This morning, I was in the final stretch of recruiting applicants for the YP4 Fellowship Program. I discussed my own Blueprints for Social Justice, a pilot program that addresses heart disease and diabetes in the Filipino community in the Bay Area with a focus on nutrition and exercise.

I was at my friend's house last Saturday night witnessing the Philippine star boxer, Will "Manny" Pacquiao defeat his opponent, thereby winning another title. AsianWeek dubbed Pacquiao the "Thrilla from Manila." As I began a conversation with my dad about the fight and how Pacquiao pulled a KO on Diaz, my dad informed me that prior to the fight, Pacquiao promised to donate all of his prize money to the victims of the recent natural disasters in the Philippines. No, not a percentage of his wins, but all of his wins. My dad said Pacquiao's already a millionaire, and he recognizes that there are others he can help.

I've spent the last 10 months programming and producing Women Center Stage, a multi-disciplinary festival that brings together women artists, activists thinkers, and writers bringing their voices to bear on a range of human issues.

Women weren't really my thing before 10 months ago. I consider myself a feminist, but hadn't truly given it much thought until recently. I was more involved in the labor movement, more interested in my art, and more distracted by my renegade, reactionary government.

But working on a festival whose stated mission is to take women out of the "ghetto of women's issues," to proclaim women's roles as changemakers in all arenas, I began to do some more thinking about what feminism means to me, what it means to be a woman activist, as distinct from an activist who happens to be female, what it means to be a woman in the world.

    I just returned (ok, it was Thursday and I finally posted this on the blog now) from Demos, where they held an excellent discussion of social networking and social change. I would have blogged live but I much prefer to check my spelling and grammar on Microsoft Word and balancing a laptop actually on my lap, is well, awkward. So instead, I am semi-live blogging; coming to you slightly after the fact - but with hopefully limited grammatical errors and chock full o' analysis. Call it a compromise. Besides, I didn't have the network key to log on to the Demos network.

    So grab yourself a latté and cancel all prior appointments, because we have a lot to discuss. Read on, after the break.