/// wait.

by Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

/// b

my heart beats and leaps for you.

/// methodology

Writing also separates us from lived experience and through this separation we are able to reflect on everyday experience. Immersed in the experience, the experience is seamless without reflection. To step back in reflection, the edges begin to be clear, and slowly we began to see what has been nothing more than a sequence of activities.

"Writing decontextualizes thought from practice and yet it returns thought to praxis…. [It] focuses our reflective awareness by disregarding the incidentals and contingencies that constitute the social, physical, and biographic context of a particular situation. But as we gain in this manner a deeper sense of meanings embedded in some isolated aspect of practice we are also being prepared to become more discerning of the meaning of new life experiences." (van Manen, 1990, p. 128)

"Writing objectifies thought into print and yet it subjectifies our understanding of something that truly engages us" (van Manen, 1990, p. 129). For van Manen, "research is writing in that it places consciousness in the position of the possibility of confronting itself, in a self-reflective relation" (p. 129). In phenomenological text, "it lets us see that which shines through, that which tends to hide itself…. To read or write phenomenologically requires that we be sensitively attentive to the silence around the words by means of which we attempt to disclose the deep meaning of the world" (p. 131).

/// Phenomenology as an Educational Research Method by van Manen

http://otal.umd.edu/~paulette/Dissertation/methodology/phenomenology.html

/// turks fruit

/// stars: LOVE

http://www.99matters.de/stars

“I’ve been asked to say what is really important to me, which is either the most brilliant or possibly the stupidest question I’ve ever heard, I’m not really sure. To me the answer is obvious and I can’t believe that anybody would answer the queston differently…”

YES YES YES.

/// phoenix: driving in the night to find coca cola <3

http://www.99matters.de/phoenix/

“If I would be alone here it would be interesting. But there would lack something. It’s like you’re on a beautiful island… alone. What’s the point?”

/// (im)possible (im)possible

meet my new best friends: carl loves ice skating, ted loves jollibee and the rice terraces, adam loves melancholy. :) 

/// (y)our ill wills

i just want to be bothered with real love.

/// the sweetest thing

Edit this setlist | More Camera Obscura setlists

you favorite song and my favorite song as encores.

/// ambivalence

William F. Whyte has observed:

In dealing with subjective material, the interviewer is, of course, not trying to discover the true attitude or sentiment of the informant. He should recognize that ambivalence is a fairly common condition of man - that men can do and hold conflicting sentiments at any given time. Furthermore, men hold varying sentiments according to the situations in which they find themselves. (Whyte: 1980, 117, original emphasis)

-Interpreting Qualitative Data, 107-109

///kings of convenience - second to numb

wish you were here.

early morning, the train. on-board restaurants. the park that is almost like vondel in amsterdam, narnia trees. burger king, singing i'd rather dance with you on the street going to mejeriet. 

the anticipation and nervousness, almost sweaty palms. phone calls, and almost being there. 24-25, you and me. homesick, and our search for home. second to numb, my favorite song, the silent break in the middle of the song and the big drop at the comeback which completely melted my heart. oooh, it happened again, what do you know? love is no big truth. cayman islands without a mic for erlend! dancing with the audience. it's my party and i'll cry if i want to. boat behind, toxic girl, little kids, mrs cold, peacetime resistance, freedom and its owner, renegade and almost all songs from the new album. erlend and his beady eyes, his purple pants and his irresistible dance moves across the stage, the most charming boy alive. eirik at the merchandise booth, telling me to go with the white, the nicest boy alive. :)

the sea in lomma, almost like fryslan.

"wake up to a world that is hollow without love." 

/// THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT: YOUR HELP /// MY WORDS.

This is Marikina, my city. On Sept. 26, Saturday, Marikina and 80% of Metro Manila, the capital of the Philippines, was submerged in water, hit by the worst supertyphoon in four decades. Typhoon Ondoy (International Name: Ketsana) was the nightmare you didn't expect could happen in real life. It was like the end of the world movies, like 28 Days Later or like The Day After Tomorrow, but in real life. In your own city, with people that you actually know, with your loved ones in it.


///HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED:///

CLICK NOW: http://ondoydonation.weebly.com

My friends who have been volunteering everyday since Saturday told me my city is like a ghost town: all mud, piles of garbage and sludge everywhere, no electricity, deserted cars in the highway. Robbery in deserted houses, gunshots in the night, absolute lack of security, poor sanitation in evacuation centers, politicians blocking donations and more horrible things that I wouldn't list down anymore. My city is in a state of calamity, and yes it is that bad. And another supertyphoon (Pepang) is coming tomorrow.

I feel so far away and helpless, yet at the same time, I feel a closeness to everyone else and to a new side of me that I haven't seen before. A rude awakening. I want to make sure that this never happens again to my home. NEVER EVER. People are mobilizing and organizing themselves through Twitter and Facebook. People took out their surfboards and jetskis to help out other people still stranded on rooftops. Civil society became the government. Everything is so raw and so real, in good ways, in terrible ways, and it's not yet over.

I know it's hard to imagine, since there is not much coverage in Swedish or European TV. A friend asked me, "Is it really that bad?" Yes, it is really that bad.


///THE NUMBERS:///


1. Hurricane Katrina (Louisiana) = 380mm of rainfall VS Typhoon Ondoy (Manila) = 410mm of rainfall

2. Twenty-six areas have been declared to be in a State of Calamity.

3. Torrential floods that came within a span of only six hours, but were equivalent to an entire month’s worth of rain.

4. As of Wednesday (numbers according to the NDCC):

Affected Persons: 2, 254, 915

Reported dead: 246

Missing: 42

Cost of damages in Infrastructure: 1.6 Billion Pesos = 23 MILLION EURO
Cost of damages in AGRICULTURE: 3.2 Billion Pesos = 46 MILLION EURO

TOTAL cost of damages: 4.8 Billion Pesos = 69 MILLION EURO

We need all the help we can get. The Philippines don't have that money.


///YOU CAN HELP.///


Friends outside the Philippines have been asking me how they could help, thank you to everyone.

Here's how to donate from abroad:

DONATE ONLINE NOW!


1) Philippine Red Cross through PayPal:

Send money to their official paypal address: give@redcross.org.ph.

2) Philippine Red Cross with your credit card:

http://www.redcross.org.ph/Site/PNRC/Default.aspx?S=48&SS=972

3) Philippine Red Cross through Text Power (also Paypal):

http://www.txtpower.org/2009/09/philippines-help-typhoon-victims-in-luzon-philippines/

4) UNICEF Philippines, with your credit card:

http://www.unicef.org/philippines/index.html

5) Thomson Reuters will match the total amount donated by October 16:

http://www.trust.org/trust.org/page/files/philippinestyphoon2009.html

6) If you have a US/ Canadian credit card, UNICEF USA will match the total amount donated by Oct 6:

https://secure.unicefusa.org/site/Donation2?df_id=5960&5960.donation=form1

DONATE IN CASH OR IN KIND!

Just scroll down for your particular country. Click NOW:

http://moongirl.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/donating-to-manila-from-abroad/

///MY WORDS.///


And if you show me that you have donated, just comment on this note and I will write you a short poem. Maybe a haiku, depends on how many will help out. :) But I promise you, I will write you one. I was thinking of what I could do, being so far away physically, but I realized I have an army of friends all over the world and I have my words. We could help out in our own ways, so let's do this together. Distance (or a super typhoon) is nothing but the echo of seagulls in this ocean of hope, remember?

I love you Marikina, I love you Philippines. Keep your head up!

And don't be afraid. As a friend said, live life meaningfully, never in fear. We're living in a string of uncertainties, still it's true: there is a light that never goes out. There is a light in us that never goes out, and love and hope conquers all. ALL.


Love,
Angel