Attempted Insights

So Blogger just told me that my page has 605 views which kind of made my day! 605 times someone has come here to read what I wrote... wow. It is encouraging because I haven't really wanted to sit down and write even though I need to. I want to update and I need to write down everything that's happening.

Anyway... I'll start somewhere...Well, it's officially been over a month living here. Which is so surreal to me because I feel like it's been SOOOO much longer than one month. It's good to remind myself that I've only been here a month so I can't expect to be completely set up yet! It just feels like so much longer. It's hard to picture the life I had for my previous 21 years. When I think of a memory or event from the past, even the recent past, it seems like a dream. To be in America seems like a dream. I suppose in a way it is, because, now, Cambodia is reality. As I live and work through the "honeymoon" phase, I'm slowly learning where things are and how I will need to budget myself. It's way easier than I thought it would be to spend a lot of money here. The little things add up quickly and everything's so cheap you end up living extravagantly because you can! Massages, getting my nails and hair done, it's all wonderful but I'm going to have to slow down if I want to be saving money while I'm here. I have to remind myself, you don't need all this, you live here, it's NOT a vacation! It's real life! Eventually I won't need to remind myself, but right now I still do.

Let's see. I can talk about work. It's weird to blog about daily life. Not like blogging about an exciting vacation. I want to think of witty and interesting things to put in my entries, but mostly it's just life. Well, actually, I probably COULD blog about everything here, because "life" is not at all simple or uneventful here. EVER. Just completing simple tasks is always a challenge. For example, laundry. My power and/or water seems to go out every Sunday (and only on Sundays), right when I always do laundry. Buying a water bottle is a challenging task sometimes, too. UGH I don't even want to go into the little irritations of daily life somewhere outside America. We really have it lucky. God, I miss Starbucks. Well, yeah, so just going to work can be quite the adventure. My tuk-tuk driver is awesome and speaks great English, but, because of that, he is really busy. Sometimes he sends his friends in his place to pick me up. I find this incredibly annoying and have to call him and get firm with him. We'll see how he does this week. Last week we got into a heated argument! All the guards at my school laughed at me and told me I should get a new driver. But I really like this guy I have for some reason. He's so flaky but he just makes me feel really safe. So, I guess I'll keep him. For now.

Anyway, I guess talking about driving to school can lead me to talking about school. I can't believe I've only worked 2 full weeks in my classroom with my students. It seems like time is moving at the most glacial of paces! I am more tired than I've ever been just trying to keep up with my crazy five year olds! SOME of them are really sweet. There's a few that haven't quite grown on me yet, or, rather, they haven't shown me their sweet sides AT ALL. But most of them are really great. They are affectionate and react so powerfully to positive reinforcement. I really tried to give them a lot of freedom in the first week or so, but they are a rambunctious group to say the least so I've had to really enforce some strict rules with them. My training at the children's center in Santa Barbara would probably not approve, but I can't have them screaming all day and biting each other, can I?! Well the new, stricter rules have had an amazing effect. These kids are going to be whipped into shape when I'm done with 'em! They really respond to clear cut rules with consequences. And they are so happy when they do well because I really tell them how proud I am of them. Positive reinforcement is potentially new to many of the kids as this is a culture where the kids will surely be punished for doing wrong, but won't always be praised for doing well. I give them a lot of love and they really return it! My favorite little story so far is of Pangnavorn, a naughty boy who just needed me to sit with him and ask him, does he want to be a good boy or a bad boy? He said he wanted to be a good boy. I told him, then show me how you can be a good boy today. He went from night to day! Now he draws hearts with my name in them in his journal! He told me he wants to be a police officer and insists I call him "Officer Pangavorn!" He melts my heart! So even though I have some really, really bad hours during the work day, if I have one little moment where they are sweet to me, it usually makes it all better. I just hope I can really help these guys! I think I can... :)

Anyway, that's a super glossed over, positive reenactment of my work life. In terms of free time, I'm usually soooo tired, but I force myself to go out and meet friends and see new places in the city! I am so blessed to be making good friends quickly here. I love the night life here, even though it is still really new to me. It is an uncomfortable reality to see "sex-pats" and prostitutes out and about at night. It's so weird to just be sitting with your friends and see things like that, but it's something that I notice less and less. I don't know if it's good that I notice it less. But I have to accept what's happening here at all levels, even if I don't really like it all. If I tried to fight everything--the limbless beggars, the children selling bracelets, the students at my school that drive up in Mercedes, the prostitutes, everything--well, I'd be fighting my whole time here. And I'm not here to fight the culture or the way things are. I'm here to help, to work, to enjoy myself, and to witness this country's growth and rebuilding. Hmmm... okay I guess I am getting some insights out of this blog entry! And I'd been fighting trying to write it! I guess I listen to myself, you can't fight it in Cambodia, whatever "it" is!

In a last bit of potentially exciting news, I'm planning on working with the expat theater troupe the Phnom Penh Players! I went to their first meeting and will be helping with the group's Christmas Panto show. The goal is to help and work with the group, figure things out, and hopefully produce my own plays within the group in the next year or so. The group is wonderful because all their shows' proceeds always go to a Cambodian Arts fund of some sort. So hopefully I can not only officially call myself an "international playwright," but I can also help raise money for the arts! It doesn't get better than that, does it?! I'll keep you all posted on that business as it arrives!

It's another lazy Sunday in these parts. I've lived through another birthday. My twenties are looking pretty cool... turned 20 in Morocco. Turned 21 in Santa Barbara (with a trip to Las Vegas two days later!). Turned 22 in Phnom Penh. My official goal for this decade: be somewhere amazing every birthday in my twenties. Who knows where I'll be on my 23rd birthday?!