the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

Before #pridemonth ends, here's my contribution to #lgbtq+ literature [draft version]😉 I've always felt that who I like is no one else's business but my own, and it's my choice who I share these details of my life with. But I realize that #representation is also important -- in my case, knowing that I'm in good company has helped me feel safer to fully embrace who I am. Bisexuals are often less understood and discriminated against even within the LGBT community. People typically assume you are either straight or gay based on the person you are with. But who you are with at the moment does not necessarily determine which gender you prefer. Neither do your experiences. Anna Paquin said it best in an interview with Larry King: "Are you a non-practicing bisexual," King asked the actress during his 25-minute interview. "Well, I am married to my husband, and we are happily monogamously married," she replied. "But you were bisexua...

"The Economy of Nightstand Dreams" aka Amor Fati 😉, mixed media on canvas (acrylic, ink, permanent marker, chalk pastel, tinted charcoal, liquid chalk, colored pencil, dryerase crayon, and a tiny bit of washi tape). I painted this two weeks ago (seems so much longer than that!) when I thought it would take me several more weeks before I could walk outdoors by myself again. I was going through my menu of ways to cope with stress that did not require more use of my (cognitive) brain, and art was one of them 🥳 This was my first time to paint after having started the  self-mastery work . Instead of just relieving mental stress, I was so happy to discover that the process of making art was also a great way to explore my feelings of (aesthetic) discomfort, and to practice just feeling them rather than try to make them go away. For example, I don't particularly like geometric art (much less create it!). But I decided to follow the lead of my subconscious--as well as whichever...

Today being the last day of April, which is National Poetry Writing Month, sharing the one poem I was able to write for  Day 24  of NaPoWriMo . The prompt was to look for an article about an animal, and then turn it into a poem by changing the name of the animal into something abstract. Haven't written a whole poem in a looong while, and it was great to write in fun. After doing the self-mastery work this past year , for the first time I was consciously aware of how the Judge has been trying to write my poetry for me all these years  😜  In fact the theme I've chosen is directly linked to some of the stuff I've learned through that work. So this time I just let my creative subconscious lead the way, just as I'm able to do when I'm making visual art. Credit to this  WWF article  for the seed words and wonderful photo above (because I originally just wanted to write about sloths 🤷‍♀️). Here's an unrevised version of the poem 😊

  A chapter my former boss and I wrote has just gotten a refresh, and the whole book is now open access! It's rare that we get to collect new data on something we worked on almost 10 years ago, and it was interesting to revisit our thinking as well, after doing a lot more evaluations. Especially since this was my first evaluation when I was starting out! Unfortunately the intro got deleted from the chapter 😕 So here it is below. Multiple actors and confounding factors Evaluating impact in complex social-ecological systems The objective of impact evaluation is to establish causality between an intervention and observed changes or effects, whether the changes are positive or negative, intended or unintended and direct or indirect. To accomplish this, impact evaluation must at a minimum undertake three tasks: first, determine the extent of change that has taken place since the intervention started; second, establish a causal link between programme or project activities and the obser...

I sit on the expanse of grass, feeling each soft blade under my legs. The sun is lower on the horizon now. Late afternoon light filters through some trees on top of a hill in the distance. I close my eyes and deeply breathe in the fresh air. Two more hours of work left in my day. I cross two traffic lights and walk the three minutes back to my house. You could say I’ve been a wanderer since I was 16. Venturing to Manila for college from my hometown of Davao City, I’ve since moved from city to city and country to country, sometimes not staying longer than a few months in one place. Work finally got me to stay put in Washington DC the last 10 years. Still I fly out several times a year, not just for adventure but also for my job in international development. In 2019, I was away at some other state or country almost every other weekend. Google Maps says I traveled enough miles to go around the world two times. That was to seven countries—starting in Uruguay in March, then Belize, Hondu...