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Last night I saw this Poptech talk from journalist and author of Outliers and Blink, Malcolm Gladwell. It made me think, quite a bit. It is worth a listen. Happy Monday from South Korea, ya'll!
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10,000 Hour Rule: Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Hours of Practice Theory from Outliers Visualized
Malcolm Gladwell: Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce
There are a world of things to be grateful for big and small.. -- Like family, friends, the feeling of sunshine and we can't forget the smell of the coffee aisle in the grocery store. God bless the man who invented this!What am I grateful for? Oh! So much, you have no idea! Just a little over 2.5 months ago I got married to the most wonderful man I could have ever dreamed of, and add some more perfectness to the package. Wowzers, Such a crazy, blessing of a year!I can't wait to see what God has for us this year, the next and the next ones to come. :) Enjoy your Pumpkin Pie, dear USAers, and perhaps Juan and I can join you for pie and whip cream next year, but this year I'll be than happy to eat Kimchi and Rice in Korea with Juan.Ok fine, you're right, you're right.. after dinner I might just break into the Twix chocolate bar stash and then make few pounds of smashed garlic potatoes and perhaps find a really big chicken and dress him up like a Pilgrim. and name him Tom, because who doesn't love the name Tom? I will make and eat all of this food just to achieve a real respectable American Thanksgiving day food coma.. Yes, I'm American down to the core....no matter how long I may live in Asialand, you can't stop me from eating exorbitant amounts of foods on the 3rd Thursday of November.
Photo by the ever so talented : Brooke Pleasant : http://
I woke up yesterday with news from Mr. Josh Meltzer that my pictures were published in the New York Times Blog as a part of the article, When Interest Creates a Conflict By James Estrin
The pictures were from the photography story 90 Days, a story about Burmese refugees resettling in Kentucky, which I photographed for the International Center of Bowling Green.
The article in the Times talked about the ethical conflicts that may arise when journalists and NGOs work together. How do you maintain the balance between objective journalist and being an employee of an NGO? The article also featured work from other documentary photographers like Josh Meltzer, Stanley Green, Khaled Hasan, Dmitry Markov, Anastasia Rudenko.
My images where included into this article thanks to the awesome organization Photo Philanthropy who works to connect NGOs and documentary photographers. Their mission? To address critical social and environmental issues by providing non-profits and photographers with the resources to work together to create images that drive social change around the world.
A sweet Tuesday morning surprise! :)
I got this video from my friend Sarah Vied yesterday. I thought it was so good and So True. :)
Made by the Vlog Brothers
A little while ago, I worked in SouthEast Asia with a incredible group of young women teaching them English. I only spent 2 months with them, but the relationships that I built with these students impacted me more than any of my students that I taught in the 2 years that I was in Korea. Crazy, I know. -But these women were so thoughtful and strong. One, who was secretly my favorite - or perhaps I wasn't so good at keeping my favorites a secret, wrote an incredible paper about growth of a dream that I'll never forget.She wrote...That growing at first is difficult, everything about it is hard, even just coming out of your seed and pushing through the ground hurts, and as you grow other plants try to choke you, yet slowly as you keep growing your seed takes root and you begin to sprout and grow strong until you become a beautiful rose that others enjoy.Great right? So keep pursuing your big dream because in the end your fulfilled dream will be the beautiful rose which others can enjoy as they walk through life.
Imagine this being the residence of your queenly crib. Right smack dab in the middle of your submissive subjects -- dead, raw, delicious chicken. She looks a bit like royalty amongst the chickens. Her mom works at this chicken booth in the market. Can you imagine all the different things that she sees everyday? An interesting childhood, not like most of us in the West experienced. That is one of the things that I love the most about traveling it gives me a glimpse of just how many different ways you can live life. Normal for her is nothing like my normal, but neither normal is necessarily bad or better than the other, just different.It is the funniest/saddest thing when a person goes to a foreign country and they try to change the customs to their own in order to 'save' the people and bring 'civilization' to their land. They don't realize that maybe that this country is just is different not worse or better. And that the people are more comfortable eating on the floor, and using a squatty potty, instead of tables and chairs and a sit down toilet <--- actually enjoying a squat toilet is a concept that I still struggling to comprehend.. But it is actually true! Astonishing, I know!But everyone is just different. Some people like cream in their coffee and others like sugar, no big deal. -- So stop worrying, there is no need to revolutionize the world by shipping tables and chairs with a few toilets to the jungles of Laos or Myanmar, it is much better to join their madness and get your squat muscles stronger. Besides the people will like you much better in the end. :)
Quote of the Day:
“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” ― Clifton Fadiman
Picture note: This day my good photography friend Dave Smith and I went to the Vientiane market in with our massive cameras, looking for a good cup of coffee - with cream AND sugar, fresh vegetables and good light. We had a 100% success rate.
“I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.”― E.V. Lucas
This weekend I met a Chinese business man in his 50s or 60s, who decided last year that he wanted to learn English, and now a year later after hours of self-study -- he listens to the English-Chinese translation of the Titanic over and over and over again... Thanks to Jack and Rose, he now can speak English rather well. ha!I was impressed because learning a new language is the most embarrassing task you can set out to accomplish. Learning a new language will make a genius of a person sound like a 5 year old child in a second. Forget the romance of Ooooo La La and conversing in sexy French or becoming the next Latin Lover. It will take you 1000s of hours of stupidity before you hit this level. Sorry. It's true.It's like like learning to walk. - You fall so many times that you're not sure that your knees or your face will ever return to their normal color again. AND....what makes it better it that usually when you're making your most EPIC fall, EVERYONE is watching you. Great! because really, what's more entertaining than watching the cute baby fail at walking or the white foreigner blubber something that sounds somewhat like your language?I, for one, really can't think of anything more fun. ha! ^^That is why this Chinese man impressed me so much. He didn't care if he said something childish, embarrassed himself or mispronounced something. He's forgot his pride. I think that is why he has been so successful in his business life. because regardless of his age, status, success - He owns some of the largest companies in China - he still isn't afraid to try new things and fail miserable. How cool. :)I want to be more like that. Right now and when I'm 50 and 60..So here's the question of the day... What are you not doing because you fear failure or looking stupid? Go for it!People will eventually forget your mistakes and stop laughing at them because you'll eventually become so brilliantly skilled at whatever you keep trying at. And then you'll inspire others to do the same. Just like this Chinese man. :)
Quote of the Month.... Leonard Cohen
Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.
'
I saw this the other day and thought it was perfectly amazing. This quote is going into the journal. :)
What do you think about it? Is it true?
It was my first time there.Europe : the land of history and class or so everyone said...I was going there to photograph my dear friend My-Van's wedding. She's an American who I met while teaching in South Korea. We met in the immigration office just a few days after I arrived in Korea. The first time we met we looked each other over scrupulously and decided that the other was worth chatting up to make the day less painful.. Low and behold we ended up talking for the 2 hours as we waited to get our foreigner ID card. (Because I, of course, look so Asian that I need a card to prove my foreign status. That is sarcasm for all of those who don't know that I have a very Caucasian face. That makes me fit into Asia as much as a polar bear in blends into the Caribbean).Despite my un-Asian features, MyVan overlooked my flaws, and we became instant friends. Fast forward about 2 years later, and I am on a plane flying to France to photograph her lovely Southern French wedding and spend a lovely week with the newly weds and their closest friends.After living and traveling for almost 3 years in Asia (mostly in South Korea and parts of Thailand), this was my first taste of Europe. It was incredible and so unique from traveling Asia. Let me explain.Thailand is a beautifully, tropical inexpensive life. There I lived in Mae Hong Son, a mountainous region in N.W. Thailand with S'gaw Karen (an ethnic people from Myanmar living in Thailand). Their culture left an impression on me. They are so real, genuine, generous. They are willing to share and give everything they have to their friends and family even when they don't have much of anything. Their lives are centered in community, in sharing.While I was there, I was almost never left alone, people surrounded me constantly, always by my side, looking over my shoulder as I typed emails to friends or read books. This was not rude, but normal. We were a community without secrets or personal space, but I must admit this was an adjustment coming from my individualistic 'I love personal space/time' culture of the West., ha!
above: Saturday afternoon weaving with my Beautiful friends.
Here I slept on bamboo mats in a room full of students and friends, I learned that good relationships go before to-do list, I went forging for food in the forest, ate with my hands, I learned to never walk alone - not because it was dangerous but because it was lonely, my classes were canceled classes so that we could go the hospital with my sick students, and we shared everything, everything - down the one bowl of soup and one spoon for the whole dinner table - (which sometimes resulted in a community with the common cold or worse- ha!) - but the value of having a whole community taking care of me certainly made a few days of the sniffles worth it.
above: my bedroom
above: Crossing the Homemade Bridge - "The most terrifying 10 minutes of my life - swing, swing, creek, crack. "
After Thailand, I packed my bags to see what Europe offered... One thing I appreciated immediately? The bridges there have a little more steel and little less DIY quality. :)
above: Gourds, France
I can't say that I've experienced too much of Europe. I know Asia better. but because I have have European blood.. - i'm a bit of a mutt, I have about 7 or 8 European countries running in this blood-- please don't judge, you know mutts have strong genes :D or at least that is what my parents told me to boost my self-esteem - .- So perhaps this blood makes me more of an expert on Europe than I think? I do know that I share a common pointy nose and eating utensils with the Europeans., - yes this definitely make me an expert. ;)I stayed in Europe for about a month - one week in France and 3-4 in Spain.. I traveled Europe a bit unconventionally - meaning I didn't really go anywhere, because I found the best place in Europe, didn't feel the need to move... By divinity, I ended up staying in the seaside town of Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain, - an hour from Barcelona - where a Catalonian family took me under their wing, gave me a bed and the most delicious cheese, Spanish ham, wine, and Spanish experiences a girl could dream of. So I willingly parked myself there for 3 full weeks.I did however venture outside of the nest to take one trip to Barcelona to visit the Perfume Museum - A museum full of old perfume bottles dating back to ancient Greece, and they even displayed one of Marie Antoinette's bottles... after this then I went to the MIBA:Ideas museum. - full fascinating modern day inventions. I almost made it to the Chocolate Museum too, but time wouldn't allow for this. - Next time, perhaps.. :)Other then these 3 days in Barcelona, I stayed in Sant Feliu sailing, swimming in the Mediterranean sea, learning to steer a boat, practicing my Spanish and drinking my weight in Spanish olive oil. yum :)My main impression of Europe? One word. Refined. The first night in Sant Feliu, Spain, I learned how to peel a plum with a knife and fork. Really, is that level of refinement really necessary in the human race; Do Europeans just do this to show off their mad skills? Or do you peel a plum with a knife and fork every night at dinner too?
above: European Forks and and Knives....
Europe vs Asia? Where should you go with your hard-earned travel cash and passport? It just depends on which lesson you seek to learn first, Dear Grasshopper.... Do you wish to master the art of peeling a plum with a knife and fork without breaking a sweat, or sharing your precious imported chocolate bar with 5 of your best friends? The choice is all yours. Choose wisely :)A few helpful European Links :)A lovely Hostel/Pension in Sant Feliu, Spain Hostel NorayTravel by Air: http://www.ryanair.com/enTravel by Train: http://www.raileurope.com/european-trains/tgv/index.html
The Bride and talented designer My-Van designed all of this amazingness that you see in these picture.. I think that she might even have ordered the lavender especially for her wedding day...Take a look at more of her handy work here ---> http://redesignedbym.wordpress.com/
After months and months of meticulous planning and preparation for their Southern France wedding, Talent Designer My-Van and Teacher Ken's day finally arrived. It was a day full of unimaginable beauty. A smashing success. :) Thank-you My-Van and Ken for having me there to share this special occasion with you and all of your thousands of unexpected guests. Here is a peek. and be sure to check out My-Van's DIY blog that shares her amazing design secrets. --> http://redesignedbym.wordpress.com
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Nervous Energy - Have you ever had those days where nothing seems to fit and the more you think the more anxious you get? I have recently. Where I feel mentally drained, but still wide awake. My brain is going in directions that I didn't even know were possible. Everything I do to release my anxiety only winds me up all the more. It's an absolutely exhausting cycle.
Yet thankfully I'm learning that there are a few things that quiet my mind on these days, and it ain't yoga. Nah, I prefer more active forms of brain detox... i.e. running until my legs beg me to stop, dancing to salsa music, and finally my own art therapy, self-portraits. *sigh now I can finally sleep.
Had an absolutely lovely Friday morning sipping coffee, talking about life, and doing an impromtu photo shoot with my dear friend Chanell. We found ourselves - after a few ::cough:: U-turns ::cough:: - at one of the newest, most hippest, coolest, hang-outs in all of Nashville. Barista Parlour.
--- Well I believe it is new, but you know me... I've been in Asialand for the last three 3 years of life. And everything here seems as new as a bean sprout to me. :D But regardless of age, this new coffee place is fantastic. You should check them out when you come to Nashville next. They're on facebook, so no excuses. Get your butt down here!
You know that I mean that in the kindest way possible. ^^ facebook page --> http://www.facebook.com/BaristaParlor
Photos taken on the awesome I-phone by both my amazingly talented artist, musician friend Chanell and myself.
**Today remember to enjoy every second of life that you have. It's worth the effort. :)
A brief quiet moment from the Skrillex concert. ;) Quiet is not quite a normal thing for a Skrillex' show.
You just get lost in thought - for better or for worse....
