So Long Cambodia and Thanks For all the Headaches

This is me signing off of this blog until my next excursion.  I'd like to say it was relaxing but frankly it wasn't.  I haven't been relaxed since the moment I left home 4 months ago.  My shoulders feel like small muscly bricks.  It's been a great experience for me but certainly not relaxing.  I feel that I have grown up in my time here.  I hope I'm able to revert back to my normal life, I hope I'm not too grown up for Seattle.  I almost feel selfish for wanting to come home so badly, it's almost like I'm saying "I can't see how anyone can live here, it's abysmal!"  I want to be perfectly clear that I'm not saying.  I'm not dissing life in Cambodia, I want to be with my friends and family.  I wouldn't have gone through all the mental turmoil that I did if my family and friends were here.  I'll reiterate one of my previous points, I'm not giving up.  This isn't me giving up, I'm accepting the fact that I'm not ready to be doing this at this point in my life.  Before I sign off for good I want to say that I've learned a lot and I'll miss Cambodia I suppose.  It's a crazy place of motorcycles, tuk tuks, and no traffic laws.  Cambodia, you crazy messed up place, I bid thee adieu.

Royal Palace Revisited

My second destination on my tourist day was the Royal Palace.  Quite frankly, the Royal Palace isn't all that exciting.  A lot of the nicer looking areas are closed off.  It's basically a bunch of pagodas, some have relics inside, and you can't really take pictures.  You can't take pictures because the sun is your enemy.  Nonetheless I tried.  I'm much more impressed by the gardens and plant life on the palace grounds than the pagodas themselves, that's what I took a lot of pictures of.  The place that I spent a lot of time was a small isolated pagoda up in a grove secluded from the rest of the area.  It had a lot of buddha statues and it was very quiet.  All you could hear was the cooing of birds.  Very peaceful and serene.  Truthfully, that's all there is to the Royal Palace, not that exciting.  :/

Till Next (and last) Time...

Wot Phnom Revisited

On my last day in Cambodia (not counting my current travel day) I decided to play tourist and take photos. I decided that I would revisit two of the destinations that I visited on my tour of Phnom Penh with Language Corps.  The first one being Wot Phnom which I will talk about now.  I believe I talked about it in a very early entry but I feel that a little recap is in order.  Wot Phnom was Pol Pot's (still not sure if I'm spelling that right) fortress during the Khemer Rouge regime.  Wot Phnom itself is basically one giant pagoda (temple) with several stunningly beautiful buddhist statues inside (can't take photos in there though).  Around the temple are smaller statues and pagodas, the walkway is made out of very old brick.
At one part there is a giant outdoor clock.  The clock was built after the fall of Pol Pot's regime as a memorial to all the people he killed.  The philosophy behind it was that from that point on, Cambodia would start the clock over.

I didn't spend very much time in Wot Phnom this time because I'd been there before but I had a very good time.  When I got inside the central temple I noticed something that I pointed out in an earlier entry.  There are paintings on the wall that resemble a comic strip.  I suspect that this may be one of the first, if not the first "comic strip" format painting.  It has a definite beginning, the large panel at the back of the room, and each panel was spaced evenly from the next and it had a caption.  Not knowing how to read Khmer, I had no way to follow the story.  I spent quite a bit of time in this room, I even sat and meditated (you can do that) there for a few minutes.  It was stunning.

I walked around the rest of Wot Phnom taking pictures and I was disappointed that I didn't see any of the cute feral cats that I saw on my first visit.  As I was doing one final spin around Wot Phnom, I almost stepped on a cat!  I looked down at the floor and there was a very small hole where one of the bricks had faded away with age, inside the hole was a sleeping baby feral cat!  This was the smallest cat I've ever seen in my life!  I suspect he might have been malnourished because he's feral and all, he didn't exactly look healthy either.  Nonetheless,  I snapped a picture of him and there was a leaf right next to him and he was barely bigger than the leaf!  Unfortunately, my commotion kinda woke him up and he started meowing at me.  I wanted to pet him but I think he was saying "who are you? Why did you wake me up?" In cat language and probably wasn't happy.  I walked away and let him be.  I finished my tour and continued to my next destination.  The Royal Palace!

Till Next Time...

Let's talk about memes

This is a little different than my previous entries because I want to talk about the popular internet phenomenon called memes.  The general definition of a meme is some little nuance in society, life, film, tv, cartoons, etc. that become popular.  One of the original memes was the It's Over 9000!  Phenomena from Dragon Ball Z.  Other earlier memes include Rickrolling (Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give you Up), Numa Numa guy, and Star Wars kid.  They are early memes that achieved mass amounts of internet popularity.  Memes take on a different medium nowadays in the form of pictures and captions as seen below.

This meme is one of the originals called Y U NO guy.  Like many memes it has a picture in the middle and a top and bottom caption.  It's usually in the format ______ Y U NO _____________?
Memes evolved from there and as a result produced many more meme characters.  Some of the characters include Paranoid Parrot, Scumbag Steve, Foul Bachelor Frog, Futurama Fry, Professor Oak, Slowpoke, Success Kid, and Put it Somewhere Else Patrick.  Success Kid is a favorite of mine because it's little kid logic we can all relate to.  There's an example below.

It's one of my favorites but unfortunately it inspired a new meme that is the most tasteless, crude thing I've ever seen in my life.  That is the ultimate point of this post.  I give you Third World Success Kid.

Let's start at the beginning because it is wrong on so many levels.  One, third world is not a politically correct term.  The correct term would be developing country.  I'm aware this picture is likely from Africa but I am currently living in a developing country and I have some things to say.  Land mines are an issue, so don't f***ing joke about that!  On another one that I didn't mention the caption is "worked 14 hours, made over two dollars".  In a developing country, two dollars is nothing to scoff at, in Cambodia you can easily live on 2 dollars a day, and Cambodia is the second poorest country in Asia (next to Laos).  It may seem like I'm making a big deal about this (and there are only 9 of these so far) but it sickens me how some people can be so insensitive and poke fun at developing countries.  To people that think developing countries filled with land mines, naked children, and poverty, why don't you come see for yourself instead of making broad generalizations?  I've seen the poor part of Cambodia, it's a shock and is not something to make fun of, the people here aren't lazy, they're doing whatever they can to survive.  It's hard living here (or in any developing country for that matter).  Okay I have been ranting for the last paragraph but there was somebody on www.quickmeme.com that recognizes the vulgarity of this meme and produced a fantastic response.

This meme is called Push it Somewhere Else Patrick.  It originated from a Spongebob episode called Sandy, Spongebob, and the worm.  This image comes from Patrick's line "why don't we take Bikini Bottom, and push it somewhere else?"  People on the internet have called it Patrick's logic and thus it made it's way into becoming a meme.  This particular one reinforces that you don't make fun of developing countries.  My ultimate argument to this is, don't make generalizations about the real world, until you've lived in the real world.  I may not have a lot power, being armed with only a blog, reddit, and facebook but I want Third World Success Kid off of the internet.  If not, I just want it to fade into internet obscurity along with the other memes no one likes.  That's my bit of internet history and opinion for you all, I apologize if I seemed heated there for awhile but this just royally pisses me off.
Till Next Time...

Super Special Awesome Day of Awesomeness!!!

Yesterday was by far one of my most exciting days in Cambodia.  In my last few days I need to play tourist to take pictures and stuff.  My plan for yesterday was to go to Wot Phnom and Royal Palace.  I go to Royal Palace and find out that it doesn't open until 2, it was 10 in the morning.  This tuk tuk driver that was nearby decided to take me under his wing.  Initially I just wanted to go to Wot Phnom and then back to Royal Palace.  This guy had different plans, he told me about a place called Oudong up in the mountains.  He wanted to take me there, I said yes.  This was 40 km outside of Phnom Penh so it made for a long tuk tuk ride.  Part way there while in one of the provinces, his moto broke down!  YAY!!!!!!  This of course made me nervous because what if it didn't get fixed that day?  I had no idea where the F*** I was.  The driver talked to me while his moto was being worked on, he was a very nice guy, very great.  He was my bud for the day!  After his moto got fixed we got to Oudong, and I got lead around by some Khmer kids.

They took me around the ancient Buddhist temples and I took pictures, they took a couple of pictures of me.  It was up really high and the temples were beautiful, you could see Phnom Penh from up there.  I took many pictures and then we went back down the 502 steps it took to get up there.  I saw MONKEYS!!!  The best part was I got some really good pictures of them.  I only took maybe an hour or so to tour the area, it was beautiful, and it was well worth the extra long tuk tuk ride out there.  This day trip wasn't exactly cheap, we travelled about 80 flipping miles by tuk tuk, I talked him down to 50$ versus 70 but it was definitely worth 50 dollars for that.

Oh the day wasn't over, far from it, after that I went back to the guesthouse to decompress for awhile.  I got some dinner at the Indian restaurant close to the guesthouse and then walked over to Stephanie's house because we were going to a party at Andre's house (an ex-coworker of mine).  After we all got together we went there, his house is near Russian Market and a lot of people were there, it was very nice.  I actually stayed there for a very long time before getting tired and leaving at 1 in the morning.  Phnom Penh is freaking terrifying late at night, there are no motos, tuk tuks anything.  The only thing I could hear (which admittedly was kind of cool) were my new boots clunking on the road, causing kind of an ominous yet awesome sound.  Eventually a moto driver found me and I got back to the guesthouse alive.  I ended my amazing, awesome day, by going to sleep for a very long time.

Till Next Time...

Cambodian Innovation

There are several unique things that you see in Cambodia that would actually be really amazing for the United States.  The first (and probably the most notable) is drink transportation.  When you go to fast food restaurant, you get your food in a bag and the drink in your hand.  The drink most likely freezes your poor hand.  Cambodia has the perfect answer for that.  Every restaurant and drink vendor has s strip of plastic that attaches to the top of the cup (just under the lid) and it makes a handle!  You can carry the drink by the handle and not freeze your hand or dangle it off of a moto.  They have the same thing on large bottles of water, there is an extra dealy that acts as a handle so you don't have to carry a big bulky bottle of water everywhere.

Another is general transportation, motos are the only way to go!  Need to go somewhere?  Grab a moto!  Why wait for a bus?  Have a bunch of stuff?  Tuk tuk away!  Transportation is fantastic here and I really will miss it (stupid busses).  Street vendors are also innovative because it makes food so readily available.  Buyer beware, if you buy any meat, it may not be the best quality.  Having street venors and motos all over the place in the US may not be feasible but for the love of god, give us the drink handle thing!

Till Next Time...

Wow! Moving out is stressful!

On Sunday, I successfully moved out of my apartment.  If only it were that simple.  To make the whole process less stressful for me, I did a little bit every day.  I started by clearing out the trash, then I washed my kitchen, then I started packing.  Actually going about it very lazily made it not stressful at all but then some things changed.  Tabitha (who moved into my apartment) checked it out on Saturday and said she wanted it.  I said, you move out on the first right?  She says she moves out tomorrow (Sunday), my reaction is O_O.  I tell her that works but she needs to come back at 5 PM the next day.  Fast forward to the next day, I'm running around, sweeping, packing, and mopping like a crazy person.  That day I had a wicked stomachache and I was dehydrated (I was completely out of water).  By the time I finished, I nearly fainted on my freshly made bed, shortly after, Tabitha arrived and I helped her get her bags in the apartment.  I signed the lease over to her and got my money back.  I went to the guesthouse which is okay, it's livable, and I just watched some TV and fell asleep for 12 hours.  I was exhausted.
Till Next Time...

Behemoth Sandwiches

Eat your heart out Subway, there is a sandwich shop here that's got you beat.  This place sells man sandwiches!  Sandwiches so big, you need two hands to eat them!  My favorite is the Italian Sandwich, it's got salami, cheese, pickles, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and peppers.  It's got a lot of those things, so much that the sandwich itself stands at a towering 4 inches by 6 inches (roughly).  Now let's talk about the price, yes it's 5 dollars and it's not quite Subway's 5 dollar footlong deal but let's put it this way.  These sandwiches are like if you took both halves of a Subway footlong and put them on top of each other minus the extra layer of bread.  They're so good and so satisfying.  I gotta stop writing about food...
Till Next time...

Cambodia, the land of water bottles harder to open than pickle jars

I'm not even kidding, water bottles are so hard to open here!  When you're opening a water bottle, you should not get a cut on your hand from opening said water bottle!  I don't know why they're shut so tightly.  I have a blister on my right hand from the stupid things and it hurts, a lot.  I have a bottle of water in my fridge that is shut so tightly that when you try to open it, the entire bottle twists.  It's shut so tightly that the whole bottle twists as opposed to the cap coming off, it's really frustrating especially when I'm thirsty.  I'm going to go try to open a new bottle of water.

Till next time...

Moto drivers, you so crazy.

I haven't really talked in detail about motos but in general I love riding them.  They're fast, efficient and exciting.  I want to talk now about the drivers.  The drivers are another story.  They are some of the wittiest, gutsiest, inept, crazy, astounding people you will ever meet.  I've had experiences with just about every kind of moto driver.  I'll talk briefly about the inept variety.

I talked about my experience getting my care package and with that inept moto driver.  I'm not chalking this up to communication barrier, oh no.  EVERY moto driver should know the following landmarks, Central Market, Sorya Mall, Riverside (especially riverside), Sovanna, City Mall, Orussey, and the airport. When I had my experience with that moto driver, it made my head spin because EVERY moto driver at riverside should know where Sorya Mall or Central Market is, it's not even a mile away.  This particular guy knew where none of these things were!  Made my freaking head hurt.

I'll talk briefly about moto driver/ tuk tuk driver logic.  You see someone get off a moto near Sorya Mall, what do you do?  Ask them if they need a ride.

I just got off a moto.  What makes you think I need another one?

The image above is another meme called Confused Jackie Chan.  It's a blog and internet 101!  That has happened to me multiple times and it makes no freaking sense.  The other bit of moto driver logic is if you walk past a line of moto drivers, each one will ask you if you need a ride.  You say no to the first one, then the next one will ask you, and so on and so on.  I always think "It's not that I don't want a ride from YOU, I don't need a ride period."

It should also be noted that they are completely crazy drivers, I mean crazy.  Traffic jam?  drive on the freaking sidewalk!  Pedestrians?  Squeeze through that 3 inch gap between them!  What's a one way street?  Traffic laws?  What are those?  It can be pretty scary.  I was in a minor fender bender while taking a ride from an inept moto driver, the other guy hit us head on and part of the other moto slammed into my knee but it didn't hurt.  Despite moto drivers being crazy and whatnot, I love riding motos, it's great fun and is one thing that I will miss about Cambodia.

Till Next Time...

Not quite the end

The post entitled The End referred to my teaching experience.  I get to write about cleaning, packing, and miscellaneous anecdotes now!  I'll be honest, cleaning is a pain.  A royal pain.  I look around my apartment and sigh.  It's difficult to motivate myself to do it because it's so hot in my apartment.  However, I've gotten some things done and I'm pleased with what I've done so far.

The first thing I want to talk about is garbage.  I honestly didn't know how garbage collection worked in my apartment...  You can see how this could become an issue.  At first, it wasn't a huge problem, I would put something in a plastic bag, and tie the bag up and put it in the kitchen, usually.  Well, garbage bags (the big old bags with pull ties) don't exist here, I ended up using grocery bags.  This worked to an extent, I'd come home with whatever street food I picked up for dinner, eat most, if not all of it, and put it into a new garbage bag.  This system worked except when it came to water.  After my huge water incident, I started buying bottled water 12 bottles for a dollar (good deal).  Instead of tossing them in a bag, I would toss them aside to reuse them (maybe), this lead to 70% of the crap on my floor being water bottles.  My first step in cleaning was to clean up anything that was garbage on the floor and put it into bags.  This was easy and it took almost no time at all.  I also figured out where the garbage goes, there's a small garbage can outside in the alley *facepalm*.

I'd like to take a moment to explain one of my favorite Khmer dishes, mee chaa.  That is the Khmer word for fried noodles with meat and vegetables.  It usually has beef, broccoli, bok choy, and onion.  It's delicious.  Sometimes coming home from work I would get some from this restaurant near the school for a meer $1.75.  They are really generous with the serving, it's literally overflowing out of the to go thingy.  I had this a few times and from there it's okay.  The last time I brought it home, I ate about 3/4ths of it and closed the box and wrapped it up in a garbage bag.  I like the place down the street from my house, where the portion is smaller but it tastes better and is only a dollar.  One day when I was moving garbage bags from the living room to the kitchen, I picked up the bag with the thrown out mee chaa and it started dripping meat juice everywhere.  I put it in the kitchen and thought nothing of it.

Fast forward to today where I'm cleaning the kitchen.  I finish cleaning it (for the most part, one area could use a little more scrubbing) and I started moving some of the garbage bags around.  I came across the garbage bag that had the now rotten mee chaa in it.  I moved it out of the way and there was a massive pool of rotten meat juice.  I made some space and ran and got my mop and mopped up the rancid pool.  I have an old fashioned kind of mop but it worked surprisingly well.  That put me in mop mode, so I quickly mopped up the hallway which needed it.  At this point I've cleared out most of the garbage, washed the bathroom, kitchen, and hallway, packed some clothes, and sorted out my important papers.  I ultimately don't have a lot left to do so I'm very proud of myself.

Till next time...

The End

Now that all is said and done, it's time to ask that question again.  Did I do a good job?  Was I cut out for this over all?  Again I'm going to be perfectly honest with myself.  The answer will surprise you.  My answer is no.  I'm not saying I did a bad job, I'm saying that given my age, and lack of experience, I was not suited to do this.  I don't know a lot of teaching methodology (yet), I just did what I thought would make the students understand.  It worked, but perhaps I wasn't doing it right.  I asked my boss in my last conversation with him what he thought, and he straight up told me no but it was okay.  For my first job, and first real teaching experience, perhaps being in a fancy private school, in a professional setting wasn't right for me.  It was certainly unprofessional to have a mental/emotional breakdown.  My strengths were with my grade one classes and my weaknesses were in my grade 2 classes.

What I did well: My students liked me, they understood basic grammar, and they enjoyed my class.
What I didn't do well (grade 1): application, I didn't teach them to apply the things we were learning, they could understand the grammar if you asked them but couldn't if they were writing.  That was my big mistake.

What I did well (grade 2): ... Yeah, I taught it.
What I didn't do well (grade 2): Honestly, everything, I didn't know how to teach this class.  C/L Conversation and Listening, where do I even go from there?  The book told me what to teach but it just seemed lacking somehow.  I definitely didn't do it right.

Am I giving up on teaching?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!  I haven't taken my methods classes yet, as a result, for this experience I had to do what I thought was right.  I'll be more suited to teach when I learn further methodology, classroom management, etc.  This has been an excellent experience for me, and I'm not writing it off as a failure.  I'm putting it up to live and learn.  I've learned how to teach English in another country, I've learned how to live on my own (sorta), I've learned how to (at least try) to be professional.  These are very important things that I've learned, I haven't failed, far from it.  I've learned, and the more you learn, the stronger you get.  I feel that I've grown up mentally and emotionally.  I want to apply these experiences to whatever awaits me in the near future.  Teaching is rewarding but stressful, you learn along with your students.  "You teach me, and I'll teach you" (POKEMON!), sorry, quoting the Pokemon theme song.  It is a true statement though.  You learn with your students, and I have learned much.
For the last time...

Depression

The past few weeks I've faced my most difficult challenge yet, depression.  My mom had unofficially diagnosed me with clinical depression.  The past few weeks I've faced lack of sleep, too much sleep, lack of appetite, and feeling sad and worthless.  The reason for this is because I miss home.  I'm not old enough to be doing something like this in my life.  I still need the guiding hand(s) of my family.  I've even quit my job (er, was accidentally fired) and am in the process of rescheduling my plane ticket.  The question that remains is, how am I fighting my depression?

Round 1: Versus Insomnia.  Ready?  Fight!!!

I only had one major bout of insomnia but it was awful.  My body was tired but my brain wasn't.  This was the day before I was going back to work.  I was thinking about how I was going to quit my job and when.  I tossed, turned, listened to music, put the tv on, took medicine, nothing worked.  I finally fell asleep at 3:45 in the morning.  I woke up 3 hours later...  Insomnia won.

Round 2: Versus feeling sad Ready?  Fight!!!

This fight is ongoing.  It's been going up and down, on some days I feel like crap, on other days I just feel bad.  I felt particularly bad while going through all of the recent drama (since only my family members read this, you know what I'm talking about).  Recently, like today and last night, I'm feeling better.  Last night I cheered myself up by watching Scott Pilgrim Versus the World.  That movie never fails to cheer me up.  I also played Pokemon!!!  Pokemon is the one thing that cheers me up and never fails to do so.  No matter how distraught I am in my emotional state, it always works.  Always!  I'm winning this fight.

Round 3: Versus appetite loss Ready?  Fight!!!

I'm losing this one, I only eat one meal a day, sometimes I force myself to eat a second one but my stomach doesn't like that.  All I can do is force myself to eat periodically.

It may look like I'm losing the over all battle with depression but there's one thing that keeps me going.  Hope.  I know I'm going home, I hope I'm going home, and there's no reason to get completely bent out of shape over this.  I'm coming home, and when I do, I should be back to normal.
Till the next and last time

These kids are in grade one why?

Contrary to my success story this is about kids that should not under any circumstance be in grade one.  I refuse to fault myself because they scored the lowest out of all of my students in all of my classes.  We will call them Y, V, and B.  Y and V are twins, V does okaaaay but he still got a 56 on the test.  V should not be in grade one under any freaking circumstances ever!  He got a 16!  16%  boggles my mind, how anyone could do that poorly on a test...
I'm not faulting him, I'm faulting grade placement.  I knew he shouldn't be in grade one from the getgo.  I get kids ready for tests by drilling it into their head so there is no conceivable way they could get certain things wrong.  Y on the other hand, is always behind, he stares off into space, and he cannot write a simple sentence.  He is not suited for grade one at all.
B, got a glorious 40% on his test.  I was asked earlier to observe him to see how he was doing.  He was doing fine.  He even got 80% on the first test.  I thought he'd be fine but he blew it on the last test.  Recently he was doing the same thing Y was doing, staring off into space and not keeping up.  I'm not angry at the students, myself, or even the school (proper).  I'm upset with the lack of placement tests.  All three of these kids have a similar story.  The parents of Y and V wanted them to be in grade 1 because they thought they were smart.  Needless to say they're in for a rude awakening.  B went to Kindergarten at a different school and as a result wasn't as prepared for grade one as others.  I would prefer that these three don't be in my class because it saddens me to fail a child who is not in the correct grade.
*sigh*
That's all...

A success story

As a teacher, I get very nervous when my bosses talk to me (but I don't show it).  Every time it happens I'm like "oh god I'm fired!"  Even though I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing.  That's just how my brain works.  One of my bosses comes up to me and tells me about a student who was having trouble in my class (grade 1).  We'll call her R.  That day when I had R in my class I did a review activity and intentionally called on her about 5 times.  I wanted to see what she knew and what she didn't.  After class I talked with her one on one (I kicked everyone else out of the class).  I asked her what she was having trouble with.  Turns out she didn't understand spelling of abbreviations and the short question, short answer stuff we'd been working on.  I spent about 5-10 minutes going over this with her and she seemed a lot happier and confident from that point on.  A few days later I gave that class their test.  I went through her test....
SHE GOT A 98!!!!!  I was seriously freaking proud of her and myself.  I told this story to my boss and he seemed proud of me as well.  I was freaking delighted!  Hooray!  A success story!

So I got my package...

Yesterday when I came home there was a note from my neighbor saying there was a package for me at the post office.  Today I took a moto to riverside (which is where the post office is) and picked it up without too much trouble.  The real adventure was going home.  Getting home from Riverside is easy, just tell a moto driver "street 63, Rambo".  99 % of moto drivers know where Rambo Restaurant is.  The driver that I found was the 1 %.  I told him that and he started going in the right direction and he got to street 63...

Streets in Phnom Penh are strange, this wasn't my street 63, it was a different one.  My street 63 goes towards Sorya mall and Central Market or towards Orussey Market (going the other way).  I told him to go to Sorya mall (close to my house).  We end up at the Russian embassy!!!  Then I tell him to go to Central Market, we end up at a place called Phnom Penh Center!!!  After a lot of backtracking, I got mixed up and we ended up near MIS!  Thank God I knew my way home from there.  I was on a moto for an hour and a half, it should've been 10 minutes at the most.  

The package was delightful, I got my blanket, some pictures, some gum, prayer flags, a CD, and letters from my family.

That is all I have to report.
Till next time.

On Teaching I

Well it's that time, I've graded all the tests, made grade sheets.  It's time to ask, am I any good at this teaching thing?  Well my English teacher once said that "teaching is defined by the audience"(Greg Bachar).  It is, for all of my classes I needed to teach different things at different speeds.  While grading I looked at trends, to see what people got wrong.  What I noticed was application, and short questions and answers.

What I mean by application is being able to use what we learn in writing.  They know plurals very well but in writing sentences they will not use the plurals of those same words!  Why?  That is because when we do our daily writing practice I don't want to take the 10+ minutes to check each individual's writing.  I want them to do the simple act of writing.  To remedy this, I will put more emphasis on writing activities (it is a writing class after all).

 The other problem that I noticed was asking and answering questions.  Example: Am I a teacher?  Yes you are.  Frankly why so many kids got this part wrong is enigmatic.  I drilled it into their heads for at least 2 weeks.  Yet in almost all of my classes, over half of them got it wrong.  The questions on the test related to characters in their textbook.  Here is a very common answer, Is Brian tall?  Yes it is.  Firstly, Brian is a boy, secondly he is short.  They should be using the words he or she, not it!  Between the two rooms that I teach in, 108 did a lot better than 109.  108 has my favorite students and they're very bright for the most part.  109 has delightful students who sadly aren't too bright.  The 109 morning class did rather poorly.

I will now answer the question that I set out to answer in this post.  It is not my final answer and chances are it will change a lot over time.  My honest answer is that for my first experience(s) teaching on my own...
I'm okay, I have a lot to learn, my current occupation isn't exactly easy.  I'm not doing a bad job but I think that I can do better (particularly with my grade 2 kids).  There is no self loathing or doubt here.  I have provided genuine and honest reflection above.  I know what to improve on and thank goodness meh test scores won't endanger my job.  This answer will change over time, I will do another piece like this at the end of the term.
Till next time.

I definitely ate dog and I'm okay with it (but my stomach isn't)

In an effort to not eat a hot dog today I went to a restaurant nearby the school.  One thing to know about eating in Cambodia is when you go into a restaurant, you're pretty much locked in.  It is very rude to walk away without getting anything.  The menu was entirely in Khmer (oh yeah, this would end well) and the waiter tried to help me translate.  I told him I just wanted some fried rice (I didn't remember the Khmer word for that) communication gap ensues and I get something totally different but delicious.

Instead I get a plate that had meat, a bunch of raw onion, and tomato.  I also got French Fries for some reason.  I guess the waiter heard fries over fried rice.  Oh well the fries were good.  The meat was also good, I thought it was beef.  I ate quite a bit of it until I noticed that it was a heck of a lot chewier than normal beef.  It didn't taste exactly like beef either.  It was still good.  Then the thought popped into my head that I might be eating dog.  Instead of freaking out, I actually kept eating.  It was very good.  I ate dog and it was good!  Now I'm sitting here typing this and my stomach is having quite a time with it.  My tongue may have liked it and my body may have liked the vegetables, but my stomach is not happy.  Despite the fact that it was good, I doubt that I'll be having dog again.

The joy of street food

When I first came to Cambodia, it was advised that you don't drink the water (true).  It was also advised that you don't buy from street vendors, I will freely call BS.  Some of the best food I've had here were from street vendors.  Here are just a few examples, fried noodles, pho', straw in a coconut, ice cream, and sandwiches.  If you walked around and got one of everything I just mentioned, you would barely spend 5 dollars, if that.  The value of a dollar is freaking amazing here!  I  will elaborate.

Fried Noodles: $1.75
Pho':$1.00
Straw in a coconut: 75 cents
ice cream: 25 cents
Sandwiches: 50 cents to $1.50

The original Language corps information stated that street food would upset your stomach.  It depends entirely on what you buy.  Some stands you can tell that you shouldn't eat whatever it is.  For instance, I've seen humbao that was brown on the outside.  It's supposed to be a white sweet bun with meat and stuff inside.  My most recent street favorite is a stand in a place called Orussy market.  This area is frankly very sketchy.  At least inside (I imagine, I've never been), but all around it, there's food!  Food everywhere!  All kinds, the smells make me ravenous.  It doesn't help that I pass through this area everyday going home.  One day I finally decided to check it out.  The place I was most fascinated with was the place that always had sausages and meats cooking.  I went there, and I got half a baby baguette with meat (I assume it's beef or pork), some vegetables (carrot, onion, cabbage, pickle), and chili sauce (this was a mixture of hot sauce and garlic).  It was ridiculously delicious and cheap.  It's messy though because they wrap it in newspaper which is soaked by the time I get home.

Stopping there is a bit of a culture shock because that whole area is very third world.  I mean really third world.  The sandwich was 2700 riel, that's about 65 cents!  The last time I went there I was ambushed by beggars!  The time before that, I saw an old woman with no legs in the middle of the street pulling herself across on a board with wheels!  It's pretty shocking and it puts reality in check.  I may not be living my cushy lifestyle at home, but I'm used to it.  If ever for one second I think that my life sucks, I should think of people that are a hell of a lot less better off than I am and be thankful for what I have.  I came to Cambodia to see what the real world looks like.  If you want a genuine glimpse of that, go to Orussy Market.
Till next time.

Collaboration FTW!

FTW means for the win for those that didn't know.  This post is about collaboration which is a vital part of teaching and working.  Last week we were supposed to put together midterms for our classes.  What teachers do is if they teach the same class they share a test.  In my case my colleague and friend Victor teaches the same class I do, grade two C/L.  Victor had missed 3 days of work without any notification to anybody.  When he came back he was on thin ice but poor Victor looked like a zombie!  It turns out that he hasn't been sleeping well, he's had a bout of insomnia.  I go up to him and I tell him that you need to have a midterm ready on Monday (it was Friday).  He is drifting off and I go "okay you and I can make one for both of our classes because you look like you're drifting off."  At lunch we sat down and I took charge and we made the test together and this was an instance of awesome friendship and collaboration in my opinion.  I've been hanging out with Victor a bit since I've started working here he's a very nice guy and he's been on TV!  He played a small part on a few episodes of Malcom in the Middle and he was in a scene in The Social Network.  I haven't seen The Social Network but I knew who he was when I met him.  That's my story of epic collaboration and I felt pretty good about doing that whole thing.
Till next time.

The problem class, challenges and solutions

I've talked a few times about THAT class in my posts.  I've said that they are overwhelming and I am not particularly fond of teaching them.  So what makes THAT class so bad?  One, there are 28 students, the sheer number of students in THAT class is overwhelming as it is.  Two, THEY NEVER STOP TALKING!  They do not understand the concept of don't talk while other people are talking.  I know they're young, I don't expect them to do it while other students are talking/sharing but at least while I'm talking!  Three, mimicry, in almost all of my classes, some of the students like to mimic me.  In my grade one classes and my am grade two class it's cute.  In THAT class it is annoying and it seems a bit mean spirited.  You may know that I don't take to teasing very well (this is because I don't know how to react to it), and I don't want to get angry at a bunch of little kids (some of them aren't so little).  Four, The Dynamic Duo of my Eternal Headaches, due to confidentiality, that is what I will call them.  These two are the little hellraisers that always start up the commotion in the class.  Whenever I'm targeting an individual, it's always one of them.  The enigmatic thing about this class is that they're smart!  Who would've guessed?  When they're actually quiet and answering my questions, they know it!  Even The Dynamic Duo of my Eternal Headaches are very smart!  With all these problems, how did I figure out what to do?  That is an adventure in teaching that I will explain now.

Speaking from a teacher's standpoint and not a student's, I finally understand why class size is an issue.  I teach 4 grade one classes and 2 grade 2 classes.  I have a total of 67 grade one students with about 20 in each of my morning classes and approximately 15 (or less) in my afternoon classes.  It's very even and I have no complaints there.  I have 42 grade 2 students with about 14 in my morning class and 28 in the afternoon class.  The first day that I walked into that class the first thing I said was "there's too many of you!  Move your desks!" The reason I did this was one, so I could possible maneuver around the tiny room and two it reminded me of a class in high school.  My 12th grade English class was enormous in the beginning of the year (at least it seemed that way).  I believe there were 37 students on the list and there were 40 some odd desks in the room.  The original teacher had the desks in rows so we were crammed in there like sardines.  It did make the class seem huge.  When the new teacher took over the first thing he said was "I'm moving desks".  At this point about 15 students were in different classes.  He had enough desks in the classroom for all of us and we were in table groups that were spaced apart.  It made the class seem less big.  I tried this strategy for myself and it worked to no avail.  Then I was faced with the 4 problems that made that class THAT class.

Solution 1: These problems don't exist.  I attempted to carry on my class like I normally would with my bubbly personality that is funny and educational.  I was only shot down by all the yelling, and The Dynamic Duo of my Eternal Headaches.  Throw that out the window.

Solution 2: YELL!  This is how I learned not to underestimate my own voice.  I am able to talk over 28 yelling, screaming kids.  This worked to an extent.  I would have to countdown from 5 every 2 minutes but at least they would be quiet for a couple of seconds. :/  That little symbol is the equivalent of *sigh*.
Note: Doing this completely drained my voice for my last class.

Solution 3: THE DEATH STARE!  I talked about the death stare in great detail earlier but sadly it's lost its effectiveness.  I have to stare at a kid for a long time in order for it to work.  I still use it so it has some degree of effectiveness. 

Solution 4: Put the fear of lines into their hearts.  Score one for collaboration on this one.  This is the strategy that is working splendidly.  The form of punishment here is to make kids write lines.  You take them to the office after class and they write lines for whatever period of time you want or however many lines you want.  It is effective because they lose their break and that's rough considering that some kids are here from 8 to 5.  This was suggested by one of my colleagues Teacher Mike.  Thank you so much! 

Solution 5: This is my mad face >:( GRR!  I used this while working with solution 3.  It was a form of method acting, get surly!  I would walk into the class and I would look like I was genuinely pissed (but not necessarily at them, like I've been having a bad day and now I have to teach THAT class).  I have some genuine acting ability (from way long ago) because they bought it.  I would be strict, and I would command attention.  It worked!  Until I realized that it killed my soul to do it and because of that I couldn't keep it up.  There are some really cute kids in that class, I can't be mad at them! Because of that I had to abandon that strategy.

Now that I've adopted solution 4 I'm able to loosen up a bit.  Since they actually behave a bit, I can maybe go back to my normal style of teaching (as explained in solution 1).  This week is midterms week, after I grade them all I'm going to do a reflection piece contemplating whether or not I'm a good teacher.  I will try to keep self loathing to a minimum when this comes up.
Till next time.

O_____O It's about bathrooms! Read at your own risk! Seriously! It's kinda gross! You've been warned. You're still going to read it aren't you? Alright.

This little update is about pure Eastern bathrooms and the general WTF associated with them.  The other day I was at my local mini mart eating and using the internet.  This always happens, I always have to go to the bathroom and shut things down and go home to do it.  I decided to ask if the mini mart had a bathroom.  I was showed to the bathroom and I was introduced to a 100% Eastern bathroom.  What does that look like?  Confusing is what it looks like.  There is a small platform with a hole (the purpose of that is obvious).  The confusing part is the gigantic tub of water.  There is a huge tub of water with fish in it (I suspect the fish aren't intentional).  Now this wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have to go #2.  I did my business and I saw no conceivable way to get clean.  There was the big tub of water and a tiny bucket.  HOW DO I EVEN USE THAT?  There was no TP, no butt hose, nothing!  I was attempted to use the bucket but my pants got wet.  That was a bust.  I got out of there, stayed in the mini mart for awhile then I went home to do things the right way.  Okay it wasn't as bad as the lengthy title suggested but the whole thing was pretty messed up.
Will write about Hell Class tomorrow!  Time to go home.
Till next time.

The Big Shi(f)t

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The death stare perfected

I have perfected the death stare!  What is the death stare?  Every teacher develops an evil eye that strikes fear into the hearts of their students to get them to behave.  One of my classes is really freaking enormous, so I had to throw my evil eye out the window.  My general approach to teaching is to be friendly but stern when needed.  My afternoon grade two class is so out of hand, that wasn't working, THEY'RE SO EFFING LOUD!  I decided to try a different approach.  Yesterday, I got myself ready to be as surly and as mean as I could be.  That got their attention.  They were still loud though...
Then I turned on my evil eye but made it much more intense.  I didn't move any part of my face, it turned into a cold penetrating stare that made them behave.  At first they didn't take it seriously but I persisted, if a student was talking I would stare right at them without blinking and they would sit down and be quiet.  It got to the point where if anyone stood up, I didn't have to say anything, I would just engage the death stare.
BWAHAHAHAHA!  The Death Stare!  Misbehaving students tremble before it's might!  Except for the fact that it gives me a headache...

The Hose (Warning: this is about bathrooms, reader discretion advised)

After living here for almost two months I decided to try THE HOSE.  The hose is something that is in every bathroom in Southeast Asia because they generally don't use toilet paper (gross).  Up to this point I was using TP, I decided to try out my hose.  Not going to lie, a million times more convenient and sanitary than toilet paper.  One spray and you're done.  I hereby call it the butt hose.  I declare that there should be butt hoses in every bathroom in the world!  (I told you it would be weird)  That is all.

Ink

This mini update is about my epic fail of the day.  The time finally came for me to refill my whiteboard markers.  Problem is, didn't know how to do it.  I had the refill ink but I didn't know how it worked.  I have two kinds of markers, one has a button to supply fresh ink.  To refill it you dunk the tip in the bottle and push the button a bunch of times.  The other kind has a cap that you screw off and pour ink in.  I figured out how to open the marker but then it came time to open the ink bottle.  I was told that you have to cut the end off.  I found a pair of scissors and aimed the bottle towards my bucket (I was told that the ink would spray a little).  I cut and the ink got into the bucket...
And on my shirt, and on my tie, and on my pants, and all over the floor.  Frankly it was hilarious, it was truly a sight to behold but I was very embarrassed.  Luckily the floor in the office is tile so it was able to wash out easily.  That is all.

The Big Shift

I worked at MIS for a month and something big happens.  We move to a new building!  That is very exciting and very stressful for all parties involved (students, teachers, staff).  In reality we were supposed to be there on the 3rd but we got moved in on the 10th (yesterday).  It was a little frustrating because over the holiday we were asked to come in on Saturday or Sunday to see the building.  I did and it didn't look ready at all.  I came back on Monday and was told to come back Thursday.  I was supposed to come back at 2, I assumed it was a half day so I got all spruced up for work and came in and was told to come back on Monday.  Finally, yesterday we actually had school and it was a tad overwhelming.

Finding my classrooms wasn't terribly difficult but my classes have gotten all mismatched.  Some classes are big and others are small.  My afternoon grade two class is enormous.  My schedule is also a bit different.  I have my grade one kids that were in my other class first (they were originally my last class of the day) and my other grade one kids last.  My first grade two class is rather small and I like it but they're still a bit of a handful.  All my grade one classes are a delight, I'm just not used to the kids being all swapped around.

Yes, this class gets its own paragraph.  It's THAT class, all teachers have THAT class, the one that is too wild, or won't be quiet.  My afternoon grade two class is THAT class.  The reason?  There are so many freaking kids!  They are loud, they are disruptive and it is hard to get around the room with so many desks!  I'll figure something out, I'm a decent teacher, it's a small challenge.  Being in the new building is a lot of fun and I'll write more about it should it become applicable.

Till next time.

How I learned to stop worrying and just cross the freaking street

I don't believe that I've hinted to this very much in my previous entries but it's dangerous here!  Any and all safety rules that you know will be thrown out the window.  To demonstrate, I will share the dos and don'ts of Phnom Penh.

Old Rule: Look both before crossing the street.

New Rule: Look one way before crossing the street and don't panic or run.

Commentary: Crossing the street here is terrifying.  It's like a game of Frogger.  You must creep out into the road and look one way (because that's where 90% of the traffic comes from) and keep in mind that motos and touk touks will go around you.  I'm not sure about cars, then again I'm not going to stand in front of one to find out.

Old Rule: Don't take rides from strangers.

New Rule: Take rides from strangers (all the time)!

Commentary: Aside from touk touks, it's the only way to get around here!

Old Rule: Cross only at designated traffic lights or crosswalks.

New Rule: Cross anywhere.

Commentary: Crosswalk.  What's that?

That's all I've picked up so far, it's scary but utilizing common sense will assure that you don't die.

Saigon: "The Journey is the Destination"

Some old guy somewhere said that but it is the truth.  I've had the last week of September off because it is the Fall holiday in Phnom Penh.  It was perfect timing because I needed to leave the country to renew my visa.  I decided that I would go to Saigon.  This whole first step was a learning experience for me, all I knew was I wanted to go to Saigon.  I would stay in a guesthouse for a couple of days and come back.  Aside from that, I had no itinerary outside of "explore the city".  The next time I go (there will be a next time because it was cool), I will make an itinerary and I won't leave on such short notice.  I got my visa for Vietnam, everything was fine (for the most part) an I left on Saturday.

I woke up and grabbed my bag and my driver took me to the bus station near my school.  The school took us to the central bus station (conveniently located near central market 6 blocks from my apartment *facepalm*).  Meaning that the whole first leg of the journey was utterly pointless *sigh*.  I was told it would take about 5 hours to get to Saigon, I was on board with that.  Coincidence struck and I happened to be on the same bus as one of my grade one students!  This helped my traveling anxiety a great deal because I was with someone who could give me a little help.  But it was that awkward moment when you are on a bus to Saigon and you see one of your students and you have no idea what her name is.  I have 100+ students, I haven't memorized all their names or what class their in, give me a break.  I talked with her mother and she was very nice.

We travelled for a few hours until we reached car/moto/touk touk/truck armageddon.  This was the beginning of an 8 hour traffic jam, I'm not joking about that.  We were held up at the ferry, there is a tiny ferry that goes across the river to the next province near the boarder.  I should also mention that I happened to leave on the day of the week that everyone leaves, it's like an airport on Christmas Eve, only it's hot, really hot.  My student's family bought me lunch and frankly my student was a godsend in this situation.  I learned something about myself in this journey, no matter how tired I am, no matter what mood I'm in, no matter how anxious I am, kids cheer me up, plain and simple.  I hung out in a coffee shop for a little while then got back on the bus.

We reached the boarder at 10:00, where a little drama ensued for me.  My only minor issue is that I did not have a departure card.  A departure card is something that you fill out when you leave the country so the boarder can keep track of who comes in and out.  I got one when I first came to Cambodia but I filled it out with my return flight information (silly boy).  The folks at the boarder were a tad puzzled with me not having one but I got a new one, filled it out and all was well and good.

We got back on the bus and travelled for a couple more hours, we finally pulled into Saigon at 12:30.  This was when the most amazing thing happened (I was still with my student's family).  They gave me their room!  That's right, the hotel they were going to stay at, they gave me their room.  They switched at the last minute.  In my barely conscious state I was absolutely stunned.  I wanted to thank her but due to some stupidity involving my phone and a Vietnamese sim card, her number was deleted so I couldn't see her again.  I was shocked and grateful at their kindness.

My actual stay in Saigon was truthfully uneventful.  I checked out a mall where I ate several times, and bought a couple of things.  Pokemon exists there so I got some pretty cool Pokemon related trinkets (three figurines and three pins, these were written in Vietnamese).  I also checked out the big central market called Ben Than (this was definitely the highlight of my trip), there I bought some green tea, and a really nice fan.

Sadly this wasn't exactly a pleasure cruise for me as I was terribly anxious the whole time.  Why?  I was in another country where almost no one spoke English, and I didn't have any plan of what I wanted to do.  Other things that contributed to my anxiety, the hotel had my passport.  I just get nervous if anyone has my passport and it didn't occur to me to bring a copy.  The visa situation, I was 99.99999999% sure that I would have no problem getting a visa but what made me nervous was simply what if something went wrong?  I was very tense the whole time but despite that I had a good time.  The trip back to Phnom Penh was uneventful, it took 7 hours instead of 17.  Now I'm back home and I'm more calm now.

Till next time.

My top three funny moments in teaching (so far)

I really like to put my personality into my classes.  My certain degree of quirk but not too much, I'm still firm with them, I've found a good balance between kind and firm.  I like to make my students laugh, so these are some moments that were pretty hilarious from my standpoint.

Number 3

Scenario: Doing a review activity with one of my grade 1 classes.  The goal is for everyone to participate and see who can raise their hands the fastest (that is ultimately a gimmick because I sometimes call on people who don't raise their hands).  We were reviewing plurals and I would say a word that they would know and have them tell me the plural.

Me: Who can tell me the plural of the word tooth?
(Students raise hands)
(Calls on a student)
Student: Teeth!
Me: Who can tell me the plural of the word (I realize that we've gone over all the words that they know and the activity needs to cease) [shouts random gibberish]?

They're reaction was the funniest part because everybody raised their hands.

Number Two

Scenario: Wrapping up my grade one class with a game called "touch".  I say everybody touch [insert object here], and they all do it.  My afternoon grade one class loves it.

Me: Everybody touch the whiteboard!
(Students do it)
Student: Everybody touch Teacher Jordan!
Me: No, no, no...
(Students all pile onto my chair we fall over they're unharmed and I bruised my back)

We won't be doing that game again.

Number One

Scenario: Before my time off there was a sort of a lul on Thursday and Friday because Monday thru Wednesday was devoted to tests and movies.  I didn't want to start anything new because I would have to review it after the break.  For my C/L (Conversation and Listening) class I had the idea of telling stories to improve their listening skills.  They wanted scary stories, I told them the story of the mysterious thumping noise (Dad if you remember it was Jupiter trapped in the computer room) and stuff like that.  They wanted more, more!  I was out of scary stories but I had the most hilarious, brilliant, possibly stupid idea ever...

Me: Let me tell you the story of Simon Belmont...

This is hilarious to me because I summarized an old video game that was based off old horror movies!  Since that game is so old they had no idea that I was talking about a game.  The funny part was that they were into it.  I told it well and the fact that I improved the whole thing made me laugh harder (in my head).  I learned in those couple of days that I can tell stories.  From  now on I give my students the option (if they earn it) to end class with a story or a game.  My classroom management system is based off of incentives.  If the class is acting up they get one strike on the board, this applies to the whole class. Meaning that if one student acts up, all I have to do is look at them, uncap my marker, and the problem resolves itself.  I'm certain more funny moments in teaching will come up.

Till next time

Mini Update: It Happens to Everyone in Southeast Asia (but it hurts!)

When I was still in the Language Corps program, one of our teachers, Billy, told us about something that happens to everyone in Southeast Asia.  He said that you will get your leg burned by the tailpipe of a moto (motor scooter/motorcycle).  Me, being foolhardy, thought that wouldn't happen to me, I'll just watch where I'm going!  Well, it happened, and you know what?  It hurt, a lot, I have a scar!  I was walking to the bus station in Saigon to buy my ticket to Phnom Penh, there were a bunch of parked motos in front of it.  I had to weave my way through them and one of them was still cooling down.  My leg brushed up against it and burned the back of my right leg kind of badly.  I shook it off, bought my ticket and went on my way.  Like burns do, the pain came back in waves, and it was intense!  I found a pharmacy and managed to convey what was wrong and I got some ointment.  Luckily it's all better now but I do have a wicked little scar.  That is all.

Mini Update: Ketchup

Ketchup?  It's about ketchup?  Yes, as an American I a very sensitive about my ketchup intake.  I'm half joking and half serious.  When I was in Saigon I sampled the local fast food, which was delicious.  However, what struck me as odd was the ketchup.  The ketchup tasted very odd.  Everywhere I went the ketchup tasted like soy sauce.  This means it must have had too much vinegar in it.  I find this strange because the ketchup tastes perfectly normal in Phnom Penh.  It's a good thing they had chili sauce, that's my new favorite condiment.  That is all.

The first of a few mini updates, MEGA GRAPEFRUIT!

That's not actually what they're called, I have no idea what they're called.  In southeast Asia something you can often buy off of street vendors are these large fruits.  I always thought they were a type of coconut because they're huge and hard as a rock.  On my way to Saigon in the epic traffic jam (more on that in my update about Saigon) I tried one.  It cost 3000 riel (75 cents) and it has to be peeled with a machete (yes, it's that big, and that hard).  Once peeled you're left with the membrane which you can pull apart and eat the pieces.  The individual segments are about 1.5 times bigger than the largest grapefruit, they're dry to the touch but taste like grapefruit (only a little sweeter), and are juicy and delicious!  That is all.

On the job & into the rabbit hole

     You may be wondering "what's with the Alice in Wonderland Reference?"  Quite frankly Cambodia is Wonderland.  Everything is so chaotic yet orderly at the same time.  It's really sinking in at this point.  I saw a shocking video on Youtube (link to maybe come) where a cop shot a woman (I think it's because he thought she was shoplifting) and killed her.  People that were at the scene just walked away or walked around the woman's corpse.  This is like Wonderland because it seems so backwards, in the States, if a cop shot someone it would be all over the news and the cop would be slandered.  Here, it's just commonplace and it only got a Youtube video and a spot on a Khmer forum.  I'm plummeting into the rabbit hole, I don't know how deep it goes but I hope I don't meet the Red Queen.

     Enough literary references, this post is primarily about my job!  Today marks my 4th day of teaching and at this point I'm really getting it.  What I like is that we have our lessons spelled out for us (there are textbooks) and that it's very strict for the students but relatively laidback for the teachers.  About my classes, I have a grand total of 6 classes (goodness) but I have a 3 hour break.  There is a morning session and an afternoon session, each session is 3 hours long.  I teach 1st and 2nd grade, 4 1st grade classes and 2 2nd grade classes.  I'm teaching basic grammar to the 1st graders and conversational English to the 2nd graders. 

     I'm loving this!  In general, my 1st graders are a delight but they eat up most of my energy.  My 2nd graders are a bit of a handful but they are focused when on task.  They all listen to me and I've definitely got a commanding presence in the classroom.  I've come up with a very good disciplinary strategy.  Each day all of my classes start with a happy face on the board.  If they misbehave or don't listen to my directions, then it turns into a sadface.  If it's a sadface by the end of class, the last ten minutes (which is usually devoted to a game) will be spent sitting quietly and studying.  It's working phenominally for all of my classes and I'm proud of myself for it.  I will share more opinions on teaching as well as anecdotes as they come up.

Til next time..

Drama and anxiety of a new apartment

     Sunday was the day that I was going to leave the hotel.  Trea was going to take me to the apartment at 9 to sign the lease agreement.  One slight problem, BANKS.  I didn't remember until it actually happened that I only have a 200 dollar withdrawl limit overseas, this wasn't a problem until now.  I needed 600, I withdrew 200 the day before and 200 on the day I was going to the apartment.  Clearly 400 isn't 600.  Luckily my landlord is the coolest person I've ever met.  He was very relaxed about it and the lease agreement stated that I would pay 400 on 8/28 (which I did) and the remaining 200 the next day.  This was a massive sigh of relief on my part.

     On to the aparment itself, it's big.  I have to climb like 4 flights of super steep stairs (I think I'm losing weight from that).  When I go into it, there's a place to take off your shoes (because that's how Asia is) and when you go forward you hit the kitchen and the bathroom is next to that.  I don't have hot water but cold showers are nice in their own regard.  My kitchen has a sink and a propane stove.  The stove is so sketchy because it is so hot!  When I heat up a can of soup, it's ready in like 8 seconds!  Then there is a hall with a door on the left which leads to my bedroom.  I have a big queen sized bed, the room has air conditioning but I only turn it on about an hour before bed to cool the room off.  Then there is the living room, there is a large cot (this is where I drag my bedding and watch tv or play games or take a nap), my landlord asked if I wanted it out but no, it's my hangout spot.  I've got a wooden chair and a wooden couch and two large wooden tables.  One is a coffee table and the other is for I don't know what, my luggage is currently on it.  I also have a small tv tray where my alarm clock resides and I've got a small deck which is perfect for reading in the evening.

     Sadly this house is not a home yet because I haven't me'd it up yet.  It doesn't smell like me yet (if that makes any sense whatsoever).  As a result the first couple of nights I had bizzare and unaccountable nightmares that caused me to sleep poorly.  Lately I'm sleeping better, and I'm enjoying my new apartment.  I'm going to try to get internet (I'm writing this on my break at work) at my apartment as there are a lot of benefits to having my own internet.  Now I need to move on to the post about how I wanted to go to the riverside but went fishing instead.  I'll put up pictures of my apartment soon.
Till next time...

Stressful week 4 was stressful

     Oh the drama of finishing the TESOL program.  The way the program worked was during the first two weeks we were in the classroom learning how to teach English.  We took notes and other things like that.  During the last two weeks, the structure was thrown out the window and during each day we would be doing three things: foreign language class, lesson planning, and teaching practice.  For those who have been reading, I was at SFODA, the orphanage doing my practice.  What was difficult about the 4th week was the fact that I had to work on finishing EVERYTHING.  Everything includes: 3 observations, daily lesson plans, one on one lesson, self evaluations, and  foreign language journal.  Keep in mind I wasn't actually behind on hardly any of this it's just there was a lot of drama behind the one on one lesson.  I'll explain, one assignment was to find a Khmer person and offer him or her a free one hour English lesson to teach what they want to learn. 
     The person I did my lesson with was the morning waiter whom I'd befriended while staying at the hotel.  Our original plan was to do it Tuesday at 5:00.  Well I had an interview at that exact time which was a tad bit more important.  I had to reschedule...
FOR 6 AM THE NEXT MORNING!
6 am the next morning comes around and suprise suprise he isn't there (RAGE!!!).
He arrives around 7 and explains that he was feeling a little sick but we would do it the next day (Thursday).  Thursday morning comes around and again he doesn't arrive until 7.  But he did something that suprised me.  He apologized profusely and insisted that we do the lesson right then and there.  I had to throw my lesson plan out the window because it was originally planned to do in the 2nd floor classroom.  Since he was on the clock, we couldn't go up there.  I get through my lesson relatively well and teach him some restaurant vocabulary. 
     The other bit of annoyance was the foreign language journal.  Normally it would be something I would like because I enjoy learning languages.  The 4th week was so stressful I ultimately didn't care.  I was stressed because of my interview and getting set up in an apartment (but that is another story for another time).  The journal required that we write a page for each prompt.  When it came to the foreign language autobiography I found myself editing my 15 page English 102 paper into a mere 1 page single spaced blurb.  Compared to the rest of the course I didn't enjoy it so much because of the stress I was under.  I wasn't motivated to practice the language.
     Anyway, I finished everything and I had my natural anxiety before getting everything checked out by my instructor.  Of course I passed with flying colors, it's because I had a really diehard attitude.  I knew coming in that everyone (peers, instructors, etc.) would look down on me because I was the youngest.  I proved them wrong, I got my certificate and I'm teaching first and second grade at a private school (story to come).
Till next time...

Teaching, a potential romance (WHAT?!), and Satan's belt

Today was my first day of teaching and I think it went well.  I was five minutes late because I slipped into some sort of time warp between 12 and 1:30.  I had gone to the grocery store to buy some food for the week and then I went to lunch.  By the time I went to lunch it was 1:20!  This was the time that I was supposed to be on the touk touk.  I panicked and ate my food in 5 minutes and dashed back to the hotel.  I managed to get back in about 10 minutes and Steve (one of my instructors) was pissed (and rightly so in my opinion).  I got on the touk touk with Stephanie (another person teaching at my school) and Dara (our driver) gunned it and we were only 5 minutes late and it turned out fine.

I wasn't teaching until 3 we got there around 2.  The first hour I got to work with kids in the library area with some kids, I loved this!  The library area is an area where kids can read or work on their writing, they were all working on the alphabet.  I looked at some of their work and they were doing very well.  I wanted to learn their names so I found a small whiteboard and wrote my name and had them do the same.  I also read Curious George to them and they seemed to enjoy that.

My actual class, oh dear, I was up the river without a paddle.  I got gyped today in terms of a lesson planning workshop.  I was going to go to the workshop from 11 to 12 but they called it off because Indy (an instructor) wasn't there.  I'm thinking: "you need 3 instructors to teach one workshop?"  (scratches head).  I had nothing prepared and I was going to teach grammar (goody!).  I actually did fairly well, it went off without too much trouble.  I consulted the teacher when I was really lost and that was helpful.  Afterwards, Stephanie and I got back on Dara's touk touk and went back.  The kids waved goodbye to us and that was a really good feeling.

On a completely different topic, everyone in my group (only when they're together, individually they're very nice) are assholes.  Here's an example, they all hate two particular people in the group, one is this guy who has a difficult personality and the other who is an older woman who is a little strange but a nice person.  The guy who has a difficult personality, they all pushed him (on a couple of occasions) to drink a hell of a lot more than he should have.  They're also not particularly kind to him when sober either.  I feel for him, I really do because I've been in that position before (not the drinking thing but you know).  They're also very cruel to the older lady in our group, sure she never shuts up but she knows a lot of interesting things.  It is a little annoying when she goes on a random tangent but she is a genuinely nice person.  The reason I'm pointing all of this out is because there is a third person who doesn't try to fit in with the rest of the group.  I'm doing what I did in high school, I'm a neutral party who can get along with everyone (even if I grow to hate their guts).  This person is the second youngest in the entire group. I finally got to talking to her and she's staying in Phnom Penh.  She is so nice and and sweet and cute (I think you know where this is going).  She and I will be seeing each other and I dunno what will happen. I'm in Cambodia, anything can happen. *edit*, it's the whole group mechanic where people that are nice individually, come together, have alcohol and can become very mean-spirited but are perfectly nice when sober.

I like to finish things off with some kind of funny story, this time it's the tale of Satan's Belt.  I bought a new belt that looked really nice and I wore it today.  I got back to the hotel and was ready to change into my chilling out clothes (meaning no pants) and I couldn't get the belt off.  I also had to pee...
I tried and tried and couldn't get it off.  Eventually I stepped outside of my room and saw one of the guys.  I convinced him to try to get it off.  He couldn't do it either!  He got me a pair of scissors and I cut it off.  Now I have to buy another belt...

Till next time...
Later

Ruins, monkeys, crocodiles, thunderstorms, and sexual harassment (sorta)

How do all of those random things hang together?  I'll explain.  In a nutshell, this last weekend at Angkor Wat was insane.  We took a bus out to Sien Reap which is the province outside of Angkor Wat.  It took 6 freaking hours to get there!  Normally I wouldn't mind this but we were on the most uncomfortable bus ever!  Luckily I was armed with the following items, iPod, DS, PSP, Laptop, book, Spirited Away.  Sadly three of those electronic items were not charged.  I lost my iPod charger (ugh) and I forgot one tiny detail when I was charging my DS and camera.  The hotel room only has power if you leave the key in the special slot.  GUESS WHO WAS A SPACE CADET?  ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pretty much I didn't have use of a digital camera or other forms of electronic entertainment.  Don't worry I got pictures though.  After getting into the hotel we went out to dinner and came back and went to sleep.

Saturday was amazing!  I supplemented my lack of digital camera by buying a disposable camera, FOR FIFTEEN FU*KING DOLLARS!!!!!  Pardon my French but that was ridiculous.  It was an interesting experience because I went down into this little area of shops because I saw a disposable camera on display.  The second I said "I need a camera", at least 5 different people were on me!  They were tugging and saying things like "my shop has a camera"!  It was a little overwhelming.  Eventually I shook em off by saying "I want a camera and it's over there".  FIFTEEN DOLLARS?!  Enough about that, the ruins is probably what is the most interesting part.

When it comes to Angkor Wat, there is the central temple of Angkor Wat and the (I believe) 4 or 5 temples surrounding it, once you've seen one, you've seen em all.  We explored the surrounding temples first.  They are very impressive and kind of a mystery.  These temples are huge, I mean 7 stories at least. It makes you wonder how they got there, each brick has beautiful artwork on it.  An entire wall would tell a story.  If I'm remembering correctly, each temple told a different story within the Hindu religion.  Don't quote me on that because our tour guide didn't speak perfect English.

After lunch we explored the central temple of Angkor Wat.  I will be honest, this was godlike!  I also believe that I conquered my fear of heights!  You have to climb up an enormous steep staircase to even get up there.  Up at the top it was like a sky temple (if that makes any sense at all).  I was on top of this huge temple that was at least 7 stories high (I think) and up there were big plazas and hallways.  The only thing that was kind of jarring was the construction scaffolding to preserve the temple.  It was one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life.

Speaking of amazing things, MONKEYS!!!!!!!  As we were heading out of one of the temples we saw wild monkeys!  A bunch of us sat and stared at them for awhile, one monkey stole a banana from one of the women in our group.  It was hilarious.  The monkeys were so amazing and a little scary to see up close.

After the whole exhausting day was over, we geared up for dinner.  What was for dinner?  CROCODILE!  No joke, one thing you can do at our hotel is order a crocodile from the farm next door. Special thanks to Aussie Andrew for getting it all organized.  Crocodile tastes amazing, I loved it.  After dinner was pretty cool because there was an incredible thunderstorm outside.  I'd look out the window periodically and see the sky just flashing.  Eventually we all went out there and the storm was right over us.  Incredible lightning and thunderclaps that shook the entire hotel!  We were out there for a good hour plus appreciating it.

The next day we were going to explore one last temple.  This temple was going to be the original Angkor Wat but the king at the time said screw it, we're moving it.  Off the road there's this abandoned temple where tourists rarely go and it was awesome!  I explored it with my friend Rachel and these little kids lead us around.  This temple was in mid construction so there were materials lying around and it looked very hazardous.  I enjoyed climbing around it and talking to Rachel and just appreciating the serene quality of it.  At one point apparently someone (not in our group) fell, so policemen came into the ruins to help people get around.  One came to Rachel and I and helped her down this wall.  When the time came for us to go up another wall to get out, the guy put his hand square on my ass and pushed.  A part of me was really hoping it wasn't the policeman but I knew it was.  We got down and Rachel had to give the guy a dollar, I'm like (in my head) "you're not getting a dollar to touch my ass, that was free".

After exploring the temple we went to lunch and got back on the bus.  It took 8 hours to get back to Phnom Penh, this bus will appear in my nightmares because it was so uncomfortable.  I got back to my hotel room and did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day.

The entire weekend I was trying to think of a Legend of Zelda reference, I came up with an okay one.
"I wish I brought my hookshot"  Might be a little above some peoples heads but I thought it was good.

Until next time.

About food and school

I feel that it's notable to talk about food because there is a lot of different food here.  A typical Asian breakfast is not at all what you would expect in America.  What I've been having lately is soup.  I have soup for breakfast.  There is a cafe about ten minutes from the hotel and the breakfast section is essentially pho.  What I tend to get is the regular one which has many different kinds of meat and is getting me acquainted with the food here.  It has beef, pork, chicken, a shrimp, and squid.  It is delicious.  I also have that with coffee.  The coffee here is about ten times stronger than any human would be willing to drink.  Apparently I'm not human.  The coffee is about three times stronger than an espresso shot and you get a small amount.  I can drink it but not without wincing.  Today I had some breakfast food that I bought at the grocery store.  I bought a bun with some chicken inside for about 45 cents.  The other thing that I bought that I have yet to try is a baguette with chicken inside.  I had the bun this morning and was kind of skeptical of it but I ate it and it was delicious and filling.

I also need to talk about dinner last night as it was fantastic in every sense of the word.  Almost every single Language Corps person was there, meaning we had a party of about 30!  This restaurant was beautiful.  It was located directly by the riverside and where I was sitting, I got a perfect view of the river.  I was awestruck at how amazing this view was.  The river had lit tour boats going on it.  The restaurant also had live music and dancing.  The dancing seemed to be traditional and it was very intentional movements in time to the music.  I can compare that to the dancing you would see in a kabuki play, where the movements are very precise.  I had an amazing meal, I had a traditional Cambodian dish called fish amok.  It was fantastic!  It was a mixture of cooked fish mixed with lemongrass and other spices inside a banana leaf which was in the shape of a cup.  Absolutely amazing.

Today was my first day of the TESOL training program.  I can honestly say it won't be terribly difficult but it will be challenging as there are 4 weeks being in class for 8 hours a day!  I can say that it will be bearable because we do get several breaks throughout the day.  Our teachers are pretty cool, I swear my teacher named Billy looks like a very tan Bill Murray.  We were given our course supplies and the day was broken into two three hour segments or four hour and 45 minute segments.  We were given a workbook which is really cool because they have their own pages where we can take notes on a given subject.  For lunch I can proudly say that my whole meal cost one dollar.  ONE DOLLAR!  I had a sandwich with some meat inside and you can fill it with Asian coleslaw with some chicken as well.  I also had a coke with it.  I loved this meal!  After lunch we continued our day by learning about some basic teaching strategies.  I will elaborate on these later (probably).  For the last period we learned how to write resume's.  I found this lesson very helpful to me.  So sorry I don't feel like elaborating a whole lot about school but I just got back after an 8 hour day and I need to desensitize.  I went into such detail about food because I'm pretty hungry.  Note: I am actually 14 hours ahead of Seattle.
Till next time.

Day 4 and the origin of the comic strip?

So today was our official tour of Penom Penh.  It was amazing, except for one tiny detail, not working camera.  That means I have to go back to all the places we went today (aww).  The first place we went to was called Watt Phenom.  This whole area was the center for the Pa Put Regime (I am probably butchering the spelling terribly).  It is absolutely gorgeous.  The main temple we went in is where I noticed something very interesting.  All of the paintings looked like a comic strip to me!  What I mean by this is, the pictures were in their own distinct panels with titles and subtitles.  The art seemed sequential, being unable to read the language I could only guess where it began and ended.  In my comics class my teacher theorized that the first "comic strip" appeared on a mural in ancient England around 1537.  This temple was built in the mid 1400's  Perhaps I made a discovery?

In this same area there was a very symbolic image.  The image is a giant clock (which works).  When Vietnam overthrew the Pa Put Regime in 1979, the people of Cambodia wanted to start over from year 0 (symbolically of course).  I thought that this was a powerful image because the Pa Put Regime killed over a million people, so many people that nobody living in Cambodia wasn't affected in someway.  The history that is here is powerful.  This paragraph was dark so I'll end it on a lighter note, I SAW A MONKEY!

The next area we went to was the royal palace.  HOLY CRAP!  This place was gorgeous!  Royal is not even an appropriate word to describe this place.  It is huge and it is vast.  The entire throne room is made of gold!  There are like 4 surrounding shrines that are nearly as big as the throne room.  To get an idea of how awestriking the royal palace was I'll describe it like this.  Driving around Penomh Penh there are different Pagodas (buddhist temples where monks go to prey), every Pagoda is so beautiful and amazing.  The Royal Palace is 1000 times more amazing than any of the Pagodas, you recognize it instantly because of how amazing it is.  So sorry I wasn't able to get a picture of it, I'll revisit and take pictures and post them here.  Dinner in a couple hours.
Other than that, I start school tomorrow!

Day 3

After my big struggle with electricity I was mellow for the rest of the afternoon.  I took my seemingly usual afternoon nap and awoke to Rachel telling me that like all the Language Corps people were going to get dinner.  We went to a restaurant/beer garden a little bit south (?) of the hotel.  I freely admit that I wanted to have Rachel and the other people teach me to drink (the drinking age in Cambodia is 18) and to make sure I didn't overdo it.  Along with my first beer (which tasted really good actually) there was some deliciously tender beef that I dipped into a mixture of salt, pepper, and lime juice.  It was fantastic.  Sadly I filled up on that and missed eating a bunch of the shrimp dish that came later.  I ended up having a little more beer than I wanted, the glasses were small but the waitresses kept coming around filling peoples glasses.  I wound up finishing my first glass and then the waitress filled it again (oh well).  I didn't drink it dangerously fast.  I finished the second one and decided it would be in my best interest to just put my hand over the glass to avoid a bad situation.  I freely admit to enjoying it, but I also know what the safe amount is.  I'm going to make sure I'm with people I trust (disclaimer for mom and dad).  Well, tomorrow is the official tour of the city!  More to come.

AC/DC (not the band)

In case you didn't know, I believe that the United States runs on Alternative Current (AC).  Other parts of the world like Asia run on Direct Current (DC).  I may have these switched around.  One of the things I brought with me to Cambodia was a converter so I can charge my various electronics.  It works for my PSP, my DS' and other things.  But not my computer.  No, my computer has 3 prongs, the converter has 2. See the problem?  I have been using my computer very cautiously with the knowledge that I wouldn't be able to charge it until I bought a new charger.

I finally bought a new charger today and when I opened it back up at the hotel it had 3 prongs!  Not 3 American Prongs, 3 Asian Prongs.  Was there a 3 pronged plug in in my room?  No.  Did I waste my money?  Yes, because flipping apple doesn't let you return crap!  There is a silver lining however.  I heard from other students in the Language Corps program that they had 3 prong plug ins in their rooms, I decided to scour the hotel for one.  I found one in one of the student rooms and he had an entire power strip with these.  I asked him where he got it and he directed me to someone in charge (no pun intended).  The lady gave me a second adapter which looks like one of those spinny toys that make animal sounds.  I returned to my hotel room and got the charger to work!  I am no longer ticked at apple (today).

Days 1-2

HOLY CRAP I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE!  That is only the half of it.  It was very sad and heartbreaking leaving my family behind in Seattle but now I'm glad I left (sorry mom and dad, I will miss you).  The first day consisted entirely of travel.  My flight was at 2 am and when I got on the plane I was really bloody tired.  The flight was about 16 hours (I think?) and I slept for about half of it (yay!).  The other half was spent playing video games and listening to music and just being mellow.

One nuisance was the fact that I couldn't put my seat back all the way, I could only put it back a little bit.  To get an idea if you're in a car seat and you tilt the seat back one notch, about that much.  So I slept sitting up pretty much.

Anyway, once I got to Tai Pei (Taiwan) I was hungry.  I didn't eat anything on the long flight because I was sure it would upset my stomach.  I simply drank strong delicious tea the whole time.  At Tai Pei, the epic search for breakfast began.  One small problem, it was 4:45 in the morning!  Nothing was open.  I wandered the really long airport for awhile before sitting down and just puttering around doing nothing in particular.  Finally things started to open up (around 6) and I decided to browse in hopes of finding something to eat.  I found an electronics store that had Street Fighter 3 on the PSP.  I didn't buy it but I found it very strange that I'd looked for that game in every game store in the US and here I find it in a Taiwan airport...

Right!  Breakfast.  I finally found a place that sold coffee.  I ordered a cup of coffee and spaghetti!  Of course!  My bizarre breakfast was truly satisfying.  One minor annoyance was the fact that I had to pay with my debit card but I do not actually know how much I spent, as I had no Taiwan currency.  I think I spent around 5 dollars.

The next flight wasn't too interesting.  I arrived in Phenom  Penh after about 3 hours (catching the flight at 8:45).  I went through immigration and customs without any problems.  I went outside to find a guy holding a sign with my name on it, I felt really special (the good kind).  The guy's name is Smith and he is awesome!  I also met Rachel (another language corps student) and we became fast friends.  Smith took us back to the hotel on what is called a tuk tuk.  it is essentially a rickshaw lead by a motorcycle instead of a person.  What a rush!  We got to quickly see the city and it was beautiful.  We got back to the hotel and were lead to our rooms.  I got a room with 3 beds, a remote controlled AC and TV!!!  I unpacked my stuff and went to lunch/dinner/??? with Rachel at 3:30.

This is where the culture shock set in.  We sat in a relatively nice restaurant, outside within view of the river (it was very nice).  What I mean by culture shock was the immense level of poverty that I saw during this time.  Every so often a person would come by our table trying to sell something.  These things ranged from books to movies to sunglasses.  It was a sight to see and I didn't know what to make of it at first.  I have reached a conclusion.  Phenom Penh may have more poor and homeless people than I've ever seen in my life but they're doing something!  They are actually trying to make a living for themselves and in a strange way, I respect that.

I returned home and watched some tv and dosed off around 6 and didn't wake until 12:15.  I had a heck of a time falling asleep but eventually I did.

-end day 1-

I woke up at quarter to 6 and showered and got dressed.  Then I fell BACK asleep (ugh) and woke up about 2 hours later.  I opened my door and Rachel was standing there and we went to get breakfast/lunch/???   We went to a large mall that was about 5 minutes from the hotel.  In the mall there were lots of American food selections ranging from KFC to burgers.  The mall also had a grocery store in it (from which I bought a big bottle of water) and an arcade (worth checking out).  We explored the mall thoroughly before settling on some food.  I got a burger at a fast food place.  It didn't quite hit the spot because it was probably real meat (gasp!).  After I finished eating, Rachel decided to be adventurous and try some kind of ravioli soup stuff.  The food court we went to was interesting.  You buy food court coupons which is essentially your dollars turned into Riel or your Riel turned into food money.  After we were full and content, we decided to head back.

This is where the adventure begins.  I'll quote Rachel "lets not wander, we don't want to get lost".  You know what happened?  We got lost.  Somehow when we left the mall we went in the exact opposite direction of the hotel.  We wandered and wandered, and wandered some more before concluding that we were thoroughly turned around.  It was very good having her there as I would have been terrified but during this whole thing she reassured me insisting that it was part of the adventure (and she was right).  Eventually we got very tired and decided to flag down a tuk tuk.  The man didn't speak a word of English...  But Rachel showed him the card for the hotel and he seemed to know what he was doing, or did he (foreshadowing!)?  He got turned around, twice, three times technically.  First time he went the exact wrong direction, second time he went the wrong way on a street, and the third time he passed the hotel.  After all was said and done we gave the guy 3 dollars and I returned to my room and watched a couple of crappy movies and fell asleep for about 3 hours.

I awoke to Rachel shouting "JORDAN!"  I popped up and groggily stepped outside and we went back to the mall for dinner with ______ and ______ (so sorry, I forgot their names already) two more language corps students.  We went back up to the food court and I decided to be adventurous and try some Ramen which cost approximately 2 dollars (wow!)  Anticipating that it would be spicy (the broth was red...) I bought some juice to go with it.  I have no idea what was in this juice but it was fantastic!  It was like lime and coconut  and orange or something strange like that but it was delicious!  We talked for awhile, the two new guys told us about their adventure to Penom Penh's firing range...
Where apparently you can pay money to shoot coconuts.  Or if you're really extreme, shoot an RPG (rocket propelled grenade), yikes.  My dinner was delicious, hot but not too hot.  We walked back to the hotel (we could actually find it!) and I tried to go on the internet and was successful thus explaining how this post was written.  That's all for now, I am happy, I am having the time of my freaking life!

-end day 2-

Note: There is a lizard in my room, his name is Bob.  I think Bob is a vegetarian because he won't eat the magically teleporting dead cricket that lives in my room.