Girls with Funny Accents

Well-known factoid about me: I'm not a native speaker of English.

That is, I'm not a native speaker of English if you ask the general public. Despite the fact that I was born and raised in Ohio, USA, among a family that migrated to this hemisphere over 400 years ago (from England!), I apparently speak English with a funny accent.

In my work as a cashier, I was daily asked "where I was born" because I "have an accent". It got to the point where I would just start making up stories. "I was born in Palestine." Lol. "My mother is a Romanian refugee and my father is the Saudi Ambassador to New Guinea. I moved around a lot as a kid." Lol.

Okay, English is actually my first and only language, but just no one seems to realize that. Since I have come to Cambodia, this has already happened to me twice (which is a lot considering I've spent the last 9 out of 12 months in virtual isolation).

The first guy was utterly convinced that I am English or Australian (you have no idea how many people think I'm Australian) because I "talk like it." This guy wasn't even a native speaker of English himself! Come on!! Is my voice that obvious?

Some other guy told me I have a distinct French accent when I try to speak Khmer. Me: WTF? I can't even speak French! How is that even possible??

So there you have it. I talk funny, no matter which language I speak.

He...Died?

The news that greeted me this morning was that a certain Libyan with an unspellable last name was executed by his own people after a long uprising. As a History and Middle Eastern Studies major, I have lots of questions about the whole affair, like

1. "Who will take power now? Will it really usher in a democratic era for the Libyan people?"
2. "How come NATO made it a priority to invade Libya but not Syria, where the leadership has been doing comparable (and maybe worse) things for decades?"
3. "How come no one ever reported from Qaddafi's side? We know all about the rebels war effort, but surely the people who supported him were not nameless, faceless video-game enemies? Surely they had their reasons?"
4. "Are we all aware that much of the fighting was divided among pre-existing tribal lines? This won't create any old resentments, will it?"
5. And most importantly, "NOW who am I gonna represent at the Model Arab League?"

Also, I left my shoes outside last night, and someone stole them. That meant I had to go to school barefoot today...dammit.

A Moving Adventure

Sometimes, in the construction of a house, people build staircases badly. My apartment building, for instance, happens to have these Evil Danger Steps which are steep, narrow, and uneven. You basically have to grip the metal railings on both sides if you don't want to die going up and down that particular flight of steps. Unfortunately, I (and other upper residents) must walk up and down them many times each day to get to our apartments.

Sometime over the last year, my landlady and her people realized that we were nearly killing ourselves each and every day. Consequently, the family decided to refurbish them.

I'm the only resident left in the apartment (literally, the only one). I feel the need to stay till January for reasons no one has yet told me, but which I am quite sure exist. So, in order to fix the flight of stairs and still let me remain sheltered, they moved me to the bottom floor apartment.

It's sort of basement-like (moldy; no windows) but it's quite posh in its own way. It's big. And it's cool in every sense of the word.

This is the entry way. It's the only window in the apartment.

It has stuff!

It has an upstairs!

It has stairs to get there!

I get to stay here for two weeks before resuming my old life on the top floor.

I think it's kind of cool.

What Is This?

I have found a tiny beetle-type thing in my water.

I have no idea how it got there. For reasons of my own, I boiled some cooler water the other night. I let it cool on the stove-top overnight and poured it into my metal cup the next day so that I could take my ranitidine. When I came back from school several hours later, I noticed something strange swimming around the bottom of my cup as I drank. It looked like this, but extraordinarily tiny -->.

I am at a loss to explain how it got there, or even what it is. I've seen them swimming around in pond water sometimes.

The problem is, there's no way it could have gotten into my cup:

1. The cup was dry from many weeks of disuse; I scrubbed it clean shortly before I used it, then dried it again.
2. The water was already drinkable, and boiled
3. The tap water is treated; I've certainly never seen small beetles in it before
4. Even if there were something in the tap water, the cup was sitting many meters away from other bodies of water, like the sink and toilet
5. My apartment was locked and the windows closed. Nothing and no one got in or out.
6. I live on the 4th floor of an apartment that is nowhere near a pond

I guess it's possible that it got in the pot of boiled water overnight and I just didn't notice till later...but how? And from where? And what do I do with the little guy now?

This is one of those days that makes you go WTF.

You can see this too, right?
I'm not imagining this thing, right?

This is it up close.

My Anniversary!!

Today is the one-year anniversary of the day I first came to Cambodia: 17 October 2010.

I'm not quite sure how to take the news.

I've been sick for three-quarters of the year; I've had two jobs; I've lost my internet; and now I have even less money than I came with. AND I'M STILL GLAD I CAME TO CAMBODIA. I could shout it from the rooftops all night!

I remember how it felt, flying in after my ordeal with Aston Jining. The relief that hit me with a gust of tropical air as I stepped off the plane at 10 pm, Dara waiting at the entrance. Coming to Okay Guesthouse, glowing golden in the evening air, and having someone to help me up the stairs with my suitcase.

Help, for God Sake! Help, support and kindness from strangers--something completely unheard of in China! I wept with relief and joy in the muggy night; I inhaled the muggy, warm air; and I curled gratefully up in my clean, white 6x8 cell.

Despite the hardships I have undergone, I don't regret my decision to dump China for this. Not for one minute. And I never will.

I don't know what the next year is going to look like--I still suffer from hypothyroid symptoms; my lease expires soon, and I've got no money. But I, Holyrockthrower, shall adventure forth into an uncertain future, unrestrained by fact or fear.

No regrets.

Antacid Trip

Apparently my gastro-intestinal problems in the last entry were an ulcer.

Shortly after writing, all hell broke loose on my stomach. It woke me up that night, contracting as though it were trying to give birth to a small whale. The pressure was such that I was about to throw up, and it kept me awake for several hours. Seeing that this was the 3rd or 4th attack, I called off my morning classes and went to the doctor first thing.

He said there was literally nothing else it could possibly be than a stomach acid problem.

I've had this before, but it was about ten times worse this time around. I didn't realize ulcers could make you that sick. The antacids and acid-blockers are helping me recover now.

Anyway, I'm feeling somewhat better now and probably won't die. See you later! It's time to go drop some antacid!

Criminy! Not again!

Sorry, it's been awhile since I posted. Again.

When I started this blog, I was like, "It's gonna be the BEST BLOG EVER!! I'm gonna post twice a day, all about my life, and IT WILL BE AWESOME!!"

That was before I got slammed with hypothyroidism and lost the ability to care.

Now that's mostly gone, but instead, my internet has been severed. I was using the people's downstairs, and they've all moved out. My landlady offered to share hers, but I know if I get the internet back, I'll never get off it.

I value my freedom as much as I value my right to blog. I'm a recovering internet-addict, and I'm going to keep it that way.

Unfortunately, this means I can only blog at restricted times of the day. In uncomfortable internet cafes. For a price. So that's annoying, and conducive to nonblogging.

Plus, I've been sick again. I'm not sure what it is, but I can tell you where I got it. Ever since last school term, I've been eating at the Happy Guesthouse. My tuk-tuk driver and friend works there, so I patronise the place for lunch. And I really like their fresh fruit and vegetables. And I pick up parasites from them.

Anyway, today as I was going to school, I suddenly got a massive attack of something that felt like I was about to puke. I ran home in horror and fear, so it's cost me $30 of class time, in addition to the ever-inflating price I must spend on albendazole tablets.

Dammit all.