Just put a bit of Alcaine in there...

One of the things that I've been thinking about over the past few days is the notion of character flaws. I mean, we all have them, and most of us are blind to our own, and are exceptionally excellent at pointing out others' faults (the good 'ol noticing the speck and ignoring the log phenomenon).
I wonder, however, how many of us are willing to listen when others are pointing out our specks. I'm wondering this particularly in my own life: am I really, really listening when people are trying to tell me things in a very nice manner? So nicely, in fact, that I don't actually hear the criticism?
I'm wondering this as I wonder how to give criticism as well; when one sees a persistent speck in another's eye, that is so deep and pervasive and repetitive, and obvious to almost everyone else, is it loving to let it fester there? What if you're so apathetic you can't even be bothered to point it out? What if you've tried, but have been vehemently denied its existence, such that you don't want to be attacked any more?
In a particular situation in my life, I've seen the detritus caused by one friend's life, and the non-joy it has brought to their life, as well as others, and I wonder what to do. I wonder what to do, especially in the context of having been rebuffed before. Should they be left to float in their own consequences, until, perhaps, one day they will be willing to hear someone's voice?

Crazy hypocrites...

I was just reading in the G&M today about a former minister in the United church who is on leave of absence due to depression (admittedly, if I was a minister in the United church, I would be depressed about a lot of things, including the direction that the denomination has chosen to go in, and the denomination that I was stuck in). He was writing about his experience of this, in being removed from the pulpit and how he misses the hands-on "spiritual" (my quotations) work.
It brings up the interesting point about mental illness and faith: is mental illness a sign of lack of faith (this, I doubt very much)? Is increasing your faith the means to which to maintain good mental health? Some would argue that if you fall into a depression, then something is ruptured in your relationship with God, and the key is to restore it. Having witnessed this happen to many people over the years, this view makes me angry, by blaming the victim for not being good enough, or not doing good enough for God, to stay healthy.
The comments were also intriguing: Many were saying things along the lines of, well, if your God is so great, why did (s)He let you go into depression? Obviously, your God is not immune from keeping you well to take care of your group (again, my words: I'm quite loath to call United church groupings as congregations).
It's an interesting point: now, I am not saying that that particular denom is at all equivalent to solid Biblical teaching (which it is not). However, it does bring up the point of, "Hey, if your God is so great, why doesn't He bring you down from that cross? Why doesn't He bring Elijah to save you?" The generalized view seems to be that, though the church is also accused of being full of hypocrites, somehow the public is also expecting that God zaps blessings down in perpetuity upon all these hypocrites, and His power is diminished when weakness or failure show up in people.
That doesn't quite make sense to me: Yes, the church is made up entirely of hypocrites, that is without question. We do not do what we say we believe, we do not act consistently with justice and mercy, we are, many times, indistinguishable from the rest of society. I don't think that diminishes the power of God; I think we certainly block His power with our own selfish, scheming ways.
Which, I guess, brings up the issue of Jesus - I would constantly point people back to the personage of Jesus, for He is the centre and purpose of all things. The manifestation of His church in its current form is enough to drive people away screaming, but the fundamental attractiveness and loveliness of Jesus can be the only core that draws people to Himself...

FFT

We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both.

-Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

They always look shinier in the box...

The line between want and need sometimes gets a bit fuzzy, doesn't it? My newest toy arrived a few days ago, courtesy of Apple Co. Yup, they sent me a FREE(!) iPod Touch and pretty flowered case to put it in. So I've been playing around with it, trying to figure out how it works, and wondering if/what kind of apps should be added to it.
Of course, there is no data plan with this gadget; it's completely dependent on the kindness of strangers and their non-password protected internet access (or libraries or coffee shops). I haven't quite figured that part out yet.
However, the potentiality of having internet on the go is alluring; it's making me consider: Gee, do I need a Blackberry or an iPhone, with its never ending stream of internet all the time, all the time, all the time? Do I need to pay for a data plan so I can always check my email every second of the day? Wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to do that?
I find I have to fight that urge: why do I need to be tethered to an additional electronic leash all the time? I already have a cell phone. I already have internet access at work and at home. I also have survived this long without having constant access to my email or google, and I haven't withered away to a meaningless nobody (at least, not yet).
The siren song of being constantly wired is there, however. I think, sometimes, the fetters and chains of constantly being on-line outweighs its freedoms and opportunities. The temptation of new toys and gadgets also constantly ups the ante; people were already cooing over my new "iPhone" (though I had to correct people and say it wasn't an iPhone).
Hopefully (and very likely), I'll withstand the temptation, and quickly get bored with my toy as another daily piece of my purse...

Romans 7:19

It is sometimes hard to maintain hope in the face of mindless consumerism, greed and Western ways of living. Though I was hanging with people who hope to be leaders in sustainable development in their respective fields, whether government, business or otherwise, we are still equally hypocrites in the way that we live.
I flew to the conference, which is near heresy, considering how easy it would be for me to take the bus or the train. Several of us (not me, of course) regularly went for disposable take-out coffee every morning. We used disposable cutlery and plates when meals were provided to us. We were certainly not carbon-neutral in running the conference. I shopped quite a bit, accumulating clothes that were mainly manufactured and transported from China.
My own personal beef was visiting a farm as an example of a sustainable establishment. Too bad that their seeds were supplied by Monsanto, that they were a conventional farm, spraying their strawberries up to six times in a month (!!!! I had asked how the rains had affected their crops and that was their answer!!!!) with Monsanto pesticides, that they wished they could afford to buy GMO corn, but since they couldn't, they were growing conventional corn, and that they remarked that organics are not a sustainable way of farming. Sleeping in the bed with the enemy is NOT a sustainable way of farming. That's all I have to say about it.
So here we are, talking about cultural paradigm shifts, BRICK economies, CSR, etc etc, and we cannot even address our own hypocrisies, both internally and as a group.
So then what? Does hope remain? My hope lies with Him who has said that His Kingdom has already come. We are His stewards to guide it back to its original beauty and splendour. I cannot have hope in man, who buys clothing from half a world away, buys unfair trade policy coffee, and spews carbon emissions into the air, yet says that he loves the planet... we all cannot hope in man, for he disappoints. The LORD disappoints never; His mercies are new every morning!

Adaptive renewal, stakeholder engagement and other jargon

This week has been quite a blur, as I spent it in formation (the French word) in sustainable development, whatever that really means. Throw in a few friends narrowly dodging a bullet (literally), and it becomes an interesting week!
I'll leave the bullet stuff aside, but it's been interesting being confronted with different ways of thinking and jargony-type things that is a bit hard for me to comprehend how it functions in real life. I suppose it's because it's all rather social science and 'soft', and, I must admit, in asking questions as to 'how' this stuff actually works in real life, I had a hard time actually getting concrete answers from anyone.
I guess what it comes down to is that it is difficult for me to see the utility in models and various tools being developed to describe various phenomena, and then have them not be robust enough to actually withstand a real life situation. Venn diagrams, loop dioramas, etc aren't particularly helpful when they don't help explain basic situations. Parsing out your semantics in order to split hairs as to what facet of jargon you're talking about is also a little bit difficult to swallow.
Now, I sound really negative and down on the social sciences, and I'm trying hard not to be, and it certainly is not that it was all a waste of time, but, even when taking it to the streets and watching it happen in real life still didn't help close the circle in determining how these models function!
I will think about this some more, but then have to re-approach this whole idea of sustainable development...

Before the throne of God above...

Prayer becomes increasingly urgent and more pervasive in one's life, if there are things to be desperately appealed to the throne of grace. In the last few days alone, I've been told of people who are imprisoned injustly and being sentenced without trial, of children being taken away from their orphanages to work in their parents' brothels, of those being targeted and assassinated... reports of people that my friends know, love, and work with. People with actual names and histories and families that are personally known by people of the West.
This takes it to a different level than just vaguely praying for 'problems' in other countries and jurisdictions. This makes it personal, for your friend is my friend too.
And, as per the discussion last night, it does make me wonder whether our leisure and comfort impedes us from really living out that passage in I Corinthians that talks of the whole Body suffering when one member suffers...

Why I should pay more attention in meetings...

How does one acquire vision and focus? Organizations usually coalesce around a vision statement, a mission statement and some sort of strategic plan in order to help determine what their mandate is, and what falls within and without that mandate.
Certainly, as the Church, we have that kind of organization and planning: Jesus has clearly told us what our mission statement is to be, and has given us vision as to our ultimate strategic plan, which is awesome.
However, when it starts from the general, applicable to the entire Church, and returns all the way back down to the individual, it becomes a bit more tricky. How does one determine what is 'best' to pursue? Though there may be an over-arching vision and mission statement for the whole Body, how that works itself out in each individual is a little bit different.
Strategic plans are useful in order to focus and train to determine how best to fulfill vision and mission. Organizations determine where their strengths lie, what abilities they have, determine where they'd like to see themselves in five to ten years, and then decipher some sort of path to get them there.
The question is, however, is how individuals get about to doing this. There are many good, perhaps even great, things that individuals can do, all of which may very well fulfill Grand Purpose, but the question becomes what is best, how to maximize gains and to be most effective for Kingdom building. This is something I get the sense that many people are rather complacent about; I don't know too many people who are striving to know what God would have them do. Mostly, though certainly not exclusively, people tend to be rather content to let the days and weeks roll by doing the same-old, same-old, with little thought and consideration to Grand Purpose. I want to be with those who wrestle the angel by night, those who strive to know Who is He that contends with us, to hold on with such strength and grip that they will not ever let go, not until they are renamed and renewed...

My dream job

I know I've discussed this with many people, so this shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone, but I thought I should put 'down to paper' what my ideal job would be.
It's well known that I would become a farmer/marry a farmer/inherit a farm in a heartbeat. As most farmers tell me, however, it makes much more sense for me to keep my license though, as that would be helpful in actually keeping the farm afloat.
However, it's also well-known that I have a small contempt for many aspects of medicine. So, as pregnancy and childbirth are the bread and butter of my (good) days at work, I would love to continue that aspect of practice. In addition, finally writing all the books I have wanted to write would be a good way to spend the rest of my time.
It's like a mother earth kind of job; bringing forth life in all its forms: vegetable, animal and human, all culminating in creative art. I think there's a nice synchronicity in that, don't you?

Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean...

I know I often have very little optimism for the future intelligence of the human race, but I can't really help it: I face the barrage of the fullness of human stupidity on a daily basis.
A woman had been coming into our clinic quite regularly over the past few weeks wondering why we weren't "helping her". She had been tired for a few months, exhaustedly so. Doctors had already done some preliminary bloodwork which showed... nothing. So I asked her, how much are you sleeping per night? To which she answered that she was getting four hours a night, because she recently had a baby (not that that is an adequate answer; there are plenty of women who can get a decent 8 hours of sleep total, even while breastfeeding). I pointed out to her that anybody, not just new mothers, would be utterly exhausted if they had been functioning on that little sleep for months on end.
Apparently, that wasn't a sufficient answer for her. Nope, she demanded more investigations, more doctors, more answers. To which I demurely declined and suggested instead she should try to figure out some way to get more sleep. To which, as always, she said she would look for a second (third, fourth, fifth) opinion, and left, since I wouldn't automatically aquiesce to her demands.
There are, of course, the myriads of people coming in wondering what those red itchy spots are on their bodies, which, to their amazement, I point out are mosquito bites. I am not sure how we got to a point in Canadian society that we no longer know what mosquito bites are, what they look like, and what to do with them. Clearly, we, as a nation, need to go camping more.

FFT

There is one thing that we all must do. If we do everything else but that one thing, we will be lost. And if we do nothing else but that one thing, we will have lived a glorious life.

– Rumi (1207-73), Persian poet and philosopher

Smooth as butter....

A curious thing I discovered about food this week is about butter. Specifically, who makes butter.
I had understood that all butter available was pretty much only from large multinationals, such as Parmalat and Nestle, and finding local conventional butter would be next to impossible. Organic butter, of course, is always easy to find, and is definitely local.
However, a farmer had pointed out to me that Gay Lea/Nordica is actually a farmers' co-operative, that is so say, the farmers own the company, and they pool their resources together to produce and market their own goods. This is great! That means buying Gay Lea brand butter is actually helping farmers directly, and one by-passes the multinationals entirely.
Of course, this also implies one should eschew margarine entirely. Margarine is a pointless, ugly, non-food product.
What I don't understand is why they haven't marketed that more clearly; in this day and age of wanting more local, closer-to-the-ground food, you'd figure they would be all over that market. At any rate, that knowledge has changed my butter-buying habits from here on in.
Well, it would have, had not I mentioned my desire to find some real, home-churned butter up here. When I mentioned that, one person up here brought me a large tub of home-churned butter. A very large tub. However, she warned me it wouldn't really taste like butter, and likely would taste more like cheese. She said likely it would evoke more of a Heidi-and-her-grandfather-on-the-mountain-eating-bread-and-butter-slathered-all-over-it kind of experience. I haven't had the opportunity to try it yet, but am bringing it home and looking forward to it.

99 to 1 odds...

I have been pondering the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin this past week, after a new friend profoundly rocked my world with their views on the matter. The concept of withdrawing from, or deliberately depriving oneself from the comforts of the horde in order to pursue, into the wilderness, the one who is lost is compelling.
It makes one wonder about how to realign our purposes to true purpose. I don't think I can really do it justice. It makes me wonder where I've been setting my priorities and where my heart-treasure lies...

FFT

Excerpts from an article I was reading... this kind of helps to delineate a few of the reasons why I seem rather non-plussed about my globe-trotting....

Colonialism isn't dead.
Colonialism is alive and well every time you travel from the First World to the Third and come home bearing photographs of sharks and storms and slums, or scorpions fried for snacks, sunflowers bigger than your head, stalled buses whose aisles are slick with spit, and then you tell your friends and co-workers, "Oh man, it was so great, you gotta go."
We call it ecotourism and adventure travel. That sounds sensitive. We think "ugly Americans" are the fat ones on cruises and on package tours - anyone but us. We think we're different because we don't have a stars-and-stripes patch on our backpacks.
We think our motives are purer, that in the correct frame of mind, a trip to exotica means independence and not exploitation, as we come and see and - well, not quite conquer but globalize with every dollar spent. It's easy to say: "My aim is true, my morals are on track," but Christopher Columbus and a million missionaries said so, too. Easy to think it's not corrupting or condescending or anachronistic but cool to collect snapshots of the other, trading smiles with strangers to brag about at dinner parties later: souvenirs....
... Okay, so we - having shelled out to the airlines and big oil and then fouled the air - arrive abroad. Here we are now, entertain us. We're spurred by the same selfish yearnings as every pioneer and pirate and imperial passenger from eras past... Lawrence Osborne laments that there's "nowhere left to go," because "tourism has made the planet into a uniform spectacle," with everyone "wandering through an imitation of an imitation... The entire world is a tourist installation."...
... every destination resembles a theme park at which "you are asked to play a part in the racial memory of others": Consumer. Invader. Crusader. Seducer. Self-hating Westerner. Buffoon...
... But I now wonder whether it is right to guide anyone anywhere that he or she could not find on his or her own. Travel writing is advertising; it's turning foreigners and their landscapes into commodities...
... tourism, as James Hamilton-Patterson writes.. "is an industry determined to embrace you... It wants you to spend as much as you can on fatuous souvenirs; it wants you to do Machu Picchu or the Taj Mahal; it wants you to have the rainforest experience or the Mysterious East experience or the Rose Red City Half as Old as Time experience, and it doesn't terribly mind if you also have the fleeced-by-muggers-on-Copacabana-Beach experience."
First Worlders penetrating the Third World aren't the wild rebels they imagine themselves to be, he snorts. They're deluded children, lulled by the convenience of their own electronic toys and their longing to make the folks back home envy them for where they've been...
... In an ever-flatter world where simply seeing is no longer enough, where adventure travel gets spun into Survivor and The Amazing Race, neo-swashbucklers feels compelled to traverse entire nations and waterways on foot or in unorthodox boats, suffering and sometimes only barely surviving... But even this - even what appears to be anti-travel writing, with its horror stories about power outages and Taliban gunmen and canned meat and house-sized icebergs and whole populations afflicted with what Tayler calls "broken souls" - is travel writing nonetheless. Because in its perverse way, it still makes you want to go.
Go on, sneers Hamilton-Patterson, who has lived all over the world: Ski down Kilimanjaro before the last snowdrift melts on a planet whose "accelerating demise is helped along by the mounting effluent of our journeys."
... Am I saving some tribe from extinction by not looking for it, much less telling you about it? Or am I starving some shopkeeper by not buying his sandals? Both. Neither...

- Anneli Rufus

Looking at the Man in the Mirror

So, with all the brou-ha-ha about Michael Jackson's passing (whether real or staged), along with everybody else on the planet, I headed to Youtube to watch some of the classic music he'd created over his lifetime. Yes, he was an incredibly talented singer, dancer and entertainer, and the contributions that he made to the music industry are absolutely stunning (ie. like Thriller, utter, utter brilliant classic).
However, I also reviewed some Jackson 5 videos, from when he was a small child, and I couldn't help thinking about the man. We all know the stories of how those poor boys, like many other child entertainers, were worked to the bone, and possibly even abused, to practice their routines and shows day and night for the masses. Looking at little Michael, dancing around to 'ABC' (yet another classic), it saddened me to think about his life. His whole life, fed bit by bit to the masses, since he was old enough to hold a microphone. No wonder he got weird. No wonder he was so enamored of children (whether criminally so, or not, is a point of debate). No wonder he lived in Neverland with a chimp. Searching elusively for the childhood, the innocence, the peace of just being normal; something he never actually ever got a chance to do.
Now that being said, a very wise friend also reminded me that another 170,000 people also died yesterday as well, and none of those, especially those killed for rising up against the regime in Iran, will be eulogized and remembered like the King of Pop...

Go watch Food Inc. already...

I've been rather delinquent on this end, but it's been rather busy, being growing season and all.
Yesterday, I went to go see Food Inc., the movie with a friend, and for me, rather familiar faces and voices populated the screen, and, to be honest, I didn't learn anything more that I didn't already know. That being said, it's a highly recommended movie and I think everyone should watch it for education's sake. What I couldn't believe this past weekend that a Sandra Bullock rom-com was the #1 grossing movie. Gross, indeed.
However, my friend learned quite a bit from watching, so that was gratifying. Not that they were any slouch in the nutrition and eating department at all, but it was hopeful to me that they learned quite a bit.
It sometimes makes me wonder about preaching to the choir. I find that most people I talk to about food and food issues already 'get' me; in fact, many of them are my teachers as well. Most other friends don't actually really care about food, or where it comes from, or what it's made of. They find that as long as my beliefs and understanding about food works for me, then that's great. Awesome.
Which inevitably makes me think about mission. It works both ways, you see. Just as many of my friends in the Community don't understand why I care so much about food and agriculture, and see it mainly as irrelevant to the Way and faith, it works in reverse as well. Sometimes, I feel evangelism is more about preaching to the choir; we love Jesus, and everyone else is happy for us that we do, but it doesn't fit into their paradigm, so as long as it doesn't really affect them, they don't need Him either.
Just as I wonder and worry about my non-food friends not caring about how they are nourishing their bodies, and what the future holds for them as they choose to continue to be completely ignorant of what they are feeding themselves, I likewise worry about my food friends who do not know Jesus, and I worry about their future as they choose to be ignorant of what they are feeding their souls...
What I deeply ponder is to how to be the gap-stander, how to build bridges that make sense and how to see God glorified in His creation that He loves so much...

God is doing a mighty thing....

Admittedly, God is always doing mighty things, but that's 'cause He's always amazing!
One thing that always moves my heart is Urbana. The idea of it makes my heart leap. Now, to be sure, of most of the people I know who've been, I know scant few who actually work cross-culturally, which is disappointing. However, it is the potentiality of God's people being unleashed for His purposes which is exciting!
Here's a clip, for the Liberator has come!

Running for office

I don't understand politics very well, but there are various things that both the provincial and federal opposition parties seem to be making much hay about currently. Pointlessly. Particularly since some of the hay-making is health-related, I am particularly annoyed at how much useless rhetoric is being slung around, none of which has anything to do with reality, or the issue at hand.
I am curious, however: I understood that one of the main reasons why Stéphane Dion was perceived as a weak leader was his waffling at being unable to vote against the government, and thus bring the minority government down. He apparently let several non-confidence motions pass through the House without much debate, and this contributed to his downfall.
Um, now I have a question: Didn't Michael Ignatieff just do the exact same thing?
I don't understand how come the media isn't howling at the hypocrisy. Can someone explain that to me (especially you journalists out there)???

Clichés bug me

I'm not quite sure how to approach this. A friend of mine recently told me something about themselves that, for all intents and purposes, is chronically sinful. Now comes the delicate dance of deciding how to do the 'hate the sin and love the sinner' cliché. Certainly, I'm not happy about the whole situation, my friend is perfectly aware what my traditional stance has to be on the issue, as well as what the Community at large tends to think as well. On the other hand, to condemn and be an awful person about it is also not such a great idea.
So, I brought it up as a prayer point in a small group I attend, none of whom know my friend at all, mainly along the lines of how to walk that line. Well. The response and discussion about how to walk that line didn't quite work out the way I was hoping. There was no walking of any line; I am supposed to pick a side and sit there. That to not strongly point out the 'ungodliness' of the situation was ducking the issue. That to not condemn meant I was supporting and condoning the action. Hm.
Well, I had today to mull about it, and wrote about the issue (because, of course, you never really think about how to say things eruditely at the time; usually, you have good comebacks wayyy after the fact) in an email to the ones who particularly are involved. My response to the idea that my friend's sin is a specifically bad one is as such (I've edited out anything that might identify my friend, which takes a way a bit from the flow of the email, but you can probably get the drift):
We all live ungodly lifestyles. I'm impatient, stubborn, materialistic, selfish, self-centred and ungracious; those are (some of) mine. To particularly stigmatize and condemn one sin over another, I feel is not fair. I perpetually live a lifestyle that almost completely ignores the reality of a spiritually lost, economically unjust, justice-deprived world - THAT, I feel, in many senses, is a VERY ungodly lifestyle.
We should call it what it is: Prayer for a friend and how to love him well, love him despite his shortcomings, possibly love him into a new reality and a renewed relationship with the One who loves him more than any human ever could.

Oh, to just pass over...

Ach, it bothers me when my patients' situations really grab me by the heart and I weep with them in their despair. Very unprofessional, and frankly, very self-indulgent - it's not exactly very helpful to you when your health care provider is as upset about your situation as you are.
However, my encounter with one of my families hit very hard with this recession has struck me today, more than the others that have come over the past few months; they have already lost their home, had to sell many of their appliances, have had creditors hounding them with phone calls at work and at home, and are considering personal bankruptcy. They are fearful that they will not be able to provide for their children and have them subsequently taken away from them. They've had to use a food bank for the first time in their lives, and dad cannot even bring himself to say the word "food bank". For various other reasons, they really are alone and afraid.
It's a world I, and the vast majority of my friends, barely ever touch. We don't understand want; sure, we may be short of cash, so we have to go to Tim's, rather than Starbucks, but we are not in danger of falling behind in the rent or the mortgage payments or in being unable to afford a landline, let alone a cell phone plan and internet access.
But this, this is a completely different beast. Despair and fear are not words I hear in my social circles, but they are being whispered under the doors of many other houses. I almost wish I had a paintbrush, and could paint the protective blood over their doorways, to keep hunger and poverty and despair from their homes...

Navigating through...

Received some cool news today: I've been accepted into the LEAD Fellowship program. It's a secular international program to develop leaders in the realms of environmental, social and economic sustainability. I'm looking forward to the stretching and training that I'll get from participating in this program over the next 18 months! It culminates in an international conference in South Africa next year, which will hopefully coincide with several other meetings and gatherings in that part of the world at the same time.

China IX

I can say this now, as I am no longer there, but China is not a communist country.
I have mentioned before the staggering economic discrepancies here. That is not a communist ideal. Nor is the lack of taxation of all except for the very rich, the lack of medical care, the lack of job security, nor the lack of communal provision one for the other. No equity in education or in gender relations. No equity between people groups. No equity in religious beliefs.
It is a markedly more capitalist society than, dare I say, even America. If you are left behind, there is no social safety net to catch you. If you make it, with your guanxi, then good for you! If you don't, well, that's just too bad for you, you and your family will not catch up for generations...
Now, I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, per se, but to pretend that the country runs under communist ideals and rule is a joke. If, in the pursuit of wealth and gain, many are left behind, then to pretend that the nation works under communist ideals should be left behind. It would likely be more honest to say that it is not the People's Republic of China, which implies communist, democratic ideas, but should find some name that would better reflect it's capitalistic, intensely centralized power structures instead...
I'm sorry if these few posts seem rather incoherent, but after being in transit for 25 hours, and being terribly jet-lagged, I suppose they are not as erudite as they could be...

China VIII

Traffic rules are illusory, at best, in China. Similarly to many other countries in the Global South, lane markings are optional, as are traffic lights. Speed limits are variable, depending on who's driving. Crossing the street becomes a bit like Frogger. One difference that I have noted, though, is the relative smoothness that this all occurs in. One friend mentioned it is the Taoist qi concept, of balancing pulling and pushing, flowing and going. Which is true: here, while crossing multiple lanes on a highway, you really aren't putting your life into your hands, as the vehicles will give way, instead of trying to run you down in many other countries. There is a hierarchy of who moves into empty spaces first, and vehicles and people defer to that hierarchy, instead of complete anarchy that I've seen in many other contexts. There is order in this disorder...

China VII

The one and only meal I had helped to cook in China was actually chicken and dumplings. I had insisted that we should get fresh chicken, as I'm a bit concerned about buying meat lying out on a room temperature counter all day. So, off to the market we went, and selected a squawking, feathery chicken. I got to watch the whole killing and de-feathering of the whole animal, which was very intrinsically interesting to me. We had requested that they gut the animal as well, and it did seem that the butcher removed some of the internal organs. Much to my chagrin, when we got home, I noticed, oh, intestines and gall bladders and lungs in the chicken. Seems like they removed nothing from the chicken innards at all.
Which is where I got involved in the dinner making process, which basically was to eviscerate the chicken by hand. I suppose I got this job by default since it was I who insisted on a fresh, live chicken for dinner, and since my line of work makes me less queasy about manipulating internal organs. Thank goodness for anatomy class! So I had to cut out all of the abdominal organs, and then the thoracic ones. Cut the aorta along the way, so the heart started spilling blood over all the pleural viscera, which was no good. At any rate, I got her relatively cleaned up, and then we boiled her up and ate her.

China VI

Pandas, though incredibly adorable, have no good reason as to why they have still managed to survive and not go completely extinct. If it wasn't for their extreme cuteness, I think they likely would've disappeared a while ago, as humanity just wouldn't have had the interest in saving a non-cute species.
Seriously; their mating rituals are appalling and have a poor success rate, and the very fact that pandas reproduce at all is a small miracle - most pandas today are conceived through artificial insemination. They are born prematurely, without ears, eyes or fur. They count on their mothers for caring for them for the first few months they have no eyes or ears. However, first time mothers are usually so surprised that this thing comes out of them (as they never realize that they are pregnant), they will sit on it, eat it, or bat it around until it dies.
Furthermore, though they are designed to be carnivorous (and, in fact, they sometimes will eat carrion if it's available, or their babies), they have decided that they are only able to eat a few specific species of bamboo. And, of all the bamboo that they eat, they only extract 7% of the nutritional content of the bamboo, so they need to eat kilograms of the stuff in order to get enough nourishment for the day.
So, they can't procreate, they can't gestate, they don't have maternal instincts, they don't eat efficiently... but they are so darn cute, you just want to hug one...

China V (interrupted, of course, by Big Brother)

Well, courtesy of the Great Firewall, I wasn't able to access my blog for the rest of my time in China, and, as I have just arrived back in Canada again (the True North strong and free), I will finish up my postings from here - a bit less authentic, as I am no longer in the actual country, but hey...
I believe I have discussed the issue of the insidiousness of Coca-Cola branding globally. China is no different. Here, Coca-Cola has been translated to "Ke Kou Ke La", which literally means: "suitable for the mouth, suitable for pleasure". It's a whole different ball game out here when the transliteration of your global brand actually sells itself!

China IV

I'm finding it difficult to write about China, in that I feel whatever I have to say has already been said, by many other people many other times.
However, one thing that has struck me is the sheer economic disparity in this country. I am not sure if people have already likened it to the social disparity that occurred in England during the Industrial Revolution, but the differences between the haves and the have-nots are staggering.
I have learned that the real estate moguls here, building skyscraper after skyscraper, and industrial developments galore, pay their construction workers, who are mainly migrant workers from rural settings, the equivalent of $7 CDN daily. Let me tell you; China may be a cheap country to live in, but it's not that cheap. This is also in a country that has no workers' compensation, no medical benefits, no disability insurance and no retirement pensions. I have seen grandmothers begging on the streets, presumably because they have no family to care for them, and are too old to work. I have seen construction workers come into very close calls with potential work accidents. I have seen pretty young things walking by them, in their flashy clothes, and holding cell phones that are worth two months' salary to those migrant workers.
Now, I am no student of history, but obviously change came about in the UK at the time, noting how many, many people were being left behind, while a select few were fabulously wealthy. I do hope that such change will occur here; I am not saying that we are any better in caring for our poor, but here, the poor break their backs and work in hard, hard labour in order to buy food for the day.
I suppose the paradox in saying this is that we in the West must realize how much our consumption patterns reinforce this cycle. The reason why people get paid so shitty here is because labour is cheap; dirt cheap. Which, of course, is why the products that we buy at home made here are so cheap. The competition to reach the very bottom in who can pay the lowest wages in order to cut costs here is partly our fault, to be honest. I can't help but walk through these streets and realize how much of what we do at home is preventing many people from reaching their full potential. The very small value that this culture places on individual lives is our mea culpa as well...
On a completely related note, I have also been trying to look for gifts to bring people back at home. As some of you know, my usual dilemma when I travel abroad is to buy items that are authentically made in the country that I'm visiting. The dilemma being that most souvenir-type items are made in China, no matter where in the world you are. Now that I'm here, where -everything- is made, I am finding that there is nothing here that I cannot find everywhere else in the world. All the Chinoiserie and kitsch that is found in these streets can easily be bought in any store in Toronto, for almost the same price. I am starting to think of ways to support the local economy in a viable way, and not just spend money on stupid, pointless trash...

China III

Traveling around in China isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be - in the past few days, I've ridden trains, subways, taxis, buses and my own two feet to get around, and it hasn't been too bad at all - admittedly, part of it is the relative invisibility that I have here.
I must say that I am truly stunned by the rate of development here. One ex-pat told me that the national bird of China is the crane (ba-dum ching!). One lady I was staying with lives out in the suburbs of a small city (of only five million people!), and her entire neighbourhood is made up of super high-rises! The entire area is made up of condominium-type buildings - much like CitiPark, but for many square kilometres around.
That being said, there are some notable differences where I think they have performed better than we, in terms of urban planning. Firstly, they have very narrow, similar buildings, such that there is aesthetic congruence between buildings, and that every suite gets windows that face out of both sides of the building. I think that is great - each apartment gets a balcony out of both ends. Furthermore, they have designed these high-rises with a good mix of retail and residential, along with parks and schools as well. Wandering around in the evening, there were many (only) children playing in the courtyards around the high-rises. Lastly, they have a very extensive and frequent public transit service to help people get to the core of the city (at only $0.35 CDN a ride!).
I suppose when you're talking about "small" cities of 5 million people, you have to be organized in order to house them and move them about.

China II

It's a bit odd, in that I haven't really yet felt that I'm "in" China. In many ways, I feel like I'm running around a very, very, very large Chinatown, that just happens to have its own subway system running through it. There are enough ex-pats around to help confirm that feeling as well.
Wandering around the streets of Shanghai, I noticed the oddity of being completely ignored as a tourist. In some ways, the advantage of being relatively invisible allows me to watch people more easily. While wandering around yesterday, even with an English tourbook in hand, people mainly ignored me, with the occasional person talking to me about... something, which I wouldn't understand. It was also odd in that all the tourists and ex-pats also fully ignored me, assuming that I was one of 'them'.
I am struck by the cultural divide between the ex-pat community and the native community here. I stopped off for a break at a Western-style coffee shop, and noted that I was the only non-Caucasian person, besides the service staff, in the room. This was noted even more strongly when the barista started to take my order in Mandarin, and I just looked at her blankly. Sigh.
The same thing goes for church here; at the beginning of service for the internationals, there is an announcement to make clear that you are only allowed to stay if you hold a foreign passport, and all others are politely asked to leave, though they are welcome to any of the 'official' Chinese services. I think service this week was a welcome balm to the soul; it was encouraging to see the little church packed to the rafters with a completely multi-ethnic group of people, from over 60 nations of the earth, all worshipping God in the most unlikely of places. I haven't been so spiritually and emotionally moved by a service in a very, very long time.
In addition, we had gone to an 'all you can eat' dim sum restaurant, and guess what? They ran out of dim sum! We didn't get any hak gow, siu mai, egg tarts, nothing! Everything we ordered, they said they had run out, or were running out. At one point, they even told us the chef was leaving! What we found infuriating was that, knowing that they were closing down the kitchen soon, they still sat us at table, and didn't tell us the kitchen was closing till after they had brought out some dishes! I seemed to gather that customer service isn't exactly a strong point in China yet, as they didn't seem to find a problem in still charging us full price for the meal.

China I

Some of you are well aware of the horror show that was involved in actually getting here, and how, by the end of it all, my heart was just plain not into coming. Furthermore, with very current events in my life, deep guilt about leaving the country at this particular moment in time was also combined with all of the above. So, it was not with an easy, free heart that I was leaving.
However, off to Pearson I went anyways. Not two minutes after being dropped off, I found out that my flight was being delayed by two hours. D'oh! Next, I arrived at the ticket counter to find out that I was being placed on standby, and they couldn't guarantee that I would be able to get on my already-delayed flight. Nor could they explain why my reserved seat had magically disappeared from their computer system. Heading through the security system, I was actually taken out of the line, selected "at random" for a body search, which, I suppose, did waste some of the time that I had to kill, waiting for my flight. It was not boding well at all. By the time I arrived at the gate, the departure time had been pushed back yet another hour, thus leaving me to stew at Terminal 1.
To me, by this point, because of everything else that had happened while preparing to go on this trip, I was really feeling that really, I wasn't meant to go, and I had really not been paying close enough attention all the way along. And I sat and prayed, "God, if you sincerely want me to go home and deal with the acute issue that I'm leaving, just let Air Canada reimburse me, and I'll go home." People who were hearing about my ordeal just to get to the gate, and who were aware of everything else that had happened, were at the ready, waiting for the call to come to Pearson and get me.
However, God sent a few angels along, and, through Providence herself, I ended up in First Class ('werd to the two angels), and also was connected safely through customs and into the city by another few angels as well.
It's funny how that happens. It does make me wonder at the grace of God, or, perhaps, how His will works. Because until He sent them along, I was fairly convinced I was not supposed to be here, in this country, at this point in time in my life. And perhaps I am still not. However, I am thankful for the small graces He provides to show that He does know that I am here, and that He will open His hand, when we are not sure where to turn...

Grief for someone who has not gone

The inevitable mourning that occurs when a loved one suffers from mental illness has been striking me recently.
Theoretically, I know that, from a medical point of view, that mental illness is not different in type than physical illness. I know, as a physician, that mental illness should not be a stigmatizing status, and that its sufferers should be seen and treated with the same amount of respect and care that we would for someone with, say, an amputated leg.
The practical reality is, however, quite different. I have been mourning quite deeply for a loved one that I am not entirely sure will entirely come back to reality (see, I'm crying right now thinking about it). I am not sure if it is because that the value that is placed on being of 'sound mind' is incredibly heavy. I am not sure if it is still the huge stigma that is still associated with mental illness. I am not sure if, in my culture and in my social group, that having a quick-thinking, 'normal' brain is expected. I am not sure if we, as a society, truly believe that people with mental illness really are the 'same' as the 'rest of us', and that we actually believe that they suddenly become 'apart', that they are no longer allowed within the realm of 'normality', that we mourn their exile into the abyss of disreality.
The disconnect between what I know as a physician, and how I experience it, as a friend, has been repeatedly slapping me in the face. My friend is still the same dear friend that they were last week, last month, last year. This, just as if they had had a heart attack, been diagnosed with cancer, or lost an eye. However, I fear for their future: for their family, their work, relationships they may have, and how God will deal with all of this.
Now, I know this fear is irrational: God is firmly in control, and He is always good. I trust that He will watch over them, and His ways are things that I cannot understand. Which is why I will not mourn in front of my friend: I may fear and worry, but it is not for my friend to bear my burdens on top of their own. The load that they are now called to bear requires me to help carry it, not to add my own fears and sadness onto it. I am already worried about them in how I have seen family members and friends heaping their own anxieties onto their frail shoulders. It grieves me as to how this will affect their healing, and the role that they may be assigned by the fears that have already been projected upon them, even this early in the proceedings...

Why we need storytellers

OK, so I've been thinking some more about the great seven storylines for all of humanity. Christopher Booker initially wrote about these ideas, and as they persist, and as I had mentioned them in the previous post, I should say something about them. Originally, I had thought they were divided into: boy meets girl, person goes on quest, or some other storyline like that. I think Booker tells it better.
They could be summarized as such:
1. Overcoming the monster: defeating some fain force - whether that is Darth Vader, environmental collapse, nuclear war, the evil in ourselves...
2. The Quest (see, I was right about this one!): an individual or a group setting off to find something - thinking of LOTR, Pilgrim's Progress or the Musicians of Breman
3. Journey and Return: The protagonist goes off on an adventure and returns to after having experienced much and hopefully become a better person - think of the Hobbit or the Wizard of Oz
4. Comedy: not ha-ha funny, but rather, like in Shakespearean comedies, various obstacles and misunderstandings between the hero and heroine ensue, until they are all resolved and the lovers can reunite again - think of any Shakespearean comedy, and almost any romance-y chick flick.
5. Tragedy: again, like Shakespearean tragedy, in that human vice and temptation overtake the protagonist, becoming trapped in their actions, until they (usually) end up in death - Hamlet being the archetype.
6. Rebirth: The protagonist is oppressed, almost seems on the verge of death and it seems that all is hopelessly lost, until they are miraculously freed - such as Sleeping Beauty, Scrooge, and Jesus.
7. Rags to Riches: this is a bit self-explanatory - downtrodden individual is recognized for their value or talent, which are revealed to the world to have a happy ending - this is where Slumdog certainly fits.

I think the story of Jesus is so compelling because it encompasses pretty much all of the storylines. The Tragedy storyline really encompasses Judas' journey, but all the other plots involve the person of Jesus - He has overcome sin, the biggest monster of them all. He has gone on the quest for eternal life for all of humanity. He has journeyed to death and has returned from it. He has overcome all obstacles and misunderstandings that humanity has of God in order to reunite humanity to Himself in a joyful, loving embrace. He has obviously, through the Resurrection, fulfilled the Rebirth story. And He, as the Suffering Servant to the King of Kings, has gone from Rags to Riches.
Compelling, heady stuff that our King has undergone!
(Now, I know Booker wrote his book from some sort of Jungian philosophy/ego-based analysis, but I think that there is something to this seven basic storylines...)

FFT

This has some echoes of Solomon in it... it is unfortunate that the one true Joy, though so easily found, is so desperately avoided by millions around the globe, including this caliph here...

"I have now reigned about 50 years in victory and peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: They amount to 14."

- Abd-ar-Rahman III, The Caliph of Cordoba, who presided over the 10th-century golden age of al-Andalus, the Moorish kingdom in southern Spain

Chai wallas and chocolates

I've been thinking about Forrest Gump, for various reasons, over the past few weeks. One reason has been because of his approach of simply sitting next to strangers and starting conversations about himself and life (and boxes of chocolate, of course). I've been struck at how odd that really is, and as charming as Forrest Gump is in the movie, in reality, nobody would tolerate that. There are not many people that would be open to having a movie-length conversation with a complete stranger who sat beside them in a park. The issue at hand is that I was talking with one guy I know who uses this strategy to evangelize people, which, I argue, is of lower stakes and in many ways easier than going through the triumph and heartbreak of befriending and loving people instead. Not that I think that it's an either-or issue, just that there is no real harm done; nobody wants to listen to you? OK, they just get up and leave. No implications on your life. Hence, why I ended up thinking of Forrest as a tangible example of this.
That being said, in a completely different track, I also realized that Forrest Gump and Slumdog Millionaire are actually the SAME movie! I am wondering if the idiot savant being the wisest one of all is actually one of the core seven storylines of humanity. Since they are the same movie, it probably explains why people loved both movies so much (myself included). By extremes of coincidence and chance, the protagonist ends up with deep knowledge and experience, much more than everyone else can possibly believe. Through this, the naif gains wealth, romance and adventure.
I wonder if we are swept up with this particular storyline, as, deep down, most of us are all underdogs, and we cheer them on, marveling at how they outwit and outsmart adversaries many times more superficially talented, beautiful and intelligent. Perhaps we all hope that we could end up with that kind of fairy tale endings with our lives... admittedly, Dostoevsky's The Idiot doesn't quite fit that same pattern, but I digress...

Paralyzing freedom

Today, I am convinced that one of the difficulties of living in the West is just the limitless possibilities that are open to us. I think that I am deeply privileged to live here, but I think also that the overwhelming choices sometimes make it difficult to navigate. You somehow are always left with the question, well, what if I had picked X instead?
Talking with my folks today about a bit of language learning I had picked up this weekend, they had mentioned that I could also consider maybe learning my actual ethnic language by going overseas and taking one of their summer courses. Pointing out also some of my scholastic ambitions over the next little while (very small ambitions, no Master's degree or anything), the other possibilities of continuing education then flood the mind with all the courses, certificates and diplomas available. Furthermore, I am in the midst of an application and selection process for two very different fellowships/cohorts/conferences, both of which are conveniently taking place at approximately the same time in the same country.
I realize that all of this is only possible because of my geography and my socio-economic class. The idea that a woman could be an educated professional/academic, travel the world, educate herself, and participate in leadership is sadly so exceedingly foreign to most cultures. Would it have been better if, had my family had ended up on a particular side of the DMZ, I had been destined to be no more than a subsistence farmer, a factory worker, or, perhaps, sold as a bride? I think not. Not at all.
However, I do wonder, with all the potentialities available to us, if that somehow paralyzes us from truly utilizing all of our opportunities. We think, well, I can't accomplish everything, so I won't attempt anything. And some of us truly don't accomplish much more than if we'd been living in a country where the opportunities are next to nothing. Our choices do, however, make it difficult to focus with laser-like precision on what we should do best for God and His Kingdom, that's for sure...

An extremely long run-on thought

Sometimes I wonder about the herd mentality, especially in consideration of the current "economic crisis". I also wonder how families are getting through this period of time. I also wonder how much of it is contrived, and how much of it is real.
Let me explain: I'm OK, I'm not really at risk of losing my job at any time, and I'm still earning the same salary that I was earning before this "global meltdown" occurred (note that I am "" those terms, as I am not entirely convinced of these euphemisms). However, in running regular errands over the past few weeks, namely, Drive Clean tests, plate renewals (along with that dastardly new tax Miller's introduced!), prescription renewals (no drug plan), insurance payments, dental visits (no dental plan), etc etc etc, add up to a lot of cash-ola!
I actually verged on starting to get a bit worried that I wouldn't have enough to cover all these payments this month. Then, I wondered whether I was lacking in faith, thinking that just because my balance sheet didn't look like it was evening out this month, that God wouldn't eventually make it all work out. Then, I also wondered whether I even dared worry in the first place because the media told me I should be freaking out. Then, I thought about everybody else who is not in my position, that is, regular families, and I thought, dear goodness, how are these families with no benefits covering for their children's dental visits, their medications, their vehicle registrations and insurance payments, their mortgages, etc themselves? Then, I thought about families where one parent had recently lost a job, and how they were going to do. Then, I thought, how did we drive our society to such a position where two parents MUST work in order to be able to earn enough to house and feed their family? Then, I started thinking about a few other ethical issues that have popped up internationally, and thinking about sex slaves and child soldiers, and then I thought, gosh, God, we are a sinful and stiff-necked people, and of all the things I should worry about, the least should be whether or not I can cover my bicycle repair fees...
Then, I repented of all that, am not worrying about money anymore (for now, at least), and thinking about how broken and impoverished our poor souls are...

A VERY scary picture!

I realized, after putting this picture up, that it's almost illegible, so I will also post the website address:
https://www.msu.edu/~howardp/organicindustry.html

Animal testing

My life rarely intersects that of the medical world as a patient. However, when it does, the dazzling array of options is mind-boggling, yet also adds a layer of anxiety; if I need this many tests/ medical professionals/ investigations, how sick am I?
Resolving this year to actually try to see my doctor, my optometrist and my dentist at least once every two years results in not just seeing the person themselves, but, for some reason, also involves additional visits, call-backs, X-rays, other tests, bloodwork, and more investigations! Today, I feel like there must be something wrong with me, as I was booking follow-ups, testing appointments, etc.
I half-wonder if that's supposed to be a sign of aging; the older you get, the more that your life is consumed with a never-ending cycle of going in to see medical professionals. If so, this sucks; I have better things to do with my life.
I kind of understand why some of my patients don't come to see me all that often - I imagine coming in to see me reminds them that they are aging, that they are breaking down, and that ultimately, their mortality will inevitably catch up with them. However, for the regulars, who come in every few weeks, I wonder what that does for them. Does that make them feel more secure that there is another set of eyes watching their crumbling mortality? Do they feel that, under my careful watch, that they will somehow defeat illness just by basking in my glow? If so, they are sadly mistaken; the additional poking and prodding, the investigations and interventions that we provide do not add glorious years of life. I think they rather shrivel the soul, causing us to rely on technology to keep us, barely breathing, barely alive...

Yikes!

This is just a warning shot over the heads of those of you who read this blog regularly - I am seriously considering making this blog a private one, that is to say, that readers need to sign in to read my blog.
This has only come to mind in that I've been getting more and more readers from geographical locales of which I am quite sure I don't actually know anyone. And they're reading a lot, rather than just coming to the website and then leaving right away.
It kind of makes you feel naked, really, when people you don't know, and will never meet can read so much about you. I didn't mind so much when I could identify most of all the readership, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to do this, so I think I may have to privatize it.
If you would like to get in on this before I change over, please do let me know!

Too good to be true

I've been very interested in how people have reacted to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. There was a newscast on the radio yesterday that noted that people applauded when he was found guilty of all of his swindling and scheming.
Now, I admit, it's rough when you lose your entire life savings, and in the case of charitable foundations, losing all of your capital. For those who were living off of their investment returns, now to find they have nothing, and having to return to work well past their prime, it is a very scary and bleak time.
However, on the radio, some of his "victims" were stating that he didn't "deserve" to be put into a white-collar prison, that what he did deserved to be put in with the murderers and the rapists and the pedophiles. Excuse me?
I think this demonstrates two very disturbing tendencies in our society. 1. Listening to people's commentaries about how Mr. Madoff should burn in hell, etc etc, shows me that people care very very much about money. We seem to care more about money than we do about people. I think this is demonstrated in the equivalency that some people have made that the loss of their money is equally as bad as sexually assaulting a small child. 2. That when we are gullible fools, we will immediately turn around and blame as many other people as possible. Come on now, how many times have we heard if an opportunity to make money sounds too good to be true, it likely is? Apparently people who invested with Madoff had consistent returns, year after year, irrespective of how the rest of the economy was going, irrespective of how banks were posting their prime rates, irrespective of how markets were going. Somehow that didn't trigger with anybody that it wouldn't make sense to make the exact same return every year, despite market fluctuations. So, if you're dumb enough to fall for that, frankly, the adage that 'a fool and his money are soon parted' fits the part well...

Running to Stand Still

No, I am certainly not saying that I'm a heroin addict, if that is the automatic connection that came to mind with this blog post. However, I think there is something about the irresistible, addictive nature of being busy, or at least being perceived that way.
I know many people think I'm relatively lazy, when they compare some of my work weeks to their own. Or they assume that I must have heaps of free time to sit and daydream. Or they wonder why I don't have time to watch TV every night, like themselves.
Maybe I am very inefficient at my tasks, that I don't know. Maybe I have way too many different things on my plate. That, I think is also a definite possibility. The reality is that on average, I actually work more than the usual 40 hour-work week. There, I said it. My choice to seemingly work less hours than you think a physician should work actually leaves me with working just a bit more than the average worker. If I did work "full time" (whatever the heck that means), I suspect my work schedule would look similar to as it did when I was a resident, and that is an untenable situation.
Carrying much on one's plate inevitably gives one indigestion. In my spare brain moments, I'm thinking briefly about what items on my plate are so important to me that I still want to keep nibbling at them. Problem is, like a really good potluck, you actually want to make sure you keep a bit of everything on your plate. Sigh. Perhaps if I did become a heroin addict, picking and choosing would become rapidly a moot point...

No repeating last year's travesty!

One of the surest signs of spring, to me, is the Seedy Saturday phenomenon. It's been crossing the country over the past few weeks, with people busily exchanging or buying seeds, and learning from others about various aspects of growing food. It's fabulous! This year was even nicer, with knowing quite a lot of people from the booths, so it took me a good 1 1/2 hours just to go around, chit-chatting with everyone!
But what's even more promising is the fact that I have started my winter seedlings. Yes, indeed, they are incubating on top of my refrigerator, waiting for spring. They've been given the very best start (yum! worm casings!), and will hopefully germinate, and do much better than last year.
This year, I've resolved to start everything myself from seed. No seedlings from people I don't know, as that got me into great trouble last summer. But, I am going to vary my crop a bit: a few beans, a few peas, a bit of kale, different lettuces, better canning tomatoes than what I grew last year. I think I'm looking forward to entertaining people this summer with the tasty goodies coming from my garden!
Now, I must admit, I am dreaming of a backyard, or a certain plot of land in merry 'ol England (you know who you are!) that would let me grow corn and onions and house a few chickens. As that is not my lot (literally), I will have to make do with my balcony. But that doesn't stop me from dreaming of all the farming I could do...

FFT

Unlike most people, Thomas Homer-Dixon doesn’t think today’s world economic crisis is very complicated. He thinks it’s very complex, which makes for a world of difference in understanding which government anti-recession programs will fail (most of them) and deciding which ones can help.
Homer-Dixon, who chairs a centre for global systems analysis at the University of Waterloo, is one of the world’s leading thinkers in the field of “complexity theory,” and the author of several international bestsellers, including The Ingenuity Gap and The Upside of Down. He brings a missing dimension to thinking about remedies to the looming economic collapse that that’s so far been excluded from public and media debate. “If ever there was a case of experts not knowing what’s happening, it’s this economic crisis,” he says.
Hang in for the introductory lecture on Chaos Theory 101, and you’ll be able to follow and lead the economics debate in fresh ways.
Homer-Dixon is the first to admit he has no straight-ahead answers to a downturn that’s much more challenging that the Great Depression of the 1930s, to which it’s often unthinkingly compared. “We’ve never seen a collapse on this scale before in an environment of such enormous complexity and such a huge number of unk-unks,” he says, in a reference to the term used during his days working with Pentagon analysts who referred to unknown unknowns.
The way in which a relatively small proportion of mortgage defaults in one country during the fall of 2008 precipitated the collapse of a global economic house of cards expresses a telltale, if seemingly illogical, sign of complex systems in crisis – a very small cause leading to a very huge result, like the final grain of snow or shift of wind that produce a mountain avalanche.
But in Homer-Dixon’s view, that small cause, and even slightly bigger versions of that small cause – the breakdown of integrity in the global financial system, or the inequality that put home purchases beyond the reach of typical families, for example – is only a small part of an overall mix of “cascading failures.” His list of factors converging into a catastrophic perfect storm include intensified inequality, increased global warming, rising resource prices, and the “sheer productivity of capitalism – in many ways the deepest of all causes,” he says, since it produces chronic gluts in desperate search for markets. Together, they overloaded a rigid and “tightly coupled” global financial system that spread uncontrollable wildfires.
“Multiple stresses that reinforced each other” led to “a collapse of assets greater and faster” than anything witnessed during the simpler days of the Great Depression, he says. That’s why simplistic and one-dimensional rhetoric from politicians and pundits about fixing the problem, putting the pieces back together, and managing the crisis betrays a failure to understand what’s going down, he says. “Complex problems require complex solutions. It’s the law of requisite variety. We need a repertoire of responses as complex as the environment. “We must move from management to complex adaptation.”
Just as bodies under stress require core strength in the lower abdomen, economies and societies under shock require sources of core strength, what hip policy experts increasingly refer to as “robustness” and “resilience.” Government policy makers need to focus their view on the prize of supporting resilience in the population. Failure of governments to be on constant alert for the pitfalls of economic giantism or to be on guard for stresses in social resilience “is like not requiring cities to be earthquake-proof,” he says.
“Resilience means helping people to take care of themselves better in tough times,” rather than relying on specialization and expertise, he says, a guideline that puts a community’s ability to feed itself and care for each other at the top of his to-do list.
Here’s how I simplify Homer-Dixon’s analysis, in ways that he may or may not agree with.
When public money is used to keep enterprises afloat, the public has a right to demand that public benefits be spread among the general public. In my opinion, a longstanding (if best-kept secret) of Canadian employment insurance policy should be extended to all public enterprises and bailed-out private enterprises, including car companies and banks. Canada’s federal government allows workers at a company facing lay-offs to opt for everyone sharing the layoff by working a four day week, and everyone sharing the employment insurance by being covered on their one day a week of unemployment. This measure does not cost the employment insurance system a dime, since five people taking a payout for a day is the same as one person taking a payout for a week. It allows a workforce to stay intact for better times, maintains morale among workers and within a community, and protects younger workers with families, a group unlikely to enjoy high seniority.
This simple measure would abolish unemployment overnight, maintain purchasing power in the community, and buy people the time to become more resilient and self-reliant in their own lives, by gardening, cooking from scratch or insulating their walls, for example. It would even give people some time to sleep, the least acknowledged of the crucial determinants of health and well-being.
Only the epidemics of workaholism and every-man-for-himselfishism have kept this obvious low-pain remedy off the agenda for so long.
Having bolstered purchasing power in the community-at-large, the multiplier effect of that purchasing power needs to be captured for public benefit by requiring all government and publicly-bailed-out institutions to purchase local and local-sustainable food, recognizing that the food industry already produces almost as many jobs as the auto industry and can directly employ local people. Since one job for a local farmer commonly leads to five jobs producing farm inputs or off-farm processing, this doable measure is an employment bonanza that also yields major health and environmental benefits. This also fulfills Homer-Dixon’s call for self-reliant and unplugged systems that remove essentials of life from the vagaries of uncontrollable forces.
This depression does not have to hurt. Get beyond the complications into the complexity, and discover what Homer-Dixon calls “the upside to down.”

- Wayne Roberts

Which is why I wear a bike helmet...

I think if I lost my mind, I would go crazy (well, no duh, of course I'd be crazy if I had no mind - ha ha). But seriously, I think if I was to have a significant head injury, or a stroke, or early dementia, something that would seriously limit or eliminate my ability to reason, to remember, to express myself.... gosh, I would go mad. Having to go around and excuse myself because I couldn't explain myself well or remember things appropriately, or to have a goofy grin on my face all the time, because I wasn't able to distinguish sarcasm or ill-will from well-wishers, or to be unable to put together a sentence, let alone a recipe.... I think that would be worse than malignant metastatic cancer, to be honest.

FFT

When I think of Jesus, I think of the mystery of divine personality, the startling coalescence of contrarieties that I see in Him. He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men, yet He spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at His coming, yet He was so genial and winsome and approachable that the children loved to play with Him and the little ones nestled in His arms. His presence at the innocent gaiety of a village wedding was like the presence of sunshine. No one was half so kind or compassionate to sinners, yet no one ever spoke such red hot scorching words about sin. A bruised reed He would not break, His whole life was love, yet on one occasion He demanded of the Pharisees how they were expected to escape the damnation of hell. He was a dreamer of dreams, and a seer of visions, yet for sheer stark realism, He has all of our self-styled realists soundly beaten. He was the servant of all, washing the disciples' feet, yet masterfully He strode into the Temple, and the hucksters and moneychangers fell over one another to get away in their mad rush from the fire they saw blazing in His eyes. He saved others, yet, at the last, Himself He did not save. There is nothing in history like the union of contrast which confronts us in the Gospels. The mystery of Jesus as steward is the mystery of divine personality.
- James Stewart

What next?

I was inspired today. I've been tugging at the ear of any number of mentors that have even dared cross my path to ask them, "What next? What next for me?". Now, I've had a multitude of different answers, depending on how well they know me, and, thankfully, offers for people to pray for me as well, which, I think, will be the most powerful determinant of all.
Today, I'd finagled my way into meeting with a world leader in an area I would certainly like to head into, and he advised me to stay put (argh!!!!), but.... also offered a way to enter into this new world. I have been tossing around ideas of more schooling, drastically changing my career trajectory, etc, but, though he'd never met me before in his life, actually advised me to do something that has been percolating around in my head for a while, though I'd never had a target to aim for specifically. Until today.
Now, I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to go about this, and I'm not entirely convinced I'll be good at it either. Actually, I think I'm more concerned, that having been trained in one particular specialized domain, that I may not be very good at most anything else, actually. Well, we shall see how that goes; in between all the other issues and things I participate in, this will be definitely a challenge. However, the suggestion resonates with me somehow. It certainly seems more appealing than going for a Master's degree...

I walk like I drive

I was musing on how we walk on sidewalks today. Not that this is a particularly new observation, but I find it interesting how we tend to walk on the right side of sidewalks. When trying to pass by slower moving people, we tend to walk by on their left, and then merge back onto the right side of the street. Furthermore, when we are passing oncoming pedestrians, we tend to pass each other on the left side.
In addition to this, when on escalators, standing people stay on the right, whereas walkers move on the left side of escalators.
This is particularly striking when you go to countries where they drive on the left side of the road; there, pedestrians walk in the exact opposite manner that I just described, and when you're walking by them, they get very confused when you try to walk by them on their left side.
This makes me wonder as to how we conditioned ourselves to walk like CARS! Humanity has walked on its own two feet for millennia, yet our conventions as to how to do so over the past century have been defined by machines. I find that disturbing, that we have modified our natural habits to be in harmony with the machinations of industry. I mean, not that we haven't sacrificed much already, but for something as natural and mindless as walking, it is odd how we have narrowed the expression of how we ambulate.
Perhaps, then, that Monty Python's famous "Silly Walk" sketch is not so much comedy as it is manifesto. A call to take back our own feet and to move in ways that please us, not in ways that simply conform to the miles of highways that our cars sit upon.

In stark contradiction to the last post...

If there is one thing I'm convinced of (though there are many), it is this: If it seems that the whole world is against you, and that everybody is hateful and wrong, and that nobody is being nice to you, and that everything is not going your way, I can only see one common denominator in all of this: YOU.
It is fatiguing to hear people rail about how their family, their employer, their medical providers, absolutely everyone is incompetent/ uncaring/ unreasonable/ etc, while they are the poor victims of everybody else's sadistic and heartless actions. How everything negative going on in their life is everybody else's fault, and they cannot accept any of the responsibility themselves. When it becomes that extreme, I can't help but point out that there is only one thread that binds it all together.
One of my patients, for whom my patience is starting to run thin, regularly comes in every few weeks to yell and rant at me how everybody is letting them down, how nobody is recognizing their needs, how we're all out to get them, medical personnel, friends and employer alike. How I am complicit in all of this, as I have not fixed all their myriad of problems, and have done 'absolutely nothing' to help them. Is there ever any point, that every time, I point out how they have refused to see consultants, how they have refused to take medications, how they have refused to do testing that others have suggested, how they have refused to participate in work rehabilitation, how they have refused to ever be just plain nice? After which, without fail, they state that their problems are actually mine to fix, and I am not taking my responsibility to fix their life seriously. Excuse me?
Let's be clear: I am not your babysitter. I am not your nanny. I am not your mommy. My job is not to fix your life for you when you have broken it yourself. I make strong suggestions and recommendations, and you can take it, or leave it. I will not fight you if you disagree with everything I say, but I certainly would question why you'd bother to keep coming back...

Disease and dis-ease are two different things...

I think I need to actually write this down: I liked being at work today. I'm only saying that because that's a fairly radical thing for me to say.
The only thing that leads me to say that particularly today is because I felt a bit more useful than I usually do. Let me try to explain: sure, a good portion of my job is to look at medical stuff, diagnose a problem, give somebody medicine or something that will make it go away, problem solved, whoopee. To me, that's a bit mechanical, a bit simplistic, a bit too square and logical.
What an even bigger chunk of my job involves is looking objectively at people's life circumstances and diagnose what's holding them back. That is to say, look at their relationships, their marriages, their work lives and point out what's really wrong with them. Now, it is frustrating to do this with individuals who, for various reasons are not able to listen or hear anything I have to say, let alone internalize it and do something productive with it. However, when it is with people who have the wherewithal to make some positive changes in their lives, and accept help to direct them to make good choices, then it's very satisfying.
I had a few of those today: a distraught wife, desperately unhappy in her marriage. A man being harassed by an ex, causing him great anxiety. A wife, struggling with the aftermath of her husband's affair. A woman deciding whether to continue her affair with a married man or not. A girl feeling guilty about break-up sex. And on and on it goes (and people wonder why I'm a bit cynical about how deliriously happy marriage can really be). And that was just today.
Helping clarify the underlying issues that resulted in the situations that they are in, that their situations are manifestations of other deeper needs in their lives, and watching a small lightbulb go off in their head, is satisfying. Sometimes it makes me feel a bit like Dr. Phil somehow. Well, like, the old Dr. Phil, not the current one. This is not to say that it's easy to implement life change at all, nor do I think it's as easy as swallowing a pill. However, it is nice to know that a lot of what I do doesn't involve pushing pills or opting for medical, physical explanations for dis-ease, in both body and soul...

Elegy

Some very good friends of mine were dealt a fairly devastating blow, being told that their child was, indeed, diagnosed with a significant developmental delay. It was not a particular surprise, as there had been much indication that there was much not right with the child for quite some time. Nonetheless, the finality and permanence of a diagnosis leads one down the path of an inexorable, unalterable future.
I don't know what to say; I cannot know what to say. I am sad for what future dreams and hopes they had counted on would happen, should happen, for normal, regular families. I am troubled about potential pictures of the future that this entails: for their relationship, for the needs of the whole family, for the child's future. I am sorry for the heartbreak and tears and questions that flow upwards, whose answers may seem eerily silent. I do know that this child is desperately loved and, though they may never know or appreciate it fully, could not have been found in a safer and caring place than in their parents' arms.
I must confess, I am struggling with, why them, of all the people in the world? There are so many additional factors to this story, that this seems like yet another nail in the cross that they have been called to bear. So very many nails, each piercing their hearts...

Musing on pomegranates

I've spent the past hour or so fumbling through a pomegranate. I still have another half to go. Yes, I'm eating a whole pomegranate for dinner - it takes so long to eat one, you hardly have the energy or desire to actually chew anything else afterwards.
I remember as a child being given a pomegranate, split between my sister and I, in order to keep us out of our mother's hair for an hour or so, as we took our grubby little fingers to pry out each small morsel of delight on hot summer days.
A pomegranate is a beautiful thing; a plump, rose-coloured urn, encasing millions of glistening rubies inside! Each piece of fruit, bursting with juice with a slightly crunchy core. Careful dissection of the paper-thin membranes, releasing even more treasure in each portion of pomegranate. Yum!

When it rains...

I don't think people seriously take into consideration, well, consideration for other people. I can see how, over time, if you receive very little consideration, you'll dish it out in much the same manner. It's only Thursday, but this week alone, I've already gotten a relatively real threat of being sued (which, being entirely frivolous and without basis, doesn't particularly bother me; if they would like to waste their money, they can go right ahead), was physically threatened by another patient and had to call 911 for police to escort them from the clinic. Super.
I suppose it comes with the territory - whenever you deal with other people, who make overwhelmingly ridiculous demands that you cannot fulfill, they get angry. Now, fortunately, the literature points to very few physician fatalities over the years (thank goodness), but, despite the relative respect and authority that they are granted, it is not uncommon for physicians to get verbally assaulted, spat upon, slapped and punched. I don't think people get the fact that when they do that, it makes it even more unlikely to have the physician want to help them.
I guess it's also like customer service; I would imagine if a customer is going ballistic on the phone, the customer service rep tunes out, and becomes even more unlikely to want to provide good customer service.
Same here; the likelihood I would actually want to help someone, instead of punching them in the face, when I've been threatened becomes vanishingly small.

I hear there are three greenhouses available...

OK, that's it: I am tired. I've been back in the country less than 10 days, and I'm already tired of being here. Tired of being guilt-tripped. Tired of having unreasonable demands being made of me. Tired of having to catch up with everybody else's expectations.
I'm tired of having to feel like I have to join yet another committee, about joining another Board, of being made to feel badly enough to almost change travel plans I had made over one year previously, of not doing 'enough' for one organization, of fishing through old files to give to other professionals, of leading another Bible study, of providing money to people just because they ask for it, of unreasonable demands of my time to do battle with companies that I don't give a shit about, of having to provide my 'expert opinion' on various subjects, of being berated multiple times for even leaving the country in the first place, of being poked fun of (or, as someone else has put it: getting my pony tail yanked on a regular basis by the bully), of never hearing 'thank you' from anybody.
This is pretty much the same sentiment from the recent post, but even more accentuated. This funk better lift soon, otherwise I'm just going to start being nasty and selfish...

Hoping my diagnostics heal, not hurt

One thing that I've been semi-wrestling with over the past week has been how to approach people.
That's vague: my main job, in the real world, is to see a person whole, make a diagnosis as to what is hindering them from better health, and suggest therapeutic approaches to improve the situation. This is not necessarily exclusively in the domain of the physical either; certainly emotional, relational, and familial issues are also part and parcel of my job on a regular basis. My training teaches me to look objectively at the holistic situation, and make suggestions. Kind of like an advice columnist, but I get paid more.
However, what happens if you see this in a friend, not a patient? It is far easier for me to look at a patient, who, for all intents and purposes, I don't know and I don't love, and say quite objectively what I believe the fundamental problems to be in their lives. Not so easy when it is someone you know and someone you love. I have noticed some massively large obstacles that are hindering a friend from really and truly fulfilling their entire God-given potential, and it hurts me to see that. It bothers me greatly when giants of our age can so easily be felled by a stone to the forehead. However, some of those obstacles are building barriers from me being able to point this out in any way that would be constructive.
So how does one do this, without making them hate you afterwards? I haven't been able to figure this out. Is it worse to ignore the fact that your friend's fly is down, or for embarrassing them by telling them they need to fix their pants? Sigh. I'm hoping they read this (though I doubt they will) in order to perhaps start opening the communication channels...

Retreat! To yonder castle!

One of the biggest problems of going away anywhere is the coming back. Not only do I feel like I was just getting a groove on, a rhythm of living in the fairy tale castle, lured by the possibilities of just staying (I can't believe how tempting it actually was), but then I abruptly had to leave. That sucks.
However, what has an even higher suckage factor was coming back. I walk into my house with a mail stack about to topple over, full of bills, notices, assessments, medical journals, government forms, etc etc etc, and neglected chores that I'd forgotten to do prior to leaving (no worries; nothing like forgetting to take out the garbage). Then, at the office was an inbox stuffed full of insurance forms, disability claims, pregnancy ultrasounds... a pile a foot high! Furthermore, having to deal with several email inboxes (along with one new one!), meetings that are being planned for the end of February and into March, realizing I already do not have a free weekend for another four weeks is enough to make one give up being a responsible adult.
That's it. I don't want to be a grown-up anymore. At times like this, I really do want to opt out, have someone take over and do all these tasks for me, to tuck me into bed, kiss me on the forehead and just tell me everything will be alright...

England III

I'm sorry that I haven't written all that much, but there really hasn't been much more to say about what I've been up to. To say that I feel a bit like Rapunzel is a bit of an understatement.
One thing, that I'm not sure if I've ever noted about the British before is just their incredible reservedness. Since I've been here, I have yet had a British national introduce themselves to me, or talk to me at all, which is odd, since we have communal meals together. Apparently, it is not really in their culture to introduce themselves to strangers, and they won't talk to someone they haven't actually been formally introduced to. This, of course, has been difficult, as I haven't actually officially met any British people yet, so it is difficult for me to be introduced to anyone else. It's like this awful Catch-22 where you can't meet anyone because you haven't met anyone.
That being said, the most obvious cultures that have embraced me and made me feel welcome here are the Americans, the Koreans and the Brazilians (and combinations thereof). Not surpringly that they are all here, in light of the powerhouses they all are for Good News and Kingdom work, but also not surprising in how garrulous their cultures are, and how open and welcoming that they all are as peoples.
I suppose this is a good place to interject that there are strengths and weaknesses in each culture, and so to paint the picture thusly is not necessarily utterly fair. However, all I can say is praise God for cultures that like people a lot, otherwise I'd have an awful lot of wandering the halls here, wondering what the hell to do with myself...

I'm a banana with... lemon filling???

I believe not since I entered undergrad have I noticed how fundamentally Asian I am, at the core, at the very ends of things.
It is a bit odd that here, in the most lily-white fair of locales, people notice my yellow core. Oddly, however, it was pointed out to me today that my yellow-ness is actually not Korean in nature (gasp!) but Chinese (bigger gasp!).
Now, for some of you, you know that almost verges on blasphemy. However, I do see what they're talking about. I know, I know, some would say that I have about as much Chinese-ness in me as blood in a stone.
It is strange, traveling all around the world, and gaining a deeper appreciation of what it means to be Canadian, but here, in one of the closest cultural parity countries to my own, I am stymied with being Korean on the outside, Caucasian inside, but with a deep East Asian core, molten gold, hot as dragon's breath, unyielding as jadestone.

England II

In the construction of the Book, a whole whack of work needs to go into it, I've realized. There are stats to obtain, compile and analyze. There are socio-political situations that need to be observed from several different angles to have a better sense as to where the 'real' story lies. There are the myriads of stories from workers abroad needing to be sifted from what are warm, fuzzy anecdotes to what gives a real sense as to what's happening nationally. After all of this, then one can start writing and editing their piece, after which input from people all over the world is required, formatting of pages and ruthlessly editing so that eventually everything will fit into a book you can actually carry without breaking your back. Not an easy job when you've got a bare-bones volunteer corps to do the work, and then you also get occasional numbskulls like me showing up.
It's been quite interesting to do some reading and learning a little bit more of what's going on on this planet of ours, but mainly I've been doing scut work to make the important work easier later on. This runs the gamut of data entry, filing stories and labelling articles to make it easier to find information later.
I suppose what strikes me most is the nature of office work. Never having worked in an office before, there are a few things about this method of working that are odd to me. Firstly, it makes your bum sore, having to sit down at a computer for pretty much the whole day. I'm used to being up and down and walking around every few minutes. Also, since I spend my days talking to, or at, people, the relative quiet and 'humming along productivity' of an office is strange to me. I can also not get over how doing some of these tasks really do take me all day, and into the night. The last thing that is also the strangest to me, besides the quiet, is the lack of touch. This may seem weird, as I suppose office workers would otherwise have massive sexual harassment suits on their hands, but we all know that regular human touch actually improves stress levels, blood pressures, etc. Of course, I'm usually spending a good chunk of my time 'laying hands' on everyone, so I do feel out of sync not doing so here. I've discovered, though, that I'm not particularly bothered by not being in charge or in control; having a boss, and several managers is actually OK, which is good, as I thought perhaps my control-freak nature would have issues.
However, it is good. I'm not entirely sure how useful I really am being to the team (that would be something for my boss to evaluate, I suppose), but otherwise, at least, this is a strange, though pleasant, change from my usual routine.

England I

So, I haven't exactly written too much yet, mainly because there's not yet much to be said. Having gone through a national holiday and a weekend, I haven't exactly done gobs of work yet. Actually, I've been feeling rather slothful up to this point.
One thing that I've noted about the Brits in general, however, is their unbelief in indoor heating. Partly it's historical; winters are fairly mild here, so the massive amounts of insulation that we put into our homes in Canada doesn't quite compute the same way here, as it is less necessary. I haven't yet actually successfully felt warm since I've arrived in this country, and, to add insult to injury, it started snowing today.
That's probably about it: I've already spent a bit of time in London proper, and realized that I actually knew the downtown core much better than even my British friend did. I think I wasn't kidding when I said I've been to London several times enough to be satisfied as a 'tourist'...

An anti-New Year's resolution

Now that 2008 is over, my self-imposed clothing fast is over. That is to say, I am now allowed to go and buy clothing of all kinds again, from socks to cardigans. Now, the fact of being abroad isn't going to change that status anytime soon, and besides, I'm not the type to be chomping at the bit to get to the mall. Furthermore, I haven't really missed shopping much anyways, since I'm kind of the antithesis to a clothing horse.
You'd think that a girl, living in North America, giving up her ability to buy any new clothing for a year would be something that would be broadcast on television, or at least broker a book deal or something, about how she endured such trials and what she learned. What I suppose I did learn: I don't really need new clothes, not unless the old ones are unmendable, or unwearable. Not having to go clothing shopping saves a lot of time. There are many other ways to bond with your girlfriends than spending a day at the mall. You can stay unfashionable long enough to become fashionable again. Beauty that depends on how I'm dressed is a pretty shallow beauty, and I desire to cultivate a deeper beauty than that. I acknowledge that clothes do indeed make the man, and as a society, we do judge people's worth and merit based on how they look, perhaps a little bit too much, however, well-dressed people really do look well put-together (yes, yes, though it's still shallow). Like any addiction, once you break it, and are used to the new lifestyle, it's not that hard to stay clean. (OK, so I didn't have an addiction, but I certainly find I'm not even tempted by 70% off really cute shirts anymore).
I think that I will replace some of my socks that have gotten a bit hole-y over the year, but I am not entirely convinced there's anything else that needs space in my closet as of yet. I'm still not going to volunteer to go for a day of mall-shopping either.
So, for 2009, I resolve to let myself go shopping. Shrug. No biggie.