home is wherever i'm with you

I'll update this one later with more pictures, but unfortunately, I just realized that I didn't really take a lot over the break. So if you have some, please post them somewhere!

Chilk-fil-a has been a driving force of motivation for me to make it to Christmas and summer breaks. They have always been there for me, but you let me down this time, CFA. You let me down. They should've know that, despite the fact that it was indeed a Sunday, I was coming from the land of no CFA and I should be an exception. It was a crushing disappointment upon arriving back in the states, but don't worry. It did not cast a dark cloud on the whole trip. Just the first couple of minutes. 

The stars aligned and Allison, Shay, and I were together for the first time in over two years. Shay is about to move back to Louisiana, so hopefully we can reunion often!

This also happened: red velvet cheesecake in my mouth so delicious. Thanks, Mrs. Christy!

I got my dad this little doozy, and thanks to the help of Rachel, was able to tell him what it means: Joy, Faith, Peace, Love, Jesus Christ. Don't tell him, but I'm probably going to steal it when I go back.

I roadtripped down to Gonzales to see my best friends and their new baby, Clark! So incredible to see them being amazing parents. Still can't believe we're old enough to have kids. Bye.

Got to spend a lot of time with this guy, and this is the only picture I got. Probably the best one we've ever taken.

Stever drops me off at the airport and we get coffee and have a quick chat about life. Then he takes out his phone and says, "time for our selfie!"

It was a wonderful break that went by entirely too fast. I can't believe I'm already back in Cambodia (and that this is the 5th blog post of the night). I am so blessed and loved far more than I deserve, and I look forward to what the future holds.

M

getting ready for christmas in cambo

Some adventures and happening during the weeks leading up to Christmas break!

One morning, Kim decided to conserve her leg energy by holding on to our tuk tuk.

Carol, our principal, and the TAs from our campus who graduated from their second level of teaching training! So proud of them.

View of the river from behind the Cambodiana hotel.

Pretty sure that moto was about to fall over. I am so impressed every day. 

Knyom jo jet nom cookies!!

We happened upon a demonstration near the monument.

"Do you think it's ok if I sit on this moto that's not mine?"- Kim

I just love her.

My favorite meal at Sister's: bacon, grilled cheese, and homemade fries. 

Found this little gem the other day.

For our Asian Hope Christmas party, we made about a million and a half of these.

It's time to get real: this is what my desk looked like on the last day of school.

The kids did such a great job at their Christmas production!

 Becca and I were the greeters at the AH party. It was great fun!

I'll leave you with this: Becca discovered she had squished/murdered a lizard in her door frame. How long had it been there? We will never know. Our sweet house helper laughed and cleaned it off for her.

adventures in bbq and other things

My fabulous roommate, Kim, decided to get some folk from school together on a Friday night and venture to one of the many, many, many Khmer BBQ places near our house (did I mention there are a lot of them?). We see these restaurants packed every night, but have always been a little wary of going there ourselves. We threw caution to the wind and gave it a try. 

                                      

Here's how it works: you sit down at a table, and each table has it's own little grill. The waiters then bring you plates of raw meats:

Next, you make a face like this because you have no clue where this meat came from or the journey it took from animal to your plate. Also, Becca is a vegetarian so that's why her face is better. 

Kim couldn't wait to fire up the grill so she could try squid. I love Kanha's face in the background!

Sak was the master griller and Rachel did her best to inspire me to try everything.  

Throw on some veggies, and we're in business. No rice at these places!

The one we went to is pretty huge. And they're all outside because you can't exactly have 50 grills operating indoors, knowhatimean?

Fun experience with great friends : )

Teaching 3rd is so much fun. They're little enough to love stuff like this, but they're old enough to not cry all the time and use the bathroom independently. It's the perfect age. 

I love this kid so much.

On the way to Rachel's birthday party.

Cuties : )

I never see sunsets over here, so this was a big treat. Gorgeous.

A shot from our Thanksgiving feast! I had choir practice all day, so I didn't really contribute anything to this beautiful table. All the handiwork of my roommates. Thanksgiving is the best, y'all.

the 6 stages of taking a movie theatre selfie

As promised:

1. Becca's not ready

2. Becca doesn't like the way she's smiling

3. Becca stopped smiling in order to say how weird her hand looked

4. We were both struggling here. Blurry camera work and Becca...I don't know what she's doing.

5. Almost there! Except she took off her 3D glasses.

6. As good as it gets. 

days go by

So I've kind of failed at blogging these past few months, but that just means things have been super busy, right? Here's my attempt to catch up and share what's been going on in Cambo. You have jet lag to thank for these updates.

Cambodia has made me braver in so many ways. One way is hopping on the back of a moto to get iced coffees for everyone. At home, the ratio of motos to cars is approximately 1:34235 (don't quote me on that), but here, it's the opposite. Motos usually outnumber the cars and that makes me feel safer. Plus, that's one of my co-workers, Rachel. She's from Australia and we have lots of good laughs trying to understand each other's version of the English language.

Weekends are the absolute best. Can I get an amen? On this particular Saturday, we headed to brunch at a hard to find, but delicious, cafe called Sisters. They have pumpkin spice pancakes and real bacon. The food usually takes a long time and something will probably be wrong with one or more orders, but it's so good that stuff doesn't even matter. Oh, your fries are taking a long time? That's because she had go get more potatoes at the market. Fresh. After brunch turned into lunch, we headed to Russian market (saa Toul Tom Poung) <--are you impressed? There, we bought scarves and earrings and DVDs from my scarf, earring, and DVD ladies. They remember me and that means good price! After we shopped for a bit, Rachel showed us an ice cream counter behind the market that I didn't know existed. Yum.

I love this picture of her because I managed to capture the pure joy they feel when I whip out the Math games. So much engagement. So much learning! Dr. Vessel, if you're reading this, these are the games I made for Math Methods : )

Not as great as the boxers from last year, but it'll do.

Over Christmas break, the most popular question besides "What are you doing next year?" (I'll get to that later) was "So...what do you eat over there?" The shock that I eat vegetables not has mostly worn off, so here you go. A flour tortilla sprinkled with cheese and topped with a plethora of grilled veggies. And you know what? IT'S DELICIOUS.

In an effort to battle the pollution problem, Kim goes for the ninja sunglasses and scarf combination. Fierce. I'm quite certain all of our lungs have turned solid black. 

Ever since we decided every Friday is iced coffee day, life has just gotten so much better. This sweet lady makes us the best iced coffee I've ever had in Cambo and I love her for it. And it costs 50 cents. I love her for that, too.

it's more than a feeling

Hello, readers! 

Here's a quick update about what's been going on in the far east (or, depending on where you are, near west):

We made shape monsters and had so much fun. It was a pretty fun week. We also made 3D shapes with marshmallows and toothpicks. Yay Math!

School got cancelled one day and we jumped for joy : ) Pretty sure that was the most excited any of us had been in a long time. It's the equivalent of a bad weather day back home. 

When it rains, it floods. When it floods, I can't see the potholes when I'm biking. When I can't see the potholes, my bike sometimes takes an unexpected dip into a pothole. I then find myself here, getting my tire fixed.

And now for some vacation pictures! We had a week off of school so we headed to Sihanoukville, a beach town about 4 hours away. As we were locking up our house, we see all this happening in the street. To you, it looks like a truck with a bunch of chairs in it. To us, it says a wedding is about to be set up right next to your house. The timing of our trip couldn't have been more perfect. This guy was happy to smile for my picture, and we were happy to be getting out of town.

Happy wedding, neighbors! Bye.

This cow strolled up and down the street on a regular basis. This was a breakfast our first day.

And now for the story of how we were robbed sort of.

It was our first full day there, so we decided to explore the local shops and then walk down to the beach. Well, my purchase was a new swimsuit. It will be important to remember this.

We were walking down a hilly road to get to the nice beach, and I had my bag looped around my wrist. I was also holding onto the bag. My subconscious didn't want to be robbed, either. Anyway, a moto came up from and I was their target. They went for the bag, I jerked my arm back, they kept going. I've told y'all for years that I have excellent reflexes*.

Kim was walking in front of me, and she turned and saw what happened. She then poised herself to execute an attack on the moto. The moto was all wibbly wobbly (timey wimey) and was kind of going straight towards her. She pushed them away and was pulled down to the road somehow. The moto thieves regained balance and sped off.

This all happened in about 3 seconds.

We washed off Kim's battle wounds and headed back to the hotel on the first tuk tuk that came by. We had to laugh, because if the guy had gotten away with my bag, he would have discovered it contained a black bikini.

I kind of wish he had gotten away with it.

*Spidey Sense

Of course we took a picture right after it happened. I document everything awesome. Upon returning to our hotel, we noticed this sign on the door. 

The trip was totally redeemed later that week when we spend a glorious day on Independence Beach. We had it all to ourselves for most of the day, and it was just perfect.

I loved the Little Mermaidish water.

Every adjective that describes perfection.

"I like my ice manually crushed." -Kim

Kim and Becca had a great time snorkeling. I was busy trying not to die from nausea. Remind me of this next time I think getting on a small boat is a good idea.

All good things come to an end, and before we knew it, we were back at school. That week was crazy because the roads around our school were flooded for the whole week. It was nice taking a tuk tuk every day, though. Not gonna complain about that. Some photos from our journey:

He didn't seem to mind the floods. Happy guy.

Roadside food carts were still open for business.

I took this from the second floor of school. Yikes.

Welp, that's all for now.

Looking forward to seeing all of your faces soon,

M