Discussion Topics in 2022

February 5 — coincidences, privacy, immigrants from countries with oppressive governments making their way in new countries
February 12 — truck conveys, vacations in Kuala Lumpur, raising tweens, chasing after teenagers, baby osteopaths, importance of good bedside manner for physicians
February 15 — Occam’s Razor, German proficiency exam, vaccinated truckers crossing the borders in Canada, the pioneer spirit
February 17 — making Zoom more user-friendly, being a migrant in a new country, which languages are mutually-intelligible, how schools create positive expectations
February 27 — Belorusian election and protests, Belorussian reaction to Ukraine, 2011 Arab Spring, the honeymoon phase ends after a few years in a new country

March 7 — Visa and Mastercard have cut off Russian customers, the price of flights have skyrocketed, Putin’s war is bigger than he expected, apostilles, notarized documents, Shengen visas, proof of savings

April 10 — working on visa applications, renovating an in-laws apartment, waitlists to have documents processed, Georgia is busy integrating refugees from Russia

June 12 — Poland has some old war planes that they might just let be stolen, 100K new people coming into Poland every week, 42 planes landing in Georgia everyday but it used to be six, everyone expects that things will back to normal eventually
June 26 — Dubai is super-developed but it’s too hot to breathe in the summer, life is more affordable in the North of Cyprus, the ups and downs of moving,

July 3 — What is Epam?, bring warm clothes to Toronto, mysterious job interviews
July 10 — walkability, suburbs, public transit, Ikea dining tables, Door Dash food delivery
July 17 — learning soft skills, STAR interview questions take a lot of time to rehearse
July 31 — What’s App v Telegram, TTC subway, oral drilling with be questions

August 9 — getting the lay of the land in Montreal, WES, post-graduate qualifications, will doctors be replaced by technology, Musk’s humanoid robots
August 10 — Ransomware, jobs in e-learning, growing demand for VPNs, blacklisting
August 14 — How hard is it to bridge a law or medical background into the German or Canadian system? What’s it like starting over in your 30s or 40s?
August 16 — SMART goals, “Be so good they can’t ignore” (book title)
August 18 — What is technical sales?, Akami, Imperva, Azure, VMWare, New Relic, Jagar
August 21 — free weights, get your ducks in a row, Domenican Republic average monthly income, paying out of pocket for health care
August 28 — shopping for a vehicle, spending time with relative is not a real vacation

September 4 — buying, leasing, driving, owning, licensing, insuring, renting vehicles
September 8 — data exploration, cost of living in Eastern Europe
September 11 — four women, self-introductions (work, family, current city of residence, daily life in a new country)
September 13 — getting smarter, how to read, the blank sheet method

October 13 — politically correct language, social media
October 20 — Understanding the Digital Advertising Ecosystem, Impact of Data Privacy
October 23 — Gabor Mate’s new book, End of Normal
October 27 — facebook’s eye tracking experiment

November 1 — Stolen focus, octopus, men in uniform charged with sexual harassment
November 3 — toxic positivity defined and explained, a time someone reacted well
November 6 — murmuration and social media mobs, silos / bubbles / ghettos / diaspora / expats
November 8 — murmuration and social media mobs cont’d
November 10 — CIGI article on TikTok
November 22 — TED talk on human senses
November 29 — US military language learning

December 1 — The Humanity of CyberSecurity talk in Saudi Arabia, recursion
December 13 — The Secret Life of Canada, Crash Course on Ukrainian Canadians
December 15 — Carole Cadwalladr, Facebook’s role in Brexit
December 22 — ChatGPT and AI stealing art from humans
December 27 — Switzerland is so well-designed
December 29 — Harry Potter in anime, Star Wars Akiro CHATgpt