A Temporary Transition

To follow me to Russia, go to cynicaltravels.wordpress.com. Caveat Emptor–it is not PC and extremely cynical.

The World We Ignored

The Top Foreign News We Missed:

Objectification of Women in Italy. Except: “Conservative ideas in Italy die hard because of  patriarchal culture and the Catholic Church, whose interference become even stronger since Mr. Berlusconi first became prime minister in 1994. The church, for example, has threatened to excommunicate doctors who prescribe the abortion pill as well as patients who use it. Italy ranks 67th out of 130 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index. Under half of Italy’s women have jobs, compared with the world average of nearly two out of three. Italian men have 80 more minutes of leisure time per day, the greatest difference in the 18 countries compared. Women had to devote extra time to unpaid work, like cleaning the house and are therefore unwilling to take on an additional burden of raising children. Italy has an extraordinarily low birthrate”.

Things We Need To Know: Why Elections and Bipartisanship are overrated, and other controversial answers, answered by Newsweek.

Belgian Justice. Except: “Most buildings are from the 19th century and not very functional in terms of security. There are 44 entrances to the huge Palace of Justice, many of them with little or no significant surveillance, almost no few metal detectors here. The minister of justice, Stefaan De Clerck, is now in the hot seat. Most of the escapees have been foreigners, given that roughly 57 percent of Belgium’s prison population is foreign-born. Almost all the recent escapees were serving time or facing trial for violent crimes.”

Where Ted Kennedy Mattered: He guided US policies in Vietnam, South Africa, Chile, Northern Ireland and Iraq, but let’s not forget his game-changer for East Pakistan.

Who are we robbing this week?

Something is wrong about (modern) pop-culture, and how it had been wrong for a millennium.

Every time I watch a superhero movie, I feel disgusted by this ‘end justifies the means’ attitude that these masked vigilantes hold. I know I sounded like someone denouncing the superheroes from the movie Watchman (Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?) but we usually hold high esteem for those who work on the fringes of the society, don’t we? Let’s us plunge into that cesspool of misfits:

It didn’t start with Robin Hood (there was probably some Cro-Magnon man who clubbed the better hunters and give their goods to poorer gatherers) but he helped romanticizing this phenomenon. From Scott’s Ivanhoe to Green Arrow, there were parodies and pastiches of the famed robber and his Merry Men. Libertarian Ayn Rand made fun of this with a character in Atlas Shrugged. A pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld, a Robin Hood-like character, considers himself the complete negative of the Medieval outlaw. (Rand viewed the idea to rob the rich and give to the poor highly pernicious). Ragnar, a libertarian like his creator, attacks on government property and never touch private property.

Literature was especially permitting to these lawless activities. Dumas’ Edmund Dantes (better known as the Count of Monte Cristo) has a moral compass that is misguided if not entirely broken. He was on a personal vendetta, which made things a little different, but among the swashbuckling gentleman-thieves (fashioned after Rt. Hon. Mr. Hood) that I read and misguidedly admired during my youth include: Hornung’s Raffles, LeBlanc’s Lupin, and Charteris’ The Saint. Even that Victorian staple of moral uprightness, one Sherlock Holmes, Esq., permitted the murder of a serial-blackmailer in The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.

Some will say that Citizen Vigilantes like The Scarlet Pimpernel in fiction and gut-toting sheriffs of the American West in real life balanced (and reflected) the culture of the day, but what separate them from becoming monsters like Fantomas or various outlaws of the American West. They can justify their missions but saying those mail-wagons and rail-cars carried the bourgeois society’s riches but the bottomline is that they disturb the social order of the day. An unfair social order can be revolutionized through reforms and political awareness, not through assassinations and fermentations. I am looking at you, Captain America, Batman and the CIA assassination squads–which eventually served the same purpose.

Then, the worst of all–or the king of this misfit hill–is Dexter. Serial-television character and serial killer Dexter Morgan was the primary inspiration for this blog post. (real-life John Dillinger, who has been glamorized of lately is another inspiration; Dillinger stole from the rich and gave to the whores). In his show, whose opening sequence is a masterpiece, Dexter kills people who the justice system let go on technicalities with what wikipedia calls ‘a strict moral code’. It sounded like something from Michael Douglas’ Star Chamber. Well, no matter how hard we root for Hannibal Lector or those fighting against killer-on-the-loose Fred Krueger, even killing those who deserve is wrong. I feel funny saying that, being a proponent of death penalty, but no citizen should take law into his own hands. [A tangent clip about Michael Dukakis and death penalty here.]

Dexter is worse: he is a serial killer with a mission–to get rid of the bad guys. Who decides who is good and who is bad? In the real life, these mission-oriented killers exist, “ridding the world” of “undesirables” (read, homosexuals, prostitutes, minorities or Catholics). We should not be glorifying them; it is akin to glorifying Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber”, who had a modus operandi too, in targeting universities and the airline industry.

I don’t usually agree with Parent Television Council, but here I will have them the last say: “The series compels viewers to empathize with a serial killer, to root for him to prevail, to hope he doesn’t get discovered”. It is about Dexter, but substitute ‘thief’, ‘robber’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘murderer’ instead of ’serial killer’ and you will have accurate description of my sentiments about above fictional and non-fictional people. It is one thing rebelliously admiring their carefree lawless life (you hippies) but it is another idolizing them.

Whose lobotomy am I paying this week?

Probably those of Washington politicos and 24/7 cable news anchors. But debate over healthcare continues:

Government Care is at least efficient, right?

Umm, can’t tell unless we try it. The president’s misguided analogy with post-office said as much: “It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems,” not the smartest thing he said, considering that U.S. post lost $4.7 billions last year, another indicator of inefficient government bureaucracy. On the other hand Medicare, medicaid and veteran’s health administration run quite efficiently.

Two reasons are behind this: (1) not as many people use medicare, medicaid or veteran’s health administration as private health care, and patient-doctor ratio is reasonable. (2) they don’t have to keep an eye on profits as private health providers have to. (Public health options don’t need to advertise, therefore they also gain a little unfair advantage when it comes to competition). However, during the enrollment increases in those programs (changes based on population growths, etc.), there were signs of fiscal stress on the system, showing that this combination is precarious at best.

As footnotes, there is efficacy through competition:  tragic-comically, insurance companies arrive on scene before FEMA during Katrina. There are back-and-forth arguments over whether the efficiency of medicare is just a myth: here, here. Also, medicare, medicaid or private insurance never cover 100% of the bill, making this efficiency a bare mirage.

What is the current government healthcare spending like?

Indecipherable. Let’s break down Obama’s healthcare spending. The expansion of Schip (state children’s health insurance program) which subsidizes insurance for 6 million low-income children (twice vetoed by President Bush) cost $5 billion-a-year. It will be funded by increased tobacco taxes ($35 billion for next five years).

Medicare Advantage, insurance for the elderly cost around $100 billion dollars to taxpayers a year. If the government provide the coverage directly, instead of private insurance companies, the taxpayers will save 12%-15%. Where does that $15 billion go? The president said insurance companies just took it as profits. Insurers say they take it as a buffer for government’s inadequate reimbursements, which shifts the costs to the privately insured. The insured blame the uninsured for this loss. Economists, however, blame everyone for allowing excessive treatments.

To put the government spending (and potential spendings) into perspective, the U.S. spends $2 trillion a year for health care.  President Obama’s proposed public option will cost around $1 trillion dollar over a decade to bring the 50 million uninsured into the tent, and $250 billion of such spending will be put on the federal deficit. However, in practice, the figure may not be as high because (1) it includes illegal immigrants, stubborn young adults who don’t think they need insurance and poor people who are eligible for Medicaid, (2) only those without affordable employer-provided insurance and those in small businesses not offering employer-provided insurance will qualify to Obama’s ‘public option’.

Does financial crisis have any bearing on the healthcare reform?

Definitely. On one hand, it makes current healthcare companies less willing to take risky customers and yielding way for a government-run system. A lot of people lost their jobs and employer-paid health-insurance. As many as 14,000 people are losing their health insurance every day because of job cuts, according to left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund. On the other hand, it will further strain the national debt already stretched by the bailouts. A better lesson will be about risk.

In both financial and medical sector, insurance companies insure against risk. By taking on those risky health care coverage, the government (or insurance companies) are forced to take on risk and thus needs to diversify the potential damage. They do so by raising everyone else’s health care coverage. That was how the housing babble began and AIG/Lehman Brothers/Merrill-Lynch all ended by with risky asserts that turned into defaults. Dieu merci.

So health insurance companies are naturally lobbying against Obamacare?

No. They are against a government agency providing ‘healthcare’; that is why there is so much hot air against Britain’s NHS which employs hospitals and doctors. However, in the U.S., the reform will greatly benefit health insurance companies. They will gain tens of millions of new customers because Americans would be required by law to carry health insurance. Pharmaceutical companies would sell more prescription drugs because more people would have coverage for drugs. Hospitals and doctors wouldn’t have to provide as much free care as they do now.

Their profit margins would go down a little, but unlike with the Clinton care, the healthcare lobby is currently for the reform. However, so much political backlash (in town-hall meetings, ha) currently comes from small-businesses with low-income workers, which will now have to provide some insurance. [In Obamacare, small business is defined as an establishment whose annual payroll is over $250,000 annually, so most small businesses will be directly effected].

What is wrong with legalizing euthanasia?

Nothing really, but must be heavily regulated? It depends on how you frame legalizing part: assisted suicide is one way to interpret it, while mercy-killing (a noble concept pioneered in those benighted Crusader days and still used on dying horses) sounds a sunny idea. However, regulating this euthanasia will be a logistical, theological, and political nightmare. Suppose we impose a minimal age before which one cannot seek state-sponsored euthanasia. What will happen to those with incurable diseases under that age?

Tragically termed ‘easy way out’, legalized euthanasia can easily mark the beginning of this slippery slope. However, on the other hand are precipitous laws banning suicide. The assisted suicides of terminal patients are legal in Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands; Oregon requires two doctors to confirm that the patient has less than six months to live to conduct euthanasia. A Swiss group Dignitas is currently in the news for ending the life of an ailing (but not dying) British composer in a suicide pact with his dying wife. Everywhere in the world, the debate rages more violently than ever: in France, Je Vous Demande le Droit de Mourir, a 2005 book by Vincent Humbert, who a car crash left “unable to ‘walk, see, speak, smell or taste”, became a bible for people supporting euthanasia; in the Netherlands, a Dutch doctor is underfire for assisting the death of a Catholic nun, who he assumed refused euthanasia for religious reasons. No case is black and white when it comes to euthanasia.

Whose rhinoplasty am I funding this week?

The above title is misleading. I am not an American and have no wish to fund anyone’s rhinoplasty this week, but seeing everyone’s anger and angst compelled me to write about this debate, which is not as black and white as partisan politics made it out to be:

National Heathcare leads to long lines.

True and false. There are stories (anecdotes, fear mongering) about long waits for health-care services. Currently, 25% of Americans wait 6 or more days for an appointment with their primary-care physician, as opposed to 15% of Britons, 13% of Germans, 10% of Australians and just 3% of New Zealanders. Still a sweeping generalization cannot be made about these countries with strong public-health care: 2/3 of Canadians had to wait longer than six days, and they too have a national health care system.

Only 26 percent of Americans and Canadians reported being able see their doctor on the day they called, compared with 60 percent in the Netherlands and 48 percent in Britain according to the Commonwealth Fund. However, specialized care is a different story: 8 percent of Americans have to wait four months or more for specialized procedure, and 62 percent wait less than a month. In Britain, 41 percent of patients have to wait four months or more. All these stats are not reflections of private or public healthcare system, but of the disparity in earnings between physicians and specialists in North America. In the U.S., there is already a shortage of primary-care doctors, which means this Obamacare can put another strain on primary-care.

Massachusetts healthcare system works, so can we apply it to the entire nation?

No. It does work, but lamely. The Bay State’s system is a brainchild of Senator Ted Kennedy and his 20-year campaign for healthcare. It is based on the Swiss model, perhaps the most integrated private-public healthcare co-pay systems in the entire world. The government uses regulations and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered: everyone is mandated to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies. However, the system is very costly.

Current prevailing health insurance in America (employer-assisted coverage) is already like Massachusetts model (actually, it was vice versa). Middle-income families are not being covered, and people who lost their jobs during the recession lost their insurance too.

Will socialism ever work?

Not in America. Healthcare-socialism connections (or connection) stop at the fact that the government will take over the entire healthcare system. Obamacare will not lead to this, but in Scandinavian countries, at least, the public healthcare systems make up the major portion of the healthcare coverage. There, even the hospitals are publicly owned institutions. It is one of the milestones of a social welfare state to provide a government-run healthcare system to its citizens.  The system worked in those Scandinavian countries because of a selection entry-and-exit model. America with its freedom to move within states and bad immigration problem will never embrace socialism.

Yes, in Scandinavia, it work thanks to the citizens who pay 50%-60% income and property taxes–another aspect of a welfare state. The state makes everything in life (from milk to education services) subsidized and therefore makes it impossible to immigrate from or emigrate to the said country. Emigration laws were tight and a person has so much to lose by leaving his society. That was the premise of socialism (and some futuristically-imagined self-sustaining societies); people hail this as a novel, revolutionary and even reactionary idea. No, it isn’t. Socialism is the bastard son of feudalism, where manor lord oversees every aspects of his peasants’ lives (birth, education, employment, marriage, health, infirmity, death); it is hard to leave because he owns you. In modern socialism, instead of literal droit de seigneur, the state figuratively rapes you.

Will this lead to dead panels?

No, but maybe in the future. Somewhere, William F. Buckley Jnr. is smiling. In 2007 novel on babyboomers, Boomsday, Bill’s son, Christopher wrote about a bunch of politicos spinning euthanasia as ‘voluntary transitioning’, and providing incentives (tax breaks for golf carts and segways) so that these 65 and older take government’s ‘voluntary transition’ pill. No. Obamacare won’t lead to this, but if Obamacare were to be successful, the dependence of the system can eventually lead to so-called dead-panels.

In England, a treatment is only approved if it adds the value of one additional year (which was valued around 30,000 pounds). If you are a penniless 80-year old depending on government-subsidized pills, what will happen if the government (or a new doctor) deems it should not be giving out pills to you anymore. It is not an unreasonable fear, but considering that if you are a penniless 80-year old under the current system, you will die anyway so why not trust the government for once. The worst it can lead to is … bad teeth.

Or certain bad body parts for that matter. The classic stereotype, the British bad teeth, comes from the expensive and inaccessible dental care under their NHS system. This combined with indifference (of 60 million Britons, only 14 million are entitled to dental care, and only 7% of the eligible people actually apply for the care), lead to the horrific dental appearance. The same goes for every body part (eyes, ears, etc.) not entirely covered by the public health care.

Everyone can use and abuse health-care statistics.

True, for all kinds of statistics. Don’t trust me; go on and read here. Read here about NHS in Britain.

(To be continued…)

Remembrance of Mischiefs Past

In May, I wrote about elitism. Last week, I wrote about my summer experiences with a bunch of privileged kids. With the following blog post, the trilogy will be complete and so will a chapter in my life.

The Sotomayor hearings this summer unfolded along with my summer camp experience with a bunch of privileged kids, who inherited republican genes of their rich parents. The funny thing was that the other mentors who populated the camp alongside me were liberals, who should espouse the E-word (empathy, not elitism) heartily.

Yet, there was no empathy in this summer camp. Probably because I went to a prep school and witnessed the entire power structure from the other side (compelling life experience?), I identified myself more closely with the highschoolers than with my fellow mentors. Thus began my eventful summer–I must vainly admit I was a mediocre mentor and a good friend to many highschoolers–and I tried to be a friend to them. (I was always partial to those who are on a learning curve as it is.)

A hardened veteran of a prep/boarding school, I assumed quite correctly that nothing in their behavior could shock me. Nothing did. Some genius once said the prep schools are where boys become men. If manhood revolves around breaking every single rule, then that saying is accurate. I won’t self-incriminate here by compiling a laundry list of what I (we) did in prep school, let it be duly noted that there were cigarettes taped under drawers, alcohol in cleansed lotion bottles and a bowl inside, now the creative part, a porcelain polar bear. [Some kid converted Meerschaum pipe that had been in his family for generations. Dieu Merci.]

So the bottomline this summer is that I was somewhat shocked to see them in the same spiral trap I was in pre-college years. I quit smoking and drinking a year ago, my belief (and those of my parents) being you have to do it once (or occasionally) while you were young. In the social, social world out there, you need to build tolerance to these substances and empathy to the others using them.

I don’t know how many people from my camp follows this blog (Vainly I will say more than two), but I will break that fourth barrier now, but directly addressing to you. Despite quite stressful obstacles you threw at me, I enjoyed working (and becoming friends) with you. Despite a hectic schedule, my recreational hours were made more complete by you all. There were times I felt overwhelmed and frustrated at all the administrative rigmarole (about which I ranted in my last post), but I knew I enjoyed your presence and you mine too.

I enjoyed helping you guys with your essays and homework. I enjoyed late night guitar renditions, hospital visits (*wink, wink*), 3 a.m. phone-calls and 7 a.m. wake-up calls, but not leftover food in the hallways. Every second was a memory. To say that I will miss someone whom I met eight weeks ago (and didn’t actually know) will be a gross overstatement. Some of you got to really know me, and good for you, but I don’t know your quirks, your personalities and your aspirations; as much as I would love to, there are 370 of you and only one me. Some of you are inspired by me (I am flattered), but you guys inspired me many times more; again, there are 370 of you–so full of angst, vibrancy, and rebelliousness. Oh, sweet old days. You made me feel old.

Life goes on for each and everyone of us, and again I truthfully concede that it is hard for me to remember and miss every single one of you. Yet, needless to say, I will remember this summer.

Thank you. Go on and have wonderful lives. I know I will.

Farewell Summer 2009.

From a totalitarian continent to a totalitarian summer camp, my summers seem to be getting worse.

Last summer, I embarked on an adventure. This summer, I said to myself, I should devote more time to my college life before I embark on another adventurous tour through Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia starting late August. I lost an internship opportunity with the House of Commons because of a scheduling conflict. Among the job offers for the summer was a mentorship position with a Summer College program for highschool kids. Nothing prestigious, nothing lucrative, but it fit the grand scheme of things and I took the job.

Wow. What an adventure it had been. I was confronted with problems within and without the program, the problems so overblown that they reached such a feral state that I didn’t witness last summer in the depths of Africa. Silver lining? I am now perfectly ready to be the headmaster of a sufficiently small school.

Firstly, there was this Facebook thing; my superiors ask all mentors not to add highschoolers. Not that we were actively adding them, but we were just responding to their friend requests. (Oh, I think I need to preface it by saying I am 20, and most mentors are only two years older than our wards, most of whom are under eighteen.) I don’t care much about facebook but when we ignore them on facebook, we created this entirely necessary ‘us vs. them’ barrier. Mentors didn’t know what is happening inside our wards’ community. They might as well be organizing beer pong parties or massive Satanic rituals via facebook, but we didn’t know. We were trapped behind this information Iron Curtain of our own doing.

Not to mention, it sent a wrong signal. It is as if their friendships were not worthy. It is better to be feared than loved, said Machiavelli. In reality, it is better to be trusted than either feared or loved, and this facebook episode showed that my superiors at the college didn’t trust us, the mentors, nor the students nor our relations with one another. Okay, facebook, I can deal with, but after a few weeks, the entire dynamic of the Summer College Program changed.

As someone who went to prep/boarding school, and tackled his smoking habit by taping the pack and the lighter to the bottom of the drawers (take note: teachers were not thorough searchers), I was fully prepared to tackle any problem they (students + program) threw at me, but the program sadly wasn’t. There were allegations about students stealing, drinking, smoking pot, etc.–allegations that were entwined with rumors–a situation not unfamiliar to the highschool cafeteria atmosphere. The program reacted strongly; we (shamefully I have to add my own name to this list of perpetrators) ignored the fact that the burden of proof was upon us and that we have to presume them innocence until proven guilty.

Edmund Burke, who did have a way with his words that I don’t, said ‘it is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph’. I finally filed a strongly worded email protesting this ignorance of burden of proof and innocence until proven guilty process. I was also flared up by the curfew check policy; the university treated these highschoolers as college students but the program didn’t. [College students are exempt from curfew checks by the 1961 Supreme Court Ruling, Dixon v. Alabama.] Students’ key cards which they used to access the building were catalogued so that the program could track who was re-entering the dorm and when. For mentors, they used card access and dining halls access to guestimate how many hours we spend at the camp. For a fierce critic of Bush administration’s wiretapping policies, it was just a slap squarely on my face.

Mentors are here to protect the students from themselves or one another, but this summer, I find myself protecting–or trying and failing to protect–them from the programs (authorities) or from the other mentors. I received significant support behind the administrators’ back for my righteous standings (I couldn’t believe I am typing this to describe myself but such was the reality here) but the silent majority didn’t utter a word when the vocal minority (of administrators and other mentors) decided that curfew breakers must help the program with chores (rearranging tables, etc.). You might never guess it from this blog but taciturnity was my policy so I said just four words, “It is not legal.” The program decided to go ahead anyway, but they acknowledged my fiery two cent by calling these chores ‘community service’. Then it is legal? After all, didn’t Pol Pot renamed his killing fields ‘reeducation camps’?

I began with an African anecdote, so I will end here with another, so that the story can come full circle. I once quarreled with my girlfriend in Africa. She said in her not-so-perfect English, “You hurt my feelings”. I replied, “You know what, I have feelings, too.” How often do we forget that? How often do we forget that the other party (in this case, 300+ students in Summer College) have feelings too. Why are we treating them as sub-standard human beings (paraphrasing a mentor who called them that)? They have feelings too. We just have to stand back and listen to them. How easy was that? Why make it so hard?

 

 

 

Confessions of a Lover

I took this post down for a reason earlier this summer. In retrospect, it was probably untruthful for me to do so, so here it is.

Relationships are composed of nothing but fleeting visions and brief encounters—when we started reaching for them, they ran away … and then, we fall. For me, the fall began on one fine November afternoon last year.

I first met Kirsten inside a locker room in the Universal Studios in Los Angeles. Yes, it is a chance encounter in front of an electric locker that started all. Likewise, our acquaintance itself is one of the most chancy and singular episodes in my life. I was lining for a locker directly behind her, and she was having trouble with the malfunction locker. I tried to help her, but we ended up queuing for another locker. We started talking and I insisted upon sitting beside her in the ride (which happened to be The Mummy so it is not exactly romantic stuff).

This is the point where those writers usually say smugly, the rest is history. No, it isn’t. Both of us independently decided to go on a studio tour. However, seeing a long line wait, we gave up and settled on a cup of mocha in a nearby café. We talked for nearly two hours—until the last studio tour beckoned us.

That is over the Thanksgiving. By Christmas, we were talking on phone and via chats. Before Easter, she has extended me an invitation to spend a week at her house in Denmark, and we have arranged (actually she arranged, and I concurred lackadaisically) a humanitarian volunteering in Africa. My friends said it is damn chancy to spend a summer with someone whom you have met for only a couple of hours, but it was a chance I was willing to take.

On my arrival in Copenhagen, I was pleasantly astounded. I knew that she belonged to landed gentry and that her father was a junior minister in the Danish Cabinet (who also was instrumental in arranging my travelling plans), I didn’t know that they also owned a billion-dollar fishing boat empire. At the airport, there were just her and her chauffeur waiting for my arrival, but back at her home (which is an understated term for a four-star hotel), the staff outnumbered the family.

Today, we widely frown upon the elitism practiced by the aristocracy, but Kirsten is a prime example that the aristocratic education has their own pluses. She is fluent in five languages, is knowledgeable in Latin and Ancient Greek, and is currently learning her eighth (Arabic). She rides, fences, dances and hunts better than I do. Her musical talents in viola and piano are only surpassed by her athletic acumen in hockey, polo, swimming, tennis and billiards. Never before in my life had I seen a person, let alone a woman, as well-rounded as she is.

Her education and upbringing do define her world, but they don’t—and can’t—limit it. Kirsten is a person whose CV won’t do her justice; you just have to meet her, and you will see how inspirational she can be. Self-conscious and introverted, a good orator she was not, but she knew how to express her views and justify them. Her world is built around a single word, “others”. Despite belonging in the topmost echelons of her social hierarchy, her compassion and altruism for those less fortunate than her are astounding. At the age of twenty-one (the age at which most of us are still hectically updating our facebook profiles and playing on our Wiis), she had already been in Serbia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Timor and now with me in Central African Republic.

I may not be exaggerating if I say that this last summer totally changed my views. In the middle of Africa, between fights and cleansing in Chad, Sudan and CAR itself, I found my own solace in her comforting eyes. Both of us gazed unwittingly into the very whites of the Evil’s eyes when we volunteered for the African mission; I admit I volunteered for my own reasons to embellish my resume, and to be together with her. She, however, had a nobler reason—to offer.

Offer and dedicate, she did. In the process, we had our private moments. During our stay together, I came to understand the human nature that lay hidden under her otherwise cool and logical veneer. She slowly recounted her trials and tribulations one by one—her private personal tragedies, which are no less or lenient than the tragedies of the African continent and her people. In those moments, her discernable frailty and fragility was so markedly different from the aplomb and self-assurance which radiates from her during day. Like the African Sun under which we toiled, she is a symbol of light and warm for many, but at night, her life is as empty and cold as an uninhabited cave.

My friends told me that I don’t care much about my girlfriends. Sometimes, it is true, but Kirsten, she is a different story. I didn’t spend entire days (let alone the entire summer) with my other girlfriends, nor meet their parents and families. During our stay in Africa (in which we alternately pretended to be a honeymooning or affianced couple), I came to know her in a different light—she is more personal, more humane, more compassionate, more … vivid.

When I am writing this, one of the best relationships I had ever—and will ever—had has come to an end. It didn’t ended with a loud and acrimonious quarrel that plagued my many another relationship; disquietly, it ended with a long and heartbreaking silence that seemed like an eternity. The hardest thing with the relationships is not how to start one, but how to live on after conclusion of one. In the term of angling, it is all about catch and release. You must know when to release your other half so that he or she can fly freer, see further and soar higher.

So it ended, with each of us deciding to let the other to freely fly. It was a classic parting of the ways moment—both of us reflected upon our futures, our careers and our respective chosen paths. With smiles, we admitted the relationship is not ideal or feasible under such conditions; gracefully, we embraced each other as friends. It is a moment I anticipated ever since the beginning of the summer. It is also the moment I have been dreading.

As the Bard would say, All’s well that ends well. However, memories live on—memories that l will cherish forever. Weeks before, a friend compared my tale with the one in Out of Africa, where a Danish noblewoman apparently has a doomed love affair. I replied, it is not the outcome, but the experience and memories that mark, define and immortalize a love. I am just glad that I live up to my words.