http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/171311 Current mood: calm


the sun is shining

tendering soft skins of young dog walkers

massaging wrinkles of aging lovers

walking across the bridge

lifting myself on the top of my toes with short nails

painted blue inside wool socks

watching water breaking ice

invisibly

the striking force of softness

shattering pieces by pieces that strong icy glass

wandering what's hiding under melting ice

maybe dead green crococile defrosting

maybe jelly balls falling out from tiny grey toad's belly

broken open into tadpoles into the world of tiny grey toads

maybe tiny fishes bleeding their silver tails inside big ones' estomagos

or swept into fisherman's net at the end of their journey

where Ontanabee river run into some blue sea

reincarnated into sushi

maybe a world's sleeping

maybe a world's cracking under the ice so cristalline

I am

in my time on my toes

one foot gave in to the law of gravity

one foot rabelled to flow with serenity

busy watching the beauty

busy wandering the unknown

too busy to hear the cracking, the withering, the blooming, the tide raising, the river flowing inside

me.
]]> Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:55:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/171311 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/167197 Current mood: calm


I don't like the word "hurt" cuz it is so abstract yet so simplified. I can't neither touch nor comprehend sometimes what that word means.It can't neither touch nor express all that messy surreal orginal labrynth of human feelings either. I ate a delicious red apple today. Sweet and crispy to the point of perfection in my simple standard. Everything's turning. I watched water breaking ice. Sky was grey. I punched a hole and threw a piece of circle from my lifescape. It hurt. Metaphorically so, but just like that insane movie eternal sunshine in the spotless mind, i will be missing this piece and it will chase my memory on and off. Season always changes. So do lovers and friends. So do I. Sad and beautiful simultaneously, my life isn't the red apple. But i guess that's ok.

Delicious like red apple we were. I bite into the sweetness. Ate slowly. No matter how you tried to keep munching, i wanted to finish eating the damn apple. It's not that apple isn't perfect. It is just I' m not red apple, not even close to perfection. I keep escaping to... where... I don't even know. But I do it anyway.

Apple's gone, only seed left. I threw the seed. You tasted bitterness. Some sweetness still lingered on my tongue.But soon would be gone. Seed would grow into something beautiful even without me seeing it.

I am writing an exciting essay with wonderful company of mocha and bagels on a not so exciting reality of women and war.

Poetry is good though. Like this one..

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon ,"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will standin the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.


]]> Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:59:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/167197 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/42611
]]> Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:54:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/42611 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/25528
Life and Debt
This is an AMAZING one...very deep,touching, well written and narrated, and amazing cinematography...if you are into development isse you can not miss this



others i recently watch.. these ones are tense.u cant help feeling ouraged and sad how history of racism,oppression and violence keep repeating itself in every level. At the same time a very hopeful song of praise for humanity.

Hotel Rwanda


Shake hands with the devil
this one is an inspirationg and outraging story of a man , a hero who keeps the victory of humanity alive when everything is destroyed and killed, when everything seems to fail.



The Take
by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein is rather dissapointing to me even though the story of the workers i believe is very powerful and inspirtional. The film has some "over scripted" scenes which takes away its credit, and the tone of the narrator is very typical Klein, too much bashing by the writer (Klein) rather than letting the workers speak out enough for themselves. It does not illustrate enough the process of struggle of the workers either, and waste too much time on many protest scenes just as Klein spent over lengthy and repetitive part on culture jam and reclaim the street in No Logo. However the movie is quite inspiring and makes me want to learn more about the victory of these workers.





]]> Thu, 23 Jun 2005 22:40:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/25528 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/25367 Sun, 19 Jun 2005 04:23:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/25367 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/25333
TREVOR GRUNDY


THABO Mbeki is known as the West's "point man" in Africa - the one head of state on the impoverished continent whom George Bush and Tony Blair can really trust.

But ahead of the G8 summit at Gleneagles, the 62-year-old South African President is facing growing pressure to immediately distance himself from Robert Mugabe and his regime in Zimbabwe or stay well away from Scotland next month.

"Make poverty history is the slogan," says David Coltart, the Scottish-born shadow minister of justice in Zimbabwe. "To do that, we must first make Mugabe history."

The dictator is currently carrying out the mass destruction of urban shanties and homes throughout Zimbabwe - a mass punishment on those who voted for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the General Election last March.

Speaking from his home in Bulawayo, Coltart, whose grandfather James Robert Coltart was the Deputy Lord Provost of Edinburgh before the Second World War, said: "These are terrible times, especially for poor people. Nothing like this was done by the white regime when this country was called Rhodesia before 1980.

"Some of the scenes I have seen in the last few weeks are truly shocking and what is so awful is that the world does not seem to appreciate what's going on here, or care. The world is looking the other way and Thabo Mbeki is a disgrace to Africa because he is pretending to do something to change Zimbabwe with his now futile and dangerous policy of quiet diplomacy.

"Mugabe is taunting and defying the world by ordering the destruction of thousands of homes which have made over one million simply starving ordinary people homeless.

"Mugabe is encouraged by Mbeki and, so far, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have remained mute on the eve of the Gleneagles summit."

The leader of Zimbabwe's small but extremely active Jesuit Community in Zimbabwe, Father Oskar Wermter, said: "This is definitely cruder and more brutish than anything the white minority did to Africans in Rhodesia."

University of Zimbabwe lecturer Eldred Masunungwe added: "Anarchy is breaking out all over Zimbabwe. Soon there will be an uncontrollable explosion of public anger against Mugabe and when he goes, I fear we will see the rapid rise of another dangerous demagogue. When we reach that point, all hell will break out in southern Africa."

A million black urbanites - many of them women with babies on their backs but no food or shelter in sight - are facing a Zimbabwean winter and the third year of drought.

After visiting devastated townships around Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare and Gweru, British Labour MP Kate Hoey last week wrote: "Tony Blair should be insisting that the South African President condemns the excesses of Mugabe's regime. If he won't, the invitation to Gleneagles Summit should be withdrawn."

Ordinary black Zimbabweans who make a living by trading in shanty town markets were last week shown on television knocking down their own concrete homes - watched by armed police and riot squads.

"This is a tsunami style disaster," one told Ms Hoey, one of the few British MPs to have visited Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe, which was food rich on gaining independence a quarter of a century ago, is now on the brink of nationwide starvation. Inflation runs at 400% and fuel queues snake around the capital seven days a week.

But sources in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, said that at the Gleneagles summit, Mbeki and the outgoing Tanzanian leader, President Ben Mkapa, plan to tell G8 leaders that the time has come to bring Mugabe "in from the cold".

Both say he won a "free and fair" election in March and that the West must talk to the Zimbabwean dictator if it wants to see the end of poverty in Africa.

William Gumede, the prize- winning South African journalist who has just written a book about Mbeki, said: "The truth is, President Mbeki is frightened of Mugabe.

"They once clashed over how to deal with the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now Mbeki backs off when Mugabe is around.

"At public meetings, Mugabe attacks Mbeki and tells fellow Africans that he is in danger of becoming a stooge of the West and that he was never a real freedom fighter, just a man appointed to power by Anglo American and white businessmen to do their bidding."

Gumede said that Mbeki - despite his bravado in front of TV cameras when he is with Bush and Blair - is a recluse.

"He sits silently, on his own, in a tweed jacket, smoking a pipe. Africans laugh at his English accent and the way he keeps himself to himself - not at all like his predecessor Nelson Mandela. He dares not say a word against Robert Mugabe, who treats him like a junior member of the African Club."

Yet last week Mbeki shocked many by sacking his deputy, 63-year-old Jacob Zuma, who had been caught up in a corruption scandal.

Observers in Pretoria said it was the most momentous political development since the end of apartheid in South Africa.

"It was a defining moment for South African democracy," said a senior trade unionist, who asked not to be named.

"If Mbeki can sack his own deputy who is so popular with the ruling African National Congress [ANC], surely he can distance himself from Robert Mugabe, who the world detests. What on earth is stopping him from doing that? We all are asking if Mugabe has some strange hold or power over Mbeki."

Church leaders say there is method in Mugabe's apparent madness.

One senior Roman Catholic in Bulawayo said: "Mugabe knows his government can no longer feed 11.8 million people.

"He wants to halve the population by throwing out so-called foreigners - all whites, Malawians, Angolans and Mozambicans who live there - many of them in the shanty towns.

"He also wants to drive urbanites into the countryside - Pol Pot style - where they can be brutally taught to support Mugabe and the ruling party, Zanu (PF). We are horrified that Thabo Mbeki has not yet uttered a word of condemnation after helping to dismantle apartheid."

Last month, the Zimbabwean who is now in charge of all land "reform" programmes, 76-year-old Didymus Mutasa, shocked even members of Zanu PF when he said: "We would be better off with only six million people in Zimbabwe. They would be people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people."

A group of Catholic bishops said: "A great crime has been committed against poor and helpless people. We warn the perpetrators. History will hold you accountable."

"History will," said David Coltart, "but not yet the man who most counts in Africa, President Thabo Mbeki.

"Thabo Mbeki was to be central in not only an African renaissance but as the man who would usher in a new age of prosperity through his Western supported policy called NEPAD (New Economic Plan for Africa). But he has lost all credibility."



This article:

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=674702005

Zimbabwe:

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=155

Websites:

CIA World Factbook - Zimbabwe
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/zi.html

MDC (Movement for Democratic Change)
http://www.mdczimbabwe.com/

New Zimbabwe
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/index.html

The Zimbabwean
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/

ZANU PF
http://www.zanupfpub.co.zw/

Zimbabwe Government online
http://www.gta.gov.zw/

]]> Sat, 18 Jun 2005 21:20:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/25333 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/25331 grrrrr ****WTO... keep finger crossed that we do not have to go hungry because not able to buy imported rice oneday.



Vietnam is set to increase taxation on draft beer (bia hoi) sold in the street to meet its commitments to the World Trade Organization, reported a senior leader from the Taxation Department June 17.
Mr. Quach Duc Phap, chief of the Taxation Policy Department under the Ministry of Finance, confirmed Vietnam will increase a special consumption tax on Vietnam’s popular draft beer in the coming months.

The move is to meet the requirements of member countries during negotiations on Vietnam’s WTO entry, where it was suggested that Vietnam levy a tax on draft beer to match that on canned, bottled, and fresh beer.

The leader noted the rate of taxation on draft beer has yet to be decided.

Earlier in 2004, the special consumption tax on draft beer was reduced from 50 percent down to 30 percent]]> Sat, 18 Jun 2005 19:51:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/25331 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/24836 anyhow here are some photographs my friend Michael and I were taking in our trip last year. Enjoy!
Vietnamese Village


Sunrise in Hue City



i think vietnamese has one of the most beautiful beaches in the world ;)



and i love the sky ..it seems to be more far stretching and free than here..apparently we do not have many skyscrapers :D

]]> Mon, 23 May 2005 18:55:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/24836 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/24742
i was desperately looking for job..and now that i got the job that i wanted, i may not be able to arrange my time conflict to accept it. Im in dilemma situation again...my head's too spinning with making choices all the time... personal goals, family, responsibilities etc etc are all important, none is more or less ... but $$ is limited...so its all about choices... and because none is more or less important it is just super hard to make choices sometimes feeling like guilty because i may be a selfish person to at least someone among my beloved ones whichever choice i make... moreover,limited choices make it does not seem like i have so many choices at all... i am also dying for a better camera so i give my passion for photography a good treat.But i will forget that for now :-S.it is nothing urgent..priority! :-)

oi..

but good thing is i am so in love, and we are strong and loving so it gives me some motivation and energy.

i hope i will figure out something in the end of the day.
:(]]> Wed, 18 May 2005 17:09:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/24742 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/24253
my dear friend Mitu just wrote an update on how disgraceful and closed minded some of her American are to other culture and her painful experience with them at a conference.

just adding in my 2 cents ramble...Mitu's post provoked the thought of how people react to the deterritorialization of culture, ideologies and politics.

It is kind of funny and ironic that my experience is the other side of the coin. I am coordinating a Women's Centre in Canada this year ,going to the most left-wing university in Canada,doing developments studies which happen to habour a lot of social conscious and liberal minded fellows... Therefore, all the retreats and conferences that i went to this year was all vegetarian catering!:-P ...i remember how my international students friend often make joke about it and how they are "discredit" vegetarian food . My Arab friends "love" meat and disgusted by a all vegetarian dinner while the Canadian people eat them just fine!

It makes me think of how the politics of globalization really play out vividly in our everyday life... these cultural preferences, values and norms which shape the way we interact no longer be bounded by the territorial states or nations...to me it really starts to come down to individual attitude and transformation depending on how much and which ways they are influenced in a globally interactive world. Food and cultural preferences are also no longer just about the taste but also the statement of one's politcal values,reaction to more opening world. In my school for example , it is common that Canadian people who are regular guests at international potlucks and who are vegetarian are also left-wings, more liberal, more of those development or cultural studies majors, who travels somewhere other than their countries or have friends of other ethno-groups rather than their middle class white - apart from those vegetarian because of religions. Of course i dont want to generalizae... just an observation...Now i do not think Canadian is so much different from American. In many ways there must be some truth in the joke that Canada is the Junior America, not wanting to offend any Canadian here...there are Canadian here who living on fast food and soon going to heaven with diabets just like in the States... but the fact that there is also a large proportion of young people who increasingly become vegetarians and more cultural accepting to new choices means more than just the need for some new exotic tastes, but also the extent to which food has become politicized and reflect an every day effort on an individual level to change the world.

globalization and borderless community bring different choices but i think to see those choices as positive or negative depends not on personal attitude but also psychology... For some people being offered something is a bless, for others is an invasion that make them feel threatened... thus the issue is how to promote a kind of cross-cultural learning that make people feel save and inclusive rather than being divided,contested and fragmented in an open space.

Being able to sit together and eat together is really so much more than just about being courageous to try the food you never had before ; it is about being willing to share your politics/valuesand listen to that of others; its about crossing the line of your race, gender, priviledge and identity of fate, to form your own community,social circle and individual identity. I never underestimate how much i have grow and evolved through the endless blasting and yummy potlucks since i came to canada.

While yummy potlucks and food politics have been something that cheer up and question my life in canada the last two years, red tapes have been a pain in the ass.

any paper work here cost $$...And the fact that i am international student from a developing country gives me have through more bureaucratic experiences. Like now i am planning to go study abroad with a canadian institution. I happen to be the only international student in the group and i cant find an insurance company because vietnamese insurance is not qualified internationally, whereas canadian insurance does not suport travel plan for non-canadian. There comes my nick: nationless gypsy woman.

like many international students here, i have a hard time finding fulltime jobs in the summer or apply for internship on the academic fields of interests... there are hundreds of development internship out there and the only and always reason i am disqualified is because i am on a study permit visa. Many international students end up doing underpaid illegal jobs in restaurants, whereas more intellectual and career benificial jobs are reserved for canadian citizens. For those fundamentalists who resist globalisation and migration with the argument of job flight, they should not be that freaked out because there is the parallel process of institutionalized legality that preserve the privilegde of certain national groups.In Canada this has been changing over the years with the recent rule allowing international students to work in Quebec and Montreal.But elsewhere the conditions on international citizens are still very enforcing. What ironic is the same kind of restriction does not apply for citizens of developed countries when they come to the socalled third world. For better or worse, nationalism is the very dominant pivotal drive no matter how globalising and opening a country may boast itself to be. While people are continueing expanding their mind beyond their countries borders, their priviledges are very proportional to the position in the ranking of work citizenships which are determined by their countries of origins.

I took a great develoment studies course on social movements and did some readings on how citizenship was used as a tool of creating racial line in history from Aparthied in South Africa to British immigration law in the 50s. Even in the time of rapid globalisation and regional integration, the notion of class of citizenships still seem to persist that requires radical institutional changes.

at the end of the year when u rush to sell ur books and throw theories into brain trash, the common thing that is left with you is the recognition of symbiosis relations of individuals and institutions, and the illusion of the conflation of the two. It made me think of how often we attacked or challenged individual thoughts,habits and lifestyles, we turn friends and beloved into strangers and the hostiles. Our individual relationships being broken down not by the stubborn different choices of food but the very different institutionalized ideologies that are internalized and embedded in us...

but in short, all of this just means that we can never stop being awared of how our everyday events represent the very spectrum of our values and politics, while at the same time being politicized and depoliticized by larger structure and processes that we are unconscious of. There is no bad, narrowed or stupid people; there are only unconscious,unawared and fearful individuals blinded by imperfect,chaotic and ideological centered rather than human centered institutions.

If you happen to go study abroad or live in another country like Mitu and I, you may be required to go through all the orientation and the common cross-cultural building and cultural shocks workshop... but no matter how cultural rich and aware , no matter how open minded and adaptive you are, you will at some points recognize,feel and react very strongly and emotionally to this mentality of "we" and "they" that are imposed on you ; you will be reminded you are a guest, you are "the other"... and you will at some point, like me, feel frustrated because no matter how hard you try you are not part of the circle, you feel excluded....sometimes it is sad, other times it is a inspiring experience for your personal growth... but you always have the power the change as long as you have the will, at least i believe so.

i like to hear comments!you agree, disagree or my thought process has rocketed out of the loop at 5 am with 2 exams to go and dark circles under my eyes tired of looking for jobs hehe.



p.s if u havent been to a potluck really you are missing out so much!
]]> Tue, 26 Apr 2005 05:24:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/24253 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/23635

create your own visited country map
or check our Costa Rica travel guide

i dont know what to do...where is the sea on that map that i could dive into?
]]> Sat, 09 Apr 2005 01:23:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/23635 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/22945 Tiger got to hunt
Bird got to fly
Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?”
Tiger got to sleep
Bird got to land
Man got to tell himself he understands.
Kurt Vonnegut J.r, Cat’s Cradle (p.124)
]]> Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:25:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/22945 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20996
Cold wind left over on my coat from outside

Cold from top of toes to end of stomach

Spraying chilliness fused with blood

Dye skin pale

Whip body in tremble
]]> Sun, 05 Dec 2004 18:12:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20996 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20988
oi

and tmr need to write an essay, study group and exam review.

i want to write.
]]> Sun, 05 Dec 2004 07:28:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20988 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20854
come back to warmth and sunshines .... why freezing yourself in that cold cold cold upper north


eh???

]]> Sun, 28 Nov 2004 21:39:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20854 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20853
peace


me


free]]> Sun, 28 Nov 2004 20:37:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20853 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20852
peace



like a bird.]]> Sun, 28 Nov 2004 20:17:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20852 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20823
i missed my 9 am class ..n its my fav class grrr :'(((

i got B- for my essay which i was expecting a A- or A grrrrrr :'((((((

i always have few comments for my updates..i have only one comment per update now.. why???!! haha well i dont really care that much... im just in irritable bitchy mood.

i am cold grrrrrr....

i am a little cranky that i missed class.. yeah watever ill sleep for 20 more mins n study n leave for work.

life up north isnt easy, eh?

hehe

if you read my update, send me a HUG in your language!!]]> Fri, 26 Nov 2004 17:51:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20823 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20814
i missed my 9 am class ..n its my fav class grrr :'(((

i got B- for my essay which i was expecting a A- or A grrrrrr :'((((((

i always have few comments for my updates..i have only one comment per update now.. why???!! haha well i dont really care that much... im just in irritable bitchy mood.

i am cold grrrrrr....

i am a little cranky that i missed class.. yeah watever ill sleep for 20 more mins n study n leave for work.

life up north isnt easy, eh?

hehe

if you read my update, send me a hug in your language!!]]> Fri, 26 Nov 2004 09:23:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20814 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20759 Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:47:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20759 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20728
pasta with alfrado sauce in mike style. vietnamese mixed veggie salad with grapes becoming lan anh salad. ricardo orange chicken and this so so so good brazilian bread. mint chocolate chip icecream.

more special, good friends, good talks. nadage, chris, mark,ricardo... burkina farso, jamaican, canada, brazil...
and yet none is pure of any of those but mixture of so many.. four unique people, personalities and thoughts.

good laugh. good movie 25th hour and some more good talk.

long talk online. Great talks on phone. happy and intune and in spirit with my "special friend".

and so much study... im a little freaked out.

but wow good day with old good fun and old good friends.

::: Hi to DAVID sontag in Sweden ... wave wave =) ::::

miss home. miss mom. so so much. i am loved. it feels great.

and thats life, you know.]]> Mon, 22 Nov 2004 01:54:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20728 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20701
whats wrong with me...

aww

crams. music.laziness.loneliness.good friend. dead flies.
what a saturday.]]> Sat, 20 Nov 2004 23:34:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20701 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20700 lan anh in cheesy silly mood

yesterday and today was kinda hard... but it make me appreciate what ive always appreciated... few precious things..
Mike and Mark just wanna let u guys know im so grateful to meet and learning about you.xox;)

to see TIG in arabic!!! i dont think i like the look of arabic on computer font... hand writing arabid is so much more beautiful... but tig arabic still looks beautifull...

hope to see vietnamese version of tig soon.. oi tummy hurts havent done much work.

=^S

]]> Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:15:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20700 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20475 THIS IS THE LIFE

By Annie Dillard from the Fall issue of Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, published by the Center for Religious Humanism at Seattle Pacific University. Dillard's most recent book is For the Time Being.


Any culture tells you how to live your one and only life: to wit as everyone else does. Probably most cultures prize, as ours rightly does, making a contribution by working hard at work that you love; being in the know, and intelligent; gathering a surplus; and loving your family above all, and your dog, your boat, bird-watching. Beyond those things our culture might specialize in money, and celebrity, and natural beauty. These are not universal. You enjoy work and will love your grandchildren, and somewhere in there you die.

Another contemporary consensus might be: You wear the best shoes you can afford, you seek to know Rome's best restaurants and their staffs, drive the best car, and vacation on Tenerife. And what a cook you are!

Or you take the next tribe's pigs in thrilling raids; you grill yams; you trade for televisions and hunt white-plumed birds. Everyone you know agrees: this is the life. Perhaps you burn captives. You set fire to a drunk. Yours is the human struggle, or the elite one, to achieve... whatever your own culture tells you: to publish the paper that proves the point; to progress in the firm and gain high title and salary, stock options, benefits; to get the loan to store the beans till their price rises; to elude capture, to feed your children or educate them to a feather edge; or to count coup or perfect your calligraphy; to eat the king's deer or catch the poacher; to spear the seal, intimidate the enemy, and be a big man or beloved woman and die respected for the pigs or the title or the shoes. Not a funeral. Forget funeral. A big birthday party. Since everyone around you agrees.

Since everyone around you agrees ever since there were people on earth that land is value, or labor is value, or learning is value, or title, necklaces, degree, murex shells, or ownership of slaves. Everyone knows bees sting and ghosts haunt and giving your robes away humiliates your rivals. That the enemies are barbarians. That wise men swim through the rock of the earth; that houses breed filth, airstrips attract airplanes, tornadoes punish, ancestors watch, and you can buy a shorter stay in purgatory. The black rock is holy, or the scroll; or the pangolin is holy, the quetzal is holy, this tree, water, rock, stone, cow, cross, or mountain and it's all true. The Red Sox. Or nothing at all is holy, as everyone intelligent knows.

Who is your "everyone"? Chess masters scarcely surround themselves with motocross racers. Do you want aborigines at your birthday party? Or are you serving yak-butter tea? Popular culture deals not in its distant past, or any other past, or any other culture. You know no one who longs to buy a mule or be named to court or thrown into a volcano.

So the illusion, like the visual field, is complete It has no holes except books you read and soon forget. And death takes us by storm. What was that, that life? What else offered? If for him it was contract bridge, if for her it was copyright law, if for everyone it was and is an optimal mix of family and friends, learning, contribution, and joy of making and amelioratingwhat else is there, or was there, or will there ever be?

What else is a vision or fact of time and the peoples it bears issuing from the mouth of the cosmos, from the round mouth of eternity, in a wide and parti-colored utterance. In the complex weave of this utterance like fabric, in its infinite domestic interstices, the centuries and continents and classes dwell. Each people knows only its own squares in the weave, its wars and instruments and arts, and also the starry sky.

Okay, and then what? Say you scale your own weft and see time's breadth and the length of space. You see the way the fabric both passes among the stars and encloses them. You see in the weave nearby, and aslant farther off, the peoples variously scandalized or exalted in their squares. They work on their projects they flake spear points, hoe, plant; they kill aurochs or one another; they prepare sacrifices as we here and now work on our projects. What, seeing this spread multiply infinitely in every direction, would you do differently? No one could love your children more; would you love them less? Would you change your project? To what? Whatever you do, it has likely brought delight to fewer people than either contract bridge or the Red Sox.

However hypnotized you and your people are, you will be just as dead in their war, our war. However dead you are, more people will come. However many more people come, your time and its passions, and yourself and your passions, weigh equally in the balance with those of any dead who pulled waterwheel poles by the Nile or Yellow rivers, or painted their foreheads black, or starved in the wilderness, or wasted from disease then or now. Our lives and our deaths count equally, or we must abandon one-man-one-vote dismantle democracy, and assign six billion people an importance-of-life ranking from one to six billiona ranking whose number decreases, like gravity, with the square of the distance between us and them.

What would you do differently, you up on your beanstalk looking at scenes of all peoples at all times in all places? When you climb down, would you dance any less to the music you love, knowing that music to be as provisional as a bug? Somebody has to make jugs and shoes, to turn the soil, fish. If you descend the long rope-ladders back to your people and time in the fabric, if you tell them what you have seen, and even if someone cares to listen, then what? Everyone knows times and cultures are plural. If you come back a shrugging relativist or tongue-tied absolutist, then what? If you spend hours a day looking around, high astraddle the warp or woof of your people's wall, then what new wisdom can you take to your grave for worms to untangle? Well, maybe you will not go into advertising.

Then you would know your own death better but perhaps not dread it less. Try to bring people up the wall, carry children to see it to
what end? Fewer golf courses? What is wrong with golf? Nothing at all. Equality of wealth? Sure; how?

The woman watching sheep over there, the man who carries embers in a pierced clay ball, the engineer, the girl who spins wool into yarn as she climbs, the smelter, the babies learning to recognize speech in their own languages, the man whipping a slave's flayed back, the man digging roots, the woman digging roots, the child digging roots what would you tell them? And the future people what are they doing? What excitements sweep peoples here and there from time to time? Into the muddy river they go, into the trenches, into the caves, into the mines, into the granary, into the sea in boats. Most humans who were ever alive lived inside one single culture that never changed for hundreds of thousands of years; archaeologists scratch their heads at so conservative and static a culture.

Over here, the rains fail; they are starving. There, the caribou fail; they are starving. Corrupt leaders take the wealth. Not only there but here. Rust and smut spoil the rye. When pigs and cattle starve or freeze, people die soon after. Disease empties a sector, a billion sectors.

People look at the sky and at the other animals. They make beautiful objects, beautiful sounds, beautiful motions of their bodies beating drums in lines. They pray; they toss people in peat bogs; they help the sick and injured; they pierce their lips, their noses, ears; they make the same mistakes despite religion, written language, philosophy, and science; they build, they kill, they preserve, they count and figure, they boil the pot, they keep the embers alive; they tell their stories and gird themselves.

Will knowledge you experience directly make you a Buddhist? Must you forfeit excitement per se? To what end?

Say you have seen something. You have seen an ordinary bit of what is real, the infinite fabric of time that eternity shoots through, and time's soft-skinned people working and dying under slowly shifting stars. Then what?

http://billemory.com/dillard/dillard.html]]> Sun, 07 Nov 2004 12:26:00 EST http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20475 http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20075
I can feel .
Things like energy, strenght,beauty,life and of course love.
So obvious and bustling in the smells, the colors, the faces, the touch of skins, the shapes,the tears and laughters.The late night art and ring rings.

The supreme and most sacred syllable, consisting in Sanskrit of the three sounds (a), (u), and (m), representing various fundamental triads and believed to be the spoken essence of the universe. It is uttered as a mantra and in affirmations and blessings.

Gracias mucho mi amarte.

5 days feel so long
for short 7 precious days

To you, Om!]]> Fri, 22 Oct 2004 13:28:00 EDT http://Angel_on_broomstick.tigblog.org/post/20075