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Not a week has gone by since my return, and things have more or less gone back to normal, if you ignore the mess in my room. It's disorderly at the best of times, but this time it's clearly a case of "I'm not done unpacking yet", kind of like the whole month and a half between Europe and Vietnam.
I got my slides back yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised. I think I'm actually an all right photographer, after all! Most of the more "artsy" pictures I took don't look half bad. The shots that turned out the worst did through no real fault of my own, but because of poor lighting and a flash that wasn't quite up to the task. I'm more satisfied with them than I was with my Europe slides, at any rate.
The thing I like the most about pictures, I think, is that they prove to me that I was actually there. Ever since I got on the plane in HCMC, I've had the vague feeling that I had been living someone else's life for a month (living on borrowed time, perhaps? ^_^) and hadn't really seen all that I thought I had seen. And when I finally set foot back in Canada, it was like I'd lived a whole life elsewhere. Even G (who was *not* at the terminal door to greet me with open arms but was off buying me a big glass of milk when I walked out of customs - love that boy!) seemed unfamiliar. For a few seconds, maybe, but we've spent enough time together these last few days to make him not so unfamiliar, after all.
One thing that surprised me in Vietnam is my reaction to all the poverty there. When I was in Guatemala, the first time I ever saw people living in such squalor, I felt what I imagine are the usual feelings of sorrow and guilt mixed with horror and revulsion. This time around, it was as though I were looking at something far away, so disconnected from my own reality that I couldn't even feel that clenching in my gut I had anticipated. If I didn't give any money at all to the countless beggars I saw, it was because I felt that I couldn't in all fairness give to one and not to another, and that whatever I might give could hardly do anything to better their lives anyway. Is it morally wrong to think that their lives would be exactly the same with our without my hand-outs, and that living with the guilt of not having done anything is better than living with the guilt of having done the easiest thing, that is not enough?
Tomorrow, I start work, at dare I call it? my first "real" job, because what I've done up till now doesn't qualify as "real" work. Meaning I didn't have to dress to impress anyone. But now I've got a private student who's an EX, so I have to be professional enough that he'll ignore any doubts about my abilities that he may have because of my obviously-not-so-advanced age. I just won't tell him that he's my first full-time student! ^_^
G and I went shopping yesterday, ostensibly for him, because he needed shirts and ties for work, but I ended up buying a few things myself, after spending some quality time with him in the dressing rooms at The Bay: "Tiens, celle-là est belle, essaye-la!" He complains about how he hates shopping for himself, but he just had to try the shirts on, I'm the one who did all the work. I even picked out a tie! Is it just me, or are ties totally uninspiring? Why are so many of them horribly ugly? Am I the only one who wouldn't wear some of those designs in a million years?
It's just come to my attention that I'm up at an ungodly hour for a Sunday morning; I guess the jet-lag hasn't worn off yet. On the bright side, at least I wasn't wide awake and frisky at 4am, as I was some of these past few days. Poor G, I've been disrupting his beauty sleep.
I got my slides back yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised. I think I'm actually an all right photographer, after all! Most of the more "artsy" pictures I took don't look half bad. The shots that turned out the worst did through no real fault of my own, but because of poor lighting and a flash that wasn't quite up to the task. I'm more satisfied with them than I was with my Europe slides, at any rate.
The thing I like the most about pictures, I think, is that they prove to me that I was actually there. Ever since I got on the plane in HCMC, I've had the vague feeling that I had been living someone else's life for a month (living on borrowed time, perhaps? ^_^) and hadn't really seen all that I thought I had seen. And when I finally set foot back in Canada, it was like I'd lived a whole life elsewhere. Even G (who was *not* at the terminal door to greet me with open arms but was off buying me a big glass of milk when I walked out of customs - love that boy!) seemed unfamiliar. For a few seconds, maybe, but we've spent enough time together these last few days to make him not so unfamiliar, after all.
One thing that surprised me in Vietnam is my reaction to all the poverty there. When I was in Guatemala, the first time I ever saw people living in such squalor, I felt what I imagine are the usual feelings of sorrow and guilt mixed with horror and revulsion. This time around, it was as though I were looking at something far away, so disconnected from my own reality that I couldn't even feel that clenching in my gut I had anticipated. If I didn't give any money at all to the countless beggars I saw, it was because I felt that I couldn't in all fairness give to one and not to another, and that whatever I might give could hardly do anything to better their lives anyway. Is it morally wrong to think that their lives would be exactly the same with our without my hand-outs, and that living with the guilt of not having done anything is better than living with the guilt of having done the easiest thing, that is not enough?
Tomorrow, I start work, at dare I call it? my first "real" job, because what I've done up till now doesn't qualify as "real" work. Meaning I didn't have to dress to impress anyone. But now I've got a private student who's an EX, so I have to be professional enough that he'll ignore any doubts about my abilities that he may have because of my obviously-not-so-advanced age. I just won't tell him that he's my first full-time student! ^_^
G and I went shopping yesterday, ostensibly for him, because he needed shirts and ties for work, but I ended up buying a few things myself, after spending some quality time with him in the dressing rooms at The Bay: "Tiens, celle-là est belle, essaye-la!" He complains about how he hates shopping for himself, but he just had to try the shirts on, I'm the one who did all the work. I even picked out a tie! Is it just me, or are ties totally uninspiring? Why are so many of them horribly ugly? Am I the only one who wouldn't wear some of those designs in a million years?
It's just come to my attention that I'm up at an ungodly hour for a Sunday morning; I guess the jet-lag hasn't worn off yet. On the bright side, at least I wasn't wide awake and frisky at 4am, as I was some of these past few days. Poor G, I've been disrupting his beauty sleep.
