Truly I am terrible. A shoddy miscreant from Shakespearean times wrapped up in a ball of putrid seaweed. (wow that is disgusting) Why? you might ask. It's because I haven't posted for the year. I don't even know if I even have followers cuz I still don't know how to work this blog because there are so many buttons and links to other places and I digress. Anyway. I apologize to you (well, whoever "you" is, out there) for being a lazy creature and abandoning the task of writing, (which I'm pretty sure I'll have to take up soon enough.)
My last blog spoke of what I'd hoped to accomplish for the year 2014. And I'm really proud to say that with the exception of one goal on that list, I've really accomplished all of them without even knowing it! This is especially endearing to me because I totally forgot that I made that list in the first place, so seeing myself accomplish things that I thought were of importance in the back of my head is very encouraging.
1). I was able to meet with some students in April to do some career counseling and mentoring before CXC and starting from October til next year March I will be doing island visits to various schools about the Juvenile Justice Reform Project that I'm working on.
2.) I wrote to the newspapers. Cuz I had a hole the size and shape of Guadeloupe in front of my yard and it was some bullshit. So I wrote harassing the Minister of Transport and Housing. I also wrote about the number of female murders and the lack of psychologists in the country to deal with the children of those murdered women, and something else that was bothering me at the time that I can't remember. I will be writing about the ALARMING number of crazy people and vagrants on the sidewalks before this year is over. It is just ridiculous.
3.) Youth Parliament was a no-go. I forgot about it, then remembered, and forgot all over again.
4.) All I've done for the past 8 months besides work is attend conferences and forums about the juvenile criminal system in SVG so I have that covered.
5.) I have a mentor!! In the psychology field, which is such a rarity in and of itself. Well I haven't told her she's my mentor yet but hopefully when she reads this...Semantics. *pulls her struggle twists*
6.) Through my attendance at all these different forums, I was able to meet with consultants and find out about an abundance of foreign aid enterprises that can help with small start up groups.
But let me update you on what my life has been for the past ten months.
I fell in love. I know, I know. I became the cliche of all the romance novels and lost myself in a romantic interlude that makes me smile at times and cry at times, but that is really a blog for another month because I'm no longer in that space.
But yea. I got a job. Well, two jobs. Previously, I wrote about wanting to effect change in some way because I was yearning sooo hard to give back to my country in some way. (Yay-Freedom Fighter!) But my first job was in the private sector. I *drum roll* was a drug and substance abuse counselor. Now, for those who know me, THAT was not a career path ANYONE could see me on. As a matter of fact, the number of shocked responses I got was enough to irk me into actually taking the job as seriously as possible. My friends couldn't believe that I could change crack and heroin addicts from a path of constant substance abuse to one of 12 step recovery! Well I'D SHOW THEM!
Yo. That shit was the hardest 5 months of my life. I started out in a sea of hopelessness. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I had a BSc. in Special Psychology! I didn't do the "12 steps of changing a crackhead to a fully functioning human being" course! I was in charge of a 63 year old man who had been smoking crack for 22 years. SON! When I had the initial meet up with my client, my knees were knocking. My client was 6'4. I'm 5'6 on a good day!! And he still had drugs in his system. I was scared out my straightened hair. How was I supposed to convince this man who was old enough to be my grandfather that crack wasn't the way to go!??
Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode...
Saturday 11 October 2014
Monday 9 December 2013
Resolved.
It's sometimes so easy to become distracted and ill-disciplined. I have to remind myself to write. Not because I don't want to but because my will is not stronger than my laziness. For me, discipline is my weakness. I get fired up about something, (exercise especially) and after a month...well. Back to basics. And weight gain. But I digress.
A month ago, I was upset about the lack of jobs for my fellow university graduates. Today, I'm still upset, but the fire feels like a slow simmer. I did try to do something. I wrote to a politician. :) I told him, I have people, who are interested in doing something, I have friends who are graduates and unemployed, I have an urge to do something, I am willing! And he smiled and the end. So my good people, I write. And I feel justified in the statuses I post and the things I say. But I won't write forever.
Fast forward a month. The semester is nearly to an end and a lot of people are preoccupied with their own family affairs for the season. Which is fine. However, I do wish to go back to some points made in my original post. Talk can only get you so far. Things must also be done. Here are a few of the things I hope to accomplish with the help of the persons who were interested in doing something for their country for 2014:
1. I understand another local young man has a mentor type system made up of all males. I WILL make contact with him and offer to do some career counselling and mentoring to secondary school students on Fridays that I am available and I shall extend the courtesy to some of my learned female friends.
2. I will be writing to the newspapers more often about the plight of young Vincentians who continue to offer services to SVG but are continuously shut down because of who their parents are and what party they did or did not vote for. This is a major issue here in my opinion and it shouldn't be. Just thinking about it makes me frustrated. How can someone spitefully turn down a job application for a qualified person because the applicant's parents voted for the party in power? I hope the gene of stupidity is not passed down to generations.
3. I have already gotten some information from some friends of mine about a Youth Parliament. I WILL (again) bring it up to the powers that be.
4. We need to attend more forums whether they be youth motivated or otherwise so that we can make more informed postings so that when we emphatically state something we can further back it up by something other than print media. I bin dey so I ain't hear so Ah see it for meself!
5. We should find our own academic mentors in the fields we've studied and kindly ask to be their understudy. People can't live forever right? Hopefully by so doing, we can gain the "experience" that the job market asks for on a regular basis.
6. We need be more educated about aid from foreign enterprises that are interested in small start up groups who are dedicated to making a change to their own developing nations. If you're not getting help from home, there are always other avenues.
I do believe it is time to take our own fate into our own hands and while there are certain things that cannot be immediately changed, I do believe that sitting and thinking about a better St.Vincent will NOT make a better St.Vincent.
This isn't about New Year's Resolutions per se, but rather an action plan of how I can get off my behind and not become bitter about the current situations I see daily.
What do you guys suggest? Are there things that take preference for you in bettering yourself and your country? Or have you all flown out of the cage to greener pastures? Leave your comments below! :)
K.C
A month ago, I was upset about the lack of jobs for my fellow university graduates. Today, I'm still upset, but the fire feels like a slow simmer. I did try to do something. I wrote to a politician. :) I told him, I have people, who are interested in doing something, I have friends who are graduates and unemployed, I have an urge to do something, I am willing! And he smiled and the end. So my good people, I write. And I feel justified in the statuses I post and the things I say. But I won't write forever.
Fast forward a month. The semester is nearly to an end and a lot of people are preoccupied with their own family affairs for the season. Which is fine. However, I do wish to go back to some points made in my original post. Talk can only get you so far. Things must also be done. Here are a few of the things I hope to accomplish with the help of the persons who were interested in doing something for their country for 2014:
1. I understand another local young man has a mentor type system made up of all males. I WILL make contact with him and offer to do some career counselling and mentoring to secondary school students on Fridays that I am available and I shall extend the courtesy to some of my learned female friends.
2. I will be writing to the newspapers more often about the plight of young Vincentians who continue to offer services to SVG but are continuously shut down because of who their parents are and what party they did or did not vote for. This is a major issue here in my opinion and it shouldn't be. Just thinking about it makes me frustrated. How can someone spitefully turn down a job application for a qualified person because the applicant's parents voted for the party in power? I hope the gene of stupidity is not passed down to generations.
3. I have already gotten some information from some friends of mine about a Youth Parliament. I WILL (again) bring it up to the powers that be.
4. We need to attend more forums whether they be youth motivated or otherwise so that we can make more informed postings so that when we emphatically state something we can further back it up by something other than print media. I bin dey so I ain't hear so Ah see it for meself!
5. We should find our own academic mentors in the fields we've studied and kindly ask to be their understudy. People can't live forever right? Hopefully by so doing, we can gain the "experience" that the job market asks for on a regular basis.
6. We need be more educated about aid from foreign enterprises that are interested in small start up groups who are dedicated to making a change to their own developing nations. If you're not getting help from home, there are always other avenues.
I do believe it is time to take our own fate into our own hands and while there are certain things that cannot be immediately changed, I do believe that sitting and thinking about a better St.Vincent will NOT make a better St.Vincent.
This isn't about New Year's Resolutions per se, but rather an action plan of how I can get off my behind and not become bitter about the current situations I see daily.
What do you guys suggest? Are there things that take preference for you in bettering yourself and your country? Or have you all flown out of the cage to greener pastures? Leave your comments below! :)
K.C
Friday 15 November 2013
Daylight com' an' me wah go home!
Today
I spoke to a good friend of mine about a situation that I'm sure has passed
through the minds of every young graduate/college student in my small country
of St.Vincent and the Grenadines (and I will be talking about SVG for now, my
non-Vincentian readers because in order to accomplish much, one must first
accomplish little, but feel free to chime in with your perspective!). The
situation to which I'm referring is the overwhelming urge to flee the country.
We are not the war torn Congo and the typhoon ravaged Philippines, but the
young developed minds of the country have no desire to stay and nation-build.
One might ask why, only to have a chirpy reply of "What does this country
have to offer me? No jobs, nowhere to go, political spitefulness, just 150
square miles of boring backwardness." And yet...there is a small trickle
of determined young folk abroad who are excited and willing to come back and
make a difference. So where does the great divide begin and why? I think the
divide starts once we finish college.
I
believe that for a good number of us (and I say us because I've been struggling
with this myself) once we have a taste of spending any amount of time in a
developed country, we begin to dream of Peter Pan lifestyles where we'd never
grow up and we would escape the reality of our situations back home. Because
think about it, back home we pay high prices for clothes from
"foreign" that were so last year's fashion, our movies come out two
to three months after the premiere if at all (by the time they arrive, we've
already seen the DVD version online - supposedly) things that we consider
readily accessible abroad are scarce or inhumanely priced at home.
I
know for myself, paying $10 for a proper fitting dress in "foreign"
and coming home to see the same dress for $175 EC left me with a dry taste in
my mouth. Don't even talk about the food. And that's just two of many things
that bothered me whenever I came back from travel. Returning filled me with a
feeling of impending doom and sadness that I was uncomfortable with for a long
time. I was unhappy at the prospect of coming back home, and I was ashamed that
I felt that way. But I was friends with a few people who lived abroad and
wanted to come back and I couldn't understand. Why would you give up cheap
food, over 200 types of ice-cream, cheap clothes, and the opportunity to do one
different thing every single day, to come back to an island that you could
navigate in three hours? Did they know how hard it was to find a good shoe on
an island?
And their answer was so simple. They didn't want to be a cog in a machine. I thought that was such a mindblowing statement. Think about it readers: unless you've got a ton of money, you're going to be one of millions working for the famed 1% who run the foreign countries. Basically, cogs in a machine. However, in the Caribbean, there is a 100% higher chance of being your own boss, as an entrepreneur, or the head of a ministry, anything really. And some just genuinely want to see their country prosper and do well. And that made me feel even more ashamed. I'll tell you a story.
I
had the opportunity of going on student exchange that allowed me to visit
Canada for the first time. For four months, the longest I'd been away in a
truly "foreign" country (cuz Barbados don't count) I was in this
place of crisp air, cheaper clothes and movies that I could see on the premiere
day. I envisioned myself living there wearing thigh high boots and coats from
Sex in the City. And then on the first week of school everyone asked where I
was from and NO-ONE knew that the
country I came from existed. Ok, maybe two people. But that was it. A young
Asian guy asked me how I was able to come to Canada, and how I managed to
escape the Pirates. I know I read about people being asked questions about huts
and transportation but I never believed it until I experienced it. I got offended.
Then I got mad. Then I got determined. I wanted to come home. Not because
Canada wasn't a great place, it's an awesome place, but I think that everyone
should know WHERE my country was and that it is home to 110,000 people.
Barbados has Rihanna to put them on the map. What did we have apart from random
shots from Pirates of the Caribbean? I mean, people thought we had real life
pirates in our waters for griefs sake. I don't want people thinking I have to
fight off pirates to travel (really, random Asian guy?!).
So
if I came home and even did one thing, one small thing that allowed my country
to be more than a blip on a map for all of twenty minutes, I'd do it. But I want
to throw the question out to you guys. Why are you so determined to abandon the
proverbial ship? If you can leave shores to be entrepreneurs, can't you do the
same at home? A lot of people leave here looking for greener pastures only to
end up doing things they never would have dreamed they would do for money. And
for those who want to come back, why do you? Does anyone want to...come home?
Swingin
in my mango tree,
K.C
(P.S, I mean swinging swinging, not...swinging)
Thursday 14 November 2013
Broken Rose Colored Glasses
Hey All!
Welcome to my first real attempt at blogging. I'm here because of group of young revolutionaries who challenged me to put "virtual pen to paper", and here we are. I've always loved reading and to some extent, writing. I think it's amazing the way people are able to voice their innermost thoughts in a way that draws others in. I feel as if I have so many friends, all because of the way a blog post was written, or a book was penned. And a few years ago, at the prime of my early 20's angst, some persons suggested that instead of hiding behind the privacy wall of my FaceBook I start writing openly. Again, because I'm such a fierce protector of my privacy I declined. But apparently 2013 may be the year of change for a lot of us.
Fast forward to the dredges of November when the year is about to end and I am one of many recent disillusioned graduates unable to find a suitable job across the Caribbean region. I was sitting in a building that is supposed to be a rehab centre but currently has no clients, and I was frustrated. With my job. With my life. With everything that was everything and everyone and all body and somebody and nobody. And I took to my beloved Facebook to vent, blindly unaware that I was about to fire up a group of people. This happened:
"*begin musings* I don't read those uplifting little blogs about life and things 20 and 30 year olds should be doing anymore. You know why? It's all a lie. "They" say your 20's are supposed to be some of the best years of your life. Then someone says no, your 30's are supposed to be some of the best years of your life. "They" are obviously people who live in humongous developed countries. "They" don't know bout paying back student loans, going to the same ONE club over and over, seeing the same people, over and over, becoming disillusioned by your government's lack of youth representation over and over, being overqualified for jobs that pay you just enough to cover your loan and buy a box of KFC... Maybe I'm asking for too much, maybe I should write about the reality of life for an average Caribbean 20-something year old who has to fight for a job; (unless you have a friend in high places), who has no family overseas so you can't run away and scrounge for a living in the promised land of America or any other place called "foreign"; who fights with thoughts on life direction when you look at the square box of lies and static (TV) which suggests that OBVIOUSLY your life isn't worth ish cuz you still live home with your parents, don't own your own vehicle and sometimes they have to give you money cuz you don't have...
*ends musings* Jesus."
Let me be clear. I threw a maybe in the aforementioned rant and was challenged by my peers to make it a reality. So I'm going to write. And *you* my peers are going to help me. You're going to challenge me. You're going to interact with me. You're going to (constructively) criticise me. And we are going to *actually* make a difference. Because from that one rant, came ninety-nine (99) comments, ideas, proposals and suggestions on shared feelings, needs for change and a willingness to do something about it. A good number of the commenters are unemployed graduates. A few are also employed. The collective sum are brilliant. Notes were taken and in following posts, I'm going to map out clearly the suggestions that were made and look to you all for ideas on how to change the landscape of the country. I no longer want to promote a culture where graduates are hired on the basis of political preference and godparents in high places. Entrepreneurial spirits can take flight and we can push to be hired off the strength of our degrees and brilliance. This could be the beginning of true visionaries taking off our rose colored glasses and seeing the world through a different pair of lenses.
To be continued...
Peace and lack of hair grease, cuz it's rainy season.
K.C
Welcome to my first real attempt at blogging. I'm here because of group of young revolutionaries who challenged me to put "virtual pen to paper", and here we are. I've always loved reading and to some extent, writing. I think it's amazing the way people are able to voice their innermost thoughts in a way that draws others in. I feel as if I have so many friends, all because of the way a blog post was written, or a book was penned. And a few years ago, at the prime of my early 20's angst, some persons suggested that instead of hiding behind the privacy wall of my FaceBook I start writing openly. Again, because I'm such a fierce protector of my privacy I declined. But apparently 2013 may be the year of change for a lot of us.
Fast forward to the dredges of November when the year is about to end and I am one of many recent disillusioned graduates unable to find a suitable job across the Caribbean region. I was sitting in a building that is supposed to be a rehab centre but currently has no clients, and I was frustrated. With my job. With my life. With everything that was everything and everyone and all body and somebody and nobody. And I took to my beloved Facebook to vent, blindly unaware that I was about to fire up a group of people. This happened:
"*begin musings* I don't read those uplifting little blogs about life and things 20 and 30 year olds should be doing anymore. You know why? It's all a lie. "They" say your 20's are supposed to be some of the best years of your life. Then someone says no, your 30's are supposed to be some of the best years of your life. "They" are obviously people who live in humongous developed countries. "They" don't know bout paying back student loans, going to the same ONE club over and over, seeing the same people, over and over, becoming disillusioned by your government's lack of youth representation over and over, being overqualified for jobs that pay you just enough to cover your loan and buy a box of KFC... Maybe I'm asking for too much, maybe I should write about the reality of life for an average Caribbean 20-something year old who has to fight for a job; (unless you have a friend in high places), who has no family overseas so you can't run away and scrounge for a living in the promised land of America or any other place called "foreign"; who fights with thoughts on life direction when you look at the square box of lies and static (TV) which suggests that OBVIOUSLY your life isn't worth ish cuz you still live home with your parents, don't own your own vehicle and sometimes they have to give you money cuz you don't have...
*ends musings* Jesus."
Let me be clear. I threw a maybe in the aforementioned rant and was challenged by my peers to make it a reality. So I'm going to write. And *you* my peers are going to help me. You're going to challenge me. You're going to interact with me. You're going to (constructively) criticise me. And we are going to *actually* make a difference. Because from that one rant, came ninety-nine (99) comments, ideas, proposals and suggestions on shared feelings, needs for change and a willingness to do something about it. A good number of the commenters are unemployed graduates. A few are also employed. The collective sum are brilliant. Notes were taken and in following posts, I'm going to map out clearly the suggestions that were made and look to you all for ideas on how to change the landscape of the country. I no longer want to promote a culture where graduates are hired on the basis of political preference and godparents in high places. Entrepreneurial spirits can take flight and we can push to be hired off the strength of our degrees and brilliance. This could be the beginning of true visionaries taking off our rose colored glasses and seeing the world through a different pair of lenses.
To be continued...
Peace and lack of hair grease, cuz it's rainy season.
K.C
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