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I finally did it

When I started working on my bloody dissertation, DearD warned me that I would be asked a thousand times: "So what are you working on? What are you writing about?" Her sage advice was to think up three simple sentences that would sum it up nicely.

For the first time in the past six years (SIX? WTF?!), three sentences came out of me effortlessly when the dreaded questions were addressed to me by a friend I hadn't seen in years, who, he updated me, now grows chemical-free, non-gmo, traditional rice varieties in Tabuk. Ashamed somewhat of the seeming uselessness and pretensiousness of what I do by comparison, I said, while squirming:

"I've been looking at what happens when indigenous peoples' rights are combined with environmental issues in protected areas. My basic questions are, what happens to indigenous peoples' daily lives, and what happens to environmental problems when you put the two together? That's it."

Actually that's just two whole sentences that don't really say much and one that doesn't really mean anything.

I must have sounded apologetic, because Manong Mo said, "Just write what you saw and that will be good enough."
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Mayumi Masaya said…
that sorta works, no?
19 November 2007 at 03:38
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