What is Journaling?

Journaling for me has never been an easy task. Each trip I go on, I attempt to make detailed accounts of what happens each day. Each trip, I fail about halfway through. That being said, the last trip I went on before this one – to Scotland (which I may eventually blog about too) – I realized that maybe I was approaching it the wrong way. Maybe I was too concerned about trying to journal in the typical sense, and not concerned enough about the way that my brain works. That is when I realized, with the help of a good friend, that rather than focusing on each tiny event in every day (which usually takes me days to write about – clearly not efficient or effective), I needed to focus on the things that really stuck out to me. And rather than writing every little detail by hand in my journal, all I needed to do was to take note of it happening, and then when I arrived back home, I could sort through it all and type it up in a way that makes sense.    

This little, red, "inspirational" book is what
I used to document everything.
That, and my camera.

While this is technically more labour intensive, it is much more effective for me, and much faster too. Rather than wasting a couple days writing out one day’s journal entry, I spend a couple minutes right when something happens, and then another couple minutes at home typing it up. Easy as pie! So that is what you, the readers are going to see. You are going to get my now legible insights to my experiences in Southeast Asia – specifically Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and maybe a little bit of Hong Kong.

Also a little bit out of the ordinary, is how I have organized all of my thoughts and questions and realizations. I don't really like to be confined to the day-by-day format because it makes me feel like my thoughts are far more scattered than they really are -- especially now that I am no longer in the moments or even in the same countries. I have organized all of my entries into a series of categories (questions, to be exact), examining and questioning what each of these important headings represents to me about my time in Southeast Asia. I hope you enjoy it and at least learn a little bit about these different cultures!

Peace & Love,
K.

What is Culture?

Okay, here's the deal. I recently returned from two months in Asia as a part of my university degree. I am currently battling through a bunch of academic papers I am not particularly interested in writing, but they are a necessary part of the program so I should probably finish them. That being said, one of my assignments was to write an academic journal about my time in Asia. The following posts (there will be a lot of them...my journal was 30 pages at 1.5 spacing) are going to be basically copied and pasted from that, but maybe with some more insights, maybe more sections to each one, maybe more sections in general (that will make more sense once you read my next post). The title is what it is because of the way my journal was written. In short, though, "What is Culture?" was the title of my academic journal. Don't like it? Confused by it? Hopefully that will all change if you choose to keep reading.

I've been writing too much!

Basically, I am challenging myself to explain what I think of my experiences in Asia, and show some pictures while I'm at it. Also, this makes it easier than talking to everyone I know for three hours, as I know a lot of people and that would take way more time than I have. So this is sort of like my little gift to myself (and to any of you who are particularly interested in knowing about my trip).

Here we go!


Peace & Love,
K.

Sprockets

This is the first time I have posted since September or something like that. That's a little crazy. But then again, so are things around here.  Moving to a new province has its perks, but it also has many challenges. It's an incredible experience though!

Today, a kid that was in the class that I did a co-op in for high school last year started talking to me on Facebook. In and of itself, that is not a spectacular event, or really worth mentioning, but it was what he said that really moved me. He started out saying, "hey mizz nutt," just like he always does (and I find this incredibly hilarious). Next thing I know he was telling me that he wished I could come to Sprockets (a film festival in Toronto) with his class again this year, complete with the date that they are going. The reason this means so much to me is because it means that I made some sort of a positive impression on this child.  It's kind of nice to know that I made a positive impact on at least one kid during the short time I was there. I was only in that classroom from mid-February to mid-April. That is not a lot of time to let the kids at that school open up to me, or to make much of an impression, or so I thought. Clearly, I mean something to this boy, even nearly a year after I finished the placement.

This just turned my day around.