Interesting, interesting, creepy
So here I am, lost and forlorn with nothing to console me but updating.
Okay, so I’m not lost, I’m bumming around at school waiting until it’s late enough to call source. And I’m not forlorn I’m just tired. My 8 a.m. exam took less than an hour so I’ve been wasting time since then.
A long list of things to do today, people to call and all that funky jazz. I still need to get pictures with my hostel group as I didn’t get a working phone number for them until yesterday evening. So, that’s a point for trying random e-mail addresses in hopes one of them is the person you’re looking for. That and trying to guess between guys and girls in a list of names you’re unfamiliar with.
I also need to get in contact with the lady who can get me in contact with the lady who makes props for Disney. It seems half me life is spent trying to get hold of people who can connect me to others. Ah well, it’s all just one more name in my contact book. Or, in my case, one more business card in the unorganized stack that lives in my wallet and scattered about my room.
I’m still thinking about last week; I was invited to a slideshow presentation by the gentleman I spoke to for an article on massage as a treatment for scars (fascinating). The presentation was by a woman from Toronto who has been going on trips to Cambodia to try and set up a scar treatment clinic. She’s trained a nurse and a couple physiotherapists in proper scar massage technique and on her last trip discovered they’d obtained the government funding to open a centre for acid burn victims.
The pictures of her patients tended towards the graphic, but seeing the changes in them while she was there was inspiring. She was even nice enough to explain everything clearly (I was the only non-mt in the room).
What I found especially interesting was the history and social implications behind acid attacks. From what she said, the attacks aren’t incredibly common, but they’re common enough and an extreme form of violence against a person. Typically done out of jealousy or anger, the attack involves acid being thrown on the victim, usually their face but often the genitals and torso. There were pictures of a woman attacked by her sister-in-law who lost an eye to the burns.
What was also interesting were her figures. 2/3 of the attacks in Cambodia, she said, are perpetrated by women. Either on cheating husbands, mistresses of said husbands, those merely suspected of infidelity or family members after an angry dispute, these attacks can ruin a person’s life. The victim, after recovering form the burns, is reduced to begging if a family member doesn’t take them in. it’s almost impossible for them to find jobs because of social stigma attached to disabilities and disfigurement. I don’t know what I think about this.
Part of the centre’s mandate, therefore, is to give job-training to the recovering patients. Many of the women are being taught massage therapy to work in a clinic opened for them. It will, of course, target mainly the ex-pats living in Cambodia.
After that was Halloween, with all it’s Halloween-ness. Dancing, a party during which I drank far too much and not nearly enough at the same time.
Let me just say that drunk obsessive guys are worse than sober marginally obsessive guys. And, in that respect I think I need to radically change the relationship between me and a classmate. He’s starting to get downright disturbing. I don’t are how drunk you are, but if you’re sober enough to say “I’m too drunk to know better,” then you do. And some things you just don’t tell people *mutters*
Okay, so I’m not lost, I’m bumming around at school waiting until it’s late enough to call source. And I’m not forlorn I’m just tired. My 8 a.m. exam took less than an hour so I’ve been wasting time since then.
A long list of things to do today, people to call and all that funky jazz. I still need to get pictures with my hostel group as I didn’t get a working phone number for them until yesterday evening. So, that’s a point for trying random e-mail addresses in hopes one of them is the person you’re looking for. That and trying to guess between guys and girls in a list of names you’re unfamiliar with.
I also need to get in contact with the lady who can get me in contact with the lady who makes props for Disney. It seems half me life is spent trying to get hold of people who can connect me to others. Ah well, it’s all just one more name in my contact book. Or, in my case, one more business card in the unorganized stack that lives in my wallet and scattered about my room.
I’m still thinking about last week; I was invited to a slideshow presentation by the gentleman I spoke to for an article on massage as a treatment for scars (fascinating). The presentation was by a woman from Toronto who has been going on trips to Cambodia to try and set up a scar treatment clinic. She’s trained a nurse and a couple physiotherapists in proper scar massage technique and on her last trip discovered they’d obtained the government funding to open a centre for acid burn victims.
The pictures of her patients tended towards the graphic, but seeing the changes in them while she was there was inspiring. She was even nice enough to explain everything clearly (I was the only non-mt in the room).
What I found especially interesting was the history and social implications behind acid attacks. From what she said, the attacks aren’t incredibly common, but they’re common enough and an extreme form of violence against a person. Typically done out of jealousy or anger, the attack involves acid being thrown on the victim, usually their face but often the genitals and torso. There were pictures of a woman attacked by her sister-in-law who lost an eye to the burns.
What was also interesting were her figures. 2/3 of the attacks in Cambodia, she said, are perpetrated by women. Either on cheating husbands, mistresses of said husbands, those merely suspected of infidelity or family members after an angry dispute, these attacks can ruin a person’s life. The victim, after recovering form the burns, is reduced to begging if a family member doesn’t take them in. it’s almost impossible for them to find jobs because of social stigma attached to disabilities and disfigurement. I don’t know what I think about this.
Part of the centre’s mandate, therefore, is to give job-training to the recovering patients. Many of the women are being taught massage therapy to work in a clinic opened for them. It will, of course, target mainly the ex-pats living in Cambodia.
After that was Halloween, with all it’s Halloween-ness. Dancing, a party during which I drank far too much and not nearly enough at the same time.
Let me just say that drunk obsessive guys are worse than sober marginally obsessive guys. And, in that respect I think I need to radically change the relationship between me and a classmate. He’s starting to get downright disturbing. I don’t are how drunk you are, but if you’re sober enough to say “I’m too drunk to know better,” then you do. And some things you just don’t tell people *mutters*