Gail,
Re: "You need to do some actions to help yourself"
I've already done everything I can do: I've already researched everything I can research.
Try —briefly— to remember the situation I was in when I was living in a small town in Taiwan (Puli was the name of the town, BTW).
At that time (BEFORE the coronavirus pandemic) I was already saying to you that I'd researched every conceivable option and there was no way forward.
Here, in brief, is what has changed since that time:
• I gave up on any possibility of higher education connected to Chinese, or anything else from my "academic" past (politics, etc.), having looked at every conceivable university program on the planet (and note that this even includes M.B.A. programs, masters of education programs, etc. etc., an enormous variety).
• We did all the paperwork to relocate to the USA, and a ton of research related to that possibility, ending when it proved to be bureaucratically impossible to do (and I made the very public announcement that all our assumptions about Los Angeles and New York being viable options for the two of us had turned out to be untenable).
• We did all the paperwork to relocate to Israel, and likewise gave up when that proved to be impossible to do.
• Having given up on a long, long list of education and career options, I started getting interested in (live) stand up comedy (and this relates especially to the pitiable state of cinematography as a discipline within universities, among other things)… but I've also had to give up on that entirely, as we can't actually live anywhere that stand up comedy exists (let alone a film industry, let alone the possibility of getting paid to write comedy, etc.).
Keep in mind, for example, that when cinematography proved impossible to do, I started looking into "agenting" (being a talent agent, being a booking agent) —this is a good example of the way in which I've really researched many different "branching paths" from each specific possibility (OVER A PERIOD OF MORE THAN TEN YEARS NOW!).
This (above) is not remotely a complete bullet point list: there was a time when I was putting all of my efforts into learning Chinese… and even Chinese wasn't my first choice but my last choice. There was a time when I was willing to start all over again with Latin, there was a time when I was willing to start all over again with Greek (in the same way that —years before— I'd been willing to start again with Cree-and-Ojibwe and actually did it). Generally, I'm someone who devoted his life to politics and political philosophy (in Canada and Cambodia alike) and it takes one hell of a lot of imagination to see how that can lead to a career in comedy, baking, etc. —but I have been willing to look under rocks nobody else (in my position) would have even considered.
I am neither saying this to complain nor to boast, but you seem to forget the circumstances that have produced the current crisis —and you seem to forget how many times I warned you this crisis was coming over the last year-and-a-half or so.
So, again, re: "You need to do some actions to help yourself"
Gail, I am really being sincere when I say: THERE IS NOTHING MORE THAT I CAN DO TO HELP MYSELF, and there is nothing more that I can research.
It is not the case that I'm one google search away from finding the solution to my conundrum. It is not the case that there's some wonderful university program (in Canada, in Europe or in Taiwan) that will solve even one of my problems, and that I've simply failed to google search the right combination of terms to uncover it.
I am really throwing myself at the feet of complete strangers and begging for help, because I am now (so to speak) helpless.
The situation really was dire eight months ago when I made the "desperate cry for help" video (that you chose to ignore)… and the situation has only become more dire since then, with the predictable necessity of actually buying airplane tickets (and moving out of this apartment) now looming over our heads when WE HAVE NOWHERE TO GO, and absolutely no positive future to hope for.
Again, this has been the most predictable crisis in the history of the world: I have been narrating it and analyzing it at every stage of its development.
And I have been saying, openly, "I need help", again and again and again.
E.M.
