Reduced to a single sentence, no one knows how much he lingers.

Phasing in and out, the buzzing hums of the air conditioner fill the room with a sense of nostalgia, silent enough to remain unnoticed to a talkative mouth, but present enough to know that it is still there. It hums. 


If you are quiet enough, still enough, you can hear it filling up the room. Displacing the humidity that could of been, it commands the atmosphere, making it to be an exact 22 degrees Celsius.  The birds that have moved into my ventilation fan decide to chirp but only in the daytime. Perhaps this is the time that they rest in their nest since flying by day may cause them to lay victim to other hungry creatures that may eat them. This is what I imagine. I awake a bit. Lethargically blurred, I lay in my king size bed twisted between sheets and blankets unsure of what to do with myself. Too tired to move. I cough. Long faded thoughts of him surface causing me to be more awake than I want to be. I decide to shift my thoughts away from that into cloudless realms of disillusion about the future and such, streaming those memories into something else and phase out again. It hums presently.


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@ Things,  a cafe in Saigon (will write review soon)

My art based reproductive health workshops for the trafficking survivors at the shelter start tomorrow. I haven't really thought of a clever name for the project but I am really excited for this. It sort of brings together the many intersections of my interests. Art, education and health. I am really looking forward to teaching the girls some things through fun creative activities that will help turn on their thinking skills and utilize skills that I know they all have but have yet to even tap into.

Each month, I will do one workshop on various reproductive health topics, with the support of other facilitators and people experienced in the field, including:

Healthy is beautiful: Identity & Body Image
Eating health: Nutrition & Exercise
Sexual Anatomy, Reproduction, & the Menstrual Cycle
STDs, HIV, Birth Control
Violence, abuse & building healthy relationships
Maintaining healthy relationships & Emotional well-being

These topics were based off of the book "Our Bodies, Ourselves" a very comprehensive book about women's health written by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective.

Tomorrow's will be the first one, so it will lay down the foundation for the rest of the series. I really just want to get the creative avenues brooding and their brains thinking about things. Basically to get them moving. So tomorrow won't be information heavy, the topic is healthy is beautiful, exploring body image and identity.

I'm going to try to capture this project on this blog along with the myriad of things that I do and see. I've recently bought all the art supplies for the first workshop, and it was quiet an adventure going to get them, from learning about the paint shops in district 5 of Saigon to knowing where to get good paper boxes in Long Xuyen City, to hanging out in the bookstores only to find some things for my own personal use (like a cutting mat and tracing paper).

The workshops will culiminate with the production of two books, which I've asked my graphic designer friend Donna Choi to help me out with, since she's also interested in the process of story telling and she's pretty good at this stuff too. One book will be a personal portfolio of the art work produced during this time, this one will be more of a commemoration gift for the girls to keep. I also know they will be making amazing things, and because it is pertinent that their identities are kept private, I think its important to read their stories through the images they produce. The second booklet, will be a small handbook made by young women for young girls about reproductive health. It will be useful to pass out to our future recipients if the booklet is written well. I also have this separate idea of a small exhibition for the girls to showcase their art. I'll keep you posted.

Also, I've recently began drawing lessons with a teacher at the Ho Chi Minh City School of Fine Arts - He's generously offered free lessons and I am grateful for them as drawing for me has always been a bothersome fear. I spent about three or so hours drawing a clear glass cup. The concentration and diligence drawing requires requires me to tap into a place of patience that I often do not tap into. It requires me to use my vision in a very anomalous (GRE word) way, to see deeper into what an object consists of, the light that hits it and how an environment effects the way the cup looks in my mind. Here are drawings from my first two sessions.

2nd try

3rd try

This is is after I fixed my first draft - keeping in mind that I must "look deeper"

The next day, my assignment was to draw all three of these! Took me forever. It's three objects on white cloth on a wooden chair...

I guess my last 6 months won't be so bad. I'm also preparing for my GRE's, taking them on June 23rd, just before my 24th birthday.

I've also had scattered thoughts about making short films about my life here, and video updates, but I'm as disorganized already and keeping this blog, art and photography on top of work combatting human trafficking in the Vietnam is about all I can keep up with right now.