Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability

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" 

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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.

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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.

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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.