it's been so long that i can only catch up casually. lots of new photographs here from this month's two week travel. not everything, as i've been very busy at work with meetings and meetings and dialogues, but i'll get to it day by day.
the 11 days spent traveling were invaluable. saw, experienced, interviewed very much. exhausted at the end of every day. sometimes i couldn't remember who we saw, but that's why taking notes is good, and recording interviews is better. many open hearts and many happy to have listeners for their memories. i ended up visiting three, not two, villages and this was neccessary to appreciate the micro and macro cultures within community forestry. it helps to know what is different and why it's different. a lot of spirits involved and "real culture" (sometimes, don't you wonder if the people who follow fox news are really a culture?)... you know, the kind that you envision when you study anthropology at a liberal arts college!
last two weeks of this month, besides meetings, has been trying to think of ways to translate all this great material (i.e. how can i share it in a great way?) still working on this question. overall, i've been inspired by How to Read a Book and came up with a list of questions that help me evaluate where I'm trying to go in my work. It's important to have this dialogue with yourself. in this case, it's incredibly important to be honest, articulate, and as foolish as possible.
If there are elements that are illogical, non sequitor, or inconsistent, define the inadequacy precisely.
Have you solved all the problems you started with?
Have you made as good a use of the materials as possible?
Have you failed to make distinctions, which are relevant to your undertaking?
Does your audience (or you) fail to draw the conclusions, which your evidence or principle implies?
i think this kind of self-assessment has it's place, but so does following your instincts (if you've developed the skills for good instincts). this steinbeck quote puts my interest in communicating community forestry in perspective for me:
"If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.”
other news? thai new years coming up and so glad that i have a visitor. in may, i'm heading back to california for two weeks to buy things that i can't get here because it's fake or is 4x the $. also to hang out with my family!
had a realization earlier this week that my canon scanner 9000 isn't great. now, i'm terribly loyal to my epson. it may take 1/4 of the time to scan my photos with the canon, but it's not worth the inaccurate colors/exposures/tones that i'm getting. it's a pain in the ass to edit, and i know my exposures are way better than how it is digitally translated here. makes me grumpy, but grumpily grateful to have a scanner in the first place.
