With my departure date coming close, my excitement level for my new job and new life is rising exponentially. Before I get too excited, I should write down some goals for the next year or two to keep myself focused. It’s also an interesting way to keep track of how I’ve changed when I look back in the future. I’ll start with the big goals and move down to the more specific ones. I’ll keep it simple so I wouldn’t overload myself.

Overall goals in life: to help change the structures that (re)produce inequality. To serve those who are relatively powerless in the current socio-political-economic system. To continue to learn from unexpected, non-traditional teachers; to immerse in different world views.

Goals for the next two years: learn, work hard, gain connections, be inspired, get scholarships to go back to a good school for an interesting degree that furthers my professional and personal goals.

Specific concrete actions (subject to change when better ideas come up):

1. Learn Kiswahili well: only way to actually immerse myself in different aspects and perspectives of Tanzanian culture. Seems like it would also be helpful in getting funding for studies.

2. Volunteer: find a good place to volunteer at the most grassroots level with lots of opportunities for conversation. Helps me 1) understand those who we are trying to engage in our work and 2) see a different side of Dar. I’m thinking of the after school homework place for children a friend and I randomly bumped into in the nearby unplanned settlement. I keep thinking back that I should have taken up their offer to just come and play with the children in English. My intuition so far has yet to fail me.

3. Be outgoing: make friends, network, and find opportunities. Self-explanatory. Ultimately, I really want to find a good supervisor for grad school work. And connections for future work, of course. I know this is 可遇不可求 (how am I supposed to translate this? – you can only hope to meet, but can’t plan for?), but I can try my best, no?

4. Stay healthy: somehow incorporate a daily run/swim into my routine.

5. Read, reflect, and write: I need a more systematic way of keeping track of books and articles I read and what I learn from them. Blogging is always an option, but somehow it’s not working very well. I need something that combines blogging, fb, tumblr, scoop it etc that works for me. I really need to do this better.

6. Putonghua/Mandarin: somehow I’m going to have to keep my Chinese levels up. I’m thinking a weekly short self-assigned essay. Just that thought makes me scared a little. Maybe reading a short piece of news/op-ed and writing a 400 word reflection? Just like in high school. I could always switch it up with a Japanese essay once in a while (also makes me scared).

7. Burn out and learn how to recover, quickly. Because I will burn out. A lot.

I’m returning to Tanzania!

To work with a really innovative (mm, even that over-used term doesn’t encompass the feeling. Cool, is probably the word) organization. Really lucky. Even though the position isn’t glamourous, with lots of backstage, nitty-gritty work, I can learn so much.

Currently I’m reading everything I can get my hands on about the projects I’ll be involved with. Getting more and excited.

More once I arrive and actually start work.

A thought-provoking article:

What if I told you that the way to change the world was not to be bold, resolute, brilliant, or even compassionate? What if I told you that the way to change the world was to be sad?

It sounds so improbable. When we think of those who have taught us the most about meaningful change, we think of people who are very, very brave, say, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama. Unwavering. Deep. Devoted to others and willing to die for what they believe, quite literally.

How do you get to be such a person?

Well, I have no idea, but I would put money on the idea that the ground, path, and fruition of their lives is sadness.

When you look out at this world, what you see will make you very, very sad. This is good. You are seeing clearly. Genuine sadness gives rise, spontaneously, naturally, completely, to the wish—no, the longing—to be of benefit to others. When your wish to help is rooted in love (i.e. sadness), it is effective. There is no question.

But because it is so uncomfortable, we immediately want to turn sadness into what we imagine will hurt less: anger, hopelessness, helplessness. When the wish to help is rooted in anger, it will only create more confusion. And of course, when we feel hopeless or helpless, we take refuge in non-action, which also creates confusion.

Meditation teaches you to relax with the discomfort of sadness and stay with it, not turn it into something else. At this point, you can lay claim to your brand of helpful activity (whether it takes the form of activism, leadership, charitable work, making art, prayer, and/or simple, basic kindness to all).

Despair is what happens when you fight sadness. Compassion is what happens when you don’t. It will not feel “good,” it will feel alive and this aliveness is the path to bliss.* So the key, and this is a big one, is to learn to stabilize your heart in the open state. The practice of meditation is this stabilization. It is so much more than a self-improvement technique, as I’ve said 100 zillion times. It is a path to peace. It is a path to love, not the sappy-silly kind, but the real deal.

You have a soft spot. Contrary to popular belief, it is not where you are weak, it is the gateway to indestructible power…

Please read the rest at: http://www.mindful.org/in-love-and-relationships/working-with-emotions/the-importance-of-sadness

I’ve written before how shocked I was the first time I arrived in a, for the lack of a better word, developing country. A career crisis. Or maybe even a life-goal crisis, if you would allow me to exaggerate a bit. Shock. Then came the sadness. Then guilt. And helplessness.

Just like the article said.

Now I know that I cannot try to change that sadness, for it is truly what I feel. Perhaps should feel.

“Despair is what happens when you fight sadness. Compassion is what happens when you don’t.”

There is no need for prolonged despair, for it never changes anything. But there is a need for compassion, and if you ask me, anger. Not the kind of anger that lashes out, but the kind of anger where you embrace it and control it so it burns brightly, just enough, to fuel you, to fuel your work.

There is destructive and non-useful anger. Then there is useful anger. Where you’re driven but see clearly. Where you don’t need to rationalize intuition but speak convincingly.

I don’t look forward to the day when I become numb, and ‘realistic.’ Thankfully, there are plenty of those who were born before me (先生 – literally: born before (me), common usage: teacher; in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), who never lost that fire.

Here’s a short and sweet one I keep telling myself over the last few years:

“If the world were to end tomorrow, I would want to say ‘at least I did my best,’ not ‘I wish I’d tried harder.”

***

I have a habit of reading most of the notices on the walls at UBC. I’m one of those strange students that stand in front of notice boards for 5 minutes at a time reading every poster or announcement or newspaper clipping. One time, on the door of a professor’s office in my faculty, I read a story. Here’s the version from my memory:

A huge fire started in the forest. All the animals were afraid. It was so big that it seemed like the whole forest would be engulfed in its flames sooner or later. Nobody knew what to do.

While everyone was staring at the flames helplessly, overwhelmed by their helplessness, a tiny bird flew back from the far away lake with a beak full of water. The tiny bird deposited the tiny stream of water onto the flames. The flames flickered, only to burn even more brightly. The tiny bird flew back in the direction of the lake. She returned with yet another beak-full of water, heading towards the fire. After half a day of this back and forth, the flames seemed to reach even higher into the sky.

A wave of discussion swept through all the other animals. How stupid! How noble! How useless! How amazing!

Unable to contain their curiosity, giraffe finally stretched his neck and asked tiny bird, “What are you doing?”

“Putting out the fire, of course,” replied tiny bird matter-of-factly.

“But, is there any use?” inquired a perplexed giraffe.

“I don’t know, but at least I’m trying the only way I can,” tiny bird offered.

***

The story ends, with nobody knowing the ending.

I was profiled on Sustainable Cities International’s website as one of their youth interns, as part of their United Nations International Youth Day celebrations. Thank you SCI!

In October 2011, I was one of the primary speakers at a conference – Food for All: A Conference on Poverty and Global Food Security – at UBC.

It was an amazing day filled with energy and inspiring people making a difference for our food security. I shared my experiences working as an urban agriculture project officer in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania with Sustainable Cities International.

The conference organizers promised to have videos of our talks out soon. I will post an update once it is out.

Thank you to everyone who came to the conference and the wonderful organizers who made it possible!

I was featured in my faculty‘s annual report last year!