Chab Dai News!

We are excited to announce that we now have a bank account in Chab Dai Canada's name!! Although we can't issue tax receipts until our charitable status has gone through at Revenue Canada, we can now at least receive funds in Chab Dai's name! We've decided for the time being that everything we receive (unless specifically otherwise indicated by the donor) will be divided 50/50 between Chab Dai Canada and Chab Dai Cambodia. When we start more fundraising and plan projects that will require specific funding, we may review this, but for now we feel sending the money to Cambodia is a good use of our office here.

In other Chab Dai news, yesterday we attended the premiere of a new Canadian documentary called Avenue Zéro, about human trafficking in Canada. The viewing was followed by a Q&A session with six experts, from police officers to community activists, as well as the documentary director. Both the movie and discussion afterward were excellent. I would definitely recommend seeing the movie, it gives quite a good overview of the phenomenon here in Canada from a human rights perspective.

It's playing at Ciné-Robotique (the ONF) on the corner of St. Denis and de Maisonneuve, every day at 19h00 from today until January 31. The address is 1564 rue St. Denis.

The documenary website is: http://avenuezero.ca/

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, friends!

A new year and we're back up on our blog. We took a short break, due to the end-of-semester and December craziness, but we're back to feeling completely motivated and organised, as so many Januaries have before!

We had a wonderful Christmas in Winnipeg, saw lots of family and friends, and found the trip very relaxing overall.

This past weekend we both went down to the States for my first class weekend of the semester and spent a day in Vermont on our way down. Montpelier is a very cute little town with many bookstores and craft shops and some good restaurants to choose from. We chose McGillicuddy's Irish Pub, where I had the most delicious veggie burger I've ever tasted, but also happened to be where the Senate candidate was having a shin-dig, so it was pretty crowded.

Here we are in front of Montpelier's court house... for lack of another "notable" landmark.

We also stopped in Waterbury to visit the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory and got a factory tour.

It was delicious.

It was a busy first weekend, but I am so excited about this semester. In Project Planning, we're moving forward from research to design, and enter the wonderful world of logframes!! They can be pretty tough, but I've done them before, so here's hoping it isn't too difficult. I'm also taking a Gender in CED elective with my fabulous academic advisor. This week, a main focus will be on passing a waiver exam to get out of taking Economics in CED, which looks like a repeat of the Economics courses I took in undergrad, so I'm really hoping I can pass the test.

Charlie spent the weekend driving me to and from campus, meeting me for lunch, napping, reading, and watching much basketball. He was also very happy when I introduced him to Hart's Turkey Farm Restaurant, which is attached to the hotel I stay at every month.

I hope to write more about Chab Dai Canada's progress more in the coming weeks. Charlie plans to make a guest appearance very soon as well. Keep in touch!

Amartya Sen is awesome!

My aha! moment this month was this (and I hope this makes sense, because it's like an explosion in my head):

I can link my specific CED project in Montreal (very concrete) with Amartya Sen's capability approach to economic development (VERY theoretical)!!

This may seem banal and very simple, and my explanation of it is very boiled down and summarised, I admit, but actually being able to take what I learn in the academic setting directly into the real world is pretty amazing (and those of you have done an undergraduate degree know where I'm coming from!)

Don't get me wrong, I think my B.A. prepared me for starting to work in my field and I value my education up to this point very much. But actually seeing how I can put into practice such a theoretical philosophy - read some Sen and you'll see just how theoretical it seems - is one of the most exciting things to happen since I started my Masters.

Ok, back to my literature review ;)
See you later!

After autumn comes...

It's November already? I have been really excited about winter this year because we bipassed it completely last year, but now that I'm cold all the time and only two of our heaters work, I'm not so sure anymore. Hopefully the skating and snow-shoeing will make up in fun what I'm lacking in warmth.

November also means I'm halfway through my first semester of my Masters program! My three courses this semester have definitely kept me busy, and I'm wondering how I'll fit in two more next semester, but overall I'm having a blast. My biggest time swallower is the first of a four-seesmter course called CED Project. This fall I'm doing all the preliminary research for this project, which will take place in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Having done all the statistical research in my first month, this month I concentrated on primary research - interviews, focus group discussions, surveys - so that I am actually getting advice and feedback from people directly in the community. My project idea is beginning to take shape and I'm so excited/nervous/terrified to actually get it started next summer.

In October, Charlie and Alix and I went to the Botanical Gardens for their annual Chinese lantern festival. It was actually the first time I'ven ever been and it is so stunning. The Montreal Botanical Gardens have a really close relationship with the Chinese Botanical Gardens, and so alot of our expositions and gardens have Asian themes and styles. This lantern exposition takes a year to complete: around this time of year, the Montreal team draws the designs for next year, then they send the designs to China, where each piece is hand-made, which takes a few month, and then they have to ship them to Montreal to arrive around July, and its taks almost two months to put them all up!

Catching up

I located more tv coverage of the SCTNow event. It's from a French station - V - and I was interviewed for it!
Click here to watch it.

Also here are some pictures from our weekend in New Hampshire this month:

Hanging out with Dan's friend, Brian, in Portsmouth

Discovering Golden Bowl restaurant in Manchester... yum!

Charlie trying to be cooperative for a picture, Dan refusing

And...

Beautiful sunset on our way home

Busy, so very busy

I have so busy that I forgot to write about my last weekend in New Hampshire! And I haven't even put my pictures on my computer so that'll be for next time.

The truth is I'm LOVING school! I cannot even fathom how much work I have to do, and even though I've been steadily chipping away at it over the past week and a half, I recently realised that I've been only working on the tip of the iceberg! But it is so fascinating and I love reminding myself that I am doing exaclty what I want to be doing.

Two weekends ago, Charlie and I went down to New Hampshire with our two very good friends, Geneviève and Dan. Of course I spent most of my time in class, but we were also able to get in some good shopping and eating together and even went to Portsmouth to visit Dan's friend one evening, where I ate a rather fabulous pulled pork sandwich.

My courses went really well, I love my classmates and my professors and feel I'm learning so much. In Principles, Practices and Policy of ICED, we had a class debate, for which I had to argue, to my utter horror, that economic growth is a better indicator of a country's progress than human development indicators (for example, infant mortality rates, literacy levels, educational attainment, political freedoms, to name a few). But my team really rallied and got very good feedback from the prof. In the end, I was glad to argue something opposite my actual opinion because it helps me better understand and formulate what I do believe.

In Project Design, which is my most demanding course this semester, we discussed primary research and problem tree analyses. In the afternoon, we divided into our three groups (the international cohort forming one group) and discussed Theory U (see earlier post for my thoughts of that). It was a great discussion. I have a lot to do to complete my research for this course, but I'm really enjoying doing the literature review and community interviews. Sometime in the near future (when I have a better handle on it myself) I'll write about what I'm researching and the issue I hope to address in my project over the next two years.

Other than that, Accounting was really fun - and I'm not even kidding! It's kind of an easy class, as long as I keep on my doing homework. This class makes me feel like I'm in grade school again, filling in the balnks in my workbook!!

Thanks for keeping up with me, I feel the love!

Posting again

Hi everyone!

I'm going to start posting again. I hope to post once every week or two.

I've really been thinking about putting together a short lesson for people about to head off on Mission Trips or Hero Vacations or any other type of trip that doesn't solely include tourism. Since living in Cambodia, I've been grappling with questions regarding how we treat those that we encounter in these situations.

I'll be going through this process to work through these questions myself, but also to try to put down on screen my thoughts in a somewhat cogent manner. I will really try to keep the ranting to a minimum and the aha! moments to a maximum.

Ok, hope you enjoy!

P.S. Julia just posted so don't forget to read her post too!