The clock doesn't stop beating.

A note from one of the girls in our culinary vocational program.

While her heart won't stop ticking, despite having felt it kicked, dropped, and pulled. It doesn't stop. And while the dog outside continues to sniff the ground as if there may be something hidden underneath the flat hard concrete, she glances out her window to see if the palm trees want to say something. They don't. They just want to sway. The room she sits in is undecorated. Sprinkled with crayon stains from forgotten memories and furniture that is too big for the space given, the room longs for a time when his walls used to be blue and furniture few. 


Now his walls were white. Achingly white. Not even a pretty kitshe painting to cover his bare walls. He longed for an affected Mona Lisa or  Monet.  Heck what about a picasso, a khalo, a pretentious warhol, a damn mysterious white flower among blue ones, a starry fucking night,  I don't care. Just cover me, please.


She thought she heard something. The dog was still sniffing, but still could not find what he wanted. 
The palm trees now stopped swaying. A car drives by. And because the rigid frames of the neighboring houses seemed to be at odds with the wild weeds that kept invading perfectly kept lawns, she decided to turn on the television instead, drowning out the sounds of the hours and minutes and seconds that seem to mindlessly beat towards some forgotten time.


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Lately, I've been day dreaming about southern California. My workload for some reason has increased tremendously and I find myself in the office past 9:00 pm almost every night. All for the cause of preventing human trafficking in Vietnam. Since I'm a volunteer, I essentially work for free. I am also very excited for my move back. I know it's going to be really boring and may be tough in the beginning. My little ol' 20 something year old car doesn't work anymore (I checked when I came back) and I will have to find a way to transport myself to places.

I am now content with anything that is in front of me. This is a very "releasing" feeling. Uplifting, amazing, happy type of feeling for me.  This doesn't mean that I don't get sad. Also, I'm going to try to get a job where my aunt works, a Mental Health clinic that is spread throughout southern California. This will help me explore whether that type of direct clinical work is something I want to do. I think I will learn A LOT from it.

YOUR daughter decided to break the dishes.

My mom would say that all the time, when she would inform my dad of something bad I did. Your. Such a simple shift in wording, but it completely changes the tone and reveals many underlying emotions with just a shift in ownership.

One week at work I had two separate staff members either give me attitude, raise their voices at me, or yell at me. I was not having a good time and was getting frustrated at people's anger and unnecessary rude attitude. So of course when talking to my boss I let it out,

"YOUR staff keeps yelling and getting mad at me!!!"
"...what do you mean "your," you're part of the staff too, that makes no sense"
"Yes it does! It's your staff!"

A few minutes pass...I remember how my mom does that...

"Man, I totally just tried to shift the blame on you for no reason."

My boss is not at fault for my staff members actions and it made absolutely no sense (non-sequitor) for me to do that.

It was so natural though, that's what so scary and shocking about it. Made me wonder how often arguments and disagreements occur because someone is trying to shift the blame somewhere else. Because they are trying to deal with an emotion or situation and they don't know how. The only way they know how to deal with things emotionally is to make it so it's someone else who is causing it. Someone else who is charge or responsible for the way you feel.

I do it all the time. It feels really good to use the word "your."

"Your stupid ass shut the door on my foot"
"Your idiot dog pooped and I stepped on it"
"Your Your Your!"

That's why people hurt others when they feel hurt themselves. That's why people try to make others feel like shit because they feel like shit. It's not so productive.

I was just butt hurt and taking things personal with people yelling at me that I tried to deal with it by giving the agony to someone else.  Deal with it yourself and don't let others fight your internal problems for you, it can only be overcome by you. Take ownership.

A small lesson learned with such clarity.

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability

Yellow pants make me happy.

Preventing Human Trafficking: Young girls in our scholarship program from rural areas of Vietnam

Part 2 of my search on google for my future. I don't know why I hadn't thought about it before but today I searched for:

"Public health and human trafficking"

Public health tends to keep coming back into my life in different forms - the first time came in the form of me working as an assistant in the payroll office of UC Berkeley's public health department and I ended up majoring in it. When I was little I didn't know a thing about public health, instead I declared in the 2nd grade that I wanted to be a "story writer." Funny how I still do.

I'm going to also use my blog to capture my search for the best public health programs that fit into what I  want to do in the future. How I can gain access, capital, and leverage to catapult this issue into people's agenda's so it's no longer pushed aside as an issue that is not "pressing enough," human trafficking is a public health issue that affects us all whether we want to realize it or not, from the clothing we wear, from the images and notions our society produces about women, to the women in our own lives.

Here is a GREAT ARTICLE (in my book) - "In Fight to Prevent Abuse of Women and Children, Researchers expand focus to Include Human Trafficking" on the work of a Harvard professor and students and how public health interventions and research can be used towards the prevention of human trafficking. It's just beginning I feel it. Please have a go at it.


"The focus has not been on understanding the context, mechanisms, and logistics of sex trafficking, factors relating to people's vulnerability, or on programs to prevent people from being trafficked in the first place."


According to Silverman and Decker, the public health aspects of human trafficking typically are examined through the narrow lens of sex workers and HIV/AIDS transmission. Yet those studies do not capture the experiences of underaged sex "workers" - many of whom are trafficked - because they are not typically included in study samples. Younger girls, Silverman has learned, are typically moved or hidden within brothels to prevent detection and are almost never allowed to seek the types of services or participate in the types of programs from which public health studies are typically conducted. As a result, said Silverman, they have remained invisible to those reading the public health literature. 

And here is a good generalized three part article that was just written in the last few days (good timing!): Human Trafficking as a Public Health Crisis 

"... there are aspects of the [Public Health] model that fit well in this fight.  Public health is a unique field among the health professions.  There is a focus on populations rather than individuals and prevention rather than cure.  It is a scientific, evidence-based endeavor with a firm link to government and politics.  Additionally, outcomes of violence prevention initiatives benefit from a public health model, so it seems reasonable to extend this methodology to human trafficking."
Part 1
Part 2 
Part 3 

Two more to round it off! An article from the American Public Health Association: Health Care and Human Trafficking


Department of Health and Human Services: Common Health Issues seen in Victims of Human Trafficking

On another note, I'm frantically cleaning (and frantically blogging) since when I am stressed I tend to do so, to be more "productive" if you will. I also have yellow pants on that I bought yesterday at Saigon Square in the city, I love these yellow pants, they make me feel so good! It's like replaced coffee for me this morning. I have less than three months to perfect the GRE's (faint).

I get in a lot of thinking on long motorbike rides.

I love old tiles and my leather shoes from my friends over at Retrofit Republic (thank you!)

"Expressive writing occurs on multiple levels - cognitive, emotional, social and biological - making a single explanatory theory unlikely" 

---

I realized my last blog post was well strange seeing that I spent the whole night writing it, and a series of unimaginable events occurred during the time span of me writing - "...I feel really good for some reason" quickly turned into "I feel really shitty for a good reason"

Bats, earthquake in burma, etc.

Anyways, I've been researching my future as of late. To do this I use the wonders of google. I like to ask google a lot of questions.

"What do lawyers do?"
"How do I get off of UC Berkeley's library proxy"
"Reviews - Surge North Face"
"art public health social work"
"Why does my Canon s90 keeps saying Change Battery Pack"
"How do I do make transparent pictures in photoshop"
"Why does my heart beat really fast after I take a 30 minute nap?"
"Air in Vietnam - Pollution"
"Really bad dry cough that won't stop, can't sleep"
"Excessive eye boogers, am I okay?"
"pink eye - am I going to die?"


It works.  My questions and health freak outs are usually assuaged and ameliorated (gre words) by asking google. And then secondly my mama, but sometimes due to time differences I can't call her easily at 2 am in the morning. Thanks google.

My last intense google search has been about the intersections of public health and art. I'm actually really excited since I found this article, The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health"

Stuckley, Heather L, and Jeremy Nobel. "The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health: A Review of Current Literature." American Journal of Public Health (Feb2010): 254-263. Web. 9 Nov 2010.

"Our voices are saturated with who we are, embodied in the rhythms, tonal variations, associations images and other somato-sensory metaphors in addition to the content meaning of the words. Our voices are embodiments of ourselves, whether written or spoken. It is in times of extremity that we long to find words or hear another human voice letting us know we are not alone"

The paper is full of great stuff! I'd recommend googling it where you can find the full text online.

I love it when google finds the exact thing I'm looking for. I'm trying to find a way to productively incorporate art into my life and making sure that it stays there, since I've pushed it away for so long, and it feels like I'm denying a part of myself.

I also really really LOVE linkedin. It's actually one of the most useful things I have discovered in looking at people's professional pathways and how they got there. I have found it really useful in looking into the art therapy field (which I realized I did not want to do after discussions on linkedin) and looking at how difficult it is to be in that field in terms of mental health but I won't dive too much into that. I discovered a woman, with her Master's in Social Work, creating her own organization that focuses on art health workshops in India and parts of Africa - she's based in NY. So its helping me to realize, alright you graduated from this school, but what did it take for you to get there and what did the graduates do afterwards?

I really want to search for a school and degree that will basically give me more access and respect when it comes to the current work I'm doing. I love my work, as intense as it is and tiring, I know that it is something I can essentially do for free (and actually already do). But what kind of degree can I get so that I can not only get paid, but also mobilize people for the cause?

How do I can access to people in power, people with money, to care about trafficking issues in another country? How do I do that?

By meeting them. My role as a development officer has helped me realize the intricate and complex relationships in fighting for an issue. It's not only about the fight. It's never only about the struggle and the fight. If you stay within that framework of approaching an issue, you will probably never see the solution or end to it. You have to engage people. Make it personal. Connect with them. And this is why my job is so damn hard and makes me stressed thinking about the fact that I have to connect with strangers.

This is why I like public health, it has a very holistic view of combating an issue and recognizes the complex solutions it takes to do such.

For example: Human Trafficking. You can't just go into a brothel take the girl out, and expect her to be safe, happy, and normal again. It's not like that. The issue is so complex, varying from each country, from each region, to each case that such a simple solution will only stop the bleeding for a few seconds. It's only a bandaid approach.

I learned from a recent conference I attended that in order to "fight a network, you have to be a network" calling all sectors of anti-trafficking efforts to come together. I know first hand that in order to get somewhere you need a foot in and sometimes it may be knowing this person and knowing the right person to just get your hand in the doorway. That is something I've learned during my time here at an international ngo, its all about connects.

My method of connects is strange. Unforceful and seemingly innate. For some reason, I tend to connect people together who otherwise would not be connected. In a sense this can be said about anyone, every day someone introduces someone to someone for the first time. But I think for me its a bit different. For instance, all my best friends in high school were not best friends with each other but knew each other through me. All my roommates were not really friends but were connected because I brought them together (and that created drama when they each realized that not all three of them could be my roommate). And I think it continues to this day. For some reason my friends are not friends with one another.

I wonder what this says about me, but since I don't really like to analyze myself too much, I will just leave this to be until the revelation comes to me....maybe while I am on a motorbike.


6 months left in Vietnam. I'm missing it already.

---

I spoke to my Uncle over skype the other day. He's a great person and very very well traveled, the biggest difference about him and me is that he has a good amount of money as a pharmacist. Our conversation:

"You need to come back and get a job and make money, so you can travel like us..."
"But I've been to like 9 countries in the last two years..."
**light laughter in background**

Haha, I mean well, my uncle and I travel very differently. I do hope one day to be able to travel like him, very freely and worry free. Until know, I can only be grateful for where I've been, what I've seen and what I've accomplished.

This is where my footsteps from last year, up until the end of 2010 until today, 2011. There's a lot to see! So be ready...since facebook won't let me load albums anymore I'll do it here. GO!

As anxious as I am, I feel really good for some reason.

Repeat photo: My street that I live on. The sun was funky that day.

Lately, or when I've been in the office too long, I get a tad anxious about life and living it.

I think images reflect a lot on peoples inner feelings, which is why blogs, facebook, and other social networking media things are really addictive. I admire people for being able to paint themselves in a way for the public to see.

It's like a little show. I think Olivia Lo, a fashion blogger that I follow, does a damn good job of it, yet we all know this barely 18 year old girl living in the suburbs of southern california spends more time editing photos of herself than outside. This is not to say that she doesn't produce beautiful work. It's beautiful and she has great fashion sense.

Nothing comes easy and I need to constantly remember that. I forget what it's like to work hard towards something. I feel like I haven't done that in so long. I was a straight A student in high school, I call that working hard. Working hard like there was no end in sight, working hard because that is all that you know.

Any type of work or anything you see that is beautiful takes a lot of work, beautiful products aren't born necessarily. I feel a change coming, it's been raining a lot. The rain reveals.

I enjoy opening umbrella's indoors. Legit.

I had a conversation with my aunt today over dinner, she asked me how I was. I said I was "S-tress" as the Vietnamese pronounce it, there is no direct translation of "stress." She then told me something along the lines of "You should try to split it up" in Vietnamese. I misunderstood.

"Split it up? What do you mean? I can't, my work is my own"
"No, like, tell others about your stress, so that you don't bottle it in"
"Oh..."

I didn't even realize it, that I bottle in my feelings a lot. Today, I was frustrated at this report I have to start, that I just went to take a nap. Kids do that you know, when they are really emotional or frustrated or sad, they deal with it by sleeping. That's why you will see kids fall asleep after they cry really really hard. It's freakin' exhausting man.

Speaking of exhausting, here are my 35 mm photos from my one day in Korea and a week in Laos. I'm going to bed now.

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Vietnamese homes don't really have a living room. In fact its usually a two to four story home, that's pretty narrow. The bottom floor is usually used as a storefront business. The other floors are rooms, etc. I suppose this is why a kitchen is what brings a Vietnamese family together. The kitchen is our living room. The kitchen is where love is shared.

---

A bat flew into my room last night at 1:20 am. Strange because I just got into bed, after deciding to stay up that night despite having Vietnamese class at 8 am in the morning (I canceled my class, because I woke up with a big headache). My headache started around 11 or midnight, and it's still lingering. I suppose its because I went a few days without drinking water, I hate water. But when my headache started, there were several things going on, my staff member's brother just received news that her brother was in the hospital in Saigon, Burma was struck with a 6.8 earthquake, and for some reason blogger was letting me post photos at lightening speed (hence, the 35 mm photos). It was a strange night to begin with. I didn't study for my GRE's and was g-chatted by friends who I hadn't talked to in a while. There was something about last night that I needed to stay up. 

When I shut the lights, I heard a lot of noise, like there was something in my room. Thinking that it was the birds who've made a home in my ventilation fan, I tried to ignore it. I realized that the birds usually only make noise in the day time. Then I heard it again. I happen to have a flashlight in my room, since the night before it was raining so hard, that my electricity started to flicker, so I got scared and went to get it from the supply cabinet downstairs. I happen to have the flashlight with me.

I heard it again. So I reached for my flashlight, and flashed it at the wall. I see something flying back and forth very quickly. I go turn on the lights, and it goes crazy! And I go crazy! And run out of my room shutting the door behind me. I wake up My Kim, a fellow volunteer.

I stand at my door for a while, scared to open it. My Kim comes and helps me open the door with mosquito racket in her hand. Then its gone. I decide to sleep with the lights on, since I think bats are scared of lights.

It was a strange night. A really strange night.

On my way to Saigon this weekend, this time with no purpose really. I think I need to get out of this house and I would like to watch a movie.