guess you could call the trip a business trip. I was taking a group of kids from my school to a track meet at a school in this city. For those of you who have been on a business trip before, you know that they rarely give you the opportunity to do anything more than the business that you were sent out there to do. You could find yourself in one of the most amazing tourist destinations in the world, but all you could see of that place is the inside of a board room. At least, I got to experience the beautiful campus of the school that I went to, and a track meet is always going to be a lot more fun than sitting in meeting after meeting. But I was still busy, and like take a quick ride on a tuk tuk, it was nothing more than a whirlwind that I am still trying to wrap my head around.
During the short moments that I was able to get and explore the city, they were never to go some place that would have enriched me culturally. My first responsibility was to make sure that the students I had with me enjoyed their experience first. This meant that I went to a beach where they were able to spend some time figuring out how to boogie board, and dig around in the sand. We also went to a mall to waste a little time before we headed to the airport to fly home. The mall was a little too western for my tastes and was like any other mall that I have been to in the world, but my students enjoyed it. All of this did was give me a little bit of a teaser that made me want to eventually return to India so I could explore it more on my terms rather than the short spurts of energy that was required of me by coming out here on this school trip.
Still I was able to sneak in a tuk tuk ride on my tuk tuk ride of Chennai. It was probably the most cultural significant thing that I was able to do. It was a quick run to a store so I could find a gift to bring back to my wife, and we had to pay the tuk tuk driver a little extra money to have him stick around for us. Still, it was nice to get away for a thirty minutes and have this small moment in this new country for me. I enjoyed the tuk tuk ride, but I am looking forward to something a little slower next time. This way I will be able to experience the moments a little better than being whisked away through the landscape. But it still better to have a tuk tuk ride rather than no ride at all.
Here is to all of those tuk tuk rides out there, and I hope that the next one that you find yourself on, though it may be quick, will still be memorable.
India has always been on my list as one of the countries I have wanted to visit, so when I was told that our big meet of the year for the high school track team that I coach would be in Chennai, I got really excited. I knew that it would be a busy trip where I wouldn’t have much time to explore, but what I didn’t know was that it would be a grueling slog that I would have to push my way through.
The meet took place at the American International School of Chennai, an all day travel day from the place I live and work in Jordan. It is never easy to guide twenty students, a majority of whom were middle schoolers, through the process of getting on planes and working their way through customs, so they could compete in this event. The meet itself was a three day affair where events were taking place early in the morning, and went until late in the evening where we were whisked back to our hotel. It allowed enough time to decompress for a bit before having to crawl into bed so we could do it all over again the next day. I have been on trips like this before, and this was just another example of how a busy five-day schedule could wear somebody out.
Despite the grueling schedule, the trip was totally worth it. We had spent a couple of months getting our athletes ready for this event. At times, they wondered why we were working them so hard, but when they got out there, they were able to see how fast they could run, how high they could jump, and how far they could throw puts, and discuses.
Track has always been one of my favorite sports. I enjoy watching the events, and it is even more fun when I am able to be out on the track, coaching my athletes through their long distance races. It is fun to watch the grit that these kids have finally pay off. training takes a long time to get ready for one of these events, and it is hard to come after a hard day at school to push one’s self to lift weights and run laps when you don’t see any payoff during that whole time. Finally, they got to show off what they could do.
But it was not just the medals that the kids won that made this trip so great. We weren’t able to do the cultural thing which I love to experience so much while going on a trip like this, but we were able to connect with other students from other countries, and get to know each other better. There is a bonding experience that only happens at a track meet. It is not just with the members of your own team, but also with the members of the other teams as well. You might go out and run a race against another individual, and you might win or lose, but in the end, you are both congratulating each other for the battle that had just ensued. Even on occasion, you will even pick each other up from the track, or give advice about how to do an event better. You push each other to do better while collaborating to be better yourself. I do not think that there is another sport out there that allows for this kind of dynamic, and I love it.
So, the trip on a whole wore me out, and it might take me longer to recover from it than how long I was out there experiencing the whole event. It required me to show a little grit myself, but it was still worth every moment. I am glad, just like my students, that I saw that grit through.
It is always fun taking a flight that lands you in the middle of the night. You are whisked away from the airport in some random transit towards your hotel. Your brain is a little foggy with the pressurized atmosphere of the plane, the change of time zones, and the long day of travel. All you want to do is lie down on a bed and get some sleep, but still you are excited about the new environment you find yourself in. You try as hard as you might to look beyond the street lights and closed shop to get some idea about the lay of the land, but you can’t find any insight about it. You only get glimpses and hints of what your trip will be about, and entices you enough to keep your eyes open though you can feel the weight of your lids press down. Even the abandoned hotel lobby won’t give you any information about where you have landed. It looks the same as any other place that you might have encountered on the many different voyages you have taken in your lifetime. You just have to stumble off to your room, and try to make sense of the time you have left in the evening, and as you drift off to sleep, you wonder what this new adventure will bring.
This is what I experienced last night as I landed in Chennai for a track and field meet that I am taking my students to. When the alarm woke me up this morning, I opened up the blinds to my room to find a city outside that was familiar in some aspects. The tuk tuks, reminiscent of Bangkok crowded the bust streets, a heavy humidity hung over the air, and the haze of a busy Asian city loomed in the air just beyond the horizon. Yet, I could feel that things were going to be just a little different. The morning news talked about the most recent Cricket match, the statues around the city were of various Hindu gods, and I have not seen Buddha anywhere, and the air carried the aroma of Indian spices. It was different enough to excite me about this next adventure though it will be spent mainly at a high school track. It is still fun to wake up in a different country with new experiences and the possibility to be exposed to a new culture.
The rocky path will not always be true, But it will still lead you to the same place. Out of the mountains, a wadi once grew, And hid a paradise in the cliff face. There is a stream that turned the valley green, With time, eroding away the hard stone, Leaving behind swimming holes so serene That humankind could not leave them alone. They will travel from every corner To find some fun in this famous canyon. What ails them, they think they will find a cure After a week long holiday is done. Don’t tell them that the wadi will forget Every person it helped get wet.
It is about the sand under your feet As the in coming waves wash it away. It is about the ultimate retreat You wish to find on a vacation stay. It is about time I spent with my love Without having to worry about work. It is about no new rules from above Coming from an administrative jerk. It is about time off that I deserve Because the amount of your workload. It is about the resting of the nerve Due to the fact of the stress that is sowed. It is about a moment within reach Where we can spend the day walking the beach.
You all look like ants, crawling down below When I am able to stand from the height. I can see how far that this city grew As it takes, from nature, another bite. Over the desert, the road stretches forth To the places where the Bedouins camped; You may look to the south, east, west, and north To witness how that culture has been stamped. It can now be found within the museums, Or the picture books given to children. Humankind is subjected to its whims To ignore the places where it has been. I stand atop its crowning achievement, A tower, to God’s grace, will not be bent.
As our feet slowly sink into the sand, And it squirms into the the cracks of our shoes, The wind tries to blow us from where we stand, And the sun pays off its last daily dues. I can feel the grit filling up my teeth, And my eyes sting from the wind’s and sun’s burn. I can find a resolve from underneath As why I’m on the dune ready to learn. For it is only here when I’m alone, I can contemplate things of great import That this great expanse of grain was once stone; Nature wished it to be another sort. Where will the wind send me when I am done? Will I still feel the warmth of the sun?
We all know that it must come to an end Even though we try to fight against it, But this is not a rule that you can bend, And we must allow the moment to quit. It will open us to us something new Though that might be something that is scary, But these opportunities are so few That we should not allow them to tarry. Instead we should look towards their embrace As if fate even gave us an option; It might be better what it does replace, Only if we could seek out its intention. We may think it something we nurture, But nobody can predict our future.
John Collings 