So I went and came back from the third world. It is too all-encompassing of a trip to try and write every detail of it here, so I will isolate only a few of my thoughts.

-I feel questionable about charity to third world countries. I suppose I have to qualify this: I am questionable about how I feel when you give "selectively" - when you give something that can only benefit some people in a community and not all. I think there's a larger problem with charity of this sort, and without going into too much detail, I have concluded that it tends to reinforce the social hierarchies which already exist - ones that may be frustratingly unjust and systemically reinforced. I guess the whole experience has left me with a new perspective with which to audit my own planned giving.

- Keisha White, "The Weakness in Me." I had several good conversations with my colleague over the course of this trip, given that we were holed up in an electricity-less, hot water-less shack for the better part of a week. I conclude that I don't envy most relationships, really. I guess envy is the wrong word, given that I'm in one (a stable, relatively boring one by objective standards), but in a way, I am happy that I've never been in one so terribly complex I have trouble falling asleep. I suppose those who are in one such relationship can take solace in the fact that life is long. Very long.

I suppose those were the take home points. Also, I like private islands.