Last year I was so sure that it was the last year I’d be in Cambodia. But alas, as most best-laid plans go, mine went unheeded and unfulfilled. I found myself stuck in many ways. My home that time increasingly felt like a prison, the jobs I took did not fulfill me in any way [...]
Until now, I still find Valentine’s day to be a strange holiday. From my childhood I remember that it coincides with Teacher’s day at school, a time when we give flowers and little gifts to our mentors after mass or a short program on the nobility of teachers and teaching as a profession. In high [...]
By some twist of fate, the start of the project I recently acquired was postponed, leaving me with a 2-week gap I had no way of filling with other bits of work, having refused a short assignment in the end of January. Another source of mild irritation in this turn of events is the fact [...]
Something remarkable happened to me a couple of days ago. I was logged in Facebook, looking at the wall of status updates of my friends. A name popped up in a friend’s status update comments. A blast from the past. Before I could control myself, I directed a question to her, asking if she, by [...]
Perhaps the most perplexing thing about whatever-the-hell-I’m-going-through-right-now is my inability to write about the whole experience. This is something I used to do with ease, since I was young. Whenever I felt troubled, disturbed, and confused, writing has always been a refuge, a sanctuary. When I was grieving–the passing of a loved one, or the [...]
About two weeks ago the winds suddenly blew cold in Phnom Penh. Nights began feeling too cold for me to use the a/c in my room. This happened for about a week before becoming balmy and dry like a summer night again. The trees in the small yard facing my building began losing their leaves [...]