Where were you?

I was in my bedroom, in Bangkok, on the phone to America. How about you? I know you know what I am talking about. It's all anybody has been talking about in this hemisphere for the past week: Where were you on 9/11?

It's been hard to escape the coverage of the 10th anniversary of this momentous event. At the time people said, “Everything will change, nothing will be the same.” In some respects that is true and in others it is blatantly obvious that for those of us living in the West things have not changed much other than removing our shoes at the airport and carrying an up-to-date passport when traveling between Canada and the United States.

There have been changes but just not the ones we typically think about. 9/11 has changed lives- ask people in Afghanistan and Iraq how it has changed their lives- surely they have been inconvenienced by more than just long lines at the airport.

When I first started to think about the question: How did 9/11 affect me personally?-I thought, “Not much.” I was living half a world away and did not experience the trauma of watching the towers collapse repeatedly on television news casts as many people in North America did. Note: another good reason not to own a TV. I may not have shared in the collective trauma, I knew no one who died in the attack either directly or indirectly, but the repercussions of the heightened fear of terrorism did affect me.

Ten years ago I was working in a DNA research lab at Mahidol medical school on the Ton Buri side of the Chao Praya River in Bangkok. I was at the lab learning how to run DNA sequences for a research project I had proposed to the authors of a book on Thai prehistoric archaeology. I had gone to the authors with a proposal to study the mitochodrial DNA of early skeltal remains and compare them with modern Thais to once and for all put an end to the discussion about the origin of the Thai people. Thais are an amalgalm of many peoples that have moved through the landscape over the centuries but I believed that they would be able to trace their genes back to the earliest known settlers through this mtDNA project.

At that point in my research, on that fateful day in September, I was just about to go to a research lab in Jakarta where I would learn how to do mtDNA extraction. It was the only lab in South East Asia at the time that was doing mtDNA extraction and they had agreed with my Mahidol backers to teach me the methodology to bring back to Thailand.

After 9/11 I was leery of going to a predominately Muslim state known to be a fostering ground for some terrorist groups. I stayed home, safe in Bangkok and redirected my studies to less dangerous field work destinations in the North East and Northern provinces of Thailand.

Staying in Bangkok meant I met the man who would become the father of my children and led to involvement in a writers group which brought about my career as a freelance journalist. So all in all- 9/11 changed my life. I wonder how many of us can look back on that event 10 years ago and describe such a line of decision making that affected our current state of being so dramatically.

There is so much more that could be said about this anniversary but I am emotionally overwhelmed by the full on coverage of it. I don't want to listen to 911 calls from the towers. I don't want to hear air traffic control. I don't want to prick my ears with the heart wrenching voicemail messages left by loved ones who leapt to their deaths from the towers. It was overwhelming 10 years ago and half a world away and is no less traumatic 10 years later.

My only hope is that the wars are at an end and fledgling democracies in the Middle East have developed roots and leaves by the time the 20th anniversary of 9/11 roles around.

38 and counting

When I was born they counted my days on this earth succinctly because they feared I would have too few. Now, I am counting my time here by years and I never forget the work, medical expertise and luck that got me this far.

This year I spent my birthday working at a job I never would have dreamed I would possess, going out for supper with my children who I never believed would fulfill their ovarian encased potential, and visiting with my father, a relationship that I never thought could be this strong.

Summer is a busy time for me and the end of summer never more so. But I did find time to think..a little.

Mostly what I thought about was how I had all the things I really wished for in life. My children, my family and a job or two that might be considered a career. I also have my passion, which sometimes is stymied by work, fatigue and plain old writers block but nonetheless exists as a definable thing which I can sit down and do on any given day.

To know your passion is a unique gift. Some people don't have one. There is no overarching desire to do just one thing and enjoy the process.

I have friends, mothers mostly, who I look at and wonder where will their fulfillment come from when their chicks have flown the coop. I know people who may fill their golden years with TV reruns of great old shows they loved watching when they were in the prime of their lives. What does one do in life, as a empty-nester or a retiree if you don't have a passion?

Many people pursue passions that I can not understand. Today I read about a lady who has a collection of over 800 salt and pepper shakers. I am sure it qualifies as a passion but it's one that doesn't translate in my reality.

My passion is of course writing. There never seems to be enough time to write and when time shows up, as it has today, there seems to be no inspiration.

My free time has suddenly vanished and I must return to work but at least I have another year- just me and my passion. The gift of time to pursue one's passion is among the most valuable.

If Good men do nothing, evil will prevail

There is something going on in Africa. There's drought, starvation, war; these are the things that make it into the 24 hour news cycle. The things I am talking about aren't puncturing the psyche of the mainstream media. Therefore you probably don't know what I am talking about. I am talking about racism. Racism against white Africans.

Surely, you think to yourself, she's made a typo. There aren't any white Africans. Africans; ethnic Africans who can trace their line into time immemorial, are black. But what is a person to call themselves if they were born in Africa, their parents and grandparents were born in Africa and their skin is white?

In the documentary, Mugabe and the White African, the conflict between black and white under the regime of the dictator Mugabe is shown in stark images of beaten farm workers and farmers; victims of the Mugabe land reform policy.

Mike Campbell and his family, including son-in-law Ben Freeth, have taken on a dictator in the international court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The ruthlessness of this dictatorship knows no bounds and it is amazing that such a man as Mugabe is allowed to continue his reign of terror over a once abundant country. These people, basically anyone who is not a supporter of ZanuPF, are in danger every day that they continue to live under the regime. To stand up against a man who is willing to equate himself with Hitler and seeks to top his genocidal performance is a kind of bravery that should not be overlooked yet it has been in the mainstream press (although there was a lot of reporting on Mike Campbell's death).

This Hitler has only one objective, justice for his own people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people, and their right to their resources,.....If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold" Mugabe, Dec 2003.

Unfortunately, Mike Campbell died earlier this year due to complications from the beating he received at the hands of Mugabe thugs in 2008. His death does not cede victory to Mugabe. Ben Freeth and many other Zimbabweans continue to work against the regime. As Freeth said in the documentary, “If good men do nothing, evil will prevail.” It is hard to imagine that given such dire circumstances and certainty of retribution for anti-government actions that anyone could live up to such a high ideal but Freeth and the Campbells have been fighting the regime for years and show no signs of stopping now.


To find out more about the struggle in Zimbabwe go to Zimbabwe Democracy Now

Weight Issue

I have a weight issue. My issue is that people feel that my weight is a topic for discussion. It's not. If I should happen to bring it up, which is highly unlikely, then it might be something you could comment on. But I won't so don't.

I don't talk about my weight but it seems that other people feel the need to talk about it whenever the mood strikes them. And most often their assessment of my weight is completely at odds with reality.

This little rant has been developing in my brain since yesterday when a good intentioned friend suggested that I had gained weight recently. In fact, I have lost weight recently.

My weight is not something I obsess about but it seems that others are more than willing to obsess about it for me. This winter my weight noticeably shot up over a few short weeks- something I discussed with my doctor. Note to weighty commentators- my weight, other people's weight, your own weight should only be part of a conversation you have with your doctor unless of course your an athlete performing in a weight category. But that goes without saying- doesn't it?

So my friend mistakenly told me that it looked like I had gained weight and was looking healthier these days. Not only do my skinny pants fit but I feel like hell- completely fatigued. And in point of fact I don't know anyone, no matter their size that actually wants to hear, 'Hey, it looks like you have gained weight.' Even the skinniest people I know balk at the thought of a few extra pounds. Who is supposed to receive this comment in a positive manner?

In my late teens and twenties it was always my grandfather that kept a running commentary on my weight. On one visit home he'd say I had gained weight, the next he'd say I looked too thin. The funny thing is I wore the same pair of jeans for 15 years, he usually saw me in those jeans and I can't imagine how he could have seen any slight fluctuations that may have occurred over the years.

When I went to Asia I looked forward to being tall; that didn't happen. Instead one of the first adjectives used to describe me by a Thai seamstress was big. At the time I was working out in the gym three hours a day, had just completed a certificate as a personal trainer and was in the best physical shape of my life- how could I possibly be big? There are some very thin people in Thailand but there are some big ones too- all in all it was another unwanted commentary on my weight.

Last week one of my students from last years' course came into my office for a little chat; he was back on campus and bored with no classes to attend. He told me that his year went well; he studied hard, got an 85 average, and spent three hours a night at the gym. “I lost a lot of weight,” he said. I hadn't noticed and even if I had I wouldn't have said anything.

I rarely notice people's weight and wish others would be as blind to this feature as I am. If they were perhaps our society would be less neurotic about food, our bodies and what we look like.

Sidebar: I don't notice height either. I used to think my ex-boyfriend was just a little bit taller than me; in fact he's a whole foot taller. I'd be a horrible police witness.

What I do notice is my own weight- when clothes fit or don't- that is all you need to know to get dressed in the morning and meet the world in all its weighty forms.

Note: the picture used on this post is part of Leonard Nimoy's Full Body Project

20 years

It's been 20 years since I graduated from High School. This year two of my nieces and my next door neighbor are graduating. I have been getting caught up in the excitement of their graduation and their university plans. Last night was prom night and all day as I watched the hustle and bustle I was in a bad place in my head.

I had the kids in child care for the day and was supposedly working on stories for the paper but nobody got back to me and I just indulged my ennui.

I watched movies, ate ice cream and felt a pressure in my head that I could not release. I ran on the treadmill and cried; that made me feel a little better. I just couldn't get rid of the badness or figure out why I was feeling that way.

This morning, after reading over the reports on prom on Facebook and looking at everyone's comments about their own prom, I took the dog out for his second walk of the morning. Luckily the kids were still asleep and I had some time to think in the clear but uncommonly cool air of this early summer morning. Half way down the dirt road it hit me; 20 years ago during my graduation, I was miserable. It was the most horrible time in my entire life. No wonder I was feeling so pent up, angry and frustrated. That is just the way I felt 20 years ago.

Most people have happy memories of their High School graduation. That is the way it should be. For others, like me, that time was terribly tumultuous. Looking at the girls in their gowns I wonder at the stress they have been going through these past weeks. Exams, finding a dress, finding a date, etc. What if you have been unsuccessful at these things. It is a lot of stress and pressure to put on people just as they are preparing to leave the nest.

These however were not the factors that were making my life miserable 20 years ago. In March of my graduating year my mother and sister, jointly, kicked me out of the house and sent me away from my school, one of the few that I had actually been in for any length of time. I had actually spent all of my High School years there, and they sent me packing back to my home town in Nova Scotia from Edmonton, Alberta.

Although I had gone to school with the kids in Guysbrough when I was in elementary there was no making up for those lost teen years. I wasn't part of the group. Some kids tried hard to include me; I was thankful to them. I didn't blame the ones who didn't. I was mad at the adults; the ones who had put me in an impossible situation and the ones who seemed to think that I should be fine with it all or on the opposite scale; those that told me that I should not expect to graduate at all that year.

When graduation day came I wanted no part of it. I felt forced to attend by my father and grandmother. Despite threats from school officials that I would have to do another year of High School, because my course credits didn't travel well between Alberta and Nova Scotia, I graduated 6th in my class. Which ticked me off even more. The top five got read out at the graduation ceremony but I just didn't make it. I felt deliberately snubbed. They didn't take my highest grade credits because they just didn't have those subjects in the Nova Scotia curriculum.

At that point I hated the school, hated my home town, hated just about everything.

I was so relieved to start out fresh, just like everyone else, when I went to university in the fall at St. Mary's in Halifax. I loved St. Mary's. It was a comforting place for me.

From St. Mary's I went to Dalhousie although I left in my second year there and headed to Thailand where I went to yet another university and did my MA.

Those bad days seem far away most of the time. I love living here in Guysborough with my kids. I feel it is the best place for them at this time.

I have to say that I am happy the old High School was torn down. I have nothing but bad memories of that place. Now my daughter goes to the school where I went to elementary. And life was good then as it is now.

In those 20 years a lot has happened in my life. Not in my wildest dreams, when I was standing on the stage accepting my high school diploma, would I have thought I would be living here doing a job I love and raising my kids. It's been a long journey and I wouldn't wish the beginning on anyone but it all seems to have worked out.

But clearly, I still have issues.

Vagina monologues

I just read the Vagina Monologues and it certainly has got me thinking. Most of what I am thinking I am not sure if I really should post on my blog but as I doubt I'll ever run for public office here it goes.

The vagina is something that I face on a daily basis-literally. I have two daughters which means I usually see it in the morning when they get up, often during story time when curious little hands roam downward to play, and during the night when covers have been thrown or kicked off and nightdresses have rolled up. (as I write this I am worried about who is going to read it, should this be public?)

As a parent I have the typical reaction to this; cover it up and get your hands out of it-NOW. What does this reaction really mean? In the living room , around the house, I want their business, that's what we call it- as in this is my business and you can't bother my business unless I say so-covered, shielded from whatever eyes might glance in the window. I'm a mother. I worry about the usual things-molestation, sexual abuse, rape. I also worry about yeast infections, bladder infections and whatever other possible medical conditions they could contract by messing about with their business.

Another side of me, watches them and feels that I should not be making feel ashamed of their bodies. I shouldn't make them feel that they are dirty, that it is wrong to touch yourself and feel good in your own body. But this road to orgasm should be explored in private not on the living room floor.

When I think about these things I remember what a friend of mine once told me; by the time she was age 8 she masturbated. Her mother and aunties knew what she was doing in the privacy of her own room and they never stopped her or told her it was a bad thing. She learned something at 8 that I wouldn't learn until my mid-20's. I really wish I had had her mother.

These days we think we are being progressive about adolescent sexuality if we give our daughters the birth control pill. Girls, like boys, have an overwhelming sexual drive and energy that needs to find an outlet. It often finds one in a not so great teenaged relationships. It is my idea that instead of talking about sex when your ready, find some one you love blah,blah, blah...that I should teach my daughters about their bodies, let them explore their pleasure centers and give them the tools, battery operated of course, to deal with their physical needs. I am sure this will not deter them from dating and teenage sex and all that that means but it will give them another source of satisfaction and allow them to hold the reins on their own sexual desires; I hope.

As for myself and my own acceptance of my business, my vagina, I am pretty sure I have started on that journey but haven't traveled as far as I would like.

When I was delivering my second child, the doctor asked me to look at my vagina in a standing mirror. He said if I could physically see the contraction I would be better able to push through them and stop at the appropriate time. Actually, when he first suggested that I should use the mirror he only asked if I would like to see the birth. I said no. I didn't want to see. It was his second comment about knowing when to push that convinced me to look in the mirror. I am glad I did or I would have missed something amazing.

The flexible future

As graduation day grows ever closer for many of the young women I have come to know in my small community in the past few years I am wondering what their futures hold. I have gotten caught up in the excitement of university acceptances and moving plans; not so much in prom and graduation as I was never a fan of either of those things. As I talk to some very accomplished soon to be graduates I wonder how they will fair in a bigger pond and wonder if the big and frequently asked question of What are you going to be? is the wrong one.

Many students have an answer to that question: environmental sciences, veterinary medicine, social work etc. But in the end it may be those students who have yet to define a path for themselves that may be best prepared for their future. If the future is anything it is uncertain. The students who head off to university with a life and education plan may soon find out that the rest of the world isn't conspiring with them to fulfill their dreams and ambitions. Or perhaps, when they get to university they will be introduced to new possibilities that were outside of their sphere of knowledge before that point. They might find a new intellectual love. It would be a shame for a student to stick with mathematics when biochemical engineering started to tickle their fancy just for the sake of sticking with the plan.

These days everyone is talking about jobs, employability, and marketability. Not so long ago a university education was used as a key to the world not to the boardroom. It was once said that university was a place to explore knowledge; jobs weren't really part of the equation except to say that people who had opened their minds and learned to think for themselves often got jobs because during the course of their university journey they mastered some employable skills like time management, team work, independent study, research techniques, and critical thinking.

Of course there have always been university careers that would carry one through to a profession; doctoring, lawyering or teaching but for the most part a degree in Biology could lead anywhere. It's the streamlining and mercenary intent of university applicants and graduates that has, in my opinion, ill prepared the most recent generation when entering the workforce. They have been lead to believe that they need a plan and a chosen career path by the time they are in Grade nine so they can choose the appropriate course to get the degree that will get them the job.

In today's economic climate, more often then not, they won't get the job. Then what will they do? They are educated for no other career and have been filled with the false expectation that they will get what they want if they follow this carefully constructed plan.

I believe that an education is necessary but I decry specialization noting that some people need to specialize; we need the engineer who constructs bridges, the neurologist and many others. In general, a broad education may stand our students in greater stead than the current trend of focusing on the financial possibilities of one course of study over another.

It is flexibility, versatility and the ability to learn new things at any point in one's life that will ensure a lifetime of employment. It is said, and has been the norm for most people in my generation, that the generations following the boomers will go through several drastic career changes within a lifetime. Convincing students that they need to decide their careers for the rest of their lives in the last three years of high school is not only inane it is ill-informed and irresponsible.

I graduated from high school 20 years ago and the career and university counseling that I received at that time was woefully inadequate and completely misinformed first as to what I was capable of and second in respect to the career possibilities that I might encounter.

The first mistake was to think in a Nova Scotian context. I, like so many others from this area, have traveled, worked and settled overseas. The possibilities for employment in other countries is not something these students, I am willing to bet, have even thought about. For the graduate interested in environmental studies-has anyone informed her of the possibility of working internationally with NGO's or the United Nations? For the graduate aspiring to become a vet- does she know there is an agency similar to doctors without borders that is for veterinarians? Maybe.

My education has been broad and diverse from anthropology to bio-mechanics; my work life has been no less so. Many jobs I have had came as a result of being flexible and my ability to take on challenges and learn new things. I started teaching after my first degree, in anthropology not education, and was lucky enough to learn on the job from some great teachers who were my co-workers.

I started working as a freelance journalist due to my life long passion for words and writing that lead me to the Bangkok Women Writers Group. It was with their support and confidence in my work that I dared to submit my writing for publication. I've never studied journalism; I learned the trade on the job. A Masters degree in Thai Studies did help me develop the skills necessary to be a journalist but I pursued that educational goal for it's own sake. Whenever asked why I was taking Thai studies I would reply honestly that I was doing it for fun. It seems that all that education, that experience is paying off- without having had a plan.

I do agree that an outline for ones educational and career goals may be beneficial but only if flexibility is a built in component. Some people manage to study for one job, find that job, and work at it until retirement but those people are scarce on the ground. For the graduates of 2011 I wish them luck and hope that they learn to live with uncertainty and count flexibility as a virtue.

More on this topic -
The Young & The Jobless
There are lots of ways to measure unemployment, but one statistics stands out: There are 200,000 fewer young people ... that is, those aged 15 to 24 ... 200,000 fewer of them working today than there were two years ago.
With the university year wrapped up and the high school year ending and a new group of young people marching towards the job market, our project Shift on demographic change is looking to see where they fit in.
The CBC's Neil Sandell went to something called the National Job Fair and Training Expo in Toronto where he met young people anxious to start careers. His documentary is called The Young and The Jobless.