Here's the last six months of my life in a nutshell...
-finished school
-killed time until I went back to America
-went back to America
-came back to Cambodia
-dealing with animal/creature problems
-found a place to bake cupcakes
-school just started today
April, May, June, and the first half of July was life as usual. Nothing crazy happened. I started teaching at an NGO called Don Bosco at their school of Social Communication. Students who have already finished high school and who live in poor villages can go to this organization and get free technical training. So my students learned web design, photography, journalism, etc. They were great students and I enjoyed teaching them but it was just way too much English teaching in my life at that point so I stopped doing it after a few months.
Then I went to AMERICA!!!! It was both challenging and wonderful. I got to eat the food that I wanted to eat, sleep in amazingly comfortable beds without a mosquito net, and I got to hang out with some of my friends who were awesome. It was difficult though because I started to realize that people are so caught up in their own lives that no one really cared what I'd been doing this past year. I would mention that I live in Cambodia and the reaction I got was "Oh, cool." and then they would proceed to tell me all about their lives for the past year. I guess I sort of assumed people would be interested in hearing my experiences but they only really wanted to hear the crazy stories and then after one or two of those they lost interest. It was difficult relating to a lot of my old friends and I felt like I got closer to people who I didn't expect to get closer to and I felt a distance between people who I considered to be good friends before I left. Also in America, I met a girl. She is an amazing person and we are now dating! It's difficult trying to pull off a long distance relationship but we're trying to make it work and seeing where it goes. I still have 11 months before I come home so we'll see what happens between now and then.
Coming back was difficult. I missed all the comforts of home and I seriously considered leaving. Then I came back to site and realized how much I missed my family and my life here. I painted my room and reorganized and I feel like my life is in the right place now. I still have thoughts of going home because life would be so much easier and I would get to be with my girlfriend and in a bed that I can get a good night's sleep in and eating food that I miss so dearly but ultimately at this point I'm committed to staying. I need to do work here that I can be proud of by the end of my service. That's not to say I won't make the decision to leave sometime in the future but as of right this very minute I'm here and I'm making the most of it.
I've got a bunch of other things to talk about but I'll save them for later posts. Look forward to my baking cupcake stories, the animal stories (which is the main reason that I've considered leaving lately), and stories about the beginning of school.
