Whiteboard markers or monkeys. You choose.

I was just about to launch into a long reflection on the wonder of a whiteboard marker. Seriously, I had half of it written in my head. The core theme would be the complexity of human society, as reflected by the whiteboard marker in my office. Fortunately the phone rang and I got sidetracked. So no post about a whiteboard marker.

As you know, AYAD friends visited Aceh two weeks ago. We spent most of the weekend on Sabang. Here are some photos of

The little baby monkey I was terrorising by picking up. Look how cute and scared he is! P.S look at my robot arm! I have a claw!



















On the ferry the way back from Sabang we sorted out who owed what for accommodation. We were dealing in the millions of Rupiah. Check out the piles of cash. I got to play banker. Fortunately we were in VIP class so it was normal to throw money around. Other people were smoking their money...Check out the pimpin' couches we got to sit on. It was like we were kicking back in a cigar lounge and going places. Literally! I find this joke funny enough to carry on for a bit longer...We were crossing seas while climbing the social ladder! Oh man, that bombed.



















Me and two other AYADs in my backyard. It's way more fun out there when there are people to play with.














Yes, I was in every photo. A little egocentric perhaps? 1. It's my blog, so I rule this kingdom. 2. I'm 'borrowing' Amy's photos and it somehow lessens the wrongdoing in my mind if I don't post photos of people who I (obviously, who has the time?) haven't cleared it with.

The second crisis in as many days

I just heard that our man K-Rudd is coming to visit Aceh in a couple of weeks and obviously he wants to catch up with me.

But wait...when are you coming Kevin? The same day that I fly back to Australia?? Noooooo.

Crisis of Attention

Sigh...A Crisis of Attention and Intention. Courtney E. Martin wrote this article for the American Prospect and unfortunately it's all about me.

I have the shortest attention span of any 26 year old I know. It's embarrassing. I even get bored at wild parties. Perhaps it's because I do have such a short attention span, I really do believe that being able to concentrate on one thing is one of the most valuable skills/traits and person can have.

I had a note on my desk at my last job that said "Multi-tasking is a moral weakness". It worked quite well, being reminded that multi-tasking is not something to aspire to, but it certainly didn't turn me into a focused and productive individual.

This article talks about students being distracted by facebook and other things during lectures, which I can definitely identify with, but it doesn't stop there.

Martin says:

Take those Facebook-surfing students, missing out on a potentially life-changing lecture about war and courage. Their diffused attention isn't criminal, but it certainly doesn't do justice to professor Dalton's lectures, their own potential for learning, or the $51,976 they or their parents are paying for a year of Ivy League education. They mirror something very real in most peoples' lives—the sense that your life is happening "to you," instead of feeling truly intentional about how, with whom, and on what you spend your time. How many times have you complained about how long you spent emailing--as if some ambitious demon inhabited your body and kept incessantly pecking away at the keys?

I can relate to this as I am especially guilty of letting the internet and my computer rule my life, and frantically jumping between screens so fast that my crappy computer freezes on me every time (then, of course, I get frustrated by the moment that feels like an eternity it takes for my computer to start function again, as if I haven't just been reading blogs for the last half an hour anyway).

Martin continues:

Their passivity, their misplaced priorities, their degraded educational experience has a lot in common with the frenetic pace and compromised lifestyles that too many of us lead. It is as if we have all been swept up in the hurricane of contemporary life without realizing that it is our own complicity that gives the storm its overwhelming force.

This reminds me of those people you meet from time to time who seem to be able to go slowly, and stay chilled at all times. Man, those people freak me out.

This is not an anti-tech argument or a back-to-the-land manifesto. It is a reminder that our technology is only as enlightened as our use of it. Our productivity is only valuable so long as it is paired with excellence and excitement. Our memories are ultimately populated by sensory experiences, the highs of connection and lows of disconnection, not the mind-numbing march of checking off items on our to-do list while half-listening to the drumming profundity of our own lives.

Read the article here (don't worry, it's short)

Funny photography

I was giggling to myself moments ago about how bad at photography I am (MJ can vouch for recent bouts of unwarranted giggling), and then I found this picture which isn't so bad.














I took it this morning when I was visiting one of the Balai Inong (a traditional women's space) that we've built. You can't see the detail all that well when the photo is this small, but I think it gives a sense of the landscape in the part of Banda Aceh where the tsunami hit the worst. In the water up front, next to the road I was standing on, you can make out the mangroves that presumably were once very thick. They are slowly reclaiming the water. In the background you can see the tsunami houses lined up in rows. You can almost imagine what this area might have looked like before the tsunami.

After taking this photo I turned 180 degrees and saw this:














And for good measure, here is a picture of the building we built. I think it's very pretty.

Al Jazeera report on Aceh

Just a short piece on reintegration of ex-combatants in Aceh.

What I Loved.

Happy Birthday Beck!


I just finished reading What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. Mary Jo recommended this book to me a billion years ago. Unless I dreamed the whole thing, this was one of her book club books. I bought a copy of it to Aceh because I knew it would force me to finally read it after years looking at it on the shelf. If only MJ was a little more over top in her recommendations, then I might have understood just HOW AMAZING THIS BOOK IS!

My housemate Mike read this book before I did (I think he tore through my entire Aceh collection while I meandered through one book). About a week after I started this book, Mike said, "isn't it great how that book is so calm at the beginning and then turns sinister?" Well, of course, after one measly week I was still in the calm beginning! So it played on my mind every time I turned the page...Is this where is gets sinister? I was enjoying the calmness so much that I was dreading the sinister part, and worried it would degenerate into a crime novel (Sarah DOES NOT like suspense and unsolved crime-style books...they make me anxious). All I will say, so as not to spoil the ending, is that the turn that this book took was so seamless and engaging that I didn't lament for a moment the passing of the beautiful pre-sinister period.

If you have an interest in any of the following you MUST read this book:

1. Art/art history/art theory
   
2. Psychology/psychological disorders
   
3. New York (in the 70s, 80s and 90s)
   
4. Relationships (romantic/sexual/paternal/maternal/friendship...it's all covered)
5. Raising children

I like all sorts of books, but this book falls well into my favourite genre that I can't define (that maybe doesn't exist as a genre), of books that discuss ideas and generate thought almost incidentally to the plot, but never to the expense of the plot. I once thought that the plot was secondary for me, but then it occurred to me that if I wasn't there for the plot I'd be reading non-fiction.

A mostly awesome long weekend

Happy Birthday Jess!

If the past week reflects my blogging practices for the next few months there is no way I'm going to reach my blog target (see "9 things to do before 2009"). So I will get cracking.

This weekend past I had a million visitors. It was one of the most fun weekends I've had in Aceh yet. A bunch of AYADs from around Indonesia came for the long weekend, and Benjamin dropped in from Thailand so we headed to Pulau Weh, the island off the coast of Banda Aceh. The weekend involved diving and non-stop action for some, and snorkeling and sitting on the beach for others (place Sarah in camp B). It was great to be reminded of the tropical paradise a one hour ferry ride away from my office. My friends were shocked that I'd only been there once before.

I also took the guys on a tsunami tour to see the giant generator ship, the boat on the roof and the gazillions of identical houses built by NGOs lined up in rows. It's always interesting to do this tour because I am yet to grasp the magnitude of the tsunami, so it's a good time to reflect and try to figure out what happened that day in 2004.

A dampener to the great weekend was that my friend's camera and cash from her wallet were stolen from my house. We can't figure out when or how someone came in, but we think someone quietly came in when a few of us were at the beach and the others were having breakfast on Tuesday morning. We've turned out house into Fort Knox as a result.

AYAD Chris from Jakarta is a clever cookie. He put together some footage of the weekend and put it on Youtube. Don't get too jealous about the beaches, just come and visit me.

9 things to do before 2009

1. Read five novels
2. Cook dinner at home once a week (and invite at least one person to eat it)
3. Write one story or essay to completion
   
4. Go to Lake Toba
5. Go scuba diving in Sabang
6. Paint the ugly door in my bedroom
7. Go on a day hike on the outskirts of Banda Aceh
8. Make sushi in Banda Aceh
9. Post on Where is Sarah? 150 times
   

This list seems so tame, and yet I might not even come close to achieving these goals. As I was typing the list into this post I revised the first goal to read "five" instead of "ten" novels ("come on Sarah, as if you would get through ten" I read like a turtle...if turtles could read, presumably they would be slow.)

I don't like the sound of scuba diving at all, but it seems crazy not to try it once. Maybe I will even aim for it this weekend. It would be great to cross the awful things off my list first.

Today is Wednesday

• The kittens were back on my doorstep last night. I put them in a box in the backyard (with help from the neighbour boys showing me how to grab and trap the kittens...oh dear), but they found their way to the front door again. I think the mother helped them over the very high fence to get there, so I will just let them love the front door.

• I had dreams that made me angry last night. I really need to figure out a way to leave dream emotions behind, it's really not helpful in daily life. The dreams were about foreigners on the beach with Acehnese locals, and the foreigners were wearing bikinis, which is a big no no. But it shouldn't really be that anger-inspiring. When I went for an run just after waking up I couldn't shake the anger, and when all the guards at the CHF office started their usual calling out, I yelled "STOP LOOKING AT ME!" I yelled in English, which makes it even funnier and more nonsensical. Fortunately, my housemate got offered a really great job in her home country at 6am this morning, so the jumping up and down with excitement shook any residual anger out.

• I've just rediscovered the greatness of Weetbix! I think it's the absence of oil and chili that makes me like them so much. I am eating these things for breakfast and lunch (not dinner, that would be crazy). And now, to compliment my regression into childhood, I am going to make a cup of Milo.
  

kittens

Two kittens have taken up residence on my doorstep. As you can imagine I find this absolutely brilliant and have taken measures to ensure that they stay (I gave them a box to sleep in and some milk). At first they were too scared to go near either. I tried to tell them that the box was comfy and that all cats love milk, but they're too little to understand.

My housemate is allergic to cats so they can't come inside, and she'd probably be horrified that I'm encouraging them to stay, but I think she will also give in as soon as she sees them, and hopefully let them live peacefully in our yard (bonus: she is out of town this week while I do lots of things to make them feel at home).

There was terrible wind and rain last night, which is probably why the kittens were huddled at my doorstep in the first place. I worried about them a lot, and checked up on them at 4.30am.

This is what I saw when I opened the door:

















Yes, it's a terrible photo, but it was 4.30am so I wasn't going to stand there forever just to get the picture right. The black thing under them is one of those inflatable pillows you put around your neck when you're sleeping on planes. I have about three because Jetstar give them to you, so I shared one with the kittens. They loved it.

At about 6.30am I could hear them crying a lot, so went looking for them and found two kittens with the mum (who I'd met before and given some tuna), and discovered a third kitten caught in between the fence and the gate. The whole situation was so cute, albeit a little distressing for the mum. One of the kittens ran away when I came to help, so then I had to find it and put it back on the right side of the fence. Up until then the kittens had hissed at me when I went near them (kittens these days, where to they learn to hiss so young?). But this time, even though the kitten was scared, it let me pick it up and carry it back to its family. I was very happy. And now there are three!

Earlier this afternoon I dropped in at home (for other reasons that conveniently allowed me to check on them), and noted that Kak Ani, our helper (helper is the word I use instead of maid because it makes me feel better), was terrorizing the kittens and they'd resumed hissing at humans. In fairness, when I say terrorizing she was actually trying to be nice to them but was getting annoyed at their hissing so started hissing back. It's not a healthy relationship. But at least she is letting me keep them.

9 things to do before 2009

Today I read one woman's list of 40 things to do before 40. It was a really silly list, no offense to that lady's life. I won't link to her post because then she will be able to track this post and she probably doesn't need to hear something like this.

But anyway, her silly list inspired me and I've decided to make a list of 9 things to do before 2009! Who wants in? I'm still formulating the list in my head, and it's nowhere near ready for public display yet, but I want to get others on board so we can publicly launch our lists together. I know at least a few of you love a gimmick so let's get cracking!

Some of the things on my list will be goals (e.g. read one of the very long classics on my bookshelf) and others will the maintenance of an ongoing resolution (e.g. cook a real meal at home at least once a week...believe me this will require a major overhaul of current practice).

I'll post my list next week. If you want to join me: send me an email/facebook message (if you can't do either of those just post your email address in the comments and I'll email you).

Procrastination post

I don't have enough time to write proper posts at the moment, but I also desperately want to procrastinate, so I will just give bullet points:

• There was a snake in my house last week. It was lying by the dining room table and I thought it was dead because it was so still. So I ran for my camera and when I tried to take a photo it slithered into the corner. I ran away and when I checked in 10 minutes it was gone. I could only hope it had left through the back door I'd left opened. I walked around the house in sneakers for the rest of the morning (which is only funny if you know we take our shoes off when we're inside the house, so it was kind of like walking around the house with an umbrella).

• I'm going to spend next week in Medan, the city of the future...after a nuclear war. I've posted photos of this beautiful grey city before, but I'll be sure to let you all relive the magic next week. I get to stay in a pretty fancy hotel for the week. It has hot showers, a gym and a pool. There is also a shopping mall nearby with Starbucks and Dome. It's going to be a busy week of training and trying to get my regular work done outside training hours, but it's going to be done with a hot shower to start every morning, so I'm OK with that.
  
  
• In a couple of weeks Benjamin will be visiting, as will a couple of other AYADs who are posted in Java. I think we will be going to Sabang, the island near Banda Aceh to snorkel and relax to our heart's content.
  

• I'm planning a week in Australia around the 14th of June. Please tell me now if that's a good time to come (I'm 99% sure that certain babies will be born by then, which is the key deciding factor).

• Yesterday, when I arrived at my desk in the morning I found this: