26 days is a long time

Why Helllllooooo There.

It's been quite a while.

Forgive me this transgression, I wasn't feeling very inspired. I was concerned that my grumpiness would transfer to the blog, which wouldn't really do anyone any favors. So I decided to bide my time.

So - Alakazam! Scheherazade! Other semi-magical sounding words! - the blog is re-born! Not that I have incredibly exciting things to share, but I'll try to fill in the rather large gap since my last post with some tales of derring-do and general information.

Let's go back in time to December 21st. I think at this time I was preparing for Christmas, which involved a few parties. I had decided to take off between Christmas and New Years as a vacation. One of the parties was at a friends house, and there was a lot of good food, but I was the only person who did not speak fluent Khmer. There was a synthetic Christmas tree though, and presents for the little kids, making it feel fairly Christmas-y.

Then, on Christmas day, a bunch of people went on a boat ride on the Mekong River. We also had a post boat ride party at a friends apartment that was a real highlight. We made some Dark & Stormys which were quite delicious.

Unfortunately the day after Christmas I got really sick, and not because of too many Dark and Stormys. More like mildly delusional, super out-of-it sick. So I went to the hospital. Turns out I had a fever of 101.something measured in my armpit, and was quite dehydrated from uh, expelling water in an impolite fashion generally associated with bad food and developing countries. Nevertheless, this was a better experience than I expected (I hate hospitals, and especially emergency rooms) because the wait time for the ER was about as long as it took for me to write my name down, and the room I ended up spending the night in had a flat screen TV with cable, and a private bathroom with hot water. Taking a hot water shower was absolutely glorious.

One thing that really irritated me was doctors asking me If I wanted various tests done, while I had an intense fever and at about 1 AM. It wasn't really my best decision making mindset. Plus I was under the impression that I was going to be taken care of at the Hospital, and was irritated that I had to think about whether a Salmonella test was cost-effective, and If I wanted some kind of intestinal pain killer/spasm reducer that I didn't really understand. For the record I said yes to the former and no to the latter.

Anyway, A night of IV saline and antibiotics later, I was feeling well enough to vacate the hospital. I think the antibiotics crushed my immune system though, because I have been sick off and on since then.

Sadly though, this reduced my vacation to seemingly endless days of feeling terrible, watching movies, and reading the NY Times. More importantly/unfortunately, it prevented me from going to the coast for a new years party with some of my friends who work for the Phnom Penh Post. Considering that in six months I haven't been anywhere except Phnom Penh, Sala Lekh Prahm, and Tramoung Chrum, I was tremendously excited to go to this party.

Alas, it was not to be, but such is life.

So let's see. In the two weeks or so following new years, I've uh, done.... um.... yeah. Not a lot. I went back to the shop on the 4th to try and get things somewhat in order, but there was no water, and the guys from TC said they wanted to go home because it's expensive for them to live there, and that's exacerbated by not having water. (more on water later) Also, I haven't been sure how to proceed with teaching for a while, so it's not like I was revealing fantastic secrets that would overwhelm the expense of living in SLP.

The two guys who were going to vocational school in PP have finished it, and went back to TC on the 10th to spend a week with their families. Actually, some cool news on that front - This past Friday I went to TC and hung out with them and their families. It was really cool. They are great guys, and they get along with Sai Ha (translator), Lee Him (shop manager) and I quite well, so I have high hopes for our working well together. This Tuesday, we will all meet at the shop and hopefully start a new phase of progress.

Progress would be good, because in case you couldn't tell, the shop has been sort of a mess for quite a while. This has been really frustrating. I don't feel guilty about it anymore, I just want to start making things happen again. I think having the team together finally will help.

Other things that in hindsight were very difficult to deal with included the rice harvest, which made me not transition into life in SLP very well because I spent so much time in PP, me getting sick several times (including the hospital trip and other less severe bouts of illness) and the *&@#^*(#@&#&(* water not working in the shop for a month.

Not having water in the shop is so frustrating. None of the neighboring shops have water either, but they don't need it as much. When several people are living in the shop, they need a lot of water to cook, wash stuff, and bathe. It's also very difficult to work on motos because you get pretty filthy and then can't wash up, and washing parts also becomes more difficult. The guys don't want to live there because it gets really expensive to buy water, etc.

I'll just leave it at that. It's been frustrating. I actually didn't realize just how long the water has been off until I was walking around TC with the guys, and Sai Ha pointed it out to me. It's back on, and will hopefully remain so. To hedge against future lack though, I think I'm going to buy some massive barrels which are sort of pricey at $17 each (Sai Ha discouraged me from buying them once already, because he thought it was too much money) but in reality are way worth the ability to store large quantities of water. In any event, everybody please cross your fingers and say a prayer/wish that the water stays on.

Other, not necessarily important, things in Life -

1. I haven't read any really good books, but i did approach my longest book read record with Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth, which was 983 pages of predictable plot movement and carboard-y characters. But it did keep my interest, and I want to read the sequel. This may be because the books are so good at keeping my mind occupied for great lengths of time.

2. Ironically, I'm way better informed about the US now that I am in Cambodia. I think I need to stop reading the NY Times though, because it's such a time suck.

3. This is a long time to be away from one's family. I'm mostly worried that my grandfather will die before I get back, and I won't see him before he passes. I wanted to write him a living eulogy thing, but only got this sentence done - " As the shadow of your mind's degeneration eclipses your knowledge of who I am, the fundamental way you influence my life becomes more readily apparent to me." He really is a champion, and sadly I don't think he would really understand just how much he means to me any more. He's basically my hero/role model in many ways, and I feel especially connected to him because physically we are weirdly similar. Like I fit into his suit coats as if they had been made for me.



Well that's pretty much the scene. I feel like there are other things I want to write about but don't really remember what they are.

Hopefully I won't let the blog languish for so long in the coming weeks.

Oh - I applied for a couple of interesting engineering jobs. One of them is particularly cool, and involves electric motorcycles. So I'm hoping that goes well.

Also, I come home in about 3.5 months. That is 14 weeks. Not so long. I can't decide how to feel about this.

Take Care everyone, and Happy 2010.

Ned.