Thursday, 28 August 2008
Training
Running:
set the alarm for 5am. finally woke at 5:15am and dragged self out of bed. Got dressed and drove moto to the Olympic Stadium. Couldn't get on the track for all the razor wire! So I followed everyone else and ran around the circumference of the entire complex. Maybe 1km around? I have no way to know for sure. But I did 2 laps. I'll call that 2kms today. It felt pretty good, though my legs are a little sore right now (8:14am). Tomorrow is x-training. I'm thinking of going back to the stadium and joining one of the aerobics groups, or tai-chi!
set the alarm for 5am. finally woke at 5:15am and dragged self out of bed. Got dressed and drove moto to the Olympic Stadium. Couldn't get on the track for all the razor wire! So I followed everyone else and ran around the circumference of the entire complex. Maybe 1km around? I have no way to know for sure. But I did 2 laps. I'll call that 2kms today. It felt pretty good, though my legs are a little sore right now (8:14am). Tomorrow is x-training. I'm thinking of going back to the stadium and joining one of the aerobics groups, or tai-chi!
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Training
Today is cross-training.
2x20 knee push-ups
2x10 crunches
2x20 squats
pretty pathetic really.
I'm planning to get up early (5am) to train at the Olympic Stadium tomorrow morning.
2x20 knee push-ups
2x10 crunches
2x20 squats
pretty pathetic really.
I'm planning to get up early (5am) to train at the Olympic Stadium tomorrow morning.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Angkor Wat Half Marathon
I've decided to train for the Angkor Wat Half Marathon on Dec 7. This is quite the feat as I'm out of shape. I haven't done any kind of training for over a year. Also, I hate running. I like exercising (sort of), but I have NEVER liked running.
Anyway, Ive downloaded several training programs. It seems to go along the lines of:
Monday: cross training (fancy word for enjoy yourself while exercising)
Tuesday: run
Wednesday: cross training
Thursday: run
Friday: cross training
Saturday: run
Sunday: rest.
Today I went to find the local gym but I couldn't find it. It seems to have been either knocked down or replaced by a massage parlour (more fun than training I guess). So I then ran around the block. At best it's a kilometre around the block. I'm hot, sweaty and definitely out of shape.
I will try to get to the Olympic Stadium early on Thursday morning - I need to be finished by 6am or the sun will be too hot.
Anyway, Ive downloaded several training programs. It seems to go along the lines of:
Monday: cross training (fancy word for enjoy yourself while exercising)
Tuesday: run
Wednesday: cross training
Thursday: run
Friday: cross training
Saturday: run
Sunday: rest.
Today I went to find the local gym but I couldn't find it. It seems to have been either knocked down or replaced by a massage parlour (more fun than training I guess). So I then ran around the block. At best it's a kilometre around the block. I'm hot, sweaty and definitely out of shape.
I will try to get to the Olympic Stadium early on Thursday morning - I need to be finished by 6am or the sun will be too hot.
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Sunday, 4 November 2007
From Dominator to Partnership
I first came across Riane Eisler's work "The Chalice and the Blade" while studying Community Psychology back in Australia. I was fascinated by the idea that there was archaeological evidence of different models of social structures that were able to balance the gender equation. Men and women, while physically different, with different roles even, were considered equals. I don't believe I ever read the book back then (1997 or so) but I read numerous references to it.
More recently, as I've begun the reading for the Master's in Conflict Transformation, I have encountered her name in several places. Amazingly, my wife Samantha found a copy in a second-hand bookshop here in Phnom Penh.
Just reading the intro and I can't wait to get into it. Her questions: "What is it that makes us so violent towards one another, and between men and women?" "How is it that such violent people are capable of creating poetry, music and search for justice and peace?". There is a such contradiction to who we are!
This book, published way back in 1987, parallels my own thoughts and reflections. But more often I personify them. "How can I, someone who wants to lead a non-violent life, striving for social justice, perpetuate interpersonal relational styles that are antithetical to my desired goals? Why, when faced with conflict, do I fight back instead of trying to understand the person and their situation? Why do I assume that my perception of the situation is the only right one? And, why do I seek to control situations in which I am threatened instead of allowing the threat challenge and grow me?" When I do manage to relinquish my violent domintor actions to the process of seeking peace I and the other are transformed and can communicate on a totally different level, without any hint of violence to each other. There is magic in those all-to-rare occasions.
I am hoping that my studies will not only give me skills to move institutions and society to a more just future, but also that I would be a more just person.
May Peace Reign!
More recently, as I've begun the reading for the Master's in Conflict Transformation, I have encountered her name in several places. Amazingly, my wife Samantha found a copy in a second-hand bookshop here in Phnom Penh.
Just reading the intro and I can't wait to get into it. Her questions: "What is it that makes us so violent towards one another, and between men and women?" "How is it that such violent people are capable of creating poetry, music and search for justice and peace?". There is a such contradiction to who we are!
This book, published way back in 1987, parallels my own thoughts and reflections. But more often I personify them. "How can I, someone who wants to lead a non-violent life, striving for social justice, perpetuate interpersonal relational styles that are antithetical to my desired goals? Why, when faced with conflict, do I fight back instead of trying to understand the person and their situation? Why do I assume that my perception of the situation is the only right one? And, why do I seek to control situations in which I am threatened instead of allowing the threat challenge and grow me?" When I do manage to relinquish my violent domintor actions to the process of seeking peace I and the other are transformed and can communicate on a totally different level, without any hint of violence to each other. There is magic in those all-to-rare occasions.
I am hoping that my studies will not only give me skills to move institutions and society to a more just future, but also that I would be a more just person.
May Peace Reign!
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Grass Roots
Grassroots
Alisa Gordaneer
Alisa Gordaneer
there’s a revolution afoot in the garden, the chickens
are scratching up resentment, the beans have surrendered.
it's become an all-out struggle, with worms,
beetles rambling in shiny coats
stolen
from the night’s shimmer.
at first it’s quiet, as though
you could imagine them fomenting quietly, muttering against
damp grass by moonlight, passing secret messages in
the scuttering of dry day. but the trees get wind of it, bushes
rustle, and suddenly the grasses know all, tell all
until the whole garden has rebellion on its leaftips, insurgency
in every seed.
it will go like this
despite the gardener, despite the scythe, despite
white flags waving from the laundry line.
Alisa Gordaneer is the 2005 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award Winner.
20 Frontiers of Global Conflict
http://conflict-frontiers.beyondintractability.org/gateways/conflict-frontiers/slideshow-short.jsp
Freedom = Violence
Researching I came across: http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/08/freedom_is_viol.html
This is my quick response, I couldn't post a response on the above-named blog...
Yes, you could say "Freedom = Violence". But only because the Capitalist Freedom believes in the inalienable right of every American (British, Australian, etc) to live as s/he desires regardless of the consequences to anyone else (outside of our country, thank you very much). Free Trade Agreements? how "free" do you think they really are? Has America stopped subsidizing it's farmers yet? I don't think so, yet America yells and screams for everyone else to cut tariffs to create an 'equal playing field', while giving it's own a giant leap into the stratosphere. South Korea has been planting rice for centuries and has the capacity to grow enough rice for it's population, yet subsized American rice undercuts market rates.
This is what us loonies in Peace Studies (and other associated fields) would call Structural Violence in the Name of Freedom. The real question is "Freedom for whom?", because it isn't freedom for all.
This is my quick response, I couldn't post a response on the above-named blog...
Yes, you could say "Freedom = Violence". But only because the Capitalist Freedom believes in the inalienable right of every American (British, Australian, etc) to live as s/he desires regardless of the consequences to anyone else (outside of our country, thank you very much). Free Trade Agreements? how "free" do you think they really are? Has America stopped subsidizing it's farmers yet? I don't think so, yet America yells and screams for everyone else to cut tariffs to create an 'equal playing field', while giving it's own a giant leap into the stratosphere. South Korea has been planting rice for centuries and has the capacity to grow enough rice for it's population, yet subsized American rice undercuts market rates.
This is what us loonies in Peace Studies (and other associated fields) would call Structural Violence in the Name of Freedom. The real question is "Freedom for whom?", because it isn't freedom for all.
Monday, 29 October 2007
Conflict Transformation - the beginnings
Dear Reader,
in less than a month I begin studies in Conflict Transfomation. What is CT and why would I want to study it? Where am I studying and what does it entail?
The Masters in Conflict Transformation is offered in partnership with ACTS (Action for Conflict Transformation) and the Pannasatra University in Phnom Penh. There are several other course run in other continents (Balkans, eg) through the global ACTs network. It is a two-year program designed to be integrated into participants work-places. The final year is a major research project which I currently plan to be based on the experiences at Cheas Ponleu / WDO where I have been working the last 2 years.
Conflict exists everywhere, and at every level of society. There are many reasons and theoretical explanations for conflict. I am particularly interested in investigating conflict at the institutional and international level. We are living in a global community, and we cannot ignore the global effects our small, local lives have. The well-worn motto "think global, act local" sums up this intent pretty well.
In a place like Cambodia, institutional conflict is all around us, yet the political institution is resistant in letting voices of discontent to be heard. I hope to explore ways for Cambodians to express their voices of discontent in constructive ways, so that oppressed/oppressor can find common future paths, rather than seeing mutually exclusive ones. Many people's revolutions have simply turned the tables in who is oppressing whom. Iraq has demonstrated that while Saddam Hussein was an insane mad man, he kept an unsteady balance between warring factions. The military pre-emptive incursion in Iraq has created a blood-bath far beyond Saddam's regime, and has destabilised not only Iraq, but the political shere in the region. This, too could happen in Cambodia (but on a smaller scale). Hun Sen is the 'king-pin' of Cambodian political life. He holds many factions together and in somewhat-peaceful balance. This balance ensures that anyone who feels they are entitled to a piece of Cambodian wealth has it. Of course, this mainly benefits the Cambodian fat cats and usually disempowers and disenfranchises the poor, ethnic minorities, and sub-culture groups.
The 'answer' to Cambodia's 'problems' is not the removal of Hun Sen and his cronies by the powerless poor, thus turning them into powerful demagogues destined to repeat the horrors of the past, but to find a common future, where all can enjoy freedom of expression (of who they are, of dissent, of where they live, how they express religion, sexuality, personhood). Freedom to be truly human, not afraid to be such.
Right now I am pretty idealistic about Conflict Transformation, but I hope this course and my research will give me greater insight and practical applications for making positive use of the conflicts around us.
in less than a month I begin studies in Conflict Transfomation. What is CT and why would I want to study it? Where am I studying and what does it entail?
The Masters in Conflict Transformation is offered in partnership with ACTS (Action for Conflict Transformation) and the Pannasatra University in Phnom Penh. There are several other course run in other continents (Balkans, eg) through the global ACTs network. It is a two-year program designed to be integrated into participants work-places. The final year is a major research project which I currently plan to be based on the experiences at Cheas Ponleu / WDO where I have been working the last 2 years.
Conflict exists everywhere, and at every level of society. There are many reasons and theoretical explanations for conflict. I am particularly interested in investigating conflict at the institutional and international level. We are living in a global community, and we cannot ignore the global effects our small, local lives have. The well-worn motto "think global, act local" sums up this intent pretty well.
In a place like Cambodia, institutional conflict is all around us, yet the political institution is resistant in letting voices of discontent to be heard. I hope to explore ways for Cambodians to express their voices of discontent in constructive ways, so that oppressed/oppressor can find common future paths, rather than seeing mutually exclusive ones. Many people's revolutions have simply turned the tables in who is oppressing whom. Iraq has demonstrated that while Saddam Hussein was an insane mad man, he kept an unsteady balance between warring factions. The military pre-emptive incursion in Iraq has created a blood-bath far beyond Saddam's regime, and has destabilised not only Iraq, but the political shere in the region. This, too could happen in Cambodia (but on a smaller scale). Hun Sen is the 'king-pin' of Cambodian political life. He holds many factions together and in somewhat-peaceful balance. This balance ensures that anyone who feels they are entitled to a piece of Cambodian wealth has it. Of course, this mainly benefits the Cambodian fat cats and usually disempowers and disenfranchises the poor, ethnic minorities, and sub-culture groups.
The 'answer' to Cambodia's 'problems' is not the removal of Hun Sen and his cronies by the powerless poor, thus turning them into powerful demagogues destined to repeat the horrors of the past, but to find a common future, where all can enjoy freedom of expression (of who they are, of dissent, of where they live, how they express religion, sexuality, personhood). Freedom to be truly human, not afraid to be such.
Right now I am pretty idealistic about Conflict Transformation, but I hope this course and my research will give me greater insight and practical applications for making positive use of the conflicts around us.
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