Just finished a first draft of a really heavy (for me) article on gender and community forestry, more specifically how women's participation is linked with women's representation. The more I think about it, this is something i would love to explore more explicitly in CF and photography. It's such a cool little niche of questions, especially when I am concentrating on how women see themselves, how they think other people in the community see them, against who they really are - all of this with the forest as a background.

I would say before writing this article, I just didn't and couldn't synthesize what it meant to see such empowered women in a community like Thung Yao. I'm really glad I wrote this article, if not for readers of the material, for myself.

What I got: a better understanding of what it means to be a citizen in a community. The potential we have as decision-makers. Fulfilling this role.

Why do they not teach these things, i mean really teach these things, to sub-adults earlier?

you are my what

headache from exhaustion!!!

very little time to update these days; very little time for everything it seems. much of the ordinary and calmingly mundane tasks need to be done after a good friend (mm) visited me here in bkk for two weeks. sorrowful, but also a frustrating good bye because i was so damn tired - not completely my best self. but hey, we island hopped for 6 days, trekked on non-developed forests, and partied a little too hard on and off islands.

going back to the US soon and am losing concentration at work about it. i need write a good one about gender and CF. it's been fermenting in my brain since last week, and i think since i left work early today to go home and sleep (but listened to weird non-vocal music instead) i should start writing about it today. this is what procrastination sounds like from me. strangely, it doesn't happen often enough because it feels unfamiliarly comforting to worry about something not getting done.

also i feel an illogical hate for all contemporary movies right now. why do we even bother to express ourselves in the one million embarrassing lights of hollywood? and why are we so misinformed, under-educated (including myself), and/or just wrong? a lot of displaced and irrational feelings from exhaustion. i just don't want to be around anyone for the rest of the week.

during research

At work, doing research for a new article. My interest in community forestry/forestry is here:

“The challenge for forestry is not just the restoration of trees or forestdwelling biodiversity, but also the growth of a political and social landscape that facilitates people’s abilities to make choices to secure
their livelihoods; to move beyond forests as a resource that maintains
them in poverty to forests as part of a wider livelihoods approach as a
means to step out of poverty.” (Hobley 2008).

this loud rain made me download loud rain soundtracks to go to bed to

i'm thinking about two things:

1. what i know of myself/what i believe in

2. what i am coming to understand of other people and other cultures/how that understanding influences my own beliefs (i say i understand because i feel empathetic towards the ideals that have been expressed to me, but in someways i might not understand if number one feels more reinforced.)

see, i believe that having faith in uncertainty and mystery contributes to honoring the world. if you've learned to be an observer of the world, and if it's mystery that guides you, you learn about patience and there is a great reward from that- sometimes but not all the time, but the idea is that something wonderful can come from your observations. at the center of my beliefs is this practice -being guided to wonder by mystery- which is what i am absolutely dedicated to. something else i believe is that we have no practical interest in even the soundest means to reach ends we do not care about.

with that being said, having more of number two in my life really tests things that fall under number one. with the abundance of number two, some people really try to blow your confidence about number one via age/experience (these can actually be valid points, but there are plenty of factors that make those elements invalid, such as this isn't 1977 and i'm of a different, more privileged (but equally grateful) generation). mostly, what i don't accept about number two is a negative attitude about life and about being able to do the things you care about. i don't accept this, nor will i, because i'd find my mind and body suffering like the people who do except this as a life-result. yes, there are times when you won't have the choices or opportunities you want in your life, but then what are you doing to make those choices happen, or to enable better opportunities?

and what about happiness? can we afford to lose that opportunity, even if it is a risk? what kind of life would you have if you never found out? how can you be here, on this planet, and not be in the world? i don't mean traveling, but i mean being involved, and caring about something other than yourself and your bank account. yes, my life is the complete opposite as yours (she studied something she disliked, she worked for 30 years at a job she disliked). i went to a school where i had the opportunity to study something i deeply loved, and my life thereafter has been dedicated to staying involved and studying these things i love and trying to make them applicable to a functioning life. i can't afford to think it's an impossible goal because i can't afford to be unhappy, ungrateful, or unmindful about the decisions i am making in my life. for that reason, following what i love also doesn't make me an inactive or stand-still person. it means i'm trying to figure it out until i get a golden triangle. i'm trying to make it work and it's definitely a learning process. so what if it involves work? i can't imagine anything better than feeling a great happy calm.

*in re-reading this, two weeks later, i think i sound like an asshole because 1. it doesn't sound like i acknowledge the privilege i've had to afford to think this way and because of 2. my inconsideration for her life experiences and her attempt to share them with me. given the opportunities i've had and the way it has shaped my life/thinking, should my outlook change? i'm looking for a reason to not search for the happiness i have defined (for the time being) for myself, but i can't seem to find one.

Portraits of the mind. I mean, photomicrograph of the molecular scaffolding of axons.

And amazing photographs of tequila and vodka and...

r. krulwich

"You will build a body of work, but you will also build a body of affection, with the people you’ve helped who’ve helped you back. This is the era of Friends in Low Places. The ones you meet now, who will notice you, challenge you, work with you, and watch your back. Maybe they will be your strength.

…

If you can… fall in love, with the work, with people you work with, with your dreams and their dreams. Whatever it was that got you to this school, don’t let it go. Whatever kept you here, don’t let that go. Believe in your friends. Believe that what you and your friends have to say… that the way you’re saying it – is something new in the world."

as you wish great grandfather

can't sleep. 2 am! also late night karaoke happening next door, but that has nothing to do with my mind wanderings and my inability to keep my eyes closed. i tried counting sheep, but that's so boring that my mind craves to be more active. i figured i might as well not waste time and work until i'm actually feeling tired.

still have a lot of photos to edit, but just not enough time. writing articles for work, which i'll post as soon as they come along.

last weekend, hung out with long lost family from the dad's side (i've only met once before when i was a baby). i slept at their house, where i took an amazing warm shower (i only have cold water at my apt), woke up at 5 am and drove several hours to visit my grandfather, grandmother, and great grandfather's grave in Layong for Quing Meng. I was expecting to go to a big chinese cemetery where there are mountains in the back and an ocean in the front. It's a feng shui thing. I think it's such an amazing tradition/celebration/ritual. I wish i had actually grown up with this, but living in America for most of my life, you just can't celebrate Quing Meng fully. It requires sweeping the tomb (keeping it clean), twisting the head of a whole chicken, and giving them crazy things like paper ipods and ipads -offerings for their afterlife- or stuff they'll never use or know how to use in their afterlife. I hope my great grandfather uses his plane ticket to heaven. i made sure there was a passport included, a bank account, and credit cards that expire 99 years from now too.

the most symbolic gesture, experientially for me, was repainting my great grandfather's name on his headstone with bright red paint in chinese. It felt weird to be standing on above his, most likely already decomposed, body and to consider how i am half of him (but really an eighth), in the sense, that my half comes from my father, and my father got his half from my grandfather, who got his half from his father. we cooked our ancestors lots of food, brought lots of fruit, lit very loud and messy fireworks, made donations to the temple they rest at, and prayed for them. although, because i never really pray, i had a difficult time thinking of messages to share with these past lives. the beginning of my prayers always began with, "hello. i'm related to you this way and this is my name. i wish i had known you. you look handsome in your picture. i wonder what you liked to eat during your life and what we might have in common today. potentially a lot?"

things to look forward to!
megan visiting and our island hopping adventure
visiting the anthropology center and watching their collection of rare films
reading doraeman comics
tabata training