Work Etc.

With the exception of having breakfast, I think the first thing I should do today before anything else is write.

I've had a really wonderful week of traveling, working, and being frequently reminded and amazed by where I am right now. How many people can say they are exactly where they want to be, or where they have worked to be? In recalling my week last night with a friend, I was reminded again by how lucky I am to have had these opportunities this year - being in the field so often, meeting such lovely people- co-workers, villagers, and foresters alike, researching and thinking critically, even more so than i expected, about the meaning of forestry, the meaning of cultural landscapes, the role of citizenship in society, community, responsibility, and even (ugh) office management… ha, I really could go on, which is a cue that I can take myself so seriously sometimes. I even felt embarrassed about being so self-indulgent later that night.

Although, I made a mental note that if people want, they can really take more ownership of where there lives are at (although I took another note to not say anything like this to people who are feeling not as positive about their lives because it comes off as self righteous, rude and probably something else). Anyway, the idea that I love is that you should be aware of the choices you have, and in return the choices you can make. Understanding what is in that boundary (of choices), helps me, at least, see more clearly what is possible and also encourages me to be accountable for my own life.

Anyway! This is not a self help blog - I helped organize a study tour of one of the communities in N. Thailand I visited two months ago. It was for the donors of the organization I work for, so it had to be planned in an executive kind of way, but what sealed the deal was the awesomeness of the community. To be honest, we're just facilitators (including the organization's work as a whole), we just lead the way, but everything to be fascinated by is always done by the community.

I also had my first opportunity to do serious translating, which was amazing. It wasn't only the experience of sharing what was said. It helped so much that I had visited the community before and spent a lot of time researching their history, which in turn helped me share a lot of ideas and nuances that would normally be lost in translation. What was amazing was to share these unique and significant nuances of the community with other people, and truly feeling like the bridge between two different cultures. So cool and nothing like it. It made me wonder if I should do translating for a living. Another note, in essence, I hope my photographs from Thailand can serve as that, a bridge between audience and community, or community and community.

The study tour, facilitated by 2 of my colleagues also, was over sat and sunday with some leisure time in Change Mai. I had one day of rest and then went into work on Tuesday for a surprisingly good lecture on current global trends and challenges in CF. I met an amazing Senegalese man, who I wish had more time to speak on the developments of CF in Africa! It looks like he does great work with the communities and the youth there. More specifically, his perspective on what a model forest is very interesting as it looks at the participation of the community differently than what I've been exposed to here. Also the first speaker, Dr. doris, was admirably articulate and a great debater (another mental note, i want those skills). She made great points that elevated my state of being!

By 2 pm, I was leaving for Khao Yai National Park, where my unit would be conducting a REDD+ and climate change training to Thai natural resource-related government officials. I had never worked with foresters before! It was exciting to be in a room full of them and to see the faces of so many people who have the responsibility of actually managing and maintaining forests. Surprisingly, only 4 out of 50 trainees interact or work with communities as part of their work. My favorite part of the training were listening to the questions trainees asked- its how you know what was or wasn't digested, or better yet, how it was digested. I got back last night, friday, from that trip. In addition to being my first training, it was a great co-worker building trip, as there were opportunities to gossip and get the scoop on love lives and go night safari-ing, where we saw wild elephants, a huge porcupine, an owl, poisonous snakes and more. They're all so sweet and cool even if they make fun of my Thai/are charmed by it. However, I'm starting to think that it's totally a legitimate way to speak because I'm having great fun with the language even if it means purposely using words wrong.

All in all, another great week in Thailand. It's taken me a little while to get back into my groove after being home. I've got lots of work, but couldn't be more happy about truckin' through it. More photographs to add to my CF series as well! I need to take about 6 more pictures before I can develop and show, but hopefully soon. Another trip out of town a week from now- yay!

my goal today is to stay up past 9 pm and wake up no earlier than 6 am. i thought i'd get over jeg lag quicker.

time in LA was intense. let's just say i'm thinking about post-december a lot and the variety and slew of responsibility that will be flooding into my lyfe then.

i feel guilty that i am losing focus on my mission in thailand as a result of it. other things on my mind include food. i think about food all the time actually and all the different things i want to try to cook. some of these things include:

conceptual pastries

fig and walnut rolada

vegan and gluten free dishes

meatballs

herbal ice tea experiments

ornate root vegetable stews

checking out loads and loads of cook books from the public library and cooking for my mom and i.

fried garlic and herb mixtures as salad toppings (currently frying lemon grass and garlic... as of recently, i eat about one garlic bulb a day)

ramp dishes!!! (ramps and potatoes, ramps in a seaweed salad, ramp rice omelette, ramp biscuits)

i really don't feel like my usual self lately. far from disenchanted, but really seeking SO much alone time. I would say 80% of my day is to myself. never bored, but pensive the entire time.

I just want to be understood

getting reading to get on an airplane tomorrow. such a simple preparation. everything is packed, nothing is overweight, and with plenty of room to spare. looking forward to a cooler climate! ready to wear sweaters and socks! low 60s might seem like nothing to people, but i will love it. it's 90+++ here. will be sweating in my sleep even with the aircon on tonight. funny thing my uncle said tonight:

"god, aren't you mighty lucky that you were born into a middle-class family if not only because you can sleep with some air conditioning?"

unrelated, but also amusing: my aunt is obsessed with kipling backpacks and totes and after introducing her to ebay she has officially given me the run down on what kind of backpack she is looking for if i ever come across it on ebay, you know, over the next year or two. her requirements (a good thing to know):

no drawstring opening

front pockets for change

navy blue, olive, or brown

NO red, orange, or turquoise

roughly 12"h x 10"w x 6"d

light weight

padded straps

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In terms of work, waiting for the article to get published, working on making a bunch of maps (not EZ), and potentially revisiting community's (!!!) to check for map accuracy and collect additional information on land use (!!!). there's a chance I can work on a larger, better funded case study post-current-contract that is gender-related, get some videography work on case studies and/or be a co-writer for a case study. not putting all of my eggs in one basket, but those would be amazing follow up jobs to this one. These are fun ideas to ponder about, even if they never materialize. makes me wonder if I should try going to school for anthropology. Good thing, I know what I really want.

Feel like I'm getting so much out of work lately. I wonder though, if they feel like they're getting good things from me? I hope so. the impact of strategic communication is difficult to monitor. But if I weren't writing about Thailand activities, who would be? I'm part of what makes the information available, and hopefully, it is also accessible. Is it weird that I go to bed wondering if people understand me and the language I use?

I have been so affected by How to Read a Book. I just want to be understood.

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