Inspiration

It's been a good week, despite further sleep deprivation (damn you, insomnia) and a rather hectic schedule. I successfully completed a daunting project at work, managed to drag myself to the gym -quite a feat if you know me!-, reminisced about Japan at a JET Alumni Association dinner, and had my first training session at the Refugee & Migrant Centre. During several moments in the past few days I also felt inspired, among other things by:

- Andrea at Superhero Journal deciding to go on a media diet for a week and being amazed at what a difference it made in such a short time: "I am feeling cleaner somehow, more grounded, less cluttery in my mind, more together... like my life is more in line with who I want to be, and how I want to be living it. There is more music and less noise. Both in my head and in my home". Well, my mind could certainly do with some decluttering so it's an idea worth considering...

- Seeing our training coordinator at the Refugee Resettlement volunteer course explain in one gesture how refugees often lose everything that matters to them in one split second, the blink of an eye. I can't say I'll ever be able to fully understand their experiences but it will certainly help me to relate to them more.

- Reading Ariel Levy's controversial book "Female Chauvinist Pigs", which argues that popular culture (particularly in the US) has embraced a model of female sexuality that comes straight from pornography and strip clubs, in which the woman's job is to excite and titillate - to perform for men. According to Levy, women have bought into this by altering their bodies surgically and cosmetically, and - more insidiously - by confusing sexual power with actual power, so that embracing this caricaturish form of sexuality becomes, in their minds, a perverse kind of feminism. Her point of view made complete sense to me and explains why people such as Paris Hilton are adored by many young girls instead of being mocked or pitied. Definitely worth reading - thanks, Ilse, for recommending it to me!

- Watching the documentary "Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens" at the Wellington World Cinema Showcase this evening and thinking of how much I used to love photography and why I ever stopped trying to take decent images. Her brilliant eye and original concepts are of course completely out of reach of mere mortals like myself, but maybe I should pick up this old hobby again. Once I can afford a new camera (my current one recently died on me) I'll hit the streets and just shoot whatever catches my eye. To be continued...