Thailand, September 2010. Staying at Monte Vista Retreat Center, a place for cleansing body and mind, involves different voluntary activities. Among others Augustas and me are asked to revise the center’s new website. While looking through the photo material available I figure little material to add like inspirational content to the website. Photos needed for representing treatments and services offered are near to missing completely. It doesn’t go long until myself and the manager decide to have our own photo shooting, since we have got a reasonably good camera...

A couple of days ago we leave our housing on Ko Phangan island in Thailand at four o’clock in the morning. We need to catch the ferry at 5 a.m. to the mainland for our Visa run to the Malaysian border. Being the only pedestrians walking the dark and quiet streets, frequently dogs announce our presence with alarming voices. “Hey neighbors (dogs), watch out! There is some creepy guys coming along…” We are neither creepy, nor guys. Only one of us fits this category, actually. As we move on we pass a famous ‘BE AWARE DOG’ spot. All of a sudden...

Just to let you know, being “skilled” in drawing is something anyone can learn, if he desires to. The most important thing in drawing something that looks authentic, is to be able to SEE. The book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards makes that very clear. Only if you are able to really SEE things as they are, you will be able to draw things as they appear. If YOU always dreamed of drawing authentic, then take my advice and get this book. It is fantastic, especially for those that have always believed they cannot draw. I have read...

It was summer 2002 when I was in Alicante, Spain sitting alone in a slightly dark, huge, old and dusty house. It was my accomodation, organized by one Spanish friend. Since it was for free, I was very happy I could stay. Besides that, I felt terrible. I was lonely, I had no-one around me I knew or could speak to. I had experienced being the “bad girl” in a group of people I hardly knew only for speaking the truth out loud. In my Spanish beginners course I was put into level 14 and couldn’t change that, thus understood near to nothing. And I was afraid of strange...