Madonna night at The Globe

All I need to say is Madonna night at The Globe and show a couple of pictures; and the rest is pretty obvious. Greta and I had a great time dancing NON STOP! From the moment we arrived to the moment we left our feet were moving. IT was the best night out I have had in...well years! However the hang over the next day was BRUTAL ugh, just thinking about my headache gives me a headache. Eh, it was worth it!

Bad National Geographic!

Nat'l Geographic got me all excited with news that Mei Xiang and Tai Shan were going to be on the cover of the July issue. Well it seemed that they don't know how to count. They held a poll on 3 potential covers and the "Rome" one got the most votes but under the panda cover it says "Editor's Winner". WTF? I got online last month and RENEWED my subscription soley for the purpose of seeing my panda on the cover of FUCKING National Geographic. But NOOOOOOOOOO...now I have a subscription for something I get for FREE in the library. Errrrrrr I am SOOOOOO MADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD! I want MY PANDA ON THE FRONT COVER! Who would vote for skulls over a panda face? Bastards...I hate you!

Now in case I have this all wrong, help me out. In Australia the cover for NG July is the picture of the skulls. Can SOMEBODY confirm that this is true for the US? I figured that there was only one edition...but I have been wrong before!

Picture Time!

Here are some new pics to add to the collection!

Front Garden















Backyard Heart Garden















Cappers swimming















Bad Cappy who rolled in dirt after her swim (she is Todd's dog when she does that!)













Todd and Greter













Casey with a bun he found on his walk (did you know there is also a sock in there too!)

Material things I miss

I don't miss the US per se, but I do miss some material things from the States. These are some things that I not only miss but CRAVE!

1. Black beans
2. York peppermint patties (I did find some at a "speciality chocolate" shop down town and I bought a bag for $15.00! YOWZA...I used to buy a bag at CVS for $0.99)
3. Bath and Body works Rosemerry/Peppermint body wash and lotion
4. A-1 Steak Sauce
5. Girdelli brownies
6. Playtex tampons
7. Mom's chicken pot-pie
8. Listranni's pizza
9. Good coffee
10. Roosevelt Island
11. Inexpensive paperback books (I have no IDEA why books are so expensive over here!)
12. Ditropan XL for my overactive bladder (not approved and never will be)
13. Inexpensive CDs
14. Whole Paycheck (I mean Whole Foods)
15. Being able to get to another major city quickly (not possible in Oz)
16. Last but not least my friends

In all fairness, these are some things I LOVE about Brisbane
1. Close to the best beaches
2. All the fresh fruit and veggies you can eat
3. Excellent wine (and very affordable)
4. No huge crowds
5. Lots of space
6. Perfect weather
7. Close to Greta
8. 36 hour work weeks (well ok, not for me at least)
9. No hustle and bustle of DC
10. Clean air
11. Being able to afford a yard AND be a student at the same time
12. Line drying my clothes (no one owns a dryer in Queensland!) and feeling evironmentally responsible for doing so.
13. Ease of recycling everything
14. Composting
15. Year round garden of veggies and flowers
16. New friends

Power and Sex: Sex in the city?

I have been inspired by Foucault to add another dimension to my studies of Cambodian adolescent health. Adolescents, particularly female adolescents, are vulnerable to power differentials. I am curious how this tranlates into sexual encounters and the decision making process of whether or not to have sex. I am perplexed though because because I know so little of power and sexuality in my own culture I am not sure where to start in another. My mentors both agree that not addressing power and sex in my thesis would leave a big hole, so I have to find away to address it with what little knowledge I have of Khmer culture.

So what does Foucault think of sex? He believed that sex in the western world " has broken with the tradition of ars erotica and bestowed upon itself a scientia sexualis by adapting the ancient procedure of the confession to the rules of scientific discourse." While S.E.Asia, S. Asia, Rome, and to some extent the Middle East have enjoyed sex as erotica, the Western world got hung up in the belief of sex as a dirty sin. This was no coincidence as after the Enlightenment there was also the rise of the church and the redemption of confessions. The confession has spread its effects far and wide; we confess our crimes, our sins, our thoughts and our desires. Whatever is most difficult to tell we offer up for scrutiny with the greatest precision. We confess in public and in private to parents, educators, doctors, loved ones in pleasure and in pain, things that would be impossible to tell anyone else. The confession can be voluntary or wrung from a person by violence or the threat of it. Sex, albeit hidden we are told, has been the privileged theme of confession from the Christian penance to the present day. We have made sex "scientific" and something to be analyzed. He was very interested in why we even talk about it and for that matter so am I. We talk about it but usually in medical terminology and negatively. In Thailand for example it is something very private but also pleasantly mysterious. Perhaps talking about it would lessen this privileged locus?

While Foucault did not believe in sex being repressed per se, but what is repressed is the act itself. In Victorian times anything pleasurable was repressed including sex. Therefore sex outside of marriage, outside of the bedroom, outside of the purposes for procreation was greatly frowned upon. Subsequently the only outlets for repressive feelings were the shrinks office and prostitution. Then the government got interested in sex and it all went downhill. So how come we can talk about it, but not really talk about it? This is an important issue I want to address with these female adolescents. I want to know where the power lies in discussing sex and the act of having sex. Who has the power? Who/what represses? Discourse is important because, language and knowledge are closely linked to power. Speech and writing are not simply the communication of facts that occurs in a vacuum. As important as what is said is who decides what is said. Foucault develops a complex body of thought out of the old saying that "knowledge is power." Whoever determines what can be talked about also determines what can be known. Whoever determines what can be known effectively determines how we think and who we are. According to Foucault, then, language and knowledge always have a political edge. So is relation to my question, who are those who hold the knowledge about sex in Khmer culture and how do they control it. Since they control the knowledge they also control the power. As they say "knowledge is king"!

Happy Birthday to Tai Shan

My big boy is 1! Happy birthday big guy. I miss you and I can't wait to see you this fall. I hope your fruitcicle rocks and you get lots of presents. Check out the link to the Post about his birthday party.

Missile and Dicks

Ah yes, I believe some posturing is going on between N. Korea and the USA. N. Korea is saying look at how big my dick, I mean missile, is and look at it fly. Only it didn't. It went limp...how embarrassing. W on the other hand sounded like a complete fool in his press conference when he said (and I quote) "A missile test by a hostile nation is a bad thing and we will have to look into it further." Hmmmm, I think we all know that W, thanks. Of course W's penis is quite small, so he sends Rumsfeld and Cheney out to display theirs. However, Korea does not seem impressed. So here we are. A bunch of men with small peniss' and big missiles. I believe this is a recipe for disaster.

Now a woman would get on the phone and be like "Bitch, why do you have to be so agro? Why you got to flaunt your shit in front of my man? Probabably fake too...Yeah that's right, I called your missles fake. No REAL missile would stand straight up like that... Oh you want to scrap? Bitch be at the corner in 2 minutes and I will bust your ass!" That is how women would do it. With their fingernails and hair pulling. Fair and square.

All I have to say is Katia for North Korean Ambassador!