promise me

Promise me you will notify me if you find a guy who has ALL of the following:

• loves evangelism
• has a lip piercing
• wears hot pink shirts
• is hetero
• plays guitar
• likes indie music
• cares about social justice!!
• and is humble

Edit: Nov 28, 2:02PM
So I guess 'wears hot pink shirts' basically makes things impossible. I guess he doesn't have to wear hot pink shirts. I guess the thing about the whole pink-shirt idea is that clearly if a guy can wear pink it means he's secure in his masculinity. I like that. the security thing. Then he wont feel threatened when I act my manly self. haha jokes, I'm not manly (I HOPE!!!!!!!)

fundamental contradictions within Development Studies

A couple guys did a great job of articulating what devs students feel today after class - they were talking really loud so i wasn't exactly eavesdropping. Anyways this is how the convo sort of went:

Devsy Guy: I hate the concept of development. You go into it thinking "hey! I'll help people" but Develpoment is like "No you wont, bastard!"
Commerce Guy: I'll build a school!
Devsy Guy on behalf of Development: Fuck You! Engage in solidarity! (referring to an article we read critiquing NGOs)

they went on like this for awhile, and it was pretty funny because its so true. I've decided that Devs is probably one of the only programs that could successfully be the means to its own end, because everyone who finishes Devs is more confused about devs than when they went in. AND no one really wants to do what they did when they began because they know how screwed up the whole system is. The only thing that sustains the Devs department is the constant influx of ignorant frosh with the "I'll help save the world" mentality.

This is the quotation from an article we read that sort of articulates our own undoing:

Solidarity is not about fighting people's battles. It is about establishing co-operation between different constituencies on the basis on mutual self-respect and concerns about the injustices suffered by each. It is about taking sides in the face of injustice or the processes which reproduce injustice. It is not built on sympathy or charity or the portrayal of others as objects of pity. It is not about fundraising to run your own projects overseas, but raising funds which others can use to fight their own battles. It is about taking actions within one's own terrain which will enhance the capacity of others to succeed in their fight against injustice. - Firoze Manji

Mo

Today I was asked by a man who has sold all his possessions and moved him and his family to Malawii, a man who has legally adopted 24 AIDS orphans, a man who is teaching the only seminary in the whole country, a man who feeds 2 500 people each month out of his own pocket and coordinates further famine relief in the country; today I was asked by this man a question and I intend to find the answer. Upon hearing that I'm studying International Development he asked me, "I know of a great number of children who's parents have died because of AIDS and are being taken care of by their grandmothers. So what do we do with them when their grandmothers have died?"

I'm going to find an answer. But first, I have to finish this paper.

school, friendship and selfishness

Sometimes I wish I was Asian. Then I would have fantastic marks and my future would be uninhibited by my own lack of intelligence. I would be able to do anything I wanted to do, and not be prevented because I'm not smart enough, or at least don't have the work ethic.

I was talking about the work ethic thing with my housemate, Tanya, who's from a biracial backround of Japanese and English. She's been taught that while at university School is her life and she should devote all her time and energy into it. I totally respect that. In some ways I don't understand how a person can do that because I've always been taught that relationships are important and basically the point of life. Aside from the obvious religious aspects to the goal in life, of course. Seriously, though, sometimes I want to just crack down and live at the library and think only about school. In that way I think Christians are by default persecuted - in the sense that the World does not reward the lifestyle that we're called to live. Success means being smart and rich and popular, and so I'm technically unsucessful at life because my marks are good by my own standards and I try to have meaningful relationships with people.

Is it selfish to want to focus on school only? I feel like it is. Every time I want to really only think about school (and that doesn't mean not having Christian fellowship, because I WOULD DIE. Even though I talk about wanting to be a hermit in the jungle, it doesn't mean I could stay sane) I seem to get the impression that neglecting my friends means I'm a bad person. That if I'm not investing my energy in relationships I'm being selfish. But isn't it being presumptuous that my imput in someone's life matters?

ahh its hard to not think about rational self-interest in a free market society. CAPITALISM WHY MUST YOU INFILTRATE MY MIND???

on a totally different note: did you know that the Canada Pension Plan, while it says it abides by the UN Global Compact it actually doesn't. Anyone who has ever worked in Canada legally has funded investment in:

5 of the world's top 20 weapons-makers, tobacco giants such as Rothmans and Imperial Tobacco, and nine of the top 10 air polluters in the U.S.

It also includes companies whose operations have been linked to allegations of human-rights abuses in Amnesty International reports. (Ottawa Citizen article)

Fantastic, eh?

the one thing I remember one thing about math: what 'linear' means

Sometimes my mom is so wise. Which always leads me to my next thought - why did she 'go crazy' then??* Yesterday, in my lack of sleep, I was talking to her about my uncertainty for next year. Whether I'll be able to do a development project, or whether God wants me to go to North Africa instead. Like this summer when I went through a period of questioning God's "Plan" for my life, I proposed those same questions. Ultimately I wanted to know "Does it make a difference where I go next summer" kind of thing. Selene would always tell me "you can't screw up God's plan" but in my stupidity, I still do. But that's just me not trusting God. Anyways, mom said this to me which was quite clever and wise:

"First of all, I think 'God's Plan' for you is to get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. And secondly, God's plan is relational not linear."

Breakthrough moment! I get that explanation mostly because I get development. In development academia there's this struggle against the two political sides of development. The right wants to "modernize and industrialize" the underdeveloped countries so that they can join our markets, so that they can be a larger part of globalization and ultimately, so that the US can export their goods to them. The left wants to see justice for the colonial legacies, the colonial divisions of labour that have arguably brought underdevelopment. But the Left also wants to end this idea that development equals 'progress'. The word Progress suggests that there is an end goal to work towards and that the West, namely the US and their free market system, is it.

So when mom says, it's relational not linear I totally get that - because development or whatever you want to call it, is relational not linear. It's relational in the sense that world trade rules matter (and the ones that are in place are highly stacked against the Global South), debt matters, and dumping matters just like sin hinders my relationship with God, not getting that sin right with God matters, and ignoring His voice matters.


*my mom didn't actually go off the deep end.... entirely. But if you knew her before and know her now, sometimes I feel like she did.

stress, strain, pressure, (nervous) tension, worry, anxiety, trouble, difficulty

I'm starting to stress out. What usually happens in October is happening for me right now. There's just so much to do and so little time. I hate the prospect of me falling behind in my classes is really irritating me (i'm already really behind, and things were going SO WELL. I have this paper due Wednesday morning and I just don't have the time to write it! I mean, things would be OK if our libraries had info on the topic, but it's just not working out. I seriously don't know how its going to happen.

I think everything would have probably been ok had that essay and my giant seminar presentation that I have to present on Monday. But I also have another application due Thursday and then my whole day on Saturday is devoted to another application process - I actually have to physically be somewhere doing group-building activities while they evaluate me. So saturday really doesn't even count, except for the evening. I've been such a hermit and have had no social interaction this entire semester except with CFC people. Which, wasn't too much of a problem to me until now. I think when I'm stressed I need a change of scenery. It makes me feel like I'm not actually involved in the crappy stressness.

But then I talked to a friend that I haven't seen in awhile... a friend i LIVED with last year. I seriously haven't seen any of my floormates at all really this semester. It's especially bad because there's only 4 weeks left of the semester. Four measly weeks. I haven't really talked to them because they haven't ever invited me out to things so i keep figuring that they don't want me around. But judging from O's reaction last night when we talked, she was pretty upset. Also she said, "I feel like you don't exist this year." Which is totally ouch, but not at all MY desire. Like, I didn't WANT our friendship to sort of die out. I just didn't have anything in common with them anymore proximity wise, but also after so long you miss out on all the inside jokes and you feel like a foreigner. AND did I mention nobody made it seem like I was missed? Maybe its all a misunderstanding and they were like "fine if she's being a bitch then we don't want her around". I dunno. But its not helping my stress factor when i feel like i have something MORE to add to my list of things to do. People should feel like an addition to a to-do list. That's horrible. But i'm a horrible person when I'm stressed. (= a "D" in the DISC personality test)

Although, the more I think about it, the more I want to just go out for a night on the town with O on friday and totally skip out on C4C stuff. Ahh that would be awesome.

You know what also doesn't help? When you're being like "AHH I'M SO STRESSED AND THIS IS WHY" to your housemates and they answer with "you should do this, and this and this" a)I didn't ask for your suggestions and b)did I say you could talk???

SEE haha i'm evil. Where's gloria when I need her? Not that gloria is evil, she just broods well.

sometimes thinking makes things worse

I have this crazy idea that I can screw up so bad that it interferes with some sort of plan God may have. I don't even know if I believe God has a PLAN for our lives, set out in advance.... but I do sort of have this fear that I can screw it up, whatever it is. That somehow I can miss his call on my life, that I can not hear Him telling me something and I do something else instead.

I'm clearly dumb and audacious. Honestly, sometimes my stupidity is overwhelming and I wonder how it is I can bathe myself and not die of self-neglect. I've sort of had this panic-stricken week. Panic over what I'm going to do next summer as my development project. Looking back on it now, I actually feel really embarassed at how stupid I was being. I was being this stupid this summer too until Selene knocked some sense into me. Well, she just said some things and I trusted her... for a couple months that is.

I've had an interesting day. Not eating is hard. REALLY HARD. Not eating and then not thinking about all the chocolate bars people are eating because its the day after Hallowe'en is even harder. But I feel like I learned something today and maybe didn't get as much insight as I was hoping. Maybe even got more confused haha. But I have a peace now. That I can't screw up. Sometimes I feel like God wont move unless we do something to make Him move. Like Him bringing revival is contingent on us somehow. Now I feel like that idea is really selfish and a misunderstanding of God. But at the same time, I feel like if our hearts, as Christians, are hardened, can't we get in the way - like Israel got in the way of God's plan to reach the nations? Ultimately God beat everyone, cause he's GOD...

man... i just confused myself even more.