HIV/AIDS awareness day

I have some new pictures of the HIV/AIDS awareness day that I attended last Sunday:


http://carletoncanada.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2116220&l=d1e89&id=90405089

And yes, that is me in a condom suit.
nk

Good laughs

Check this out:
http://www.thecoolnews.org/?cat=2

These are some of the funniest 'perfect moment' pictures in sports you'll see today.

Propagandilicious-

I've got some awesome examples of 'The Party's' communisto-socialist propaganda posters that brand the cityscape with their delightful flavour.

See them here

A week end in Ninh Binh

I wanted to post a bunch of pictures from my week end trek to Ninh Bing on blog itself, but I figured it would be easier to post the link to Facebook. It's all I use it for anyways-

Check it out, got some neato little captions to go along with the pics.

Click Me for Pictures

No work at the office = Nietzsche philosophy time

Cause and effect: such a duality probably never exists; in truth we are confronted by a continuum out of which we isolate a couple of pieces, just as we perceive motion only as isolated points and then infer it without ever actually seeing it. The suddenness with which many effects stand out misleads us; actually, it is sudden only for us. In this moment of suddenness there are an infinite number of processes which elude us. An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect and deny all conditionality.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.112, Walter Kaufmann transl..

Leave it to Nietzsche to point out the hidden within the obvious. This passage strikes me particularly strongly, as the questions I ask myself about this strange country have mostly to do with what I deem to be incomprehensible. How can something be incomprehensible though, when approached form the right angle? I am constantly 'isolating a couple of pieces' of this life I live in Vietnam, I can never get a full picture of what I see... this is not due to my limited vision or closed mind, but rather I am limited by my humanity, by my inability to transcend the boundaries of my body and mind.

Everything has a beginning, but what began the beginning? Every row of dominoes must have a force that knocks over the first, be it a finger, a gust of wind, etc. The problem is that the row of dominoes is so long that we cannot see the beginning nor can we see the end. Each human being is limited to a momentary view of the bigger picture of life, and, as such, we cannot help but be stunned at all the falling dominoes.

I think what Nietzsche was trying to say is that because we clearly see or define the beginning or end of any series of events, that we are trapped into thinking that each moment we experience is independent of other moments. That's why, when we suddenly get caught in a freak rain-storm, that we are shocked by the sudden appearance of clouds on what had otherwise been a blue-sky day. Perhaps, if we could have seen the beginning of time, and if our senses allowed us to understand the seemingly infinite combinations of factors which would lead up to a storm cloud forming on a specific day at a specific time, we might have been able to predict it.

This is why being human is so wonderful. Even though being able to predict a rainy day would do wonders for picnickers around the world, it would mean that our sense of discovery and wonder would not exist.

It's great to know the cause of a certain effect, but to be unaware of the true effects of your actions allows for that dynamic aspect which adds to the unpredictability of life.

Nietzsche wants to point out that our vision of the world is limited by what we see of it. I want to point out that it seeing only moments and not always the big picture allows us to retain beautiful wonder about the world we live in.

I would like, however, to know what force in the infinite past triggered the moment in the hopefully near future that will see me buy my very own car...

Time to think

Seeing as things have gone to shit in a lot of ways over the past few days, I figured it was time for some perspective. When everything seems to be going bad, it has to be for a reason, and I think that I need to figure out what exactly this reason -which has been relentlessly beating me down since wednesday-is.

When I consider what a bad day consists of, I tend to play a bit of a blame game, and point my finger at something or someone else, external from myself, who is tinkering with my perception. For instance, my work and the people at work have been getting me down. Complaining about my 'irrational' way of going about my business, when I myself see their lack of any sort of work habits as being quite irrational. My living environment has been annoying me, as the director of my 'home' seems to take great pleasure in poking his nose into my personal business and trying to control every aspect of my life. And finally, I simply am not happy with what I am doing with my days at SHAPC, at my NGO... it simply isn't what I imagined, and all the efforts that I have been making to improve it are proving to be useless.

This general unhappiness that has suddenly burst my bubble has led me inward to find a solution to my problems. The fact of the matter is this: I am unhappy because I am not doing what I want with my time here in Vietnam. I wanted to get hands on work in the field of HIV/AIDS, I wanted to learn how to work in a professional environment, I wanted to take away and contribute all which my optimistically driven energy could muster! But, alas, I find myself spending days in front of my computer with nothing to do, I am given shit jobs like editing documents from bad english into english.

Perspective! Perspective...
I'm sitting here in this little room located on the outskirts of Hanoi. After sitting outside and recounting one of the most influential dreams I've ever had to 2 girls who live in this building, I suddenly realize the importance of putting everything into a wider perspective. I'm not happy because I can't find a meaning within the every day activities which occupy my life. I have lost contact with the big picture, I seem to have stepped too far into my life and have been unable to account for the unreasonable distortions which my common sense rejects about this country. But it came back to me tonight, after a day of rest and contemplation. I simply needed a jolt, and this is what I found:

My work, my coworkers, and this building where I live: they piss me off. This is an unavoidable fact - I could attempt to justify it to myself, to say 'oh whatever, living through this will make me appreciate blah blah blah'. I could. But I won't.
Instead, I would like to approach this life problem from the side, instead of head on.

I went outside at around 11 pm. I sat down and I thought about the meaning of simply being able to recognize that I am alive. I am here, I am now. This sentence, though simple, is extremely powerful when used in the right now. I have been feeling a mental and emotional discord in my life, with my work and living conditions. However, I have been in a greater discord with the very aspect which connects me to this larger reality which work and home are simply a part of! I am alive, god damn it! I am in a foreign country, I am learning a new language, being exposed to a new culture, living within a very complicated and headache inducing political structure (which I had up till now only read about in books - thanks Marx), and I am in the process of planning out my life. Life is GOOD! How can I let work and my home get me down when there is so much else going on in this picture? I don't want to be brought down by others or by my work... I want to be the dynamic human being who looks past the small instances of discord and be at one with everything else. Sure, I am not doing what I thought I would, but who has the nerve to think that anything they predict will actually ever happen? Leave the precise predictions to the physicists and mathematicians, I say.

Seriously though, if my organization has no work for me, I will have to find something to occupy myself with. Maybe attempt to learn something new every day, maybe work on my Vietnamese, maybe even catch up on some Nietzsche or Wittgenstein. Something, anything, to help me move past and see beyond the everyday images which occupy my vision, so that I can move beyond mere sight and into the realm of the pure potential of being.

Sounds lofty, but life is such that if you get too caught up in the very instant, you risk loosing sight of the marvellous colours, sights, and sounds which occupy so much more space than your narrow vision allows into your brain.

I think my own vision had been narrowed for a while, and it's time that I rediscover the wonders of being alive. To hell with work, to hell with not having any running water this week end - I'm going to do what I want and walk to my own beat.

And you know what? I feel better already!

More Frustration

After 3 months of learning XHTML from scratch, after having spent hours and hours building a website for this god damn organization, after asking for feedback, information, and receiving none of it... after having finished a final copy of a basic shell for a website for this place that had nothing to begin with - they decided that my work wasn't good enough and that they would pay the ridiculous price of 10,000,000 VND to a private firm to create their site.

I am so angry and frustrated. I know that this is a lesson for life (or some shit like that) - that people will not always appreciate, or even recognize, my efforts... but that doesn't remove from this feeling of pissed-off regret for having given enough of a shit to read 3 books on web design, to have learned a whole new programming language on my own, from taking the time to ask for feedback and receive a load of nothing in return!

The director made the final choice. She never even looked at my website. She only listened to what her son said. Her son, for the record, is a douche bag. He tampered with my site while I was making it (I know it was him, only he had access to the FTP's login and password), and he told his 'mommy' (as he calls her) that the work I spent all this time learning on my own how to do could have been done in 5 hours or less by himself.

hoanclc@yahoo.com
I am so tempted right now to write this bastard a really mean email. At this point I don't care of the consequences of such an act.

But I can't say that I don't care about not being given a chance to finish this work. How many people would come and work for this organization and learn, from scratch and on their own, a whole new skill... for free?

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me not want to try anymore. I am not producing anything, nor learning or accomplishing anything any more than if I were at home laying in bed. Where is the impetus to work?

The worst part is that this website has kept me busy at work when I've had nothing to do. Now I have absolutely nothing to do anymore.

I don't want to whine, I just need to vent. I take the bus for an hour and a half to get here, only to be treated as a 'volunteer'.

Anyways, time to put a smile on my face and to look for a new job, screw this place.

In another meeting:

Why do I always think so much during meetings?

Meeting in progress:

Everyone is gentle, unassuming, and nice. Smiles, perhaps forced, spread across the faces of those who would belong to SHAPC. I feel disillusioned.

Mrs. Wood, the representative of the Ford Foundation, seems to be well put together, and has probably had to deal with the same kind of things that I have over the past few months. I like people like these, I need them as mentors.

She has a calm about her demeanor, it puts me at ease. Her age shows wisdom, and perhaps patience the likes of which I have yet to attain.

I am upset still about the lack of appreciation which has been replaced by complaints. I wonder at the sorts of questions Mrs. Wood will ask concerning SHAPC – what sorts of truths will be revealed through questioning? Truth can be bent, twisted, and turned into a pretty little package. Will she see this?

I am tempted by the little red devil hanging over the left side of my arm. He is telling me that vengefulness tastes like a big steak with mashed potatoes and butter, with a little bit of red wine to help it sink into my stomach.

But I can’t. I know better – who would it help to talk badly about an organization that has allowed me to work for them? Sure they complain about me, without reason, without understanding me… but that’s not reason enough to sabotage anything they do.

How can I remain positive when a part of my consciousness feels betrayed? Complaints about my work and attendance were made to the head of my host organization, VPV, and this left a sour taste in my mouth as the complaints were not made directly to me. I come to work, do my work, and try to maintain a good relationship with those around me. I have never been encouraged or acknowledged for my efforts. I don’t expect people to throw flowers to my feet as I walk in and out of the dingy little doorway. Instead, I simply want to be respected… I just want them to notice the work I do and not dismiss my efforts as ‘not enough’.

What am I learning from all of this? Do I actually enjoy development work? Can I consider what I am doing actual development work? Will this be what I want to do in the long run, can I apply these experiences to an actual career in a similar field? I feel like I am occupying negative space when all I wanted to do was help! I’ve lost hold of the ideas and hopes that brought me here – instead I am full of doubt over the objective differences I can make in this office, for this organization, and (with a lack of challenge) for myself.

Enthusiasm has a funny way of fading away when the cloud of ignorance which gave it life is lifted by the clarity of experience. One thing that I am learning is how to maintain a sense of purpose in order to make the most out of this experience for myself, and no longer for everyone around me. I cannot control what this organization will make of me and my work, I can only decide for myself if my own efforts are – in my own mind – worth throwing away.

From what I can tell, the bad should be appreciated along with the good. That will be the attitude that I need to keep in check.

The meeting continues – we discuss the effectiveness of SHAPC ability to affect law and policy concerning the lives of Homosexuals in Vietnam when much of the stigma and discrimination is culturally based more so than politically. However, in Vietnam, with one party controlling everything, it is hard to discern any difference between the two.

One thing, apart from my lack of satisfaction, is for sure: I would love to work for an organization that acts as a donor or adviser to home-based organizations like SHAPC, I would love to work with or for someone like Mrs. Susan Wood. That, I think, will require some more time and a brand spanking-new Master’s Degree.

www.shapc.hanoiyeu.com
The website that I have been working on for this organization is located at the link above. I never made a website before, and I taught myself XHTML in order to do it. It took me about 2 months. Yesterday I found out that SHAPC was looking into having a professional make a website for them, even though I told them that I would work on it for them, even though I’ve spent hours and hours doing this over the past 2 months. The cost of a website, according to the estimate that was given to them, came up to 26 million Vietnamese Dong, roughly 1,500 Canadian Dollars. Free vs. a ridiculous amount of money for an organization that has to constantly beg foreign organizations for support.

Common sense is a commodity – something I have learned.

Monthly UN Volunteers Meeting

65 people staring at me, waiting for me to speak. Some of them in Vietnam to volunteer their services, others here to work in human resource development within local NGO's, but all were at this meeting to share their experiences and network.

How had I been chosen to host this UNV meeting? Volunteers for Peace Vietnam, the organization which hosts me and provides me with a roof and bed somehow felt it appropriate to ask me to Chair the monthly United Nations Volunteers meeting held at the UN building in Hanoi. Floored, I readily accepted.

However, the night before the meeting, I felt a little less enthusiastic.

I had suggested that I write a short speech on volunteerism, sort of to break the ice during the meeting. At one of the previous meetings, I had been quite insulted by one man's insistence upon drawing a line between 'backpack volunteers' and 'Professionally trained' volunteers. He basically said that the former were not worthy of the term 'volunteer,' and that those who were paid by a host organization should be unacknowledged as 'more important'. Though I myself am sponsored and fit into his 'higher' level of volunteer, I had been insulted at his narrow-sighted opinion. This was about a month and a half ago... and when I was presented with the opportunity to Chair the meeting, I quickly jumped on the chance to counter his comment (because I knew he'd be there) with a 15 minute speech on why he was wrong.

I wrote the speech in 25 minutes, after having consulted with a few other volunteers at VPV. The next morning, I rehearsed it furiously, making sure that I could deliver this speech with precision and passion.

Suddenly, as if time decided to skip the whole morning, I found myself sitting at the head of a table full of people from all over the world. Many traveling and volunteering their work for a week or two in different countries, others were full time interns or project staff at the UN, and then there were those like me, in Vietnam to work and gain valuable experience while being sponsored by a host organization.

After I asked everyone in the room to give a brief introduction of themselves, Cuong, VPV's vice-president, gave a very short introduction to VPV and what we do. His planned 10 minutes quickly turned into a shaky 3, and I was handed the mic much sooner than expected.

I introduced myself, shuffled my papers around, and explained that I had written a short speech about volunteerism, and promised that I wouldn't bore them.

I think this was a mistake... even though I delivered the speech without any hang ups (and even received a surprising round of applause afterwards) promising anything to the audience will only generate blank looks that carry higher expectations. I think that if I were to do it again, I would keep them in the dark over the details of my speech, and to allow them to decide for themselves whether or not I am putting them to sleep.

Again, I don't know how I ended up at the front of that table that day, nor do I know how I pulled off a speech that I had written at 10:30 the night before, but somehow things went smoothly... and the meeting was actually quite enjoyable! I felt good about it, I made my point in revenge for the comment that set me off (and yes, the man was there, and no, he did not respond), good discussion was fueled, and a lot of networking took place.

And I discovered something that day, I like to be in positions of authority... is that bad?



Here is a copy of my speech (rough notes that I used throughout):

Speech Notes

Seeing as Volunteers for Peace Vietnam is chairing this meeting today, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about –what other than- volunteerism!

I would like to focus on two aspects of volunteerism:

One being,

- The seemingly inherent division between “professional” volunteers, and “backpack” volunteers.

And second,

- I’d like to shed light on what I think to be the fundamental aspect which unites these two despite their differences, as well as the guiding source which inspires our choice to volunteer.

But before I begin, I would like to start with a problem I once encountered.

That being the idea of a truly selfless, non-selfish act.

The word “volunteer” is described as follows by the Webster Dictionary:

“A volunteer is a person who performs or offers to perform a service out of his or her own free will, often without payment”

The ideal volunteer is one who performs his or her service knowing full-well that they would not benefit in any way from their efforts. However, I have often wondered: is this truly possible?

Can a human being knowingly dedicate a part (or even all of) his or her life to others, without receiving anything in return?

You might be thinking, the gratification that one receives from the smiles and grateful gestures he or she is the true reward… but that is exactly my point. The satisfaction of knowing you made someone happy is a form of ‘return’ on ones invested time, therefore there exists a form of expected reward.

Is a completely selfless act possible?

I will not answer this question just yet. Rather, I would like to come back to it at the end.

------

Living at VPV with many volunteers from around the world has given me the benefit of seeing many different aspects and perspectives behind the volunteer movement in Hanoi.

I myself am on a professional internship, volunteering my services while gaining much in the form of professional experience in the field of International Development.

Others at VPV are quite different, as our dorm like living arrangements not only resembles an ‘international ghetto’ of sorts, but is also home to many different volunteers who do different kinds of work.

Some of us are her professionally to work with local organizations,

others are students, here during a gap year between semesters, teaching English, French or both for children or adults

some are fresh graduates from high school looking to fulfill necessary social services

demanded by their government,

and then there are well established professionals looking to spend a few months learning a new culture and working either with disabled orphans or something to that effect

It had once been brought to my attention that a careful division should be made between these volunteers. What I understood was that the younger “backpack” variety, here for a matter of weeks or months, should not officially be referred to as ‘real volunteers’.

In a sense, I had agreed with the basic argument that was being made. Indeed, there are differences between the two.

- On one hand, you have people who are coming to Vietnam to travel, interact with the locals, and leave back to their respective lives.

- And on the other, you have professionals who have worked hard to get to where they are, and who are not necessarily volunteers per se. This is due to their annual stipend which formalizes them not as paid employees but as generous contributors to a higher cause.

That cause being the development of a modern infrastructure within Vietnamese organizations, to advocate for human rights, or other social issues.

However, I couldn’t help but find this argument unsatisfying, and I felt that it missed the point of what it means to be volunteer.

I would like to give two examples from two different types of volunteers to explain my point. Both are long term volunteers who live at VPV and work outside at their respective jobs.

1. The first was an experience described to me by a professional intern who is sponsored by the Canadian government to work at The Light Foundation, a local NGO.

- She is in the process of writing a grant proposal for a project which means to empower female Vietnamese Sex Workers to stand up for their own human rights.

Almost immediately, she runs into two problems:

The first:

Sex Work is illegal in Vietnam, therefore convincing the Government or police to respect their rights isn’t very easy to do. Such a project may not seem plausible to a would-be sponsor, seeing as the goal of the project is a tad ambitious and perhaps unrealistic.

Secondly:

The term human rights can be quite ambiguous, especially in a country where social movements are quite difficult to start and effect actual change.

These are technical problems experienced by a professional volunteer. They are very difficult to deal with for someone who is used to a more forgiving infrastructure.

She has experienced frustration at having to work around a technically stifling bureaucracy, and has been hard-pressed to come up with a solution.

2. My second example comes from a volunteer who works at an orphanage for disabled children.

- This volunteer has complained of having seen instances of abuse by the staff unto the children themselves.

One of her examples stuck with me quite strongly:

- She witnessed a child being let out of a small, black closet after having been locked in for misbehaving.

Here we have a different kind of problem. This has nothing to do with logistics or an under developed infrastructure… this problem affected the very base of her moral instincts.

What she saw she knew was wrong, but how was she to proceed?

I would like to clarify that these instances are not unique to developing countries or to Vietnam. They are very likely to happen in our own countries, and I don’t want to seem like I’m blaming these problems on under-development specifically.

It is obvious that these different volunteers faced two very different problems in two different areas of work. However, who is to say that one is more difficult than the other?

Is the professional who faces the bureaucratic red tape of a developing nation truly distinguishable in her efforts over those of the orphanage worker who has to deal with acts that make her sick to her stomach from her inability to effect change?

To me, the answer is quite clear.

To distinguish the professional from the non-professional is an erroneousness mistake:

it is purely a superficial way of creating a distinction between similarly challenging jobs.

The truth is that the depth of the problems faced by the volunteer who is working at the orphanage is the same as the professional working at the NGO.

---

This brings me to my own problem which I began with.

Is there such a thing as a truly selfless act?

What makes us worthy of the title ‘volunteer’ in the first place?

The answer came to me from a person who is very important to me:

She said that:

The fact of the matter is that this is a question which also misses the point. The goal of volunteerism does not revolve entirely around the attainment of a final goal, but it is part of a whole which includes the very real ideal which inspired it.

All of us in this room are driven by an ideal, be it to improve the English of 50 screaming children in a classroom, or to improve the human resources at an organization.

We know that the Ideal can never fully be reached, however we strive to touch and perhaps get a glimpse of it,

and the consequences as well as the honest intentions of those efforts become self-evident in their final result.

This is what unifies us as volunteers, it is what has brought us to this very room here today! It is also the philosophy of VPV, which is why, despite their flaws, I am happy to represent them here today and everyday.

I feel strongly that we all have good, albeit different, intentions. And if we do not manage to lose sight of the ideals that drive us, we will reap invaluable benefits no matter what sort of volunteer work we are doing, or what their practical results.

Thank You

Food for thought

Every once in a while I will run into something worth while on the internet. It doesn't happen often, mind you, but here is an article that I highly suggest for those of you interested in the current scientific research and philosophy of the mind:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-out_mind_0930sep30,0,4908398.story?page=1


It's interesting because the very aspect which gives birth to our consciousness is a complete mystery to scientists everywhere. Philosophers and mystics seem to come up with good answers, despite their being unable to ground them in practicality.

I tend to agree with the final part of the article, which says that our mind is a combination of multiple composite parts. You could compare it to a projected image being shot onto a white backdrop by a old reel-video projector that you see in museums these days. The image, say of Charlie Chaplin dancing around in silence, is not something that you can touch, grab, or put into your pocket for future viewing (though this is quite possible with those fancy new iphones, but that is another story altogether). The image can be compared to our conscious minds, whereby it only exists because of the reel which contains the images, the projector that displays them, the backdrop which houses them, the electricity which powers everything, etc. Without all those factors, the image could never come up on screen, it simply would not exist.

In this sense, our minds are the final product of the many separate functions that our bodies (primarily our brain) take on. The varying senses, the analytical capacities of our brain's composite parts, and the physical reality which provides us with a stage and with energy to get the system going... without them, the mind would not exist.

So what does this tell us? Not much, to be honest. It is quite obvious that the mind more complex that a series of moving frames which imitate real life. Our minds produce our 'selves', and though we don't know exactly what causes 'us', we know damn well that 'we' exist.

If anyone ever reads this the whole way through, I'd be interested in hearing what others might think of this phenomena we call the mind.
nk

a tale from the third storey

One of the most difficult aspects of writing a compelling blog entry is finding where to start. Life in a foreign country usually exposes you to so many new things that you simply want to describe everything in maximum detail in order to get as much across as possible. For instance, I could describe where I am presently writing from, 3 stories above one of the busiest veins in Hanoi, Kim Ma street. I could concentrate on describing the purple sky, and the tall, skinny buildings which poke their heads towards the setting sun. But then I'd be neglecting the flurry of activity below, how the street-side restaurants are slowly beginning to fill their empty, foot high seats designed for Western children but that somehow manage to suit 95% of the adults in this country. I could elaborate upon the incessant traffic which keeps this city bustling, alive with the simultaneous roar of the hundreds of thousands of motorbikes and scooters of all shapes and sizes which run through the street like little gas-powered amoeba. Their collective purr can be felt three stories above, all the way into this very seat in which I relax after a long day at work.

At a certain point in anyone's long term stay as an ex-patriot in a foreign country, one begins to feel the wear of being an outsider. To some it may hit sooner than others, but for myself it has been slowly creeping in after the 1 month mark. I'm beginning to feel an absolute longing to participate in the world around me as more than a silent observer. As the cultural practices and actual language are quite new to me (at least, in their absoluteness in my all encompassing surroundings), I am feeling the frustrations of being unable to penetrate beyond the canvas which separates me from this mysterious world.

To put it in more practical terms, I feel like I'm trapped inside my own head, looking at the world as if I was in some sort of inescapable museum, only capable of interpreting the images that I see through my own determinations. I want to jump through the wall hangings and say hello to the moving still-life people that are illustrated beyond.

Unfortunately, this is one of those 'requiring time' things, where my immediate problems cannot be solved by any other means than simply waiting and making an effort. The real beauty in exploring foreign lands is not only that they mimic a foreign planet with its own gender of alien species to interact with, but that, as a human being, I can learn to speak their completely Martian tongue, to make myself understood, and to take away more from a tiny exchange about something as silly as the weather than I would in my own language.

And herein lies the true satisfaction of life: not gaining wealth, power, or recognition by the masses... but rather in simply sharing your thoughts and receiving mental feedback from another. To open yourself as a human being, and be touched by others in the process. This is why traveling for long periods of time in foreign countries can be quite difficult: you are simply deprived of this during your day to day activities. In work, at restaurants, even between friends that you have made in this new world... unless you are a master at learning languages, there will always be a massive gap that separates you from your immediate surroundings.

It is an amazing moment when you realize that you are almost completely separated from the reality in which you stand, because of your immediate inability to reach out beyond your body, to send your words out with meaning to make your life meaningful, so to speak.

Times like these must not be squandered on frustration though, as being pushed so deeply into the depths of one's self allows for a wonderful amount of introspection to take place. Constantly, the limits of my patience, energy, and mental sanity are tested by the driving forces of this country. The insane habits of motorbike drivers on my to work, the network of thieves who occupy the buses and pray on innocent fools like myself, being regarded as a moron for simply not being able to respond to something as simple as 'how was your day' when spoken in a foreign tongue... these are but to name a few, believe me, I could go on, but I would be missing the point that I began this tangent with the intention of finishing with. All of these events which frustrate the balance of my life, they happen to me not only as passing moments, but as events that will mark my character for the rest of my life. I carry them, sort of like scars, in my persona and psyche, I will take them with me as I grow and age, and ultimately, the age old adage applies perfectly: what doesn't kill me can only make me stronger.

Life here in Vietnam, though difficult at times, is certainly not boring. I leave my room at 8 am and most of the time do not return till 10 pm. At that point, I'm usually too tired to stand straight, which makes my uncomfortable bed that much easier to bare. Not only my bed, but the lack of comfort which accompanies our daily lives in the developed world.

Believe me when I say that, though the basic human interactions which define my day remain the same as if I lived in Canada, the daily grind itself is something entirely different. Never has the act of 'taking the bus' been such a chore. I call it my 'daily test of patience', as each time I seem to be pushed closer and closer to that very fine fault line which prevents me from splitting heads. But, again, it is all part of the experience, and deep down, even when it has pissed me off to the point of no return, I can still calm myself down, smile internally, and even break out into a fit of joyful laughter, simply because I know that I actually love being pushed out of the zombie mode which can take a hold of us in such a powerful way.

It is indeed difficult to pin-point what to start a usual blog entry with, which is why today, I decided to start with everything. The now darkened sky beckons: I have an event that I must attend tonight that may or may not be the topic of another blog entry... after all, who is to say where time will take me?

Dreams can lead to real thoughts, who'da known?

I had a weird dream last night, and I felt like I had to write about it.

I was invited to a sort of convention for the poor and homeless. The organizers of the event thought it would be a good idea to invite all these underprivileged people from all over my dream-scape to a 'special' location, one where they would never get a chance to go to otherwise.

The day of the event arrived very quickly, almost 2 seconds after I get the invitation. I suddenly found myself walking through crowds of homeless people, eyes caved in, faces wrinkled and worn by a lack of proper sleep and shelter... they look at me with deep, penetrating stares, and I have trouble shaking off the feeling that one woman, clearly addicted to morphine, has given me by simply making eye contact. Do you look at the homeless when you are awake, do you make eye contact with them as they ask you for crumbs? If so, it was akin to that feeling.

I wonder why everyone is so solemn, the mood is supposed to be cheerful and uplifting at this event. I look around my surroundings, and am quickly answered by what I saw. The location, thought fit for the occasion by the organizers, actually turns out to be Disneyland. I am perplexed by the idea of trying to provide one day to experience what most think to be a 'happy place' to those who simply could never afford to go there ever again.

I woke up thinking all kinds of things about this dream. It made me think of my own situation here in Vietnam, and about developing nations all over the world. Why do we think that we can make the lives of the so-called 'underprivileged' better by giving them tastes of what we can live every day? Where is the charity in having them realize that we do indeed have it better? These raise a greater question: What good can come out of giving someone a taste of a life that is so much better than the reality they will continue to face once that 'taste of the better' is gone?

The people in my dream were miserable, not because of their lives living as homeless refugees from society, but rather because this 'good cause' only caused them to feel even more secluded from the world.

What exactly are we Western volunteers doing in Dev. Nations? We come here, work long hours without reward, show our intent and willingness to participate in the local culture, learn more about the limits of our nature and being, and gain infinitely by adding this experience to our resume. Then, what do we do? We leave. We go home. We leave the hard lives which we have come to experience for the better world which waits for us back home.

I'm sorry if this sounds like a pessimistic view on international volunteering, but I can't shake the feeling that there is something morally ambiguous about the whole thing. Certainly, the most honest intern or volunteer knows that he or she cannot seriously affect the '3rd world' country that they enter... anyone who does is either a fool or a religious zealot. So we leave for our 'experiences', fully knowing that the experiences we will live can only provide us with nothing more than our own 'taste' of another's 'lesser' reality. We know damn well that we're coming back to our privileged worlds, which makes leaving all the easier.

On the other hand, to put a bit of optimism into my own view, I can say that sometimes the help we provide is needed. We can do good, we can make good friendships in foreign countries, and opening our own minds brings us closer to understanding the true plight of people in countries that are seriously in need of our recognition. But to say that we are volunteering for a better world, giving our services in exchange for no 'material good', may be a little misleading and perhaps a bit dishonest...

The word 'volunteer' is described as such by the Webster Dictionary:

"A volunteer is a person who performs or offers to perform a service out of his or her own free will, often without payment."

The term 'free will' comes up in this definition, which I found to be quite interesting primarily because of the implication of choice which comes along with it. People choose to volunteer, usually to help those who need it. Free choice implies an active will to accept the consequences of that choice, but in the end, everyone is simply human. Can a human being 'volunteer' to act in a way that is benefits only others and not themselves?

This raises another very important question: If the volunteer is to represent a symbol of selflessness, yet intrinsically benefits from his or her labours (be it knowingly or sub-consciously, directly or indirectly), can we say that there truly is such a thing as a 'completely selfless act'?

For instance, on Wednesdays I teach English to a class of disabled Vietnamese College students. I go voluntarily, and do not take anything in return for my services. However, I can admit that my reason for going is not even close to being selfless. I go because of the feeling I get during and after a lesson is finished. Teaching and interacting with the students brings me incredible personal joy and satisfaction. I simply love going to this class, I could never get enough of the laughs and lessons that I share with these students, and perhaps I am guilty of selfishly continuing these lessons for myself rather than for the overall benefit of the students.

I'm not going to pretend that I am here in Vietnam on some sort of mission to save the world. I am here to learn about myself, Vietnamese culture, and to open my self and mind to new possibilities. This experience will invariably benefit me in the long run, and I am very aware of this. Because of this, I would like to reconsider the meaning of the term 'volunteer', as it wrongly implies that those doing international volunteer work do so in the name of bettering the world, while knowing that there is always personal gain to be had from their (our) seemingly selfless actions.

ps:
In the future I promise to write more specifically about my observations on Vietnam, rather than focus on meaningless rants about the nonsensical such as I have above!

Time and time again

We plan for the constant 'now' by projecting our thoughts forward into a string of interwoven and unclear futures. We clear the many paths of the foggy unknown with the cognitive capacities of our mind's eye, deciphering a real path for the present to follow where at first it did not exist.

We constantly thrust ourselves into this future, where multiple paths lead to singular destinations. Where we go is always where we are, but how we choose to get there is up to how our minds decide to see the future.

With all that could possibly become, at every instant I'm left with these simple questions: what now, and when will that be?

In a meeting...

SHAPC, the NGO for which I work for here in Vietnam, is involved in all sorts of HIV/AIDS awareness building projects. I am currently working on a project which would bring some 300 trained Peer Educators to 3 different universities. Our target group is first year students, and we plan on implementing our project this coming November.

Right now I'm sitting in a meeting, and there is a lively discussion concerning the layout of our project proposal. This proposal is what will get us funding from PACT International, for the total of $100,000 USD. I have so many ideas to help this project move along. I even created an a schema of how I think the proposal should be laid out (based on the criticisms of their last proposal from PACT). I know what their problems are, how to get past this meeting, and to get some actual progress done in defining their strategies, goals, and necessary actions and activities in a comprehensible fashion.

I know all of this... but I can't say any of it, because I don't speak their language. The meeting is going on completely in Vietnamese, and I hardly know more than 'hello, my name is.' The PACT Proposal was written in English, and the meeting we had with PACT was held in both languages with good translators. Right now, however, sitting here in SHAPC's third floor office, I find myself feeling helpless and almost completely useless, despite the fact that I have many answers to their questions and frustrations.

I'm sure that they are discussing things which I might not have the answers to, but whenever I'm told what they are arguing, I get frustrated because it is usually the exact same solution which they were originally criticized by PACT for. It offers no improvements what so ever.

When I explained the amount of work necessary in creating a proper proposal to the one who can speak English, she sort of frowned and muttered 'that's a lot of work'. But that's what is necessary! I'm frustrated, because if I was the manager of this project, I would know exactly what needed to be done, and I would proceed by distributing the workload so that we could build a working proposal that had all of the requisite details to make a functional, logical document!

Okay, I know this is a rather boring blog entry, but damn it do I ever need to vent!

I've joined the digital revolution

Today I have joined the millions of people who have caught onto the power of digital media. I have posted a short video that I shot, edited, and posted on youtube!

Okay, so my video is actually a little lackluster. It's boring and doesn't really show much of Hanoi, but it will be the first of other videos that I plan on posting for my friends and family to see.

Here it is, my first video:

My first 'I hate this country' moment

Mondays, that special time of the week when all that is bad comes together to upset the perfect balance reached during the week end.

Monday mornings, full of lazy spite and unwilling necessities.

Mondays... in my case: waking up with a fever, waiting for the bus in the rain, having Hanoi's traffic multiply times a billion, taking an hour and a half to get to work, getting robbed on the bus, and it is still only 9:30 am - plenty of time for things to get worse.

Last night was hot, I mean, REALLY hot. I lay in bed, completely unable to fall asleep thanks for the lack of any sign of coolness in my room. I open the window, 'nice, some fresh air,' I think. 10 minutes later, thunderous clashes announce a quickly approaching rain storm. 5 minutes later, god is taking the longest and most powerful piss of his/her/it's life on Vietnam. I close the window so as to avoid the flooding of all my belongings. The heat returns.

6:30 approaches quickly, I wake up feeling disgusting. It is still hot, and I don't feel as well as I did the day before. I can tell that I have a slight fever, and I'm slow to wake. When I finally do wake up, I walk to the washrooms, but they are full of 17 year old Singaporeans who seem to like taking forever to primp their teenage faces. Thinking that I would play it smartly, I go to the washrooms upstairs, because they don't tend to occupy those ALL of the time. 'Yes, it's empty, a victory for me,' I tell myself as I hang my towel in the open washroom. As I reach down to turn the tap to have all of that beautiful water come rushing towards me, I am met by nothing by annoying dryness. There is no water. 'Fuck'.

20 minutes later I am out of the shower downstairs. I dress and make my way to the bus stop. The bus takes longer than usual, but I am happy to see that there is a free seat. I gingerly sit my butt down and count the number of cyclists my psychopathic bus driver nearly flattens.

The rain slows as my bus arrives at my transfer point. Today is the first day that there are no other buses at the stop, so I wait for 10 minutes until the number 32 arrives. Me, and 50 Vietnamese rush for the doors as it pulls up, as if the bus only had a limited number of seats, or something crazy like that. I don't get a seat, 'fuck, again,' I think as I stand by the side of the window along with the rest of the poor seat-less souls.

As we slowly begin to leave the country-side, I notice the unusual amount of traffic which occupies the streets of the incoming city. My bus ride, which takes me about 45 minutes (on a good day), ends up taking one hour and thirty minutes. To make it worse, I had the worst money collector ever.

What is the money collector? I'm glad you asked.

The money collector is the bus driver's partner. He works for the bus company, and his job is to go around collecting money from the passengers. He walks up and down the bus checking bus passes and handing out tickets, leaving the bus driver to drive freely without the hassle of keeping count of who paid and who didn't during the rush for seats.

These money collectors, or, MCs, are usually a quiet bunch. Today, however, my bus had the anti-christ of MCs. He went around pushing people into place, yelling at them to take out their cards, and generally acting like a big'ol asshole.

Okay, back to my story.

So, as my legs begin to feel the cramped ache of standing like a sardine in an over-sized tin can on wheels, I am relieved to see my usual landmark which tells me that my stop is next. It is a big, grey-ish temple which is oddly located next to my route. 'About 4 more minutes, and I'm outta here,' I think in celebration. The damp stink caused by the other human beings had begun to take a toll on my patience, and my slight-fever wasn't getting any better, so I actually had something good too look forward to: not being on the bus in ridiculous traffic.

4 minutes quickly turned into 15 minutes, as the traffic came to a complete stop not 200 meters away from where I would get off. 'FUCK!'

Finally, we near my stop. I push past the 300 billion people on my bus to get close to the exit. You see, if I don't do this, I will be trapped on the bus. Not only that, but if I'm not quick, the bus doors will close on me, and I might have a foot or an arm stuck between two closed bus doors... and even though traffic wasn't moving fast, I didn't feel like holding hands with the bus for another 2 kilometers. AND, the bus never actually 'stops', it comes to a slow roll, which forces you to make a leap of faith off of and onto the bus whenever boarding or disembarking. Fun stuff.

JUMP, and I'm off. 'Yes!' I allow myself a moment to enjoy my victory. I bend over to roll down my pants, and realize something is wrong. Usually, when I bend down, I can feel the mobile phone in my pocket pressing into my leg... but my phone isn't there. 'FUCK FUCK FUCK'. The quick realization that I had been robbed during the disembarkment procedure removed any sense of victory from me.

Before I can curse aloud for the world to hear, a motorbike zooms past me, nearly knocking me over. 'WTF, I need to get off the road,' I think, but I don't have any time to move before I notice that I am not in fact on the road. ZOOM, another fucking motorbike nearly turns me into a pancake. I look around and am amazed yet not entirely surprised to see that the innovative Hanoi-ians have transformed the side walk into a road for their scooters and motorbikes. This once safe sanctuary for the motorless individuals such as myself has turned into a quick path to salvation for every damn motorbike on the road. I have to stand aside while bikes drive by me like maniacs, nearly getting hit every 5 seconds by another impatient motorist. My 10 minute walk to work turns into 20 minutes of me playing the South East Asian version of Frogger.

I arrive at the front steps to my office, I go to clean my shoes on the rub and slip. I open the door, walk into the office, wet, and looking miserable, and my lovely coworkers greet me with smiles and broken English 'Goo Moaning's'. I tell them about my commute, my fever, and my stolen phone, and, with the infinite kindness which everyone in this office seems to possess, they make me feel much better.

Another co-worker, Son, arrives 30 minutes after me, soaking wet. He is nothing but smiles. It reminds me of how sometimes, life can suck, but what matters is how we perceive it. Sure, my morning sucked real bad, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let it dictate the rest of this god forsaken Monday.

:)
A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks. ~Charles Gordy

Falling Between the Gaps

Life always offers us challenges to overcome. That's what life is about, finding the strength to defeat the obstacles which prevent us from achieving our goals. Though all challenges are identical in principle, some are a bit bigger, or rather, more unique than others, and this blog entry is about one such challenge.

For me, the most frustrating thing that I can experience is to not be understood. That is why I strive towards being a good communicator, laying out my thoughts and ideas in a comprehensible fashion for the listener, no matter who they may be. I know the importance of shaping my words so as to best penetrate the thought process of he/she who is listening, but what happens when that person does not speak any of your spoken languages? Madness - that's what.

Recently, an opportunity to gain some grant money to help fund a project that the NGO which I work with has been preparing has come about. At a meeting with the National MSM Working Group (a group which aims to increase the rights of gays in South East Asia), one guest speaker mentioned a special fund from amFAR which would give $10,000 USD to NGO's who are willing to do research on MSM (men sex with men) in South East Asian countries, or who want to implement a safe sex program which would aim to decrease the spread of HIV/AIDS and STIs in the region. My NGO is working on one such project, and I thought this would be an excellent grant to apply for in order to get some extra funding.

At the meeting was my director, who's English isn't so hot. The speaker spoke in English, and was translated (poorly) into Vietnamese via a headset. I took the initiative and made some notes on the grant. Once the meeting was over, I presented the idea to one of my coworkers, who, despite being very sweet and well-intentioned, didn't seem to understand why this was such a good idea.

For the first time since I've been here, I actually got frustrated. I really wanted her to recognize that this was a good potential for some extra cash for the organization, but the plan that I suggested was not easily understood with her limited English. My own inability to speak Vietnamese didn't help either, and we were at a loss. I was losing patience, because I tried my best to explain that we needed to present this to the director, and that it should be taken seriously.

In addition to the language gap, there is another problem which peers its ugly little head at me. I guess I suffer from the 1St World Syndrome. That is, I am very used to a working environment where coworkers don't diddle. One thing that I forget sometimes is that I'm not in Canada anymore, the work schedule is very different here than in my homeland, and I can't expect to have people act on things right away. I mean, they take an hour and half for lunch at my office, which is considered to be short by the Vietnamese standard of two and a half hours.

This is a problem, because I have already written a proposal about the grant which I intend to present to the director. However, I need to get it translated... and I would like to have one of the staff help me. However, her pace of work is not exactly... well, it won't get done today, that's for sure.

Just another instant of culture gaps. Completely Unavoidable, that is for sure. Luckily, I have some extra reserves of patience that I've kept just in case such a problem might occur.

Living in a foreign country which bares hardly any resemblance to the world you know has many challenges, but the rewards are even more numerous. I've learned the value of taking work into one's own hands, and of being self motivated when it comes to my ideas to better the organization.

This is just another one of things that I need to take in stride, and overtime my ability to adapt to their ways of working will pay off.

Now to go pester the secretary, to see if she'll translate my proposal if I buy her some cakes.
:)

Nick

An Introduction To The Next Six Months of My Life

Every once in a while, some invisible force grabs us by the hand and directs us towards the unknown. This blog entry, the first of many, is about that magical force which has brought me to Vietnam, and about the perspectives I have and will have gained as a consequence.

I don’t know about you, but I have found that during my life in Canada, I have been very much inclined towards living a semi-normal and un-inspiringly boring lifestyle. That is, by my own personal standards at least. University came and went, four years of routine with occasional part time jobs scattered about, but nothing truly riveting took hold of me.

The straw which broke that stubborn camel’s back came in the truly inspiring form of my best friend and then lover, who, out of a purely adventurous spirit, inspired me to greater things.

As the flow of time tends to direct us in a straight line in which each new moment takes precedent to the next, I find myself here in the present as a consequence of the past. I am here because of the people I have met, of the decisions I have made, and because the entire universe came together at one moment to decide the beginning of all our lives.

Tomorrow will mark the one week point since I have been living in Hanoi, Vietnam. I will be here for the next six months of my life… living. Truly living. Tomorrow, I will be starting my volunteer internship at an NGO (non-governmental organization) called SHAPC (STI, HIV-AIDS Prevention Center) downtown Hanoi. This is my direction for the next six months, the invisible hand of time has brought me here, and I’m not quite sure what it means, or what new directions will follow… all I know is that I am where time has brought me.

I will take the bus for one hour, away from the countryside, along the winding roads, rice fields, and eventually onto the paved roads and into the city center. I will find my away through a maze of unfamiliarity to the office that has been so kind as to take me in as their first official international intern.

I met them today, they were incredibly nice, friendly, and apparently grateful for my presence. I could hardly believe their openness towards having me, a 23 year old Canadian without any professional work experience, into their world. I hope that I can build amazing relationships with these people, help them with their organization, and learn, learn, and learn some more.

There is so much to write about, so many perspectives to gain and expound that this well should never run dry.

Chapters

I am at the edge, looking down, about to dive… The water crashes against the splintering rocks below. Above is an endless sky, mixing into the equally limitless sea. The only distinction comes from the setting sun which finds company in its reflection brilliantly glimmering off of the water’s native dance below. I am going to jump, I have to. What will the air feel like as my skin rushes past it, as my hair plays like fire through the weightless molecules which surround me in my free-fall? Will I be able to breath the oxygen that speeds by my open mouth as I yell in ecstasy at my decent? If you think my world will come to an end, you are wrong. I jump because I have an inclination; it tells me that something amazing will catch me at the bottom, that there is so much to be gained from leaving the ground we so know and love. Do you think I will close my eyes? If so, you have yet to understand the point of living, or of life itself. Each good story begins and ends with a Deep Breath.

I am drunk

Star date: August 16th, 1:32 am, 2007

Here I sit, in my empty room, thinking deeply about how I will be heading to Vietnam for the next six months of my life. The lack of furniture and of my own personal belongings in what was once my personal abode remind me of the void-like feeling that surrounds me: where am I going, where am I coming from, who am I and what will I become? I am nothing and everything all at once, I am the culmination of every instant I've ever lived, and yet I am ready to be so much more.

My last moments in Canada have been quite contemplative, as I've attempted to spend them with those who mean the most to me. They include my best friend in the entire world, Mai; my brother, who not only possessses so much potential, but has so much knowledge and wondrous youth that he inspires me by just being himself, Matthew; my all time favorite professor, who, despite being years ahead of me in intelligence and academic prowess, always finds the time to talk and philosophize on life and on living, Keith; my roomate and long time friend, who, no matter what, will always remain loyal and true to me, and himself, Kyle; and many others. I can't help but be myself with these people, those who mean the msot to me, because it is with them that I am forced out of my shell, to reveal the face behind the so called mask which hides my true self.

I am fortunate to have these people in my life, and as I look forward to this Friday, August 17th, when I will depart from this world and land into another, I undoubtedly be constantly reminded of how fortunate I am to have them and to have been given the opportunity to know myself more through them.

I am sad. I am excited. I am scared. I am enthusiastic. I am nervous, and anxious, and somewhat terrified... but I am so ready to be challenged by Vietnam and its culture. I cannot wait but to be electrified by its undeniable current, to catch its own cultural bug, and to be exposed to so much life in such a short period of time. I am ready to grow, to learn, and not for an instant will I presume my presence to be worth more than it is. I know that I am simply going to be working for an HIV/AIDS clinic, and not the other way around. I can only give what I take away, and I hope to take away as much as possible.

The flight: omg, I'm scared. nearly 30 hours of travel time. I have to go through the USA. I look like a terrorist, but am simply a poor mixed child who happened to take on the look for a Persian when really I'm just some french catholic/Guyanese kid from the middle of nowhere new brunswick. I hope I don't get harassed, I never enjoyed that and never will. Those bastards always judged me, and never gave me the benefit of the doubt.... Who knows what will happen? I'm sure to write about it though, sometime soon.


Okay, well, it's 1:44, time for sleep. Hopefully I'll dream of making it past airport security without any hangups or problems. I can only hope that I will dream of wonderful experiences and chances to learn and grow while in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. And finally, I hope to allow myself the chance to relax, to rest, and for my mind to soak in all the potential wonders of living in a different world.

Goodnight, world.

nk

In Transit.

Sitting infront of my computer, I suddenly realize that my brain has a mode that allows me to release my pent up thoughts upon the world. The internet. I let out a villainous 'lol', and proceed to write.

Where are my thoughts when I search for them? Where am I going when I search for them? Do I realize that I search for them, or am I simply programed to do so? My thoughts aren't physical, I can't hold them in my hands... how can I be sure that they themselves have any hold on reality? How do I know reality has a baring on me and my thoughts?

Schizophrenia is not for the timid.

Must all thoughts carry themes? Seriously now. Why can't I simply go on a tangent every once in a while? Just because a sentence needs to have structure doesn't mean that the thoughts that follow need to as well!

Thoughts are paths, we just travel through them so fast that we sometimes forget that they weigh so heavily on our worlds. I just realized something... thoughts, if thoughts are what connect us to the world by allowing us to recall and re-live memories, then emotions must also contribute to our memories... Are they a direct part of who we are, much like our bodily sense-based memories are? Or are emotions simply an element, part of the overall system, no different than what the eyes or tongue tells us?

Emotions are fascinating, I've always taken an interest in how emotions lives among us. Are they our escape from inescapable logic?

I know that this blog entry is full of questions, I suppose I'm asking myself the kinds of things that I'd want to know, y'know?

To my friend, the (un)-yet-known mystery girl

Dear Mystique,

What do you do, mystery girl? Are you from this world, or are you but a shadow cast upon us from another dimension? What do you like? Do you like to touch, to feel, to know? Or are you an eternal, ever living in a timeless loop? I am a child of this world, this plane. It's nice here, I can taste and know that I taste. This life, it is quite flavourful. Would you know it, that in this world, you can even use your senses to know another sentient lifeforce? Shared sense is something we independent beings can experience as one, we know ourselves through others, and we test the limits of our being by sharing in our senses together.

Someday I hope to exist outside of this body, Mystery Girl, maybe you will be there?

One of the fundamental aspects of this world is that the unknown cannot be measured in any way. It is fundamental, and quintessentially marvelous all at once. That we can never know how much we do not know means that there is an infinite amount of 'knowing' to be had. What this means is that no matter how much we search within ourselves to know who we are, the answer will only ever reveal itself to us in small bits and pieces, and the outside world holds nothing but the potential for discovery.

Imagine, to be able to discover and re-discover life, over and over again. To taste something new every day, even if you've already eaten. To love, and love again.

Time is paradoxical to us in this world. We, the forward walking, backwards thinking individuals that we are! We DARE rush forward into an infinite abyss, while looking behind us at each moment that zooms by. We, never knowing the present except for in memory. That is a powerful thought, for it describes the fundamental truth of the human condition. Acting, feeling, saying, thinking in the present based on all we know of the past!

Oh, how hindsight is a gift granted only to those who know how to think forward before acting! A gift so vast, so important that it allows this world, this visuo-physical construct, to mold according to our wills!

It is beautiful, this world of shared senses and self-willed action. I am glad that I am here. I hope that what lays in wait within the infinitum of non-existence can compare to the ups and downs, the feelings, the senses, and time itself from which we ourselves originate.

Yes, Mystery girl, I have learned a lot from this short lived adventure we call life, but the beauty of the unknown beckons... it calls, and I insist on knowing what it wants to tell me.

Enjoy the taste of each exhilarating breath! Not because each could be your last, but rather because each can be your first!

Nicholas

My moments in between customers.

I'm actually at work right now, I'm going to try and start a blog entry and see where it takes me. I'll put a little more effort into keeping a running story throughout my thoughts, but chances are that they'll all just end up being randomized by the gaps caused by the customer interaction.

It'll be hard, but here I go!

I just had an interesting interaction with some older dude. He came in, said hi, got milk, and then proceeded to dump his change, along with a couple dollars, and told me that he had some work for me. He was really calm, and nice. I swear, the older people are the most interesting people around here.

I counted his change, and left him the loonies, rather than take his loonies because it would be an overall easier interaction. I think he appreciated it. It's funny how hard work is noticed by others. Not that I do it often, he was nicer than most.

Which kinda brings me to my next customer, who entered as he left. Another old man, his name is Lionel, and he's the mayor of Saint Andre, the town in which I live. Nell, as most call him, is a successful retiree, a former potato farmer. He's always been extremely gruff, puts up a real tough front - like if you'd go astray in front of him, he'd get really mad. This guy didn't so much as answer my questions, which included the likes of, 'will that be all?' All he wanted to know was whether or not there were many people playing in the poker room. Again, old people are interesting as hell.

The next guy is the husband of a former teacher of mine. As I was punching in the items he bought (an auto trader magazine and a lotto super 7 ticket), nothing was really said in between us. All of sudden, as I hand him his change, and he mentions to me that his wife noticed me jogging earlier today. I smiled, not really knowing what to say, and he left.

You know, I'm starting to think that the mood I'm in depends mostly on how I want to see the world. Well, the world can suck sometimes, but only if you're unwilling to tolerate it. Learning to adapt and tolerate new environments is key. I suppose that brings me to my new thought, I'm leaving for Viet Nam in less than a month. This is the first time that I'm admitting it to myself, and actually really thinking about it. I'm trying to say goodbye to the things I will miss, so that I won't be too shocked by my sudden immersion in a whole new environment along Hanoi's countryside. Such things include hot, private, glamorous showers. God damn how I love those. Also, my dad's supreme cooking, he is in the restaurant right now, and he's preparing me a fancy dish of skewered shrimp and slightly curried rice. I will miss my mom driving me crazy with her insane motherliness. I WON'T miss the casual talk with the locals about how the weather is, though.

You know, I would say that a solid 78% of the petty conversation I have is all about weather. I think that, if ever I get done all of my grad school applications that I work on while on the job, my new project will be to run my own indiscriminate poll to see for once and for all, in an official percentage form, just how badly this job numbs my mind...

One thing I noticed about the weather is that it affects another aspect of people's lives around here. Now you might not understand this right away if you're not from a farming community, but when the weather sucks, people's mood's are doubly bad due to the fact that they work outside in potato fields. Seriously now, there is nothing better to talk about, because all there is to talk about is how the weather affected their day!

Hmph, probably too much stuff about work. Well, I am there afterall, and overanalyzing it is a good escape from having to live it.

And if you've read this far, just know that my title has nothing to do with prostitution.

Nick

Today was a good day-

This is it, a new blog entry, a new space for me to expand within and hopefully grow. What better way to kick off a blog about my new life than by talking about the good in my day?

I woke up at 8 am to work. My parent's humble convenience store in Saint Andre, New Brunswick, is where I have been spending most of my days this summer. It is at this store where I do most of my work, such as grad school applications as well as preparations for my internship to Vietnam. Today, as I climbed out of bed and dragged my feet down the street, the bright sunshine and flutter of activity amongst the morning song birds forced me out of my semi-slumber. At times, being all alone in this small town can drive a person crazy, and when you have the moments of zen like I did on my walk, they tend to stay with you longer than usual in a place like this. The rolling hills, filled with blossoming potato plants no longer seemed like boring scenes from a horrible calendar shoot, but rather appeared full of life like never before.

At work, I set up my grad school applications, put everything into a meticulous order, and began filling out forms. It's oddly satisfying, knowing that the actions you take in the present will inevitably help you in the long run. Even though it's a bitch to fill out form after form, and to have to write statements of interest and thesis proposals and sort through countless essays you've written in order to pick one as a sample... it's still a good feeling to get it all done. Mind you, I'm far from it.

I finished work at 12. A nice 4 hour shift, giving me just enough time to sort through my papers and prepare myself for more work. Once at home, I decided to edit one essay that stood out as a potential sample for Dalhousie University. I wrote the paper about 2 years ago, over night actually, 16 pages long... and I got an A. It was for a fourth year seminar class in the History of Political Thought, go figure. Anyways, I noticed something really important then and there: my writing has improved so much since then, but also that it needs SO much more work. I used to be able to pound out my thoughts, but now I find myself struggling to make my sentences interesting. I guess what you write can only be as deep as you yourself are. Need to work on that too.

I then slept for a couple of hours. It's amazing how easily one can fall into a nap when there is absolutely nothing to do. I would hate to be rich and have everyone do everything for me. There is something to be said for sweat and tears, as satisfaction gained from one's
efforts is also a source of happiness. But today, between 2 and 4 pm, my life was boring as f*ck, and I needed to sleep through it.

I dreamt of forms and grad school applications. I've had better dreams.

Upon waking up, my brother suggested we go drive some balls at the range. I'd never actually done that before and took the opportunity to try it out. When we got there, we were surprised (and partly enraged) to find that the golf club had been turned into a bona fide karaoke bar. Some 50 year old guy was singing some terrible, un-nameable song from the 80s (the bad part of the 80s), old people were dancing everywhere, and being the only two visibly minorified kids in town, everyone sort of stopped for a split second to watch us walk through, unabashed.

We got our tokens for the ball dispenser and got the f*ck out of that place. We soon found ourselves all alone on a driving range, with sunshine, wooded hills, and a cloudless sky to accompany us. My little brother, Matthew, gave me a crash course on not sucking at golf, and proceeded to impress me with a fantastic drive. Wow, I'm actually literally having a deja vu right now... I actually remember typing this at anothe... oh it's done now. Right, where was I? Oh yes, my brother was awesome at driving, and me, well I swung and missed like 7 times before hitting the ball in the exact opposite direction.

By my last couple of strokes I was getting decent! Progress is the reward of hard work, and god damn it did I ever suck.

When we got home, I had some Pizza that we picked up, and proceeded to explain to my mother exactly what a douche bag was. Now don't get me wrong, that's not the kind of thing I would usually talk about, to anyone, but I used it to describe someone who particularly fits the douche bag bill, and she was curious to know why I always called people that.

After that stimulating conversation, I decided it was time that I live up to the expectations that I set for myself. Have you ever stopped and thought to yourself: gee, I wish I was more like this, or that? This has happened to me lately, I want to be more like I want to be, and less like I allow the world to make me. Confused? You see, I just got out of a year long relationship. I loved that relationship, and the woman who made it so great. However, for reasons that shall remain private, we decided it would be best to go our separate ways for now. This has left me in a rather delicate situation. I am doing my best to recover from losing someone so close to me, and I am also trying to salvage myself from the wreckage of a broken love.

Where does love leave you once love has left? Alone.

Back to my point about expectations! So, now that I am alone, I have to become someone who I can be happy to spend my time with, who I can talk to, and who will make me happy! Sounds insane? Probably is. The thing is, I don't want to be unhappy forever. I have my family here in New Brunswick, but I don't have any friends, all of my social outlets are in Ottawa where I left my life, and my hobbies, sports, and everything that made me me is no longer around. SO, this leaves me even MORE alone. What does one do? Well, I was depressed for a while, unwilling to do anything, or rather unable to do anything. I did not have the capacity to even help myself. I struggled to build the courage to move on, but I just couldn't do it. I don't know why, but I expected to jump back into life, ready for my next set of adventures without this woman who suddenly disappeared from my life... boy is that ever easier said than done.

However, that very same woman gave me some good advice. She said that I should take the time to write down who I want to be. I did, and you know what? It worked like a charm.

After that conversation with my mom about douche bags, I got up and went for my first jog in months. I ran through endless fields of potatoes on a dirt road used mostly for farming equipment. As I ran, I appreciated the natural beauty around me, and was also reminded of the wonders of simply being alive. I thought as I ran, long and hard, all about what it means to live and to exist. I thought about what I wanted, who I wanted to become, and how I would do it. I encouraged myself, I supported my hopes, and for the first time in a long time, I felt the absolute strength of will that so many philosophers go on and on about. I felt like someone deep inside of me was emerging, and it felt good.

Once home, I showered, and went to the store to rent a movie. I stayed a bit longer to help my mom close up, and then came home to watch Hard Candy with her. That movie is a blog topic in of itself, and so I will leave it out for now. Once the movie finished, my sister, who was hanging out with a friend, asked me if I could drive her friend home. I had a nice chat with my sister on the way back to our place. When I got in, I thought about playing a videogame before sleep, but decided that I would get greater satisfaction from creating a blog and writing my very first entry.

And even if nobody ever reads this, I am still as happy and satisfied that I did what I knew would be better for me, because in the end, satisfaction still comes from what requires effort and thought.

Nick