SSAB - March 6, 2026

0:00All right, slower day today, no, cut, take four, because this one has to begin with the creative comment, creativity never ends, slower day today. Some people are getting sick, apparently the Chinese students don't go back to school until next week, at least at university, markets getting hit, some are not. And to the library, I go to get some more books about decluttering, folks, Friday, March 6, 2026. I'm Steve Sersky, Canadian podcaster currently going through his old stuff here in one of Big Canada and learning how to declutter. This episode is actually being recorded in my mother's kitchen because she is currently

1:00asleep and it is around 11 pm right now. And this is actually one of the things I was trying to avoid with recording this podcast at the office. But I never made it to the office today. Had some family get together today and it was also at the library. So never, never really had a chance and I didn't get back until just recently. So it's like, all right, well, you know what, I guess we're going to sit down and do this in the kitchen of all places. Same microphone, still the sure M7V Plus or whatever it is, MV7 Plus that I've been using for most of this week, this week has been a bit of a trial and error week in terms of recording. I guess I was, I wanted to, I wanted to try it out. This podcast has been recorded around the world and this microphone that I'm using right now is sort of my big microphone, the one that I like using because it, I think, sounds the best. On Monday's episode, I used a DJI microphone and you'll probably notice that that one's

2:03a little bit more tinny. Now there was also another episode just yesterday, a couple days ago that I recorded with this microphone, the sure microphone, but I think it actually sounds a little too basic, a little bit too boomy and I might have to figure out a better way to do the filtering, cut some of the lower end of the EQ spectrum just to clean up that boom a little bit because I don't know if it tells you I haven't really listened back to the podcast in a while. Because how I'm listening to it, I don't know how it always sort of conveys to someone else and I'll tell you, since I record this usually at night, I publish it and I don't check it until later on. So if there's an audio issue, it usually goes undetected for a little while before I do

3:04a bit of a quality assurance checking and whatnot. So in the kitchen, it goes, if you saw the video of this, which you probably won't, it shows a glimpse or just a fraction of the kitchen. I don't really want to show too much to tell you the truth and I haven't really cleaned up very much. So there is stuff all over the place, tip as it usually is when you don't have people coming over and you're kind of like, I just kind of like living and doing things and not having to worry about cleaning up all the time. Now speaking of cleaning up, this is actually kind of funny that today I did end up going to the library and picking up some more books about decluttering. Of course, I brought this up with my sister today and she was so ecstatic to hear that I was reading these books, two of which that she had known. And I didn't mention that in one of the books, the Mary Condo, what book was that?

4:09The Mary Condo. If you've heard about, she's a rather famous, tidying up person. Mary Condo, which one would be the Spark Joy? Spark Joy is her second book. Her first book is the life changing, the life changing magic of tidying up. That's her first book that a lot of people know. But she has a second follow up book that says, Spark Joy, an illustrated master class on the art of organizing and tidying up. Now in that book, she mentions there are other people who've written books about clutter, about having stuff. But it's an interesting line to walk because my sister and her family, they do use the library quite a bit, but they also have quite a few books. And in talking about books, books are never seen as a bad thing to have. It's okay to have a lot of books.

5:11It's a respectable thing to have a lot of books. I had a look at my old bookshelves and go, yes, you're right. And then you move. And what do you do with them? And part of this whole decluttering process, actually, books are step number two, according to Mary Condo's diagram of the four stages of cleaning. First one is clothes. Second one is books. Third one is, can't remember. And the fourth one is like photos and written memories and stuff like that. So personal notes and things that have a lot more sentimental value attached to them than other things that you probably could argue can be easily replaced. So interesting. I mean, my nieces are still very young. My nephews are still very young, so they're not worried about cleaning out anything. I'm not sure if I talked about this last week, but in going out with my niece last week to lunch and even today, I mentioned, I asked them, what do you think you kids are in your teenage years?

6:19And you look at Uncle Stephen, he has to clean out his old broom, get rid of some stuff. What do you think is going to be in this house where you kids are living right now that in 30 years or 40 years is going to still be around? And of course, we'll be in our 50s. You're missing the point, 30 to 40 years from now or 25 years, whatever it is. What's going to last? What's going to still be here when you leave? And this is something that I think a lot of families have to deal with. And something that if you are not really pointed in the direction of doing this, because I'll tell you, as much as I'm thinking, my cousins got into this idea of 2000 things, cleaning up, reducing the amount of stuff that you have around you in your house and in your sort of your belongings. But when we were growing up, there was never really talk about that.

7:23And it was always sort of, and what would you call it, a not an understanding, but a belief that the idea of keeping so much stuff was more about the depression era mentality, the depression era economic mentality is that keep everything, keep something, if you think you're going to use it someday because it's better to have it ready and in stock rather than having to go buy something new. That seems to have changed, I mean, certainly over the last 30 years, but especially over the last five, 10 years, where it's just become so much easier to find stuff and get stuff and usually have a lot of stuff as well. So these are actually at the library, I ended up picking up two extra books. So both the Mary Condo's books, this is in addition, I have not finished reading the art, or the gentle art of Swedish death cleaning. I did finish reading Pico Ayers book in search of Paradise, which in that book, he talks about how his lost Angeles home got burned, like it got

8:29caught in the Los Angeles fires. And everything he had is burned, even notes for books and stuff like that. So even the personal items that he had, and if you listen to this podcast, I've talked about my hard drives and videos and stuff like that, you know, all these things that I have that, I mean, are sentimental to me. And certainly I have thought about monetizing them in some way, hoping to anyway, along the way, and just having like what if, I mean, all it takes is for a hard drive to fall into a bucket of water, a toilet to be submerged, get dropped on the ground and shatter into a bunch of pieces, or yeah, a fire. I mean, you don't want to talk about these things, pay, pay, pay, but at the same time, these are the realities of having things hard to say. So these, the two books I got today are again about decluttering. There is another book, I didn't look this up because I'm kind of going, it's hard for me to make an argument of keeping

9:31a lot of stuff because I, I don't really live in Winnipeg or Canada anymore. Not only that, I was saying though that once I go back to Beijing, I'm going to have to declutter again because that apartment is basically going to be shut down. Not right away, I'm not 100% committed to that move just yet, but since I just paid rent, I have three more months to make that decision. Now, I don't have a ticket back to Beijing just yet, partly because I know that once I go back, there's going to be a couple of things that I have to do that I've been putting off and one of them is going to be cleaning up that apartment and hopefully getting rid of that rental fee. Now, if you're listening to this going, if not that apartment stevy, then where? And that's one of the things that has to be figured out going forward because certainly if I'm not making money in Beijing, whether through a job or through a business income, then I really don't want to be paying for

10:33an apartment that I'm never going to own. It doesn't really, it's just holding stuff that I'm not using right now. So if you have a bunch of stuff or if you're somewhere, if you have a bunch of stuff anywhere, whether it's where you're living right now or the places that you've moved away, I know one guy, he's actually moved a couple of times. One, he moved around in Beijing a couple times and they moved to Shanghai and he's moved again recently. I kind of wonder how his cleaning has gone. I guess one other issue with this whole, the gentle art of Swedish death cleaning and especially looking at my family, I can say that my family hasn't moved around very much. I am probably the only one who has moved as far and as much as anyone in the in the family. Now, of course, other people have moved around and moved houses, but certainly not. I mean,

11:40I guess you can make the area where I do have two apartments full of stuff. I could get by with half, if not actually technically, none of it because I'm not really using any of it. So this is going to be part of the the the the go, the modus operandi, the things I have to get done over the next, if not a couple of weeks, then certainly the next couple months and over the next year to plan to declutter to apartments worth of stuff. We'll see. I don't know if I don't think I've told my family this, but I think I have kind of I mean, I don't think I've told my mom this. I guess the one thing about getting rid of stuff is that if I no longer have stuff here, then as much as it's wonderful to come see my mother kind of go, what else would I do hear that? Like if I don't have stuff that I can use,

12:43this might be a bit of a hard argument to make because the stuff I'm using right now, I'm using a computer, I'm using a microphone, I'm using a cell phone. I'm not using any of the stuff. I'm talking about the stuff that's upstairs, but I'm not using any of that stuff right now, except for the mic's down, the mic's down that I have right now. This was taken from upstairs, but a lot of it is going to be heard. So if I don't have stuff here in Winnipeg, like how often should I be coming back? What if I just paid the ticket for my mother to come see me instead? Wouldn't that that would make my life a lot easier to tell you the truth? I would certainly help with jet lag and making sure that I can continue working wherever it is that I am rather than taking two or three months off to go live overseas for a little while, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. So declutter and continues. If you want those books, I'll put that in these show notes.

13:45Marie Condo. What's it called? I just had that book title. Spark Joy. Spark Joy and the life today, changing, magic, tidying up. So I'll put those in the show notes for you if you want to take a look at those books. If you have stuff to clean up and get rid of or you're having trouble deciding what to keep or to get rid of or you're moving house again and you're kind of like, you know what? How do people, what should I take with me? I think expats are a little bit different in that regard because they tend to clean house a little bit faster than people who never really move. Chinese students don't go back to school until next week. This is at the university level of all things. Always happy international women's day. Completely was reminded of this this morning. So

14:48I sent a few people the happy wishes this morning, including the girlfriend, but she was at works. That'd be international women's day. I think she was. As part of the her company's efforts to show their appreciation for their female colleagues, they had my girlfriend and I think other colleagues there make plastic flowers. Oh my god, that's sweet. There you get to make your own gift. What a considerate company that is. So anyway, I got talking to a few of my one former student and while my my video editor is as well, I wouldn't say she's a former video editor because I'm hoping that she will continue to work for me going forward. But former students were saying, yeah, we don't go back to school until next week, but not only that, several of them had just taken the aisle test. And I'm sitting there going, I'm sorry, that's funny.

15:51And the only reason why they're taking this, the aisle's test is so that they don't have to go to English class. This particular student, full on said, class was boring, made me feel very sleeping. And I was thinking, the only reason I was not sleeping in class is because I had to walk around. That's it. I mean, that's pretty much the only reason. Listen back to any one of those episodes from last year. And I'll tell you the entire time, I'm just sitting there going, I'm walking around going, I can't believe this. I mean, this should be automated. This should be a video ad on course. Now, they might have changed it this year. They might have made some tweaks to the curriculum. So it's a little bit more interactive possible, not because the course coordinator was saying that the curriculum had to be submitted a year in advance or something like that. So I doubt it's going to be any different. They're going to be learning academic essay writing all over again. It's going to be horrible. I mean, maybe the

16:55new teacher is able to convey and, you know, entertain, present the information in a lot better and a little bit more of an entertaining fashion. But yeah, I remember just being stock going, I don't know how to do this. This is, I'm shocked. How do you make essay writing interesting? I'm sorry. This is not that's not what we're discussing at the team meetings every week, the weekly course meetings. None of it. Management didn't have any ideas. Well, play a game, which one? I mean, what, look, use Chatchy BTG. Thanks. So why are all the PowerPoints in the entire book all about essay writing? Where are the games? Where's the sort of variation that, you know, you kind of need? Basically, my whole, I got the feeling that that whole course was written for COVID times. And it probably was very effective for that. But once you teach that in person, it's just

17:59like, oh my goodness, this is, this is horrible. This is, especially when you see someone four times a week for two hours a piece, you just kind of go, this is, how could, how can I get out of this? And apparently the way that they can get out of this or out of it is to take the IELTS test. And I think it's an overall six that they have to get. And I thought their, I thought it's called the ECT English Comprehension Test or English Comprehensive Test, one or two, whatever. Basically, it's the university provided English proficiency examination. It happens at the end of their third year. I think, no, sorry, end of their second year. So basically, they would have four semesters total of English tuition, of English teaching, academic writing, et cetera, things like that. Very little focus on speaking. And then they have to write the ECT. However, if they pass the IELTS

19:03test with a six or above, then they don't have to go to English class anymore. And that would free up like eight hours or more of their life. You can just see the kids salivating at this going, oh my god, how can I do this? To be honest, actually, this student ended up asking me like, is attendance, does that affect their score? And I was blunt with her. I'm like, no, it's there to guilt you into going. And it's also there for compliance. It's there that if you feel the need to complain about the course or the teacher or the grade, then the university is going to look at your attendance record and see that you didn't show up. And if you didn't show up, then that means you weren't privy or part of conversation. We weren't asking questions. You weren't taking part, you weren't taking advantage of the course as it was presented to and for you throughout the

20:04semester. So it's the university just doing a bit of a safety regard. And I can't blame the university for this because the last thing I want to happen, and I should actually say this would never, this probably wouldn't come back to me. It's going to be the course coordinator or the curriculum design. The university is going to hear about it. The administration is going to hear about it, not me because I'm the low level teacher on the wrong. I'm on the lower level, the the latter I get told that the students knew more about everything before I did. I used to find things about the course from them. I'm going interesting. All right, well, if that's how it is and that's how it is. But usually the students would start complaining when they have to do like remedial classes or something. They're like, oh my goodness, I dry all this. I did all that and they complain to the university and the university is going, well, I mean, didn't you have class? Did you participate? Did you do any of that? And so that's where this sort of feedback becomes kind of

21:06very important and the attendance becomes important. So anyway, if you're able to pass the IELTS test, then they can bypass all of that. If I was being honest, how many of them would be will able, not willing, how many of them would be able to pass the IELTS with a band six? I would say maybe 25%, one out of every four. So under the 100 students that I have, maybe 25 could pass. That's actually too high. No, I'm thinking 10%, 10%, that means 10 students out of the 100 would be able to actually pass the IELTS test and not have to go to class. That's maybe 15% on a good day, but 25% see one in every four? No, that's too many. They just can't produce that amount of English. This girl actually, this former student mentioned that she had practiced a lot,

22:07but then when the speaking test started, she was just so nervous. And she said that she had a Chinese examiner. I'm going, not likely, maybe Chinese ancestry, but not from the mainland. She's like, no, the guys from like a mid-June or something, I'm going really, maybe pops me not, but maybe. So, interesting that like one of the things that actually affected her, that she felt affected her performance was, was nerves, was not of being very self-conscious, I guess it was. And I think also in that situation where Chinese people are being tested by another Asian or a Chinese person, a Chinese examiner, they almost feel a little bit caught off guard. They expect someone white or black or brown from around the world, like a different type of face. That's what they're expecting. And then they see like a Chinese face like their neighbor or something. And they're like,

23:12what the, how can you, what the, how did you even get your sort of thing? I don't think this actually happens at the, the British Council or IDP, higher mainland Chinese examiners. I don't, basically Chinese mainlanders. I don't think that's what happens. Now, I might be wrong, but certainly they could hire people from Hong Kong or Taiwan. And around, like it's not that they have hiring policies against anybody. It's that you have to hit certain criteria. My student asked me, Stephen, if you took the Isles test, what do you think you would get? I'm like, oh, probably a seven or an eight maybe on a good day. She's like, well, couldn't you get a nine? To watch I had to respond to her, I'm going, the people who would have, who would get a nine. And it says this in the criteria for, at least it used to say this, if you were to become an Isles examiner, you have to prove like proficiency, of course, like complete proficiency. But it used to be that you

24:13had to have a band nine. It was overall or in speaking. And basically, the only people have ever heard of getting band nine are people who've lived overseas, like away from their homelands, grew up and working, speaking in English, and then taking the test. So they're fully proficient. They basically can maneuver between the two languages very easily. Anybody, native speakers, people who are born in Canada or United States, I've talked about this before, earlier when I've talked about the Isles test, they actually don't usually score very high. The first time, because they treat the test like a conversation and not like a test. And so my students who would spend a lot of time not just memorizing their answers, but understanding the structure and what's expected of them and everything. Someone who's grown up with English, would not. And when you get to some of the silly questions, like,

25:16do you like trees? And someone who is born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada, do I like trees? I guess, yeah. Why? Like, it'd be more of a, if you're not expecting that, then you would be sort of taken aback by how silly some of the questions are. But if you prepared for it and are treating the test as a test, then that's maybe like, well, you would give a complete 30-second answer or something like that. That feels all of the requirements of hitting the vocabulary, the grammar structures, the pronunciation, the chunking, the this, the fluency, the speech rate, and all that stuff. So all of this actually showed me this, when I was talking to my student about this, I'm like, I'll get interesting. So I don't think I'm wrong with this website idea of the auto uploading or the uploading of an MP3 file or of a text file to do a preliminary check and then asking for a bit more professional feedback after that. So there is hope to be,

26:21hopeful for hope to be had, I guess it is. Markets getting hit, some are not. So WTF, like, what's going on here? ETF, WTF, WTF, ETF. I was talking to a guy this morning, he's like, wow, yeah, everything's red. I'm like, not really, because there are quite a few stocks that I'm watching that are kind of going green. And I guess what's happened is that a lot of text stocks have been hit. The big sexy names have been hit Microsoft, Apple, even Tesla, Google hit. I can't remember if Google got hit, but even Amazon, I think, was down. Let's see if Amazon, Amazon, are you down? Yeah, Amazon's been down as well. Now, that is North American text stocks. I asked this guy, do you, have you bought any Chinese stocks? He's like, no, interesting, because Chinese stocks have been sold off for like the last two months or so,

27:22same with one very big Canadian software company, Constellation Software. Constellation Software, huge Canadian software company that I think it's more of a holding company than anything. But there's also the, I don't want to say it's a tax company. It's a tax accounting company into it. IMTU is the ticker symbol. They are got slammed. If you're wondering, Steve, how do you find these stocks? So these are part of a mailing list that I'm on through BNNBloomberg.ca. Every lunchtime, they interview a money manager or a fund manager who gives them three picks. And I've seen Constellation Software come across. And a couple days ago, I think I saw it into it go across. And sure enough, you check it. It dropped catastrophically from its highs. It's recent highs like a month ago or whatever. But then it's rebounding. And the rebound that

28:22it seems to be making is what they call a V rebound. That's where a stock basically drops off the cliff. And then rebounds right back up to its old high. It's kind of going, I'm interesting. This is not a recommendation to buy yourself any of these stocks. Do you own research, talk to a qualified professional financial advisor, advisor before making any investment decisions? Your money, your problem, don't blame me. But are all stocks getting hit? I guess like the broad market is. But some software doing all right. And Chinese stocks heavily oversold in North America. I don't know. Chinese stocks trade in London. I know some of them trade a lot of them trade in Hong Kong, of course. But if you don't have access to Hong Kong, then means nothing. New York, either some of them are listed in New York. Some of them are listed as ADRs, which are American depository receipts, which is a fancy legal way of

29:27listing in New York, but having your company or your stock based in the British version Virgin Islands or like the Bahamas or something like that. We're talking it's an external, it's another island altogether. But the depository receipt is listed in New York. Sketchy. Of course. That's how the stock market makes its money. So it looks like Chinese stocks are set to sort of rebound here. But who knows what could happen? By do is among them. Jingdong as well. What was your other? Alibaba, I think, has been pretty let's see. Alibaba. Alibaba group holding. Oh, yeah. Slam. It's trading at 130, 79 right now. That is right along its previous highs. Back in September or August and even going back to

30:29May 2025. This is actually a mill. I have to talk about this another time, drawing technical lines of stuff like that against charts. There's a famous sort of a Wall Street market aphorism that I've never read. You never meet a rich technical analyst. And the problem with that is that the technical or the practice of technical analysis really comes down to just watching price history. And technical charts or charts like candlestick charts and stuff like that that you can I think have also talked about this before. If you stare at it long enough, it'll confess to anything, which is to say you could make a convincing argument for any stock. If you sliced and diced it enough, what you have to keep in mind is that these charts are just price histories. That's it. And you can draw all the happy faces or lines that you want on these charts.

31:29It doesn't mean that tomorrow the market will do what's supposed to happen with that chart formation. So it's something like you might if you're trying to get into charting as it can be a little bit of a disappointment and a shock to the system when it doesn't go the way that you think it is, particularly when things are apparently oversold and a screaming buy. And if it's screaming by chances are it's going to get cheaper anyway. So keep that in mind. Again, not financial advice. Do your own research talk to a qualified financial advisor before you're making any sort of investment decisions? All right. So with that, oh, finally, with the it's being a bit of a slower day, yes, it does seem that the sicknesses are going around. I think I was congested at the I think I was congested at the beginning of the week, but it seems that we've been talking to the the nieces and the the other family members. It seems like a lot of people are sort of suffering. Another round of would it be this not the spring flu, but certainly spring.

32:35I'm sick again type of thing like it's so it's you know, I never had this. I'm going to say that I never had this in Beijing, but then I'm going to have to think about all the times. I'd actually have to go back. I'd have to ask chat GPT. Can you find me all the times that I have said I'm sick while in Beijing? I did I'd be interested to know because I talk about this almost like with some sort of sense in nostalgia, I never got sick in Beijing. Why is it? That's not true. I got sick in Beijing too. It happened. And it's just that I had no one to really talk to about it except you my dear listener. That's it. So it's something that I guess it's happening once again and sadly it's all around us. The germs, so wash your hands, get your runs and eat your broccoli and make sure you are eating well overall. Getting some good sleep is well, which speaking of which we are now sitting 11.25 pm. And that is where we will leave it. All right, folks with that show

33:39notes and tracks will be available up on my website stevensersky.com. There is a notion database there that tracks all of the podcast episodes. Newsletter is over on substack stevensersky.substack.com. LanguageLog is over on YouTube at stevens.languageLog. And finally, folks, if you want to help this podcast continue if maybe you're like, yeah, Stevie sound a little, you know, that's all right. Fisherman's friend, I do use those laws and just from time to time. If you wish to purchase either green tea or ginger, a stock of ginger or Fisherman's friend to help with the audio production of this year podcast, I will help you. Paypal link in the show notes for this episode. Thanks again, folks. We'll do this again. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye.