new record: 2 days

I may have caught up with my reading plan! Just finished The Road of Lost Innocence in two days. So it's a quick read, but I am feeling good about myself. :)

That said, much of it was difficult to read. Somaly Mam has an organization in Cambodia (and now in surrounding countries) rescuing and restoring women and children in the sex industry. This was her own story of being sold into a brothel as a child, the abuse and violence she suffered, and how she used her experiences to help other women and girls with her same plight.

It was good to learn more about the beginnings of her foundation and what they are doing in this region of the world, and though I'm familiar with the industry and the violence and exploitation, it's still hard to read the terrible and unbelievable stories of little girls being sold by their parents into prostitution, their virginity being sold, and even some situations where parents fight to get their kids back from the shelter so they can sell them again. In this culture, a woman's value is nothing except what profit she can bring to her family. It's still really sad for me to think about how whole cultures can hold such wrong views. As a Cambodian, Somaly can speak to this fairly and in an unbiased way. (Our own cultures have wrong views too, of course.)

It is an engrossing, quick read if you want to learn more about this situation.

February reading

Today, on March 26, I finished my book for February. Woohoo! Only 26 days late. I am considering revising my goal to one "need to read" book every two months, rather than one. I believe in setting myself up for success. ;)

"Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Day Slavery" by Siddharth Kara is what I just finished. It's been a long time since I have learned new information about human trafficking - being in my circles and having articles, etc. sent to me all the time there is never really any new information. So I appreciated this book and would actually really recommend it. It did cover the business side, focusing on the product (victims), wholesalers (slave traders/traffickers), retailers (slave/brothel owners), and consumers and his recommendations for decreasing the high numbers of sex trafficking that is taking place across the globe. But the author also took several extensive research trips and examined trafficking trends and patterns in many regions of the world. I gleaned a few pieces of information from some of his research.

Anyway, if you want to read more about trafficking and learn about what it looks like around the world, I'd recommend this one. Some parts are understandably difficult to read, and he shares his own personal reactions, feelings, and reflections throughout. But as we know it's a very important humanitarian and justice issue, and this book will give lots of good info.

I guess if I am revising my goal I have until the end of April to finish the next one...I wonder what it shall be??

January Fail

I would like to take a moment to inform you that I have already failed at my reading plan for the month of January. The month isn't over yet, but as I stopped reading the book I was supposed to finish in January last week, I don't have any hopes of finishing. In fact I was reminded why I was only halfway through, and I can think of many other more boring things I would rather do than finish it.

So, moving on.

I am, however, quite close to finishing one of the other books I'm reading (one of the want-to-read books, vs. the need-to-read books, the latter of which are the focus of said reading plan). "Down Under" by Bill Bryson is fabulous! I love getting the perspective of another American on all the interesting/funny/quirky bits of Aussie culture and history that I've already noticed or heard bits about. And he's already done the research on the background, shares funny obscure stories about historical events, and mixes it all in with his own humorous travelogue. Andrew says I know more about Australian history than he does now (ha), and I also had him in stitches on multiple occasions reading him parts of this book.

[Side question: if you were (or are) a man, how would you feel about having your name in hot pink on a book you've authored?]

Hopefully you'll view January not as a complete failure as I shelve the other book I was supposed to finish and start anew for February with a new book about business side of human trafficking. I view this as work now, and it's good as I've got some things coming up in Feb. that involved teaching/speaking, etc. It will be good to get me back in the swing of things. We can hope, anyway; admittedly I'm a little preoccupied these days!!!!!!! (I'll tell you why soon.) :)

They let me back in the country.

Janell, me, Andrew, Lindy & Nate in Kirkland, WA

Andrew and I arrived back in Adelaide yesterday after our flights from LA and then Sydney. I got pulled aside in the Sydney airport and questioned about my returning to Oz so quickly after my last departure, but since I still have time on my tourist visa and ITeams is in process with my work visa it's all ok. And apparently we just missed Lance Armstrong in the Adelaide airport yesterday; he arrived last night for the Tour Down Under, which starts here on Sunday night.

It was a fabulous, although quite busy, trip! I have mixed feelings about being back...it's summer here, yet today has greeted me with pouring rain and gloomy skies. I have much to update the blog with from our adventures in Seattle and LA, and hundreds of photos to sort through! We had a great time with family and friends, a not so great time sorting through my storage unit in LA and running bazillions of errands (but thankfully it's DONE!), and many fun adventures like snowboarding/skiing and Disneyland. It is nice to be back and begin to figure out the next steps, and have a bit of downtime to recover from the madness!

Happy new year, by the way, and while I don't really make resolutions as they are pointless and not motivating for me in the least, I thought of one thing I would like to try this year. I have stacks of books on many topics (theology, psychology, women's issues, various topics in spirituality) that I want to have read but haven't yet made the effort to actually read. I'd like to tackle some of these at the very un-ambitious rate of one per month. That's doable, I think, and at the end of the year I will have read 12 books off my shelf and be that much smarter. This month I'm going to finish one I'm halfway through (fitting as we're halfway through the month). I'll tell you all about it.

And finally, I think I might change up the blog this year. Maybe retire this one and start a new one. New themes and labels (for some reason starting fresh with the labels really excites me!); this one has a lot of years and a lot of topics. I'm keeping the formerly-known-as-Greece-blog, to update with ministry stuff, and will continue to use this one (or the new one) for personal things.

Ok I have a lot of crap to unpack! Bye for now. :)