Promise keeping

As with any new year, there are often resolutions abounding. A new year's resolution is generally a decision to do something differently this time around, or often a promise that we make to better ourselves. Fortunately, if we break it, the consequences generally only fall upon ourselves.

The consequences, however, tend to be more serious when we fail to keep our word to someone else. Why does promise keeping matter? Firstly, because it's the right thing to do. Secondly, the damage that breaking a promise can cause to a relationship, whether personal or professional, can be very difficult and painful to repair. Some promises are implicit, as in an intimate personal relationship, e.g. a parent's "promise" to love and care for a child; while others are explicit, e.g. a contractual agreement. Both are important to fulfill. On an even larger scale, broken promises made to a collective, such as the all too familiar "campaign promises", erode our trust in our leaders and public authorities.

It's a bit past the new year, but I propose that this year be a year of keeping promises to ourselves and others around us. Here's to a more considerate, kind, honorable year ahead.

“Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.”--Herbert Agar

TedX Talk on keeping promises

How are mobile phones changing how we understand ourselves, how we relate to others, and how we do things?

I was thinking about the impacts of communications technology, particularly mobile phones this week, and how in many ways they have transformed our daily lives. Two vignettes from this past week:

Before our bible study last Thursday, our host showed us a video of a man who was glued to his phone, even while he was walking. There was a point in the video when he actually looked up from his phone to ask directions from a young woman. Eventually, the two got married and a series of significant scenes from their wedding to the birth of their first grandchild were shown. Then the video rewound to the point where he met the woman, but this time instead of looking up, he kept looking down at his phone, and they never met. The lesson is obvious that we may actually be letting our lives pass us by, which is of course one of the negative consequences of being constantly "connected" (although we often do not think about to whom or to what we are connecting ourselves to).

On Sunday, as I was sitting at Baxter Theatre on my laptop, a man approached me and asked if he could use the plug point to charge his mobile phone. As he was waiting for it to charge we started chatting, and he started discussing his work which entails supplying diesel to African countries, often for military purposes, mainly in central and eastern Africa. He was able to do all of these transactions using only a mobile phone, and can essentially run his business from anywhere with reception. His clients, similarly, could become "powerful" men he said by merely possessing a smartphone, which enabled them to order anything they wanted from anywhere in the world.

As with any tool, mobile phones can be used for good or bad purposes, but particularly with information and communication technologies, there is something so powerful and personal about how they have impacted our lives and the ways that we interact. Part of the reason that I resisted getting a smartphone for several years was because I did not want to become too dependent on any device, but three years after getting my first smartphone, I feel "naked" or very conscious of its absence when I am not carrying it. As the movie Her beautifully depicted, nowadays it almost does not seem so farfetched for a man to fall in love with an operating system, which can be communicated with everywhere using phones, computers, etc.

Part of the reason mobile phones have become so integral to our everyday lives is because they enable us to communicate and share special occasions with friends and family, anywhere or anytime, which is truly incredible, but at what expense to living and experiencing the present moment? The social media explosion, facilitated by mobile phones, has impacted the way people experience experiences. We often think in the back of our minds of how great this photo will look on Facebook or of how we should "live tweet" this event, and we are encouraged to do so with hashtags galore. What should we share though, and what should we just keep to ourselves?

Going back to the theme of connection, as Brené Brown discusses so earnestly, it is something most people yearn for, and mobile phones have enabled us to do so with people around the world--and that is a good thing. But, there are times when we need to disconnect ourselves from the world around us, and center ourselves, reflect, and enjoy the present moment that we are living in with the people who are in front of us. Striking that balance between staying connected with the world and with ourselves is not easy, but I will say some good ground rules would be:

1. Do not keep your phone on the table at dinner or check it unless you are waiting for a friend who is late, and kindly ask that friend to try not to rely on a cell phone to tell you that he/she is going to be late! Especially if he/she is habitually late. Get a watch friend (and not a Pebble ;-)! 
2. Turn your phone on silent before you go to bed. 
3. Set boundaries for when people can contact you, unless it is an emergency. 
4. Put the phone down sometimes or leave it at home when it is a short excursion or you are not expecting anyone to contact you.

Aside: I was lucky enough to meet the author of Me and My Cellphone at a friend's bridal shower, which is now on my to read list!

Related articles:
Love me, Love My Cell Phone
Do Cell Phones Drain Your Happiness?
Cell Phone Attachment and Etiquette

Breaking writer's block

I've been told that a good way to break writer's block is to write something unrelated to what you actually need to write. I hope that is true... wait not quite. I think I will cheat and post up some photographs from my recent trip to Nairobi in hopes that they will inspire me to write.

Leaving Cape Town for Johannesburg early in the morning

A view of the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi

Outdoor fountain in front of the Kenyatta International Convention Centre

 

Models at the gala dinner on the last night of the IWA conference

Public toilet in CBD of Nairobi

Squat pan inside of bio-centre in Kibera (the one I used!)

Rooftops in Kibera

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Blixen house (author of Out of Africa)

How can it be May already?

I like many of my friends seem to be wondering where the year has gone to, can it really be almost halfway through the year already? What have I accomplished so far? What do I still need to do? As another month rolls by, I've started to take stock of what's happened already, and what I hope to complete during the rest of the year.

The past few months have been jam packed, but at the same time, I have a tendency to get anxious that I'm not quite as far along with my PhD as I'd like to be, or that the end of the year is nearly here and that I need to start planning for this that and the other thing. I, like many people who are slightly type-A, tend to try and control and manage time, and bend it to our will so that we can squeeze as much as possible into it. Something that I have learned to appreciate, while living in a place where the pace of life just naturally seems to be slower than what I am used to, is to really enjoy and appreciate not feeling compelled to fill every waking hour with activity. While sometimes I'll admit that can be detrimental to accomplishing everything on the "TO DO" list, ultimately it has allowed me to be more reflective, to pray more, to enjoy just being alive.

A quotation that I found very recently sums this up very nicely, "“Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You've got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it." -- Ray Bradbury, Farewell Summer

 

A new year

There's something about the new year that always signals the possibility for change and new beginnings, even if they are largely symbolic. 2013 is no different despite dire forecasts from political and financial analysts. Although I'm hesitant to make too many new year resolutions, there is at least one that I hope to uphold. I hope that this year I can more fully appreciate the time that I have with friends and family, however limited, and lament less about the time that we don't have together.

On a lighter note, Melissa mentioned something she's doing for the new year, which I think many would benefit from. Writing down at least one good thing that happens each day, and storing it in a jar over the course of the year so that at the end of the year she can recall and reflect on all of the good things (big or small) that happened. Since I don't have a jar ready yet, let me write these first positive notes from 2013 down here:

Jan 1: Hung out with Schoolies where we made homemade pasta (my first time!) and played Just Dance, making a fools of ourselves and having a blast.

Jan 2 My cousin Jenny, whom I have not seen face to face in over six years came to visit.

Fourth of July

Barbara Fritchie House, Frederick, Maryland

San Francisco, California

Grand Canyon , Arizona

Amarillo, Texas

Interstate in New Mexico

Smokey Mountains, North Carolina

Tennessee

Queens, New York

National Mall, Washington, D.C.

There's something about being an American in another country that makes one especially circumspect about what it means to be American, particularly when coming from an immigrant family. There's a struggle with the duality of being American, but also recognizing that there's another heritage and culture that you can lay claim to, and others may immediately associate you with.

I was thinking about the Declaration of Independence today, and the ideals that: 

 all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

and how those rights might be interpreted, and for whom those rights are guaranteed in our country today. I won't go through a list of the numerous issues, which many know that we are currently confronting ranging from climate change (which for some reason is still being debated as a reality) to healthcare reform to any host of other pressing matters. 

Instead I just wanted to present some of the multiple views of the United States that I've been blessed to visit and experience over the past few years from "sea to shining sea". When asked what it means to be American, I hope that we still believe in unalienable rights for all, but respect that there is no uniform experience to make one "more American" than the other.

Wishing peace and blessings to all my fellow Americans on this day, and those supporting and struggling to attain the rights to life, liberty and pursue happiness around the world. 

So on our cross-country road trip from California to New York with my sister, I decided to record the gas prices around the country. I was just curious to see how it varied by state from April 1st through April 10th, 2012. Not surprisingly, California and New York had some of the most expensive gas prices! Unfortunately, I lost my receipt for California so I didn't include it in the chart, but it was definitely well over $4.00 per gallon.

I definitely noticed a trend that the coastal regions were more expensive than the southwest and southeast. I lost the receipt from when we were in Texas, but surprisingly the day that we stopped in Amarillo, TX the gas prices were actually cheaper in New Mexico than they were in Texas.

More to follow on the road trip, but I wanted to share this before I lose all of the receipts.

First month of working

After a little over a month at my new job, things are finally starting to feel a little bit more familiar. The learning curve is still pretty steep, but little by little I can feel the progress. Some of the main differences I've noticed between working and studying: In a reverse of the usual, I'll start with CONS and then move to PROS:  

CONS

1. It's not okay to "miss class" i.e. just not show up to work one day
2. "Passing" is not enough, your mistakes have more serious consequences than you not getting a good grade
3. It can be a little monotonous 

PROS

1. GETTING PAID (I'm sorry if this sounds a little mercenary, but after 24 years as a student/intern/volunteer getting a real salary feels kind of good) (Aside: I promise to invest in community and worthwhile causes!) 
2. Being able to leave work at work (yes, there are exceptions to this particularly around deadlines, but it's nice to be able to go home and veg without the ever-looming homework assignment) 
3. Getting out of theory and into practice Yes, I have stacked the odds so that they are even, and I'm sure everyone has a different experience. Overall, despite any challenges or occasional bouts of boredom, after all the months of job-searching, I'm grateful to have found something that both pays the bills and is intellectually stimulating and rewarding. I wish everyone the best on their job search and career development, and happy holidays!

Digging through the closet

I don't know if anyone else has ever experienced this, but digging through my closet felt a bit like going through a time capsule. Previous versions of myself emerged. I almost forgot that I used to adore Sanrio, the book Chester's Way, and princess crowns. It was both cathartic and a little sad to part with some of these remnants of childhood, but I think it's important to periodically de-clutter your closet. Some bonus items that I found:

• a $20 from my high school graduation (SCORE)
• two goofy pictures featuring JAG and me making the "wow" "mom" faces
• a self-portrait from 9th grade art class

So I encourage you to go digging through your own closet to see what buried treasures you may find.

What a difference a year makes...

In re-reading some of my old posts I realize what a different place I was in not only physically but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I can hear the lyrics of "525,600 minutes" from Rent. It really is true that it's hard to know how you measure a year. Time can feel really fluid at times flowing so quickly that you hardly have time to register what's already happened let alone keep track of what's going on, and other times when it slides along slower than molasses.

As corny as it sounds, I've reached one of those crossroads about to make the transition from an unemployed student to joining the workforce or the "real world", although I never liked that term. Sometimes when I ask friends and family who have been working for many years what their day was like, it seems to always be "same as the day before" day in and day out, work is work. I accept that to a degree that each day takes on more structure and a similar pattern when you have an established routine, but I hope not to fall into the trap of monotony. That's one of my greatest fears of taking what seems like the tried and tested road to worldly success.

I'm writing this to remind myself not to forget what I should be working towards, which is not just my own personal gain but beneficial to the world at large, meaningful, and serving a Godly purpose. I really have no idea what I'll feel or be like in a year from now, but I look forward to this next phase of life, and hope the same for anyone else going through a major life transition.

Photographs from South Africa

South Africa (2011)

South Africa (2010)

A new blog

I'll still be writing in this blog occasionally, but I'm starting a more thematic blog on job-searching at this address: http://blackberrylemonade.tumblr.com/.

Tensions

Recently, I have felt pulled in so many different directions. I know the old adage that worrying never gets you anywhere, but it is difficult to resist falling into the trap. The recent New York Times article about "Twenty-somethings" and the cloud of confusion that they sit under hit a little too close to home in many ways.

It is a privilege, I know, to be able to have the luxury of options, but it certainly complicates the question of what to do post-graduation. I remember sitting in this position two years ago before graduating from Swarthmore and wondering where I would be the following year, and even four years before that wondering which college to go to. But the gravity of each major life decision increases with the passage of time.

In a sense there may be no clear, singular shining path that beats out all others but rather a right direction to move in, but the fear of making a wrong choice can be crippling at times. These days I struggle to answer the most basic of questions about where I am going to be next year, and what I will be doing. Every so often a glimmer of clarity will come through, but like a mirage or shifting moods those glimmers tend to pass quickly.

At the core of my struggle are both selfish and unselfish motives. On the one hand I want to be somewhere that satisfies my need for natural beauty, cultural richness, and diverse experiences, but on the other hand I want to make sure that my choice is not completely self-serving and ignores those whom I care about. And as my sister always reminds me, while I may not particularly like money, there is always a need for it so I cannot be completely liberated from "practical" considerations.

I feel simultaneously a desire to put down roots and a desire to wander, a desire to have a comfortable stable life or one filled with adventure and unpredictability. Ultimately, I am trying to trust God and walk in faith since He's never let me down before and never will, but a part of me wonders when these tensions will be resolved...

Note to my worrying self, wherever the answer lies, all I can do is live life each day purposefully, intentionally and faithfully. Those doors will open.

West Coast National Park- Floral heaven

Just a sample of the incredible spring flowers on display at West Coast National Park. Pictures do not do it justice.

My one year anniversary with Cape Town

Something I’ve realized since coming back to South Africa is that wherever you are, you develop relationships not only with people (the obvious relationship type) but also with places. By place I don’t mean just the physical things that you can see, but many of the unseen things like the institutions, the cultural practices and norms, and the general environment and the feelings that those evoke.

I can compare my relationship to South Africa very much to a bumpy romance. My first experience in Cape Town was a sense of bewilderment and awe as I stepped off the plane: bewilderment praying that our study abroad program coordinator would find me since I had no contact information or address for where I was supposed to be staying and awe for the spectacular mountains and coastline that I had just flown over. The mixture of feelings grew even more complex when I was briefly informed that the house I was staying in had been burgled the night before my arrival. Fortunately, none of my soon to be housemates were injured, but everyone was feeling unsettled. I had that classic pit of your stomach churning feeling, “Girl, what have you gotten yourself into?”

Indeed that question is still unanswered to date, but I am so grateful that God has somehow helped me coordinate or orchestrate my life into this place. The “infatuation” phase probably started after our first field trip to Cape Point and to see the penguins in Simon Town. I couldn’t stop “oohing” and “ahhing” at everything that I saw. Once we took our field trip to the Cederberg and watched the most amazing sunset I have ever seen to date whilst sitting in a quiver tree forest, that was it. South Africa officially had me.

Road trips across the country and daily explorations around Cape Town made me realise how little I knew about my newfound love. I was barely scratching the surface of its complexities between urban and rural, rich and poor, white and black, and all of the shades in between: the constant sing-song of the minibus drivers driving up and down Main Road, “Cape Town... Wyaanberg,” the ever present profile of Table Mountain demanding attention and admiration, as compared to the open blue skies and softer rolling green hills in the Eastern Cape, which quietly steal your heart. I was enamoured with all.

Leaving Cape Town that first time was completely heartbreaking. I was not ready to say goodbye. I felt as if I was being cruelly wrenched away, although I was leaving of my own volition. There was a small matter of graduating college to attend to.
Returning to my hometown and then subsequently to school made me realise how much I missed South Africa, but also reminded me of the other places I loved. That in fact, there were other relationships (with both people and places) that I had been neglecting. It was so easy to get caught up in the “newness” of my relationship with South Africa that I pined for it initially, even though there were other opportunities to grow relationships with the people and places immediately around me. I recognised it even as it was happening, but the momentum of missing something carried me along for several months.

In a way it was a good thing to have formed such powerful emotional bonds because otherwise I wouldn’t have had the courage to come back, but I have also had my eyes opened to how much I romanticised my study abroad experience. As most study abroad students probably will admit, study abroad is for the most part a glorified extended spring break. Of course there are academics, some programs are much more rigorous than others, but no one goes abroad to study in school. You are much more willing and able to be a student of life as cliché as it sounds, which is one of the main reasons I wish everyone had the opportunity to “study” abroad.

Returning to South Africa to complete a Master’s degree has afforded me the opportunity to live and study here under completely different pretenses, and that has been eye-opening to say the least. The more I learn, the more I realise I do not know or understand and have to be content with my own limitations. The rose coloured glasses have come off as I realise that “laid-back” Capetonian attitude is a veneer in some cases, and some of the vibrancy is fueled by unspoken urgency, and much is swept under the carpet (as with any city). And yet, and yet... I have fallen even more deeply in love with this place and have learned that to really love is to seek to understand and deepen beyond superficial impressions although it comes with a cost.

So when I am asked, “Do you plan to stay in South Africa after you graduate?”, all I can really say is I am still learning each day. I don’t have the answer yet, but we shall see. I’m trusting the Lord with all my heart, and know better than to lean on my own understanding.

Alternative Perspectives on the World Cup

Poor Peoples World Cup in Cape Town


Myths and Realities of the 2010 World Cup

WASH Sanitation World Cup

First week of World Cup 2010 in Cape Town

Some photographs and videoclips from the opening weekend of the World Cup in Cape Town.

Thursday (10 June, 2010)

A new year but not necessarily a new person all on your own

I think whether or not we make official new year's resolutions, deep down inside, we expect (or hope) a new year means that we can turn over a new leaf, start off with a clean slate, and any other number of proverbial new beginnings. However, oftentimes we find ourselves making the same mistakes as the previous year, and it feels like a failure. But rather than dwelling on the fact that we "failed," (who's keeping score other than ourselves anyway?) we need to dig deep and push ourselves to understand why. If in fact we are creatures of habit, how do we break those cycles? First of all by understanding that we are in fact in a cycle, and then looking for points of departure because there are some circumstances, obviously, that are far beyond our control.

While I believe that we are all responsible for the decisions we make in our lives, once we reach some semblance of adulthood, no matter how old we are, we can still ask for help to make meaningful changes in our lives. If in fact, we hold ourselves accountable to others and God might that make the difference? It's much easier on my conscience to let myself down than to let my sister, or my friends down so maybe it's not such a bad idea to go half-sies on change. Rather than thinking that we must suddenly become a better person all on our own, maybe it's better to share the burden of change with others we care about and recognize that we should do the same for them.

I'm not going to write down any specific new year's resolutions here, but I am going to be much more intentional in my decisions and actions and be more humble about asking for help when I need it, and maybe that's resolution enough. Happy New Year, welcome 2010 (a few weeks after the fact)!

Thanksgiving in the southern hemisphere

So it's not really Thanksgiving here officially, but you can always be thankful whether it's an official holiday or not. My housemates and I were keen to do a big Thanksgiving dinner, and then we whittled that down to a small summer Thanksgiving, and finally we decided today that we'll just throw our "Thanksgiving" dinner whenever it's convenient, which is not today.

I think I'm going to pass on the classic list of what I'm grateful for, but rest assured that it centers mainly on the wonderful amazing people in my life and the blessing of being a child of God :).

I'm just going to share a short life lesson that really hit home this week. I've been focusing a great deal on what I don't have and what I want rather than on what I do have and what I need. I think that our default is the former even though it should really be on the latter. It's time to change the default setting, and what better time to do that than Thanksgiving?

Globalisation, identities, and everyday experiences

Let me begin with two separate yet related anecdotes:

1. On Sunday, I went with several friends most of whom are Chinese/Taiwanese (yes a political statement in itself) South African to a Portuguese Tavern in Milnerton. If you are bewildered by the multiple nationalities mentioned, just accept that globalisation is alive and well. The tavern was pretty standard, a smoky bar, a soccer game playing on a big screen, evening karaoke, and of course drunken regulars. Why were we there? Well, it was a friend’s birthday, and there’s a two meals for the price of one (the more expensive one) special at this place, known as Guzzler’s.

We decided to sit outside to avoid some of the smoke and the crowd. The view wasn’t bad, although the large parking lot and multi-storey flats obscured some of the view. However, enough of Devil’s Peak and the sunset were visible to make it almost picturesque. This is going to sound extremely pretentious, but the entire place reeked of mediocrity, with nothing particularly unique or distinguishable, which left you with a sort of bleak numb feeling. However, we decided to stay since we had driven all the way out, and reorganising 10 people can be a mission.

We were sitting and chatting amongst ourselves when one clearly inebriated unkempt older South African man approached our table and proceeded to introduce himself. He also “welcomed us” to the country. How thoughtful of him and his drunken companions cheering him on. Throughout the dinner, various comments kept drifting over.
Oh you are all such a beautiful people. Such beautiful women.
Look, they’re eating potatoes! I thought they only ate rice.
Don’t worry. I told the waitress that if you have problems communicating with her, I’ll interpret.

REALLY? While none of them were blatantly offensive comments, it was more the presumptuousness and frequency of the comments that were offensive. It was as if the concept of Chinese-South Africans had eluded their understanding completely. Is it such a radical notion to think that a person can have ties to more than one place, regardless of what he or she looks like, that there is really no universal monolithic Chinese, South African, American, fill in the blank, experience? There are of course shared cultures, languages and understandings, but these can transcend and cross expected boundaries.

2. Being an eternal optimist, I will end on an encouraging note. I was scanning radio stations in Cape Town, and stumbled across 89.5 FM on a Tuesday evening. I have been sorely missing NPR and its blend of journalism, pop culture, music programming, and general thoughtful inquisitiveness. And what should I find, but a radio program so similar yet also uniquely South African in content and accent?

Several interviews with musicians exploring multicultural musical experiences resonated with my Sunday experience, but this time in a good way. One Nigerian artist who was interviewed described the Billie Holiday project that she was working on, and the challenge that she felt approaching American blues coming from a different blues background. In her mind, she felt that experiences of African Americans that shaped the creation of blues in the US had evolved in a much different manner than the African style blues that she was more familiar with in Nigeria. She felt that of course there are elements that are shared and commonalities that exist, but the two can and should be distinguished. In other words, there are blues and then there are blues, and the two can happily co-exist and mix and cross pollinate yet still maintain their uniqueness.

The second artist interviewed grew up in Nigeria for the first 16 years of his life, and then moved to Germany. Since one parent is Nigerian and the other is German, he grew up with access to both places and cultures, and his music reflects this hybrid experience. He didn’t express feeling pressure to choose his favourite or to be just one or the other, and the resulting music is something soulful and new yet still familiar.

I guess this is a plea asking for an end to boxes. Yes, they might be neat and discrete, and make data collection,form filling and explanations much simpler. But, they ask us to deny parts of ourselves with detrimental effect. This applies to far more than race. None of us is any one thing. We may in fact be a compilation of seeming contradictions and jumbled ideas. We should stop ourselves and others from narrow definitions and prejudiced assumptions for the sake of comfortableness. I am not calling for an end to distinctiveness or a “pan” approach to all things, but rather for an acceptance and appreciation of the multiple and complex layers that make us who we are.