Γεια σας, είναι Vicky εδώ και παιδιά σας! Σήμερα θα σημαίνω 4 καρδιά που βρήκαν πολύ για αυτης ή αυτης κρίσμας σε αυτές τις καρδιάς φαρές. Και θα χρησιμοποιήσω πρόταξες από το αδερφό της λυσί, το νοβέμπρο καρδιά. Τώρα αυτό είναι ένα καρδιά που μεταφέρει με πρόταξες. Θα κάνω ένα μικρό εμπορία στο πρώτο. Και θα χρειαζω να μην χρειαζω το σκέμα εδώ. Αυτό δεν είναι ένα σπόνσορδ βίντεο, δεν είναι ένα σπόνσορδ βίντεο. But I did get the kit for free. The owner kindly sent it to me and I'm really impressed. And you get everything for less than $34. So let's do an unboxing. First of all you get this clear stamp set with sentiments such as Hello winter and let it snow, a border of snowflakes and a square stamp of snowflakes as well as some little ones that are completely separate. Now the fun thing about this stamp set is that both the border and the square of snowflakes are an endless design which means that if you stamp them next to each other they will continue the pattern. You will also get a stencil and I am going to take it out of the package so you can see the design. This is perfect for creating snow scenes and I like that there are more snowflakes at the top and as you go at the bottom they become less and less. You also get pattern papers. There are 16 different ones in the kit and they are all 6x6 and one-sided so you don't have to fight with yourself on which side to use. And as you can see they have lovely designs and they come in these very soft wintery colors. I love this blue and also that soft green and I don't know if you can see from the video but there are touches of a peachy orange here and there. In the same color theme you get all those cutouts all you have to do is to just pop them out of this page many banners, many sentiments use them for your cards, for your gifts There are also these stickers again coordinating with all the rest of the papers and these are pillows. If you bend it on the side you can see that you can peel off lovely lines these are metallic greenish lines that you can use to embellish your projects in the same green color as the pattern papers.  Now let's move on to the cardstock that you will receive so there are 5 different ones 2 craft colored and 3 white ones. This is a heavy cardstock perfect for your card bases and this is where you think that I'm finished but wait, now I'm starting to show you all the little goodies and the fun inside the kit so you get 2 white tags you get all those snowflakes in pale blue, in white as well as 3 little animals these are all felt and they all coordinate perfectly with the colors of the kit you also get burlap ribbon in all those different colors and everything matches perfectly with the colors of the papers so you get bigger and thinner ones whites and even a silver one and I love the burlap one so I will use it in one of the cards that I will share later on but that's not all so in the kit you will also find 4 different tags 2 smaller and 2 bigger ones they do have a little hole at the top so if you want you can use them as gift tags or you can just pop them on top of your cards it's up to you, again they match perfectly with everything in the kit now there are also 4 more tags 2 silver ones and 2 craft ones again they do have the hole at the top and again use those for your gifts or like I will do later on today you can use one of them on a card you also get this washy tape that says Happy Christmas with silver lettering on top of white lovely and I think it matches perfectly the colors of the kit and here is a bag with sequins in lovely mix perfect for your shaker cards I will make one today as well and here is another bag these bags are endless I'm telling you in this kit so in here you find 4 wooden trees 4 I will use one of them in today's video to embellish one of my cards 4 of them in gold and some silver shiny stars now for sentiments you get these acetate pieces that have silver writing on top of them so you get noelle, joy, love wish, peace and a big christmas one and as if all of these are not enough you will also get a big bottle of nouveau drops in this lovely color that matches perfectly blue of the kit this is where I thought that I have unpacked everything but wait there is more there was one more bag that was hiding from me so in this bag you will also get 2 dies one of the dies is going to give you a beautiful design of a deer and you will see this in action in one of my cards and you also get the star filigree now I am going to move on and start making my first card and I have to admit that I was super impressed when I opened the box it was packed with products and I kept opening and opening and seeing even more for the price you get tons of products now as you can see I am creating my first card here I used the glitter paper to cut out a couple of snowbanks which I am going to stick on top of the patent paper now if you don't have a die to cut out those snowbanks you can also use your scissors and just create a little slope I used foam squares for the snowbank at the top just to add some dimension and now as my focal point I am going to use one of the wooden trees which I am going to wrap all around it with the white ribbon that was included now just to make sure that the ribbon is going to stay put I am going to add some tape adhesive at the back of my wooden tree here and I am going to just wrap the ribbon all around I am using my scissors to cut off the excess and I thought that at the bottom it was too empty so I am going to make one more wrap at the bottom and then use some foam squares at the back to stick it in place now for the sentiment I stamped the one from the stamp set that says let it snow I stamped it with VersaMarking applied white embossing powder and now I am going to heat set it of course I do advise you to do this step first before you stick everything on top and here is a look at the finished card and I have to say that the colors on this kit are so my style I love the craft with the soft blues and soft greens beautiful color combination now have some leftover of this glitter paper and I am going to add some burlap all around it so I am just going to cut off a piece I am going to apply some double sided tape at the back just to make sure that this is going to stay put and I am going to wrap it around now I also added some foam tape at the back so that I can stick this panel on top of my card base the card base is made out of the craft cardstock now on top you can add your snowflakes the felt embellishments in the kit use the blue, the white one or both together so many different options here I will go with a super simple one so I am just going to stick on top the white snowflake burlap on felt I am going to use a glue dot one of the big ones which is going to hold nicely and now all that is left to do is to add a sentiment for that I used one of the cutouts from the kit that says for you and I am going to stick a little bow on top of it and add the center of my snowflake and I created the bow with one of the ribbons from the kit next card I am going to make one with pattern paper I love this beautiful design with the deer scene on top so I am going to chop off the bottom and this is going to be a super quick and simple card to create I am going to add some tape adhesive at the back of this pattern paper and stick it on top of my card base and for the bottom I have already created a little snowbank with white cardstock and with foam tape at the back and now if you notice I made sure that I left some of that craft picking from the top and at the bottom now this is one of the cutouts from the kit that I am trying to decide where this is going to go so I finally found a place for it I am going to chop off some from the bottom and just nest it behind that snowbank and finally I am going to embellish my card by adding some of those sequence here and there scattered on my sky I absolutely love those pattern papers that have lovely scenes on top that you can use as they are on your cards and you are ready to go and I am going to share one last card for today using this die included in the kit so I have cut out the die twice once out of this craft and I am going to keep only the negative and also cut it out of the glitter paper which I am going to use the positive so for the back of this tag I am adding some tape adhesive and I am planning to turn this into a shaker tag so I am using the acetate included in the kit I am going to stick it at the back and I have a little window ready now I am going to add some tape adhesive on my die and then stick it on top of that window now at the back I am going to use a foam tape all around the perimeter and I need to have a backing for that and I will use one of the pattern papers that has this beautiful pale green just like that so all I need to do is to add my sequin mix inside that little pocket that I have created and I am going to use my little handy Nuvo spoon here I am trying to pick up the smallest of these sequins included in the mix then I am going to peel off the backing from my foam then I am going to stick on top that little piece of green paper that I have and I press hard making sure that it makes a good contact with the foam and now it is time to put everything together I am going to use this beautiful pattern paper adding some tape adhesive at the back I am going to stick it on top of my card base which is a standard card size 4.25 x 5.5 I am going to embellish my tag a little bit with the white thread and I am also going to use a white thread at the end of the thread ends I am going to add those two little jingle bells that came in the kit I am just going to thread them through and tie a knot at the end so they don't fly away and now with this white thread that I have with those little jingle bells I am going to wrap it around my ripon and tie a little bow I am using my trusted Nuvo Deluxe with the back to stick this tag on top of my card base and then finally I need to add a sentiment for that I am going to use yet another die cut from the kit that says best wishes and here is a close up on the last card for today and let's take a quick look on all the 4 cards that I made for today using products from the Love from Lizzie November card kit as always you will find most of all the products that I used today down below in the description area you will find the link to this card kit there and you will also find links to products that are included in the kit separately in case you want to grab only a few thank you all so much for visiting today I hope you had fun and got inspired and I'll see you all tomorrow with a fun blog hop


Selfie refers to a self-portrait pictures, taken by using digital camera or a smart phone for posting on social networking site. Individuals can view how they look like in the picture and decide what they want to show in the picture. how they look like in the picture and decide what they want to show in the picture so selfie in simple words we can say that selfie is your picture which you take with your smartphone or digital camera to in order to upload it on the social media platforms or in order to show with others so if we see the history of the selfie the first selfie was taken by one american photographer in 1839 with that type with that time of camera but if we today talk about modern day selfie it was taken in 2001 by one israelian and he shared with the others through the website platform and the word selfie was considered as the word of ear by the export english dictionary in 2013 so this selfie we see that we have read it a lot these days that we make our selfies and we share with others as we post on the social media platforms and in any kind of gathering either it is a formal gathering or either it is a informal gathering you are with friends you are with colleagues you are in meetings or in any family functions the one thing we must do is the we take the selfies so what are the factors of this huge widespread adoption of this behavior let's see those factors the first factor in this regard is the development of modern day smartphones this behavior has been popular since the time this modern day smartphone has come before this the mobile telephones the simbian technologies on which the camera was not then it was not so popular with digital cameras people used to make a lot of selfies this behavior of making selfies started to develop when smartphones started to come with good cameras the first the second factor is the popularity of social networking sites so in our day-to-day life we most of the time communicate with others with our colleagues with our friends with our family members or with other community members through social media platforms we prefer to communicate with them through these online media platforms and this is why we develop such selfies and share with them through these platforms and it is also considered a new age phenomena today's young person or adult is a part of his culture his routine life has become a part of it and today's cyber culture has become a part and parcel of it and if we talk about its popularity then selfie taking and posting behavior is equally popular in all age groups and across the genders i.e. if we categorize men and women in selfie taking and posting behavior then we know both are keen to take selfie and post on the social media or this behavior is equally popular in the in the children in the adults and the elderly people as well what are the theoretical explanations of the selfie taking and posting behavior we can provide two types of theoretical explanation when we talk about the selfie taking and posting behavior the first is the psychological explanation and the second one is the sociological explanation when we talk about the psychological explanation we may link this behavior with the personality traits that some people are techno savvy and social media savvy they rely too much on the social media and they want to present themselves on the social media and this is why they take a lot of selfies and other people may not take that amount of selfie in their day to day life and some people also some psychology psychologists also say that a selfie taking and posting behavior is an is a kind of an addictive behavior when you take too much selfies and you become when you become compulsive in your routine life regarding this behavior it is considered as the addiction so excessive use of smartphone and excessive use of smartphone for the selfie taking and posting may be convert into the addiction what is the sociological explanation of this behavior we may say that people take selfies and post on the social media in order to present themselves in in front of others so it's a kind of new tactic of presentation of self in a digital age we can take guidelines from the arvind gufman theories of presentation of self in which he talked about how people considered their self before sharing or before posting on the social media websites we consider a number of factors before sharing our selfies with others we take number of factors in consideration just like for example is that is the selfies the good one so there are other types of selfies as well one type is wealthy when you work out in the gym and you take the pictures it is considered as wealthy the other type is we fee it is a group selfie and another type is assi in which the who is taking the selfies the part of the group and it is also considered as a group selfie so this is all about the selfie behavior and selfie culture


So with that, I'd like to welcome Dr. Babette Resurrection, who's going to lead us on the next session. So, all over to you. Thank you, Niall. And again, welcome to everybody in special greetings from the gender environment and development research cluster here at SEI Asia. I'd like to take this time to tell you a little bit about our work and how we position ourselves in SEI. And for anything else, I'd like to point out that there is a whole landscape of platforms that actually exist to advance gender equality. They all share a common vision, but they're somehow different and at the same time interrelated. First would be the platform of movements. Movements push the boundaries for change. They are large organizations that carry out, resist, and undo social change. But they also provide a way of creating social change from the bottom. Movements have a long history in realizing rights and social justice for women, something I feel we all should be profoundly indebted to. The other platform is development practice. Development practitioners shape decision making and policy agendas, especially in mainstream institutions and ensure equitable delivery of benefits and opportunities through mechanisms of planning. And the third platform is that of research. In gender and social research, we apply the rigor of the social sciences to understand how people are stratified in societies by gender, by class, by ethnicity, by age, and even by race. At SEI, as Johann did mention earlier this morning, our mission is to do research to influence policy or even to shape policy. In SEI Asia's gender cluster, we contribute fundamentally to this mission by offering what we call to be a critical gender analysis. You may want to call it CGA for short. This is our research niche. From our tools that are social and gender power sensitive, and together with our partners the last one and a half years, we examine and analyze environmental and economic contexts, such as, for instance, agrarian change and food security. Together we explore this with the World Vegetable Center. Women at the forefront of energy transitions, we are working towards this with USAID Clean Power Asia, as well as the International Finance Corporation. We're also looking in the near future to work with IUCN and CFDEC on gender and coastal resources management. We're also looking at water and security and management together with SIDA and SummerNet. We've performed assessments of EIAs, sorry, Environmental Impact Assessments, in the context of large-scale investments under the USAID Supported Mekong Program, or Mekong Partnership for the Environment Program. And we're also looking and working together with Asia Disaster Preparedness Center and the USAID Servier Mekong Program on combining gender issues with GIS to disasters as well as risky environments. We also examine institutional as well as governance contexts. And for this, we are working with our partner, GI-SET, in gender mainstreaming, climate change adaptation, palm oil, production and consumption projects in Thailand. So these are examples of the kind of work we do. All these, we do a critical gender analysis to identify the practices and drivers of inequality. And the constraints and disadvantage that these pose on people at different scales, be it the individual scale, be it the individual scale, community, nation, region. We use our analysis as well to explore workable solutions and transformative practices. Our research products address diverse audiences. Our scientific publications, for instance, cater to the gender and development scholar community. Our policy briefs, assessments, white papers, guidance and planning notes, engagements, together with the communities of practice as well as our boundary partners. These are not produced in ivory tower isolation but are negotiated outcomes together with our partners. SEI also has a global gender equality and social equity program that complements the work that we do at the gender cluster here at SEI Asia. So today, we will begin our panel discussion, which will focus on the SDGs by presenting a case specifically on SDG 5.5 or that goal that focuses or ensures women's participation. The research was conducted by Vietnam Center for Environment and Community Research, or CECR. Our partner under the USAID supported MECONG partnership for environment program or MPE. Unfortunately, the director of CECR, Ms. Lee Nguyen, is not here today because of complications in her travel itinerary. So I would like to invite my colleague, Ha Hangen, research fellow of SEI Asia to deliver the presentation of CECR on behalf of Ms. Lee. So Ha. Hydro power is a main energy short of Vietnam and it accounts for 40% of the electric city generation. The government of Vietnam enthusiastically promotes hydro power development because the country has more than 2,400 rivers. This is Chung Son community where ethnic minority people live, like Thai, Muong, and Hormone. They live by contributing upright land and raising livestock, but their lives have been totally changed by the arrival of the hydro power dam. And this is Chung Son hydro power plant. The government of Vietnam, with a loan from World Bank, has selected Chung Son region as a place to build hydro power dam. The construction began in 2011 and the power plant will be fully put into operation by 2017, producing 1,000 gigawatt hour annually. The project covers an area of 78,000 hectares, directly impact and relocate over 10,000 people. So given the size of the construction, a consulting company was tied to conduct an environment impact assessment. And they organize public consultation in 53 villages in three provinces which are impacted by the project over the period of three years, between 2008 and 2010, to try to understand the potential impact of the dam on the natural resources and livelihood of local people. Local NGO were invited, as observer, to the consultation process. And woman ethnic minority groups were invited as consulted groups. Therefore, their participation has been significantly high, 40% of participants compared to other consultation where they invite only the household head. And when women heard of the place they are going to be relocated, they were so worried. They worry about the polluted river water that they wanna use for their garden, for their field, for their household. They also worried about the air polluted by the transport of construction materials. Why men were concerned about housing, financial compensation that they're going to receive. This is Ms. Tian, who participated in a consultation meeting. She was so proud, telling us that, she was so proud that the knowledge that women contribute during the consultation meeting has led to a change in the resettlement location. She said, I'm married to a Thai husband and it is our tradition that we take care of households and men would be involved in important community event. But we somehow know better place for resettlement than men regarding clean water resources. We were involved in resettlement consultation where we had to choose the new location that better than the original one selected by consulting company. And this is Papua Village, the new resettlement site where women feel that they have better access to safe water and better arable land. And this is a successful story of a consultation where women were meaningfully engaged and give their voice. Unfortunately, this is, in most cases, this is not the case where in last game, particularly in last game, medium scale, infrastructure development project, women were not involved. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for that case study and of course to CECR. Now at this point, we will begin the panel discussion and as the case suggests, it will focus on women's participation as part of the SDGs, specifically SDG 5.5 that ensures women's participation, but specifically as well in the context of large scale economic investments that are replete in the region and pervasive throughout the region today. So I would like to invite my co-moderator, Dr. Carl Middleton to please come forward for this panel. Carl is actually the Deputy Director of Research for the MAIDS program and the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. Thank you, Bobette. So it's a great pleasure to be here today and to moderate this very important and timely session. I think this also reflects having the MOU just being signed, the collaboration between SEI and Chulalongkorn University. So we have a very interesting session ahead. We also have quite time constraints. I will jump straight in to inviting the panelists to the stage. Can I first introduce to you all Ms. Kain Kim. She is Deputy Director General of the Department of Fisheries Administration in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery from Cambodia. Please welcome her to the stage. Thank you. Our second speaker joined us at short notice because the original speaker came flooded and was not able to join us. The second speaker is Helena Olson from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute. Please join us on the stage. The third panelist is Ms. Kate Lapin. She is the Director of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, based in Thailand. Thank you. And fourthly, we have Mr. John Doar, who is Senior Water Resource Specialist with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with the Australian government. So the format of this session, each panelist has been allocated one question that we invite them to respond to for up to four minutes. Each one has been tailored to their particular expertise. Then we will invite, we have maybe one or two minutes if one other panelist would also like to comment on that question. Following that, we'll go through one round of the questions with the panelists and then we'd like to invite any questions from the floor. So let's start with the first question, which is for Ms. Kang Kim. We'd like to ask you, Ms. Kang Kim, as an implementer of the SDGs, can the government ensure participation, accountability and sustainable infrastructure? How can you help other women engage and ensure government accountability at the national level? Is there another microphone? Hello. Good morning. So that is, thank you very much for giving a chance to discuss about the women participation, especially at the government, that they contributed to the implementation of the SDG. So at the government level, that is very important. The policymaker and planner who has to address the real issue from the ground, that is linked with the research and the people need from the ground level and bring out the policy. Just case in Cambodia, we have the national level, the government level, we have the ministry of women affair who are responsible for the women affair and also work with the gender equality as well. And then at every sector in the country, we have to have the gender mainstreaming as one of the cutting issues to ensure that women participation in all sector in a country. So like in the ministry of agriculture, we have gender mainstreaming policy and strategy framework to make sure that the gender equality is promotes in agriculture sector. So in order to bring the voice from the local people to the national level, we have to work at the different level from the community group. In Cambodia, we had, for example, in the natural resource management, we had the fishery community, fishery group and the forestry community group. Where the men and women work together and then the women group at the community level, then they cannot network at the sub-national level and bring up to the national level at the networking and bring the voice to the respective sector. For example, in agriculture sector, we work with the fishery resource management and the forestry. So the voice of those people, they impact from the environmental change or development to make sure that the economic growth and the balance of the economic growth. And to make sure that they address the needs of both men and women, different age, different group, ethnic group and the poor group and the children and women, make sure that the basic needs of both men and women how the policymaker can address and put up in the policy and strategic framework. In agriculture now, in Cambodia, we already had a two-step action plan with the previous one, five-year action plan in year 2008 up to year 2012 and now we develop the new one year 2016 up to year 2020. So this address the women economic empowerment in agriculture sector and also commit how to address the wellness, the capacity of the women at the local level and bring their voice to the national level. Thank you very much. Excellent, thank you so much. So Ms. Kang Kim emphasized not just the role of her ministry but the need for collaboration between ministries and also pointed out the communication between the local and the national level and also pointed out it's not just a question of gender but also considering other issues such as age. And I wonder if any of the panelists would like to comment on Ms. Kang Kim's response or the question in general. Okay, John Doar. Just a quick question. You've just had elections, so my question, I think many of us from outside Cambodia would be interested whether or not you believe you've had high quality representation by women in the elections and whether you notice a change in the political representation. Yes, the coming election will come in 4th June, next week, the end of this week. So this is a very important question. At the government at all levels, from national to the community level, we had the quota, for example, the national level. Also now in every ministry, we have at least 20% of women who are in the high position like me but promote at the DDG in 2009. When the government, you know, encourage women to be at the high position to involve in the digital making. So at the commune election, the commune soon, the candidate. The candidate for the election also, we have to make sure the women participate, women candidate in the election as well. Excellent, thank you so much. So let's move on to the second panelist, Helena. So for Helena, the question that I'd like to ask is, can a human rights based approach help achieve SDG 5.5 in the context of Southeast Asia? And what would be the priorities to make it happen? Thank you. Thank you, Carl. Yeah, this is a big question I think. First of all, maybe I can just stress that the human rights based approach is something that has been, there is actually a commitment for all of the SDGs, all of the goals in the agenda 2030 to have a human rights based approach. And I think that one main priority that is not as easy as it may sound is to actually make this mean something in reality when we now are working in national development plans and so on that this actually becomes a reality. And when we look specifically at goal 5.5, I think that there are obvious issues here that are addressed in this goal that have to do with the inequalities that we have today and discrimination. So the CEDO commitments to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women is of course one relevant aspect of this, but there are also other human rights that are involved in the goal. We can see there are economic rights, there are human rights to participation in culture, human rights to participation in political life. Also perhaps equal access to education, if we look at this in a longer term perspective, which we do in agenda 2030. So to make sure that this happens, you also need to ensure that boys and girls have equal access to education. So there are several human rights that are involved in bringing goal 5.5 to... Yeah, okay, now it's in. So there are several human rights involved in goal 5.5 and I think with a serious human rights-based approach that takes all these different aspects in, it can be easier. And a human rights-based approach also is to do with the process, of course, inclusiveness, participation, et cetera. And also in looking when we develop development plans that we take gender issues into account when we formulate the problems that we address, when we select our priorities, the targets who has a say in development processes, who participates, budgets, indicators, targets and processes for monitoring these development plans. They're all different levels of bringing gender equality and the goals in 5.5. Through human rights-based approach. Thank you. Would anybody else like to add something on this particular topic of the role of human rights towards achieving SDG 5.5? Okay, okay, I think another one's on the way. Well, I think one of the key things we have to think about from a human rights-based approach for all of the SDGs is not to fixate on just single targets, indicators and even goals. And if we think about the environment, the climate-related goals and how one of the problems is actually the failure to have a fully integrated gender component. And I think if we're thinking about a rights-based approach, we can't forget that we have a huge amount of existing rights-based jurisprudence that is being sidelined in a lot of ways through the SDGs. And in particular, if you think about this connection between women's rights and environment, the Beijing platform for action, which is now more than 20 years old, had a whole section of the obligations of governments, which governments had agreed to already on gender and environment. And yet we really have seen minimal action and not even really an effective review of that component of the Beijing platform 20 years on. So I think that's really key is that we don't let the SDGs, as important as they are, sideline the existing human rights obligations and obligations to the environment. Excellent, thank you. Helena, would you like to quickly respond to that? I think there is a similar concern from people in the human rights field that the SDGs are also sometimes seen as something that will solve everything and that we don't need the old frameworks anymore. We don't need the old systems. That is, of course, not the case. It needs to be something aggregated to it and building on what we already have and the human rights commitments are already, they are there, it's the same states that are the duty bearers of the conventions that now need to build on these through the SDGs, use the SDGs to make progress towards these commitments, but they are not instead of in any way. Thank you very much. So let's move on to the third question which goes back to Kate. So Kate, I'd like to ask you, is women's participation, as in SDG 5.5, key to ensuring that large-scale infrastructure investments are safe, transparent, and promote people's wellbeing and interests? Or is it not enough? What else is needed? Thank you. Great, thanks. Well, first of all, I'd say that women's participation at that stage where a large-scale development project has already decided is inadequate. The target itself talks about effective participation and in decision-making at all levels. So it really have to start with decision-making over whether these kind of projects are in fact what women see as key to their own development. And again, going back to the existing commitments that governments already have under the Beijing platform, there's a range of commitments that they must meet in relation to women's free-prone informed consent in that form of decision-making, but also in building women's movements and capacity to make those decisions and make them informed and have alternatives for their own energy needs, for example. One of our approaches at APWRD is one of the obligations that governments actually have is to conduct participatory action research in relation to the environment. And that's something that we do. We call that feminist participatory action research to build women's movements at the local level and make effect and participate in decision-making, but really by through deciding what they really want, what is affecting them, and then bring about that change through their own movements. We heard earlier from Bevet about how critical movements have been in shifting the women's rights landscape. And what we've found once that's done, certainly it's one way to increase women's political participation but also to shift the outcomes, hopefully, or at least to have an informed participation. But what we've also found is that women would really prefer to move towards a concept of energy democracy than large-scale energy development. Energy democracy can actually empower women both in decision-making and also in the energy ownership. And small-scale energy is far more effective for women generally in their community where they're able to make decisions over their energy needs but also own those energy needs. Sometimes, for example, creating other small businesses and decisions out of that. And that, for us, is a component. Let me just introduce you to a tongue twister of the feminist fossil fuel-free future. So energy democracy as well as supporting women's movements to make their decisions are really central to that and dovetails both with that target, 5.5, but also the broader obligations in the Beijing platform and the sustainable development goals. That sounds fascinating. So the famous fossil fuel-free future... Feminist. Oh, feminist. Feminist. Okay, got it. Feminist fossil fuel-free future. That's right. I mean, this is interesting as well because it relates to the first session that we had earlier that was talking about the wider transformations of energy across the region. And one part of it is the technology transformations. But in my opinion, also working on energy, the bigger part is people's voice and for people to be able to articulate their vision of what energy futures should look like. Is anybody else that'd like to respond to Kate's suggestion on the feminist fossil fuel-free future? If not, well, maybe because nobody will be able to say it. I'm sure the Australian government could adopt the feminist fossil fuel-free future, you know, but by closing down its commitment to open a new huge coal power station. Would you like to respond, John? So, thanks very much for that. Okay, so you never know. I might get back to one of those points. But I received a question that various people in the panel were quite interested to have a look at. And that was really, can the SDGs alter the dominant paradigm of economic growth? So in thinking about that, I suppose it's easy enough to say I would agree that at the moment, the SDGs are still not inculcated into economic growth mainstream, if you like. I certainly don't hear the SDGs discussed on a daily basis in banks, in financiers, in ministries of foreign affairs and other things. And one example that I put to all of us is how many sustainable development goal sort of focused economists and advocates work in Asia or Australia's ministries of finance, treasuries, reserve banks, private banks. I just don't think there are many. I think the profession that fills those employers, if I can call them employers, there's not a critical mass of sustainability-oriented advocates, if you like, professionals in those groups. So the me we need to have, we need to find ways to promote a larger sort of cadre of economic and financial analysts to contribute to changing the economic public investment discourse. So a quick discussion that I had with a good friend yesterday, we were talking again about Greater Mekong. Wouldn't it be great, Louis, if we could normalize, normalize really high quality scrutiny of constructive scrutiny of large-scale infrastructure. Normalize constructive scrutiny of the ADB's regional investment framework and the whole suite, the whole portfolio. Normalize constructive scrutiny of the whole one belt, one road portfolio. I just make that a part of the contribution of, I don't know what to call this room, the knowledge community, the research community, the proactive sort of inquirers. So that's one thing. I mean, in my country, we would benefit from that type of analysis being applied more rigorously to conversations we're having about developing Northern Australia. But it would also do well to be applied to things like the Adani project, which is a project proposal in Australia which is really planning to export low-quality, high-ash-culled India. So these are things that we could do. In terms of the question, I mean, to me, my life doesn't really focus on STG-5 or 5.5, but we have to take them as a set. But I just wanted to, if I could, Carl, just two quick examples on 5.5. So to me, there's, how do you change things? I mean, that's a question for all of us, but to me, part of it is giving individuals an opportunity. So we have a minister from Maharashtra visiting us in two weeks' time. She has a, she's in her late 30s. She has a big portfolio. She's clearly a highly competent person. Now, in a week, she's going to have time with Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of our department, the head of the South Asian Division, the federal parliamentarian for my own, little rural electorate, a commissioner from Australia's Center for International Ag Research, the chair of the Australian Water Partnership. They're all women. If nothing else, this colleague from India, she's going to be given a little bit of a boost, I hope, that, hang on, it's okay if we're talking about 5.5, to be sort of a woman in a leadership role. But that said, and my last comment, Carl, would be one of my own colleagues, Mia Urbano, based in Hanoi, she sent me a note about this workshop, and she said, look, John, that's great. I know Minister Mundi will be having a great time, and many others before and after will do so, but structural change is a whole nother matter. And so for her, for Mia, she really asked me to share with the floor that for Mia, the game changes on the SDG agenda, if you like, are more 5.4, 5.6, and 5A. So, recognition or remuneration of women's unpaid care work, 5A, redistribution of power in relation to land ownership, property ownership, these types of things. So, for Mia, I suppose, she notices our department pay attention to 5.5, but she would like us to also be putting equal effort into getting behind the SDG, other parts of the SDGs, but also other parts of the SDGs in relation to gender. So, they are, I'll leave it there. To me, how can the SDGs transform the economic paradigm? Well, that's the question. I mean, 5.4, 5.6, 5A, but also infrastructure itself. You know, there's an SDG on infrastructure. If we actually all were successful in giving that a push, and if in a few years' time we judged that we had somehow contributed, that would be transformational. I work in the area of water. There's a political campaign for water on high-level panel on water as one small push. But again, if successful, those things could be transformational. But the question for us, I think, is how, in a bit of a backsliding world, do you maintain impetus to some of these things when the news cycle gets captured by other more negative and short-term? Okay, thank you, John. Would anybody else like to respond? Okay, have a nice straight away. If we can just comment on something that we all know how challenging it is, but the comment you made about infrastructure and how good it would be to have some form of process in place. If we look at it from human rights place approach again, I mean, there are the guiding principles for 2011. It's not something, it's still soft law. It's something that has been worked on for a long time. It's something that is being discussed here in the region a lot, including over the next few days here in Bangkok. There are discussions about how to regulate this. But these guiding principles both demand from states to regulate more, to have clear regulations for what kind of procedures need to be in place, what is legal, what is not legal to do in the countries that they are governing. And there are also duties suggested in there by private actors that have to do with process due diligence, impact assessments that are supposed to happen ahead of time that will sort of force, in a way, also actors who have not in the economic sector have not maybe been very aware of these processes before, but we sort of force that in. It's not something that will happen automatically, but there is a framework, a human rights-based framework for doing so. Thank you. Maybe one last brief intervention, and then we'll open to the floor. So please prepare your questions either via the app or in person, if you prefer in person. I think there's quite a few interesting things that have come out of this question about whether the SDGs can be realized in the existing economic framework. That's something we really have to ask ourselves. Is it possible to continue in a profit-driven economic model and achieve what we have committed in the SDGs, particularly in relation to climate, but also in relation to inequality? I mean, the goal 10, for example, on inequality of wealth and resources and power between countries and within countries. I don't think any of this can be clearly achieved in our current economic model, because we know that in the most recent years, actually, there's an acceleration of profit to a tiny, tiny minority at the expense of the rest of the world, and economists are telling us that actually to continue the way we are, to bring everybody out of poverty to a level of, say, $5 a day, which isn't adequate whatsoever, but to that level, we would have to increase our consumption 100 times of our current consumption to eliminate poverty of that level. And then we would be, we live on a finite planet, right? So we would be in a disaster of monumental proportions, of course, and we already are. So that brings us to this question of what other economic models do we need? And recently, I was just talking to colleagues from UN Women about what we see as a huge win at the Commission on the Status of Women this year to link gender equality with a just transition in the context of climate change, that we must have a just transition of our economic model in a way that is empowering for women and advances women's rights, including the right to development, and brings me to the comment earlier about the other elements of SDGs on the redistribution of paid and unpaid care work. If we can think of a different economic model, it needs to be also thinking about the redistribution of both paid and unpaid care and that sustainable living actually takes more time. Rather, we need to look at models that aren't only profit-driven, that allow people the time to live sustainably, but also to put in care work, that the caring work that is currently is mainly done by women needs the redistribution and also the revaluing in order to have both sustainable living and women's human rights to be realised. Thank you. So some major challenges presented to the room and to all of the researchers in this space that should be able to help contribute to find solutions. Can I open it now to the floor? Does anybody have any comments or questions? Please, could you briefly introduce yourself and if it's addressed to a specific person, please say who your question or comment is addressed to. Okay, thank you. Hi. Oh, sorry. Oliver Johnson from SEI. I did put my question through the app as well, so I'll give it from the floor. Great to hear the issue of energy democracy being mentioned. There's growing discussion over issues of energy democracy, energy justice within the sort of energy research community particularly. And a lot of that's actually geared around looking at the US and the UK and issues happening there, fuel poverty, but I think globally it's a really interesting discussion and way of framing linking sustainable energy goals with participation and so on. And also highlights interactions between different SDGs and that's work that SEI has been increasingly working on. My question is that you also mentioned the just transition and what processes and interests are challenging the ability to meet the SDGs. Destabilizing entrenched industries and overcoming path dependency may be the elephant in the room. And I wondered if we have or you have any good examples of how to overcome those entrenched interests and path dependency along a particular development pathway. Is it addressed to a particular person or the panel in general? The panel in general. Okay, thank you. I think we'll gather a couple of questions and then we'll return to the panel. Are there other questions at this stage? Another question? Okay, at the front. Thank you, Johan, Sheila and Shana. Also, my SEI, a question coming back to Haas's presentation, she gave an example of a good case, but quite often it ends up being good cases. So in what we are talking about here, how do we reach scale? What are the barriers? It's a bit similar to the previous question. What is the barrier reaching the scale? Is it institutional, traditional, financial? What are the key barriers for actually making sure that what we are trying to achieve that we present here in this discussion that we actually do see clear progress within the next 13 years? So it just doesn't become good cases that we present over and over again. Is there maybe one more question and then we'll return to the panel. Okay, thank you. Patrick Buecher, SEI York. I'm particularly interested in the agriculture sector. And I do wonder, because for example, in India they're now talking about the feminization of agriculture. So what do you think a women's role will be in the transformation of agriculture in South and Southeast Asia? Thank you. Thanks, maybe that question is especially addressed to Ms. Kai Kim. Should we start with your, is the question okay for you? Okay, so Ms. Kai Kim, can I ask you to answer the last question? Thank you. Yes, thank you very much. I can give the example in Cambodia at the national level and community level. So the action as I mentioned earlier, the first is the policymaker with the gender mainstreaming in every sector. And agriculture is one important because women are highly participate in agriculture in Cambodia. So this is very important. Then we have to have the action plan. So we have our team, the structure to coordinate and monitor all sectors in agriculture to make sure that women participation from the ground level to the national level. So in the ground level, we have agriculture farmer association and the fishery resource. We had the community fishery organization and the forestry community organization within that we can ensure this group, the local group and so men and women that can participate in every activity be respond to gender role and gender needs. Maybe I just ask a follow up question on this. So do you see women's role in agriculture changing in Cambodia? And is it in a good sense or not such a good sense? Yes, after we implement this for a few years, I see more than 10 years that we are focused on gender mainstreaming in agriculture. So now much more, the women white from the ground level to the national level and participate at the dialogue consultation workshop. Now even indeed behind the process to amend the fishery law and forestry law.  So now we can see a lot of change for women attitude and also men attitude as well to give the value of women white and women participation in every process. Thank you. And the other two questions are quite... You know, sorry, but we need to... Because in agriculture sector now we are doing the assessment of the gender role in agriculture with the FAO support project. So we can see how the women change in this future that we are working with the gender mainstreaming. Thank you. The other two questions are quite structural and quite ambitious. One observed the sort of embedded processes that can act as barriers. So the very powerful interest that might act as barriers to in this case, energy transformation for energy justice. And then the second question was also very interesting, like what's the possibility for SDG5 to be achieved at scale and what are the barriers and opportunities? So is there somebody who'd like to attempt first to respond? Okay, John, this needs to go to you. Can I say what I wanted to say rather than answer your question? If they'll let you. They may follow up. I just wanted to... Sorry, I was just thinking of the questions from Oliver and Johan. And for what it's worth, I think my reaction was really, okay, barriers to scale. I mean, to me, what is that? That's barriers to normalising chain's behaviour. So, and then I'm just trying to think of examples. So, sorry, before we get to examples. So there's principles and I think the people that are negotiating the principles in things like SDGs have done a great job. I mean, they've really pushed through a framework which is aspirational and really worth striving for. But then, as you say, how to do it. So, one example. I mean, to me, one of the barriers is the economics and finance sector that I mentioned earlier. How do you normalise more sustainability economics? Chula hosted Bob Costanza here about three years ago. It was unbelievable. There was about 200 or 300 people in the room. He spoke for three or four hours. Pretty inspiring in terms of shaking the schools of economics at this university as to different values and different time frames to be considering, different equations, if you like, to be considering in their sort of economic roots, heartland. I mean, to me, that was an interesting one but then it's still got to flow through to banks. So, some of my friends are involved in creating a new investment facility, if you like, for investing in land and water management in Australia which has now got one of the big banks investing in it that has 40% of the agribusiness portfolio. So, again, unless you're getting these larger actors sort of changing behaviour, I don't think you'll get far. I've got some other examples on hydro but that can maybe wait for another day. Okay, would you like to respond? Just on the scale, it's just thought it's not an answer that is correct, it's a consideration. And I think that in some part of the things that hinders progress in this is that issues such as gender equality and leadership roles and so on. It's been on small scale for a long time and when it's starting up, seeing as it's sort of easy to just wave away to say that, yeah, but that's not realistic.  But it's also, I think, a matter of critical mass that and the time and I think actually optimistic enough to think that it is time now. We have been working for such a long time. There are so many small scale examples. There are so many, not just Thailand, the world's highest number of female CEOs, I think, this country, but I mean, there are so many examples already. There is really critical mass that scientifically speaking also, the arguments that it doesn't work are sort of, they don't work anymore. So now we've shown that it's possible and also profitable if we're looking at economic development here. So I think that is sort of, you come to a certain degree where the arguments that held it back before are no longer strong enough. And maybe it's the, yeah, the hindrances to go to scale are sort of moving away, I hope. Thank you. I think, I mean, the first question is really the question for all social change, isn't it? So how to shift best in interests? I mean, this is a core question. I think we are probably at a moment of potential change, but also large repression. Because really in order to bring about the change we need, it's not going to happen simply because the SDGs were developed or because governments think it's a good idea, it takes power. And that is why we keep saying that it's only through supporting social movements and the growth of social movements that this can happen. But it is happening, I guess, you can see a number of cases where social movements are challenging large scale, dirty industries, and it takes repression or undemocratic processes to make those happen in general. And really the alternatives, the energy democracy, there are really strong arguments for it. In Bangladesh, for example, they have very large scale access to small solar that women are mostly in control of, whereas large energy is mainly men. So this is why this kind of transformation to the localised energy democracy has so many multiple benefits which were supposed to be addressing through the SDGs that it makes the most sense, but it doesn't make the most sense for billionaires. I said it doesn't usually make the most sense for them to let people own their own energy. So that's the core challenge we have to make is how to shift the power of billionaires away from government decision making. And we really believe that the only way to do that, that there are two effective types of power, financial power and people's power, and at the moment financial power has a far greater influence than people's. So the answer for us is pretty clear. We have to strengthen that other equation in this level of balancing power. On a maybe final note, just to maybe close or comment on Kate's observation, looking at my own work in Thailand, there is evidence of social movements beginning to transform energy planning. So energy planning has often been seen as too technical for everybody to think about, but what we realize now in all the climate change debates is that energy choice is also about societal values as well, about inclusion and so on. And so I think it was PDP 2010, so the power planning in 2010, that was the first time there was public consultation. And that didn't just fall from the sky, that came from demands from civil society, project based, but also recognizing the structural level, structural level meaning that planning itself is a part of the process to explain why certain projects go ahead. Actually on that, I should say that one, it's only a small step so far, but for us, which we probably have to thank the Swedish government for, but UNDP have a large program on infrastructure and climate infrastructure that they've been working with finance ministries, and now in their next stage, they're going to try and take a perspective of integrate gender equality, but also integrate civil society, not just an analysis of gender equality. And so that through this, I think probably because of the interest of Sweden and their funding, that's something that's opening the door with the finance ministries who are so important in these discussions about infrastructure. Thank you. I think now I have to hand it over to Babette who's going to try and wrap up what has been a very engaging session. Thank you, and thank you Carl for actually beautifully moderating it. I'm afraid I won't be able to exhaust all the wonderful and provocative ideas that the panelists have put forward, but let me try to sort of put together and to, shall we say, three main messages or three main points. First, with regards to the SDGs, we are thankful the SDGs have come. We should celebrate the fact that they have been, they've observed a consultative process, and as Helene had mentioned, the human rights-based approach has been well-covered in the SDGs. However, there are some limitations that we find within the SDGs. For instance, it was mentioned that apparently they do not adequately integrate well with some climate and environment goals, and as far as looking at the past and the gains and advancements in the past are concerned with regards, for instance, to Section K of the Beijing Platform of Action, which is principally on women and environment, women, gender and environment. This is sort of sidelined, and other significant agreements have been sort of sidelined, so let's not throw the baby with the bathwater. Let's try to look back at advancements and together with the SDGs try and move forward with the opportunities that they offer. The second point is SDG 5.5 itself, specifically that of women's participation. Apparently all the panelists agree that it is a need, it is in fact core to democratic governance, whether we look towards different types of futures, sustainable energy futures, energy democracies, women's participation is core, but at the same time we must be mindful of the fact that we shouldn't invoke or mobilize women's participation after the big decisions have already been made, sort of after big decisions have already been made. The other thing is the idea of scale, and I think Johanna mentioned it, why is it that we have so many cases of women's participation at the local level, always confined at the community level, and I think this challenges us really and makes us confront the politics of scale is also a gendered politics of scale, whereby women are almost always confined at the local level and they sort of thin out when the big decisions are made, usually at the epicenters of decision making, they're usually sort of sidelined. That has to be a question that we should confront. And finally with regards to both the SDGs and women's participation put together, it appears we're not going far enough. I mentioned already women are usually confined to the local level, we need therefore women and men at higher scales to actually, as John mentioned it and perhaps Louie, normalize a climate of constructive scrutiny at major decision making scales to actually interrogate and challenge and question dominant economic growth paradigms. And in fact, in this manner, we could replicate the consultative process of the SDGs themselves. And in this case could actually potentially demand greater transparency and accountability from the decision makers themselves. And second, and this which appears to be a bit provocative, there appears to be some silences around the SDGs themselves and their capacity to actually alter or transform profit oriented, as was mentioned, economic growth models and paradigms. As mentioned earlier this morning, I think from our colleague from UNS cap, currently most of these economic growth paradigms and models actually continue to stratify societies into big winners and losers since growth, as he said, by itself will not automatically reduce poverty. These models continue to rely on high levels of extraction, production and consumption. And this being the practice, especially today of large scale investments that define much of Asian growth. They also sidestep the big drivers of inequality and I would say even cultural inequality, where as mentioned earlier, even women's work, unpaid women's work has yet to be redistributed and domestic work has to be actually given its due value. So all in total, actually, we need a new imaginary, a new paradigm and goal of economic development. Some use the term economic, sorry, energy democracy, sustainable futures, we need a new feminist ethics of care. And this ethic of care actually questions structural and historical relationships that produce disease, hunger, poverty, dispossession, environmental decline and disasters. This ethic of care foregrounds people's wellbeing, social justice and equally important care for nature and all living things. So those are the thoughts that I'm living with you. I hope you enjoyed the panel as much as I learned and enjoyed from them. Thank you very much. Thank you, Carl, and thank you to all panelists for your presence today. Thank you. I think you're free to go if you'd like to. Thank you very much, everybody. It's a pleasure to hear you. We're going to take a short break for lunch, but I couldn't help but see this up here. And I think just after this panel discussion here, I feel a little bit more like this than some people did this morning in terms of the future, particularly for my two young girls who are coming out into the world and taking their positions. So I appreciate all the work that all these panelists are putting into supporting women and women's rights. And we look forward to working with you in the future to try and continue to support that anywhere we can. Lunch is now going to be served on the 20th floor. So the elevators outside here where coffee was this morning just go all the way up to the top. We'll have until about 1.30. If you could join us back here around 1.30, we can get on with the afternoon sessions then. So please enjoy your lunch. Thank you.


I grew up in a small community in the south of Minnesota called St. Gaul. We were eight families, all loosely related, uncles and aunts from both sides of my family, along with grandparents and two outsider families, not directly related by blood. It was a remnant of the hippie era and my mother grew up out there. It was originally meant to be some sort of farming commune for people who wanted to live on their own terms without going completely off the grid. It isn't like a religious gathering or a cult as many believe. It was all about a different way of life and living closer to the earth. My mother left St. Gaul for a few years to study sociology and that's where she met my dad. I was in accidental pregnancy and my dad didn't want to stick around. My mother moved back to St. Gaul and had me in the early 90s. I was born in the house I grew up in. Life out there wasn't as odd as one might think. I still went to school, I just had to take an earlier bus. We still went into town at least once a week and I had many friends that I got really close to over the years. Still, there was always that error of being different around me. My mom explained that a lot of the parents of the kids at school didn't like the people from St. Gaul because we were different, a bit odd. My mom was terrified of a lot of things, but mostly blood. That was her number one fear and if I ever hurt myself she would try to cover it up as fast as possible. It was strange because I saw kids skin their knees at school all the time without anyone freaking out. I never hurt myself like that since my mom was adamant about being careful. It came to the point where I sometimes had to wear elbow and knee guards to school which landed me in plenty of trouble from bullies. But my childhood came and went. Elementary school turned into middle school, which turned into high school. Things got rough then, fast. On the best days I was a Gaul kid, but most of the time they just called me Jesus freak or cultist. I was branded an outsider without there ever really being a reason. I guess that's just what it's like being a teenager. I also refused to take precautions my mother asked me to. I stopped wearing elbow and knee guards to gym class. Our teacher had a deal where kids could go to the gym instead of playing team sports, but I was tired of being separated. I'd compromise with my mom by wearing several layers of clothes, but I'd usually just wait for her to be out of sight before I took something off. If she ever knew I was pretty good at both soccer and basketball, she would have had a heart attack. It was during those first few PE classes that I started noticing something was different about me. Sure, we were all still growing up, but I was growing a bit different. I was almost completely hairless in comparison to the other boys and my hair was growing lighter. I'd gone from brown hair to strawberry blonde in about two years. I would also start to notice a weird smell coming from the other boys. They really stank. It took me several weeks to notice that they weren't actually the ones who were different. I was. They smelled like people were supposed to smell. My sweat, on the other hand, was sweeter. Not necessarily in a good way, but just weirdly sweet by comparison. Not sugary, but more like the smell of thick dairy. I hadn't thought about it. I just figured that was the way sweat was supposed to smell. It wasn't. I'd made one friend in high school, Darren, short guy who dropped in and out of social clicks like it was his job. I talked to him about it and asked him to smell me weird, I know. And he agreed that something was off. He convinced me to talk to the school nurse, thinking it might be something like diabetes.  He'd tell someone about it, but he never did. Good guy. I had a long chat with the school nurse, Anita. She was very reassuring. Apparently puberty can have all sorts of weird effects on the human body. A sweet smell coming from your sweat was hardly the worst she'd seen, or in this case smelled. It was weird, sure, but this was a weird time to be human. Still, she decided to run a few blood tests just to make sure my iron levels and white blood cells were okay. As soon as she poke the needle through my arm, she recoiled and crinkled her nose. The syringe dropped to the floor and I got up. She got a tissue and started to blow her nose repeatedly over and over.  She exclaimed, What did you? I had no idea what she was talking about. I looked at the drop of blood poking out of my arm and I didn't notice anything odd. She just put a band-aid on it while Anita tried to regain her composure. Come back, come back tomorrow. She coughed. We'll talk more, okay? But she was sick the next day. I felt uncomfortable with the whole thing and I wanted to talk to my mom about it, but I also didn't want to get her worried. When you have someone in your life that's always on the breaking point, you make a habit out of stepping carefully. It took Anita the rest of the school week before she returned to her job. I was immediately summoned to the nurse's office. She'd lost weight. A lot of it. She was drinking water from a large bottle when I got there and she had dark markings around her eyes. She didn't seem well, but she lit up as soon as she looked at me. Anita asked me for a new blood test and I agreed. She lined up for syringes. Her hands were shaking, but she regained her focus once the needle got closer to my arm. Step by step, she filled the syringes, but she seemed to get more and more excited as she did. I can swear she was sniffing my neck. The whole thing was weird and I left as soon as she gave me a band-aid. She promised to run some tests and let me know as soon as she was done, but she wanted me to return at least once a week for a checkup. Apparently, sweet smelling sweat was a bigger deal than I'd anticipated. I asked her if I should see a doctor, but she just shook her head. As I left the nurse's office, I looked back. She was standing in the doorway, staring at me from across the hall. Her eyes never left me. She was staring at my neck, drinking from her water bottle. This time, I told my mother I had no idea how much she would overreact. Instead of talking to nurse Anita, she pulled me out of school the same day. She threw our entire lives into boxes, breaking at least half of our dinnerware in the process. In less than a weekend, she'd packed everything and hired a truck. I barely had the time to hug my grandparents goodbye before we were out of town. I was forced to switch phone numbers, and my mother swore that if I didn't remove my social media accounts, she'd smash every touchscreen we owned. I'd never seen her like that before. I was terrified. That's how we ended up, in Sabre, Michigan. Of course, my mom couldn't check on me all day long. I did get time to check in on my social media. Darren, still in disbelief about me leaving so soon, told me things had gotten weird at school. Nurse Anita had started asking questions about where I'd moved and when the principal couldn't reveal that information. She'd gotten aggressive. The police got involved, and it was revealed that she'd taken my blood samples home. Things got unclear at this point, but Darren, whose mom works at the sheriff's office, had spoken over dinner about nurse Anita, apparently drinking blood straight from the syringes. But that wasn't all. In the days that followed, she was taken into custody. She was doing some sort of hunger strike and couldn't even keep water down. She actually died from dehydration right there in the county jail, surrounded by paramedics trying to understand why her body was actively resisting an IV.  I confronted her about nurse Anita and what had happened. My mom finally opened up to me. You know what capsaicin is? She asked. It's the thing in spicy food that makes your tongue and throat hurt. It's a kind of self-defense thing that just is supposed to make us stay away. I'd heard about it, and I was aware of the concept. This thing that's supposed to make us stay away just makes it more enticing, she explained. People can get addicted to it. To many, it has the opposite of the intended effect. It became something to be desired instead of something that protects the plant. Do you understand what I'm telling you? I did understand. Our family is different, she told me. I was hoping this wouldn't happen to you, but it did, and we had to move. She really did try to bring me a normal life. She tried not to worry, but whatever is inside me was growing extremely potent. I started to understand why our family had lived isolated and why she wanted me to be careful around the others. As a kid, it wasn't as dangerous, but as a teenager, it was stronger than ever. That's why even I was noticing my own smells, they'd gotten stronger. But the years passed, my mom got a job at a gas station, and I helped out as a farm hand and cherry picker. Things were going pretty well, all things considered, until last year. I was picking up my mom from the night shift early in the morning when a truck on the opposite lane ran a red light. We were hit. It wasn't a bad hit, but it was bad enough to send us into a spin and into a nearby ditch.  The passenger side of the rear half of the car was folded like origami. I barely even remember what happened next. I remember the truck driver coming to check on my mom only to drag her out on the pavement. I remember paramedics and a police car.  I remember red. I remember seeing a half eaten face slowly being torn apart, eyes that used to comfort me, having lost their light, a slack jawed nightmare, having clothes and limbs torn apart and splayed on the concrete like a flattened toad. I don't remember much about getting away. I was chased through a field of wheat and threw up into a water bucket next to a well. I hid in a barn and covered myself in hay to dampen the smell of my blood.  They were barely even breathing. Their breath so short, I couldn't even see their chest move. I made it. I would never speak of this in person as I don't want to risk anyone finding me. I've moved twice since that incident, and I'm starting to understand what I am. The problem is, I've started to get cataracts. I know it's an early stage, but it's definitely there and it is progressing rapidly. I'm going to need surgery. Someone has to operate on me. And I just, I fear that I'll never wake up from it. I have no idea what to do. I can't live like this, constantly fearing someone will get too close and catch a whiff of me.  No wonder she was always afraid. You're all hunting me. You just don't know it yet.


that every other day because of all the lint and crap that used to get into it And you're in there blowing it and and then you realize how much gunk actually comes off your hand While you're cleaning your mouth that's with trackballs. That's which to the trackball. Yeah, just go doing that Yep And like like zany said once you use a trackball I cannot get myself used to get used to the the regular motion of a of a mouse So note to self alex got to buy a moon lander Uh or voyager because I've been looking at either those and I also got to buy a trackball and give it a try I'm telling you man. I'll come huge. It's the way to go. Sorry Okay, try those keyboards with no characters on them So if you want to cheap out on trackballs Uh logitech still makes like the the old that that same old uh I think they call like the m70 or something like that. Yeah, I think that's it.  Yeah 30 bucks when it comes to trackballs the thing is is that there's two different kinds and There are two different people who like them. So if you like if if you're the finger tracker So you're using either the index the middle finger move around the finger ball Or you're the thumb tracker who has it on the side Usually you're not both so you're gonna like either one or the other So I I found that I like the finger tracking better Some people like the thumb better.  Oh, I suck so bad at zero ad the first two weeks or so after switching to a trackball Because it it you know just trying to quickly move characters around Oh, oh it was so hard so difficult like I had to really think about what I was doing and now at second nature Yep Yeah, like uh I I can't play zero ad with this mouse.  I I do I'm right there with the I play city skylines and several other other ones with trackball. I never put put a regular mouse on Really same same Well, I'm gonna have to try it man. You guys would convince me. I wanted to try it Okay, I did not know that the mx Was a thing I thought there was like a mouse that was like that's that's what this is. This is the mx ergo That's the mx. Wait, hold it up again. Josh That's the mx ergo. I was he must have showed it off while I was too busy being It's on the side and you can Yeah, it also has a tilt stand Yeah, yeah, it's just done with a magnet Yeah, it's on there with a magnet. It's really good. Oh, nice Now if you don't want to go if you want to ergo mouse that isn't a trackball Logitech makes one that is like straight up and down that you move around. Yeah Um, I've never tried it. It's it feels like it would hurt my wrist But no, but it just doesn't see natural as as josh can attest this position of this mouse It's no economic. I never suffered Super comfortable I have one around here somewhere. I just don't care for the thumb tracking. I'm on more It's a hundred bucks to this day. It didn't depreciate Well, yeah, that's a hundred dollars.   Yeah, that's a logitech. That's another logitech Yeah, so I bought this. Okay. This is for first person shooters when it was first came out It was is the razor death editor lead to or v2 or whatever This day was a hundred twenty nine dollars. Yeah Jesus it is like very simple. Oh come on mice are almost exactly like keyboards alex keyboard You want to spend? You can do it. Um, yeah Because because switches switches are a thing like if I mean if you're like a professional Game or whatever you really do pay attention to what switches it has the actuation the sound With the weight of the mouse. I mean right now the I mean the the weirdest ones and I could never get used to it Is those are those mouse those mice that have The holes in it like they really really light and they're like you can see through Like I don't get it. But it's air light. They're air light. Yeah, they they swear by them because you can move them around so fast Really Aerodynamic Yeah, well, well, it's not about aerodynamic It's because like the frame and there's like no filler in the mouse So like it's extremely light and a lot of them have like built in just like that. Yeah has holes in it No, there's like they're extremely now where there's all holes. But that doesn't make sense The holes are covered the holes are covered by your hand. Oh, they're on the side too It reduces the weight production. It's all that weight reduces the weight Now but if you keep your balls clean I mean just the slightest movement moves them so So you get the same effect. Well, you know what be monetized I mean check the stream as it's still up speaking of Useless mouse features I was heavy into case modding back in the early aughts And like before I discovered linux really I was into case modding And there were people that would drill holes in their mice like these weight reduction ones But they would wire in a five volt little teeny tiny fan To pull their sweaty hand With with mice that had fans in them and alex That's kind of the useless like if you're going to block the airflow with your hand It's only going to be you know so efficient Oh, yeah, it's for when you do this method The claw The disturbing thing is I've I've recently figured out that there's a lot Of people that claw their mouse Like a lot Yeah, and I'm like it's designed for your hand to just cup it Yeah, when they're wide like that. Yeah, if you're a competitive gaming If you're a competitive gaming, I promise you the claw method works because you're literally spinning it fast You can click a lot faster.  You're supposed to be not competing when we play I was gonna say you're playing a game.   Thank you Thank you Supposed to be Like let me ask you boys. You don't get to be absolved sitting there quietly The way this conversation is going I just want to make sure and like clarify this Is or isn't going to end with us playing zero ad it might but I've got to grab lunch first, but you know I may or may not be able to join. I've got some out of town guests It has to happen after this like seriously. Oh, yeah, you guys have a meeting Uh, you'll have to attend there is a linux cast very soon Oh, do we need to end the stream matt? Let me know if we Yeah, we probably do because it's been three hours and 15 minutes and these guys still got what how long do you guys record? See, but even he lost hey, we're having so much but even he lost track of time Yeah time I had to I've been checking my watch ever like I come on man. I got I got to create the graphics. I got to create the stream And it is a Saturday. Come on now. You should have said something bra. Ah, that's having fun Yeah, we're having fun.  That's all you got to drop for We need to do this again, but it likes excuse of christmas. We just need to do it once a month Yeah, who's down for another holiday special like this next year. Oh, definitely.  I'm just gonna go there Now we're gonna see what happens after he runs a fellow the zsa cartel. I got it. I got to say man We'll go ahead and wrap up because I want my brother matt to get on his thing man But this is my linux family and I really Enjoy spending this time with you guys, man I'm humbled that you guys accepted the invite to come do this man And I'm just grateful that you guys are willing to do it again next year And we can maybe get it better and that kind of stuff and there's some other plans that we're talking about Down the road. Oh, yeah Coming down the road that might involve some of you guys because I'm a visionary and I and that's one of the things I do tyler can tell you about that We got some pretty stoked plans for doing like, you know contents for like maybe a meet and greet and live For fans to come and see us.   Thanks for being here. It made my Christmas This was my Christmas gift. Thank you so much guys And I will take this opportunity to announce one thing If all goes well I might be having a trip down the us of it Oh, oh, that'd be cool That's cool nowhere yet. But if it's close to any of you guys, we'll we'll hook up just knock on the door Knock on my door. I'm home I believe the state of Ohio is actually bigger than 11 on Delaware and Rhode Island are pretty small. Okay, we'll go give our last minute thing. I already did mine Josh, you got a last minute thing? Uh No, bye everybody Derek East guys Steve you already get yours Jesse No, we're we're in it together. We're that's a wrap. Happy holidays, folks. What's up, Nate So I just got one question for DT. I need help secured my password. Um, anyways, happy holidays. Hope you guys enjoy Oh Matt my brother go ahead, uh shop that the linx cast at orc. I'm the new Linus I mean I have my support page earlier, so I guess he could he could plug his merch store. There you go I don't have a store yet, but it's coming I still have like the desk mat just sitting here. I haven't put it on the desk yet Look at that thing. Is it gorgeous? Oh, hold it up. Hold it up. That is sleek Yeah, that's pretty cool. The only thing that it needs was a kind of scheme Hold on. Hold on. All it needs is it needs the perfect logo underneath it, which is keep on linux it No, it needs this is not a gentoo mouse pad All right, Tyler you're next there's a gentoo Oh Yeah, there is it's literally right under the the right foot. It's partially cut off I'm gonna have to grab one of those Nice. I'm a good grab one. That's on your fourth wall Yeah cool Thanks again guys Yeah, I guess that's it for the show then. Um, make sure you go by all of matt's merch By everything you can go and support all of us at our at our patreon's and you know our Various methods that you can find us at the links are in everybody's description down below You guys keep doing what you do you guys keep on linux in and y'all stay blessed to have a safe day and Peace we're out See you guys Steve's stick around for a second