So when you have a lot of free time, as I do, you begin to obsess about things. Too much free time makes your mind wonder and focus on very strange things that busy people don't have the time to really think about. So now my two recent obsessions and some explanations.
Obsession #1 Getting my nose piercing back.
This isn't just an urge to get my piercing back, it's a NEED. I've been wanting it back for a long time but never got it done because I was worried about getting it pierced in Cambodia. Well screw that. I can't stop thinking about it. I loved the way I looked with it. I felt amazing when I looked in the mirror and saw it. I know this obsession is weird but I wanted my nose piercing for the first time so badly and now I need it back even worse. It's going to happen. I just hope that they have a small ring to put in my nose instead of just a stud. I see foreigners wear their nose rings around and I'm always so jealous. Soon I will have mine back.
Obsession #2 Food/My Weight.
I feel like these two things go hand and hand. I'm ready to get really honest right now so be prepared. I've struggled with my weight all my life. I've always thought of myself as the fat girl and I feel like it becomes a disease. "Fat Girl Syndrome" should be a diagnosable disorder because it messes with you mentally and physically. I've had times in my life when I've felt beautiful, sexy, etc. but it's not the norm. Most of the time I feel like an outcast because of my weight and I've attributed every rejection I've ever had to how much I weigh. Along those same lines though, maybe it's a mental block that prohibits me from losing weight. I think I'd be terrified to shed all the weight that I want to lose because I'd no longer have that security blanket. If I can no longer attribute my rejections to my weight...that must mean that some people don't like my personality...they don't like ME personally and I can't blame that on the weight. It's so much easier to think "If I were thinner they wouldn't have rejected me" than to actually accept that maybe they didn't like who I am as a person. That thought scares the shit out of me. So maybe I'm scared to lose the weight. I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't overweight. If I looked "normal" I don't know how I would deal with it.
Everyone has their struggles in life and my weight has always been the big one. I want to lose weight deep down. I'm scared, but I know that I want this weight gone. It's just beginning to seem like that will never happen. I've never been committed enough I guess. The only time I lost significant weight in the past was my senior year of high school when I made a bet with my parents to see who could lose 20 lbs first. It was the bet that kept me going and my constantly active and busy school, sports, and work life. Now that I have so much free time it's harder to stay away from food.
However, with all that said, I am losing weight in Cambodia. I've lost 10lbs already and to some people that sounds like a lot but don't congratulate me yet. 10lbs is just a drop in the bucket for me. And I was almost at my heaviest weight when I came here so losing ten pounds puts me down to my "normal" weight. I don't know how to lose weight in Cambodia. The heat makes me incredibly lazy, I don't have control over my food, I don't know what's happening right now but every day I feel thinner. I tried cutting back on the coke for a week and I did it but I started drinking it again soon after. I see tons of other volunteers that have lost TONS of weight here and I'm really happy for them but I look at myself and think "I'm the heaviest girl here and I haven't lost nearly as much as a lot of the other girls". And they don't seem to be trying too hard, it's just coming naturally. So why isn't it coming for me? I had this expectation coming in that I would immediately lose tons of weight without even trying and come back super skinny and beautiful and surprise everyone. And while I'm slowly losing weight now for some reason, I feel like if the miraculous weight loss was going to happen, it would have already. I don't know. I lost weight during training because I biked a ton and then I gained some back coming to site and now I'm losing some again. I don't know what my body is doing. I feel like I was eating less and working out more during training and I kept it up for 2 months and didn't lose as much as I would have if I did that in the states or as much as other girls who were smaller than me did during training. And now I'm eating the same as I did in training, with a lot less exercise and I'm losing weight. I don't know. It's all so confusing. I feel like this is a confusingly written paragraph so I'll stop rambling and get on to my next point.
The food obsession. Maybe it's just because I eat horrible food all the time and am stuck with plain white rice for every meal, but i'm obsessed with food. All I think about is the next meal. But then when i'm sitting at the table eating it, i'm suddenly not hungry. Sometimes I have to force down the rice just so I know I'll eat enough to be full. Maybe that's what's causing the weight loss now. I'm not eating that much at meals. I still snack sometimes, eat bread, and drink a lot of coke, but maybe it's the fact that i'm not eating much at meals that's leading me to shed some pounds now. Who knows. All I know is that I think about food way more than the average person....but probably not that much more than the average volunteer. However, when I was back home, I feel like my unhealthy relationship with food was what kept me at this weight and what prevented me from losing weight whenever I tried to diet. I feel like I have a hard time stopping. When I'm eating I don't want to stop, I have to eat whatever is on my plate no matter how much it is. It's like the thing in your head that is supposed to tell you when to stop is temporarily out of order sometimes. And other times it's working fine and I can say no to food. Ugh, I feel like the more I talk about this the more confused I become about what my issues are.
But I do know it's a control issue in some ways. Anorexics feel like they can control their life when they control what they eat and I feel the same way sort of. When I lost 20 lbs in high school I was meticulously counting calories and controlling what I ate. It was done in a healthy way, I promise, and all the other things in my life became very controllable. My room was always clean, my homework was always done, I met deadlines and didn't forget things. But when i'm not in control of my eating my life doesn't feel so controlled. And when my life feels chaotic and messy, I eat a lot. It's a nasty cycle and one that is damned hard to break. It was broken in 12th grade with the outside motivating factor of the contest with my parents but I don't have anything in my life that would work like that here. I don't know. Sometimes it just seems so hopeless. I feel like i've been this size for so long and it's never going to change.
I just wanted to tell you the things that I've been thinking about constantly in the past week or so. I hope my weight loss due to uncontrollable circumstances keeps happening because then I can keep doing nothing and slowly reach my goal. My goal weight is 160lbs. If I could reach that I feel like I would be at a perfect weight and wouldn't want to lose any more than that. That's still 60-70 pounds away for me. I need to find a way to get inspired to lose weight instead of obsessing over it.
This is the first time I've ever discussed my weight publically. I've talked to some people about it but I've never really shared like this. My fears, barriers, cycles of unhealthiness, you know them all now. Sorry if this post is confusing to read. I'm very tired and I kept having sporadic thoughts throughout this post. Let me know what you think.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Missing the comforts of home
Hello all you readers of my blog! And my "readers" I of course mean the 6 of you that actually read this. Maybe 7. On a good day. Anyway, my life is going pretty steadily right now. I haven't had to teach for the past 2 weeks. Chinese New Year took out 3 days of school, the day after hardly anyone showed up so I went home early, and I only had to teach for 2 hours on Friday. This week they are doing testing all week so I didn't have to show up for that either. And next week, Tuesday is a holiday. SO MUCH FREE TIME. This free time is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand I have a lot of free time to read extremely long books in very short amounts of time. On the other hand, I read all the good books and now I'm stuck with shitty ones. I mean, bad ones...sorry Mom. I get to sleep in until whenever I want to, but when I wake up I have absolutely nothing to do other than read copious amounts of literature. And not anything that will expand my mind or anything. I don't want to waste my free time learning stuff. That would just be silly. I want to read trashy romances and sci fi books to alleviate the sucky-ness of both the boring-ness and lack of love in my life. So to sum up this paragraph of rambling, I've been reading a lot lately.
I'd like to make a list of things that I miss from back home. So I will.
1. People having the same manner standards that I do. I miss it in the U.S. when it's very rude to ask people how much they weigh. It's not rude here to ask, it just gets on my nerves. And when the children will follow you around screaming HELLO at the top of their lungs and their parents think it's funny. In America, if your kid is being obnoxious, you'd probably take it away and apologize. Nope, not here. Also, when I'm walking down the street, people like to ask if I want a tuk tuk or a moto. Instead of just letting me walk by when I say no, they stand in my way, try to talk to me, then when I don't, they make jokes to their friends about me. Not polite in America, totally acceptable here. I'm not saying that I think it's wrong. It's just annoying to me because I've been brought up differently. It's just their cultural norm to do things the way they do it and I understand that but it doesn't mean I can't get annoyed with it all the same.
2. Having a police force I can trust. I've never had to deal with police in America, except for when I got my one speeding ticket. But I know that if I was ever in danger, if I ever got in a car accident, etc, they would be there to help. Here it's not the same story. If you get into an accident here they'll show up, but no matter what happened it's always the foreigner's fault. You could be stopped at a stop light and someone rams into you from behind and it's your fault. Their reasoning "If you weren't in this country, the accident wouldn't have happened". It's completely true and logical, but complete bullshit too. I've heard that this happens from several different sources but have never experienced it, thank goodness. But it's nice to know that if i'm on my bike and I get hit by a moto or a car driven by a Khmer person, I'm going to have to pay for all damages. Sorry, if this sounds a bit bitter. It's just they way it works, or so I've heard. Also, you can drive at night without headlights and no one says a word, but driving during the day with your headlights on will cost you $1.25 in fines. One of my friends got pulled over on his moto for driving with his headlights on during the day. Just another example of ridiculous laws that the police here enforce. Oh well, I just hope I never have to deal with them. Corruption is very real and it can be very dangerous for a foreigner.
3. I miss being able to earn my own money. It's difficult to know that no matter how hard to work, you will never get more money. It's difficult when you've always been able to afford the things you want and if there was something you couldn't afford, you could work harder, put in more hours, find some outside work, etc, to get the thing you want. Here, I can't do that. It's the same small allowance every month and you have to pull from outside money if you ever want to do more. I've been very fortunate that my parents have been supporting me while I'm here but I don't want to have to rely on them. Oh well, I guess I just need to get better with my money and learn to live even more modestly.
4. I miss training. I miss being around all my friends and other people who are going through the same thing as I am and being able to talk to them and hang out with them on a daily basis. It's hard to be alone, especially in the city that I'm placed in. I feel very isolated. I don't fit in with the tourists but I don't fit in with the people that live here either. It's very lonely sometimes. Hopefully that'll be alleviated a little bit by my new family. Right now my family has stopped talking to me completely and we only exchange maybe 2 sentences a day. It's very frustrating and depressing to be at home now. So I try to get out of the house as much as possible. I feel like this post is getting to be a downer. I'll try to wrap it up soon.
5. Along the lines of missing training, I miss my training host family. They mean so much to me still. I feel so guilty that I haven't gotten a chance to go back and see them yet. I was so spoiled there and I absolutely love them. In those 2 months that I lived there they showed me so much love and my host mom especially made me feel like part of the family. I've been living with this new family at site for 4 months now and I don't feel even the tiniest bit of love on their part. I don't feel like part of the family and I don't think they know how to make me part of the family. I'm moving to a new host family with a mom that reminds me of my training host mom so I hope that this new family will be better. The new house will be a downgrade but I'm willing to give up my comforts that I have now in order to have a family that accepts me and treats me like one of their own.
Some other things I miss include
Air conditioning
BAKING CUPCAKES!!!!
good spaghetti
watching tv
the YMCA
not eating rice for every meal.
Oh my goodness...the rice. Every time lunch or dinner rolls around I'm dreading eating. The amounts of rice i've consumed in the past 6 months has been insane. I hate it. I wish I never had to eat rice ever again. I'm going through a major rejection phase of it. It makes me want to cry looking at it. I wish rice would die. Even talking about eating it is making me angry. So I'll stop.
So I realize that this is sort of a negative blog post but I promise they won't all be like this. There are many things I do like about site and I definitely want to be here. I miss the comforts of home and I miss my family and friends a lot but I know that this is where I should be and where I need to be. I hope I can find a productive routine to get into and start to feel a little bit happier about my service. My vacation in April to Malaysia will definitely help.
I'm going to Phnom Penh this weekend so that should be fun. I'll keep you updated!
I'd like to make a list of things that I miss from back home. So I will.
1. People having the same manner standards that I do. I miss it in the U.S. when it's very rude to ask people how much they weigh. It's not rude here to ask, it just gets on my nerves. And when the children will follow you around screaming HELLO at the top of their lungs and their parents think it's funny. In America, if your kid is being obnoxious, you'd probably take it away and apologize. Nope, not here. Also, when I'm walking down the street, people like to ask if I want a tuk tuk or a moto. Instead of just letting me walk by when I say no, they stand in my way, try to talk to me, then when I don't, they make jokes to their friends about me. Not polite in America, totally acceptable here. I'm not saying that I think it's wrong. It's just annoying to me because I've been brought up differently. It's just their cultural norm to do things the way they do it and I understand that but it doesn't mean I can't get annoyed with it all the same.
2. Having a police force I can trust. I've never had to deal with police in America, except for when I got my one speeding ticket. But I know that if I was ever in danger, if I ever got in a car accident, etc, they would be there to help. Here it's not the same story. If you get into an accident here they'll show up, but no matter what happened it's always the foreigner's fault. You could be stopped at a stop light and someone rams into you from behind and it's your fault. Their reasoning "If you weren't in this country, the accident wouldn't have happened". It's completely true and logical, but complete bullshit too. I've heard that this happens from several different sources but have never experienced it, thank goodness. But it's nice to know that if i'm on my bike and I get hit by a moto or a car driven by a Khmer person, I'm going to have to pay for all damages. Sorry, if this sounds a bit bitter. It's just they way it works, or so I've heard. Also, you can drive at night without headlights and no one says a word, but driving during the day with your headlights on will cost you $1.25 in fines. One of my friends got pulled over on his moto for driving with his headlights on during the day. Just another example of ridiculous laws that the police here enforce. Oh well, I just hope I never have to deal with them. Corruption is very real and it can be very dangerous for a foreigner.
3. I miss being able to earn my own money. It's difficult to know that no matter how hard to work, you will never get more money. It's difficult when you've always been able to afford the things you want and if there was something you couldn't afford, you could work harder, put in more hours, find some outside work, etc, to get the thing you want. Here, I can't do that. It's the same small allowance every month and you have to pull from outside money if you ever want to do more. I've been very fortunate that my parents have been supporting me while I'm here but I don't want to have to rely on them. Oh well, I guess I just need to get better with my money and learn to live even more modestly.
4. I miss training. I miss being around all my friends and other people who are going through the same thing as I am and being able to talk to them and hang out with them on a daily basis. It's hard to be alone, especially in the city that I'm placed in. I feel very isolated. I don't fit in with the tourists but I don't fit in with the people that live here either. It's very lonely sometimes. Hopefully that'll be alleviated a little bit by my new family. Right now my family has stopped talking to me completely and we only exchange maybe 2 sentences a day. It's very frustrating and depressing to be at home now. So I try to get out of the house as much as possible. I feel like this post is getting to be a downer. I'll try to wrap it up soon.
5. Along the lines of missing training, I miss my training host family. They mean so much to me still. I feel so guilty that I haven't gotten a chance to go back and see them yet. I was so spoiled there and I absolutely love them. In those 2 months that I lived there they showed me so much love and my host mom especially made me feel like part of the family. I've been living with this new family at site for 4 months now and I don't feel even the tiniest bit of love on their part. I don't feel like part of the family and I don't think they know how to make me part of the family. I'm moving to a new host family with a mom that reminds me of my training host mom so I hope that this new family will be better. The new house will be a downgrade but I'm willing to give up my comforts that I have now in order to have a family that accepts me and treats me like one of their own.
Some other things I miss include
Air conditioning
BAKING CUPCAKES!!!!
good spaghetti
watching tv
the YMCA
not eating rice for every meal.
Oh my goodness...the rice. Every time lunch or dinner rolls around I'm dreading eating. The amounts of rice i've consumed in the past 6 months has been insane. I hate it. I wish I never had to eat rice ever again. I'm going through a major rejection phase of it. It makes me want to cry looking at it. I wish rice would die. Even talking about eating it is making me angry. So I'll stop.
So I realize that this is sort of a negative blog post but I promise they won't all be like this. There are many things I do like about site and I definitely want to be here. I miss the comforts of home and I miss my family and friends a lot but I know that this is where I should be and where I need to be. I hope I can find a productive routine to get into and start to feel a little bit happier about my service. My vacation in April to Malaysia will definitely help.
I'm going to Phnom Penh this weekend so that should be fun. I'll keep you updated!
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