Category Archives: Ramblings

Any analyses, rants, observations, and basic ramblings on a variety of topics.

09/30/11

Learning to fly.

There is a day where every parent comes face to face with the hard reality that they have to let their child fly free into the real world. But I don’t think Africa was where my mother had in mind for me. At least not for the long term.

When I first told my mom that I wanted to go abroad for a year, she was completely supportive. When I told her I wanted to go to a school in Norway with a 2-month field course in Tanzania, she was still very supportive, even though she wasn’t as comfortable with the field-course portion. So recently, when I found out more information concerning field research during my exchange, naturally, I told my mom about it. She didn’t take it too well. Or to put it another way, she took it as well as she could.

The notion of me completing my own field research in a possibly unstable country, with no real institutional structure and being pretty much on my own, well, scared her. It’s understandable – I mean, I was in the same position as her when it dawned on me that I would have to completely step out of my safe, comfortable bubble to reside in a place that may be quite risky. It took me time to get to the point where I was set on taking such risks. I knew that my mom had not really realized what field of work I was actually wanting to go into when I applied to the GRS program even. But I rolled with it. I wanted to find out for myself if this path was the one I wanted to be on – to find my resolve in residing in a developing country, if only for a time. Once I found that resolve, I knew I could look right at my mother’s face and tell her that this was what I wanted.

Because, in the end, there’s nothing my family can do or say that can stop me from my own life choices. I know that, and my mom knows that. But I know that if I had even the faintest doubt in my mind about this path, my mom would try to coax me out of it. Not because she doesn’t respect my decisions but because she, as a mother, wants me to live in my comfortable bubble of a life for as long as possible. No parent wants their child to be in a risky environment, right?

I want my mom to understand my resolve. I want her to understand that I want to step out of my bubble – to see the world for what it is – good and bad. I want to face challenges, find myself in uncomfortable situations, and fall down over and over again, because that’s the only way I will grow as a person. That is the only way to expand my world: to learn – to experience – and truly give back. I have been born into this seat of privilege and I don’t want to take it for granted. I don’t want to be naive. I want to live my life fighting myself out of a life of apathy and ignorance.

For these experiences, I’m willing to put myself into risky environments. To make sacrifices. To find out, truly, if I am a person that can work in the field of Global Health and Development on the ground – not behind a desk. I need to know. That is why I’m going. Some part of my mom knew that when she walked out of my room today. She wasn’t happy – but she hadn’t tried to persuade me out of my decision.

We all have to fly away from the nest some day.

04/12/11

What Will Await Me?

"Six Months in Sudan" by Dr. James Maskalyk

The image I have below is the cover of a book titled “Six Months in Sudan” by Dr. James Maskalyk, a Canadian doctor that worked in the field through MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières – Doctors Without Borders) in 2007. I first heard of this book through a seminar held by UBC’s STAND about a week ago, and have been looking for a place to either borrow it from or buy it for my own. Luckily, I found it in the bookshelves of my local public library back in Coquitlam.

“Six Months in Sudan” recounts the day-to-day events experienced by Dr. James Maskalyk in the war-torn village of Abyei, Sudan as he acted as the designated attending physician in the village. Even his experience as a doctor in Canadian hospital emergency wards could not have prepared him for the crisis that awaited him in Abyei. This is a story about foreign aid and the struggles experienced by one man as he observed the situation in Sudan from a neutral standpoint – a témoignage.

Although I’ve only just started reading this book, I already have a couple of deep thoughts about it. Maskalyk starts his story at the ‘end’ of his journey – a month after he had returned from Sudan. He recounts the distance he feels from his family and friends as he reminisces back to his time back in the field. He then rewinds to the beginning of his journey, when he was working through the logistics of his departure. Maskalyk’s reasoning for heading to Sudan really stuck with me as I flipped through the pages of his book:

“I wanted to see who I was when everything was taken from me, when there was no insulation between me and the rest of the world.”

This made me think about what kind of human being I would be when everything that I had was taken from me. I mean, how much does what I possess define who I am? How would I act if I lived in a war-torn country, if I had barely anything to eat, if I had nearly nothing at all? Would I still be the person that I am here in a country like Canada?

I’ll have similar thoughts racing through my head until I finish this book. Reading about Dr. Maskalyk’s experiences in foreign aid makes me question the reasons in which I’m going into Global Health for and if I’m really just being idealistic about the world in which I live in. There’s so many places I have yet to see, so many people that I have yet to meet. I’m so insulated in this comfortable bubble called my life that I feel very ignorant about what’s going on around the rest of the world. I want to know more. I want to see more and experience it. But I’m also terrified of what awaits me out there. I fear that I won’t be able to handle the horrors calmly enough to work towards what is beautiful.

But I can’t stand being so ignorant about everything either.

04/5/11

My lens on the world and humanity.

The world is so vast and diverse; it constantly changes before my eyes as the lens in which I view ‘the world’ broadens with everything I learn and experience. The world is beautiful – full of extraordinary places that I dream of visiting someday. It is also cruel, but only because as humans we make it so. I distinguish the natural world and the constructed world we call civilization, communities, and society separately. It’s amazing how we often take more value in our built environments even though everything we use comes directly from resources of the natural environment. I think that’s a mentality that needs to change. If you really think about it, laws, facts (although well supported), religion, social expectations…they are all human inventions based on what we as humans have constructed as ‘logic’. It doesn’t necessarily mean that this human sense of ‘logic’ is always right – it merely is the one sensical thing that we base much of what we know on. Knowing that what we see to be ‘proper’ or ‘right’ is merely one lens in viewing the world, I think it’s crucial to understand that lens change and so do mentalities. Nothing is static in this world of ours, natural or constructed.

We are terribly flawed. I like to think of three human traits when I think of humanity (not all necessarily bad).

Humans are selfish. I believe that there is no such thing as a selfless act, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We are all selfish and no matter the choice or action, there is always a tiny part of us that is driven by that selfishness. whether it’d be the good feeling one gets in helping others or sacrificing oneself to save a loved one, there is a selfish portion of ourselves that wants something to be a certain way.

Humans strive for ‘happiness’. I don’t know if there’s a person out there who doesn’t want to be happy, no matter what kind of happiness they wish for. More often than not, what a person defines as their own ‘happiness’ (ie. money and fame as general examples) means putting down the happiness of others around them. This pursuit of happiness links to our natural selfish desire to put ourselves first a lot of the time as well.

Humans are often full of themselves. Many of us are hypocrites by saying we’re not. The ‘meaning of life’, ‘destiny’, taking all of the resources we want and putting our constructed environments before the rest of the natural world – I see all of these as points of arrogance for humanity. Who decided to proclaim that humans are better than any other living organism on the planet? Our intelligence? Again, what makes our line of logic ‘right’? It’s just another way we make sense of the world. Everyone at one time or another yearns to know ‘why they are here’, as if there is some sort of logical reason for life and our very existence. Is it wrong of me to think that this kind of logic is arrogant?  I just see it as trying to narrow the world into our narrow lens of ‘logic’. Is it so incomprehensible to believe that we aren’t special – that we weren’t put on this planet for a purpose? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with believing that sort of thing – even I wonder about it sometimes. It’s only human to try to make sense of things in the only way we know how. But I just see it as us being full of ourselves by believing we can make sense of everything there is to know and believing that to be ‘right’. I will state that the qualities of intelligence and curiosity in humans has been beneficial to our kind immensely. It’s how we’ve come this far in our entire history. I just don’t like the hierarchal idea that humans are the highest life forms in the world and that everything else on the planet is free for us to label and use.

In the end, it isn’t our job to put tailor the world to our liking. Rather, we have to imagine and create ingenious ways to shaping ourselves to the world in which we live in a sustainable manner.

04/3/11

An apathetic society.

One of things I absolutely cannot stand is the state of apathy in our society. ‘I don’t care’, ‘It’s not my problem’, ‘Deal with it’, ‘I can’t do anything about it’ – phrases such as these only feed this indifferent mentality that we shouldn’t work to change the inequities of our society. Especially in the western world, the notion of independence – of ‘every man for himself’ – supports the excuse that society as a collective has no business dealing with the troubles of the individual. Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but hard work alone cannot move someone up the socio-economic ladder if the necessary resources aren’t there to support that someone in the first place. The commonplace ‘Rags-to-Riches’ fairy tale is often told but rarely seen. The truth of the matter is, there are people in need of help in the developed world as well as the developing world. Some can’t survive without some support. Indifference is just an excuse to turn a blind eye towards them.

11/26/10

I was made to help others.

The epiphany I had last July about what I wanted (and needed) to do with my life.

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I am a lifeguard. Nine times out of ten, I walk home from work with a smile on my face and a sense of fulfillment coursing through me. I can honestly say that I love my job. I love the people I work with, the facility I help manage, and the pay check I get twice a month. More than anything though, I love to be of service to others and take pride in holding the responsibility for the health and safety of every patron in the pool.  Yes, it involves mostly standing around staring down strangers with a bored gaze. Yes, I have to yell at the odd kid or two again and again. But these minor details don’t sway me as I guard on deck. I think to myself, “Because I’m here, these people can laugh and swim in this pool because they don’t have to worry about hurting themselves. They’re counting on me to keep them safe.”  And then I smile. Responsibility had always looked so good on me.

I explored my addiction for praise in a past essay, concluding that I would live for myself. This still holds true. I find appreciating myself becoming easier with each passing day. But after walking home from work one day, I realized that my natural desire to help others and my love for praise shouldn’t be completely shunned out of my life. Rather, I should utilize this desire to my advantage and work towards a life where I helped others realize their potential as I had my own. The identity crisis of my past teenage years is now behind me and I have emerged from the darkness standing taller than ever. Even if I found myself in a rut again, I would be alright – I know how to deal with my problems now. Having come to terms with myself, for a long time I had wondered, ‘Why shouldn’t everyone be as happy as I am? Why should I keep all of this good fortune to myself?’ So now, it is my turn to answer these questions by lending a helping hand to others.

Like a wise poet once said: “As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.” I have decided that I will take these words to heart – I will live for the growing dream of helping as many people as I can. I’ll study for health of great populations and the rights of those less fortunate than I to have them granted every human right that they so rightly deserve. So that one day, they too can smile believing they’ve made a difference in this large world.

I’ve found a goal – a dream to work for. And I know in my heart that I’m on the right path.

11/26/10

My Drug.

One of my great hobbies is to write out personal essays. Another is to write fiction. I wrote the following essay a couple of months ago by combining the two. It’s very much a dramatized version of what I have gone through as a teenager but completely the truth.

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I love praise.

I’m intoxicated with it.

It’s the top reason why I worked so hard through school. From a very early age I grew addicted to that warm fuzzy feeling that I felt when receiving an affectionate pat on the head or an appreciative smile. A compliment was a high I lived for; all the more a thirst that became more difficult to quench as I grew older.

I had always done well in school, driven by my longing for praise. But I strived for more than that: I had to be praised for anything and everything that I did, academic or not, lest I go into withdrawal. Thus, I began unknowingly to live for others, casting aside any thoughts and opinions that may clash with their own. I became a people-pleaser, selling myself for the love of others.

I thought nothing of my mentality: I was always the good girl, I hardly got into trouble – what harm was I doing anyone? There was nothing wrong with being hooked on praise. It merely made me into a better person.

I was in denial. It wasn’t until far into my adolescence that I truly felt the side effects of my addiction.

Mood swings. Bouts of depression. One absent-minded statement by someone could send my head reeling for the rest of the day, trying to figure out why and what I did to make them say such a thing. I closed myself off from everyone else, keeping up a facade of a smile in order to maintain my lifestyle, bottling up any conflicting feelings inside. I became overly self-conscious, obsessed with what people thought of me – afraid of what they could say. Overt jealousy took over me for those I admired, leaving me wondering in vain why I could not be like them. I was, in short, a mess. But I kept to myself, unwilling to cry for help to even my loved ones lest they thought less of me. I would often cry myself to sleep.

No one held a confrontation for me. It was I who saved myself when I looked in the mirror one morning and realized what I had become. I realized in horror that by feeding my addiction I had lost sight of myself. I didn’t know who I was and I feared who I would become if this went on. I broke down.

I finally took up the courage and called up a friend, pleading for her help. I was in mental rehab for many months.

It’s been over a year since my severe breakdown. I won’t lie, I have had times where I’ve cried for hours since then, but I always stand up stronger than I was before. I’m getting better.

Praise is not something I can avoid for the rest of my life. But I’ve learned that my own thoughts, concerns, and beliefs are more valuable than the opinions of others. I’m slowly teaching myself to put myself first in every aspect of my life and to embrace who I am – who I’m building myself to be.

But it’s difficult to throw away a lifestyle I’ve lived with for nearly eighteen years. I find that the consequences of my past addiction often creep back through me and I start to worry like I used to. I question the thoughts of my dearest friends and become disgusted with myself for even thinking such things. The old me believes that they’d think me an inconsiderate friend while the present me knows such petty matters wouldn’t make a dent in our friendship.

I just need to remember: I do not need to be perfect. I do not need to comply to everyone’s wishes and needs. I do not need praise to survive.

I will live for myself.