Did you know...?

Did you know that today, June 18th, is the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, the epic battle in which Napoleon and his armies were destroyed?

Like everyone else, his life was a failure by age 45.  Power and glory are no guarantees.

Like Napoleon, I am also a failure, and all my stuff was destroyed on this day too.  By water, appropriately enough.

I left all my stuff in an apartment here for the last year, as it seemed cumbersome to take to Japan.  It was a cheap basement apartment, and I expected stuff to get a bit mildewy with the elements.

But damn.  Wouldn't you know.  The waters of hell apparently rose and engulfed the entire apartment complex sometime last year.  Two feet of water flooded the area, including my apartment.  And they did their damage.

I unlocked my apartment this morning...and the damage surpassed my worst expectations.  The roof had caved in and fallen on top of my bed...upon which lay the skeleton of a dead rat with it's head in a box of rat poison.

My books--many of which were in top condition--now lay partially decomposed, having been overtaken by a recent flood.  Everything was covered in grit and grime, and when I picked up my PlayStation, I was unhappy with the sheer quantity of roach shit that fell out of it.  I did not neglect to notice they had eaten most of the rubber bits off my controller (?).

So, I took all the games, DVDs, electronics, Arabian perfumes, toys, and clothes I might conceivably need in the future.  All I have to do is clean them off.  And then I guess I'll store them with me in my spaceless room in Japan somehow till I go back to the US.

Dunno.

THAT is what I call Waterloo.  And God.  It sucks.
Three cheers for losing everything you own to water on June 18.

It's also the anniversary of the king's death, which I detrimentally blogged about some time ago.  Up next.

N for Napoleon
N for NOOO...!

Back in Phnom Penh

I am back in Cambodia.  I wish it were permanent; alas, it is not.  I must return to Japan shortly.  I haven't written for a very long time, over a year, because frankly, life has sucked.

It sucked so much worse than it ever did in high school, which I've discovered, really ARE the best times of your life.  Despite the fact that I had no friends and was subject to what must surely constitute legally-institutionalized slavery behind a desk all day long.

It sucked more than it did in college, which is supposed to be glorified high school, but found me alone and depressed for seven years.

It sucked worse than the Great Recession which forced me to leave the US in search of work.

It even sucked worse than being ill in Cambodia, in some ways.

Dammit all.

I intend to write the back story very soon--it's an interesting one, I assure you.  Although it didn't seem that way at the time--it felt like an enormous boring waste of life energy.

You don't want to miss it.  I do.

The Dark Time III: Depressive Episode (Jan. 2015)

OK, so last time I told you about my rocky, indignant beginning.  You could accuse me of being anti-social, intolerant, poor-sportsmanlike, and over-dramatic.  You could.

Except my reality was that, as people who've survived trauma often express, all this was incredibly overwhelming.  This was my inner reality--one of extreme torment, and one I could no longer acceptably discharge into the environment.  Laugh at that for being dramatic, but that was exactly how my mind was, and it wasn't really a matter of "positive thinking" or "will power".

And about 3-4 months inward, amidst all my rage, indignity, self-disgust, and shame, I wound up in the middle of a true depressive episode.

I don't mean the whole "I'm depressed and lonely" shtick I've been doing nonstop since adolescence.  I mean like an actual crisis where it takes over your mind and body, you can't get out of bed, you can't concentrate, you can't sleep all night, and then you feel tired all day, you can't eat, you start sobbing randomly for hours on end, and the only thing you can think of is suicide...pretty much the stereotype there.  Sleep, when I could even do that, brought no relief.  I just had nightmares about it.  It physically hurt me.  I mean, a dull ache literally took over my entire body.  I stopped menstruating even, because I just couldn't eat.

The toll this took on me psychologically is obvious.  What it did to me professionally, I am still trying to climb out of.

There was no treatment.  No one even to talk to as my friends and family had repeatedly cold-shouldered all attempts to reach out.  I'd sit there for months, listening to the celebrations of young people going on around me, and the irony struck me--such joy and light, and on the other side of the wall, there sat a black hole.  Life's cruel juxtapositions.

No, I'm not even going to try to pretend that's OK.  But I have to tell the truth on this one.  My time here sucked.


(Backdated from June 2015, on 20 April 2017)

The Dark Time II: Arriving in Japan (Jun 2014)

So the first thing about Japan is...well, we all know the "Japanese Proverb" that "the nail/blade of grass that sticks out/grows too high gets hammered/cut down.

Yep.

I knew that was a thing even before I came here. I knew that from living in the US suburbs for 22 years and going to a suburban high school where EVERYONE had to wear black and white Adidas or be socially stigmatized. A red shirt meant you were gay. A trenchcoat meant you were going to kill everyone. Lol, the 1990s. 

I knew what to expect, and they still managed to flatten me here. Worse, they were all foreigners, too...absolutely no excuse in my mind.

Remember the movie The Seven Samurai? And there's "that one guy". You know the one. The drunk guy who bullshits everyone and chronically screws up...but shows everyone up on their hypocrisy. 

I was that guy. "That Guy".

The first day of training I miscalculated my time and got lost (reading signs and understanding the change in cultural spatial setup is actually a thing), thus staggering in 45 minutes late. Not even drunk. Far worse--thinking for myself. I'd dyed my hair red in recent months, because I liked it. My luggage having arrived the evening before, I hadn't managed to iron my shirt. Unable to afford shoes, I was wearing a highly scuffed pair I procured in Cambodia. 

Because, shit, this was a training session amongst other lost foreigners, not a public presentation.

(And I didn't have any way to contact the organization, not having been given any advice on how to obtain a functional phone and SIM card. )

I was promptly dragged out into the hallway and yelled at. 

It didn't get any better after that.  I went to my new location, and the manager there, while a very nice person, could also be considered a "mom".  And I felt that.

Amongst the other crimes:
- I was then forced to dye my hair and tie it back, which is NOT in the handbook regulations.
- Expected to wear makeup
- Yelled at for coming "on time" (on time is 15 minutes late)
- nailpolish
- sparkles on shirt
- "you're not going out there looking like that?"
- remarks about my hair
- remarks about my eyes
- being on time
- getting lost in a train station

Over the next several weeks, each time I would redouble my efforts, only to be yelled at about something else. It was...hard to endure, to say the least. Basic things.  

I mean, one is inclined to say "culture shock"...but I have never had problems like this in any other country. Not once. Even in Dubai where I was the poor scholarship kid amongst the rich, I didn't quite encounter this level of petty bourgeoisie/nouveau riche idiocy. To my battle-weary, sun-baked, jaded, hell-surviving psyche, it sounded like the biggest bunch of bullshit ever.

That's right. I've been deathly ill for years on end, starving, living under the yoke of terror (thyroid-induced panic attacks, I kid you not), too sick and aching to get out of bed, every symptom known to man, accosted and robbed of my only valuable possession, kicked out of several homes, survived dengue with permanent ocular damage...all of this ALONE...and I'm being subject to humiliating remarks about my personal appearance by soft little people who know NOTHING about what "life" really is.

I was so enraged that...I just forgot. I just rolled over on it. There was no way to humanly process the utterly un-gratifying indignity of it all.

For a week or so, I nearly--VERY nearly--pulled out, despite the love, care, energy, and life savings I'd put into coming here. In retrospect, I kind of wish I did. (though where would I have gone?) Cause I withdrew into a mire of shame and self-disgust, right back to my angsty, self-pitying days as a lost 10 year old wondering why the hell everyone had rejected me. I avoided all contact with my superiors, and just pretended (with limited success) like I could even respect the judgemental people I was teaching. I'd go home, lock myself in my room, and just stare at the walls, unwilling to be seen by such a wretched mass of humanity. I wore my hair over my face, so they didn't see the alcoholic-looking rings left by my thyroid disease. Ugly, disgusting, and now, aging. 

Because yes, the men in this country are nasty enough to tell me exactly how old they think I look. If it were women, I'd imagine they were jealous of my lighter skin tone or something...but the men? Well, the boys are just as nasty 20 as they were years prior in grade school. I apparently revolt people, as these shameful incidents prove yet again.

You know, I never complained, never told anyone about my feelings. I did get angry and hurl something out my window in a state of rage, and I did lose all respect for humanity permanently. And I tried to reach out to Facebook friends, but they only reacted with contempt. But you, the readers, and I are the only souls upon this earth who know.

And to this day, I feel melancholy, this job being a degrading daily ritual to be endured. Thus, my utter separation from the civilized world has been complete. I'll never belong back in a first world country.

God, I can't even write this up like it's funny or epic. It just makes me disgusted to be human.



Wait till I tell you what happened at New Years.


(Backdated from June 2015, on 20 April 2017)

The Dark Time I: Sorry (June 2015)

Well, it's been, what, a year since I updated?

Sorry.

I'm still in Japan. Dealing with moments even bleaker, impossibly enough, than they ever were in Cambodia--and in retrospect, I have no idea how I even survived that.

My time in Japan has been interesting, I assure you, though it seemed more like a boring drudge at the time.

So far, it's included:

- Utter humiliation at work, multiple times over
- A major depressive crisis
- A very painful Japanese class
- A cringe-inducing run-in with a legit psychopath
- An amorous stalker
- Absurd amounts of McDonalds
- Unfair dismissal

Sorry if this sounds like the cover of a Lemony Snicket book.

The other 99% of my time was spent locked in my room staring at the walls, just watching the time slip away...for a year. So whatever stories I write to make it sound like an epic adventure, I consider this year lost. Utterly lost, just like the 4 that came before it. 

I will be staying another year, dreadfully enough, and I will be updating my backlog shortly.



--

So about the job itself. I'll make no bones: INCREDIBLY disappointing.

The main thing that keeps getting to me is that I'm here in a foreign country. I can't speak the language, I can't even read the signs. I have no idea what I'm doing.

I'm far from my family. I have no friends, I'm alone, and I'm am, in all reality, incredibly vulnerable--a penniless foreigner in a closed community.

So of course the company I'm working for doesn't arrange accommodation, doesn't show me to the visa office (they expected me to just go in and register of my own accord, because I totally am capable of asking around), doesn't front any money (so I'm stuck eating a cup of ramen once per day, and that's it). Asking one's superiors gets a response of "I can't help you with everything!"

The idea is that I am "independent" and therefore I am here on my own terms so I have complete freedom and flexibility...except that I still get in trouble for being late (which here means, "not early"), I still get yelled at if I get a negative review, I can't cancel classes without a supervisor's consent, I still have to follow the "dress code" which even students think is retarded...I could go on. 

Additionally, they sponsor my visa. So obviously I am completely beholden to the company.

It's marketed as "adventure", but basically, it's a slimy way of them refusing to take responsibility or trouble themselves with foreigners. A form of exploitation, and an example of the crass callousness that mankind really is. Even the Chinese weren't this bad. They realized I was far from home, and even if accommodations were basic (and in my case, utilities unpaid), it was a good-faith effort.

Now I knew this coming in. I knew it, I resented it, but I told myself it was better than slowly being psychologically pulled under in Cambodia. It probably still is...but Oh, how I resent it.

And the money.

I was promised I'd be making about $2500 per month. I've been lucky to make half of that. So I've been starving and living in a dorm room, just trying to save money, since of course that was the object of coming here to begin with. I haven't had the money to do anything of interest around the country, or the city. Just sit at home and stare at the walls.

It's basically a popularity contest, getting people to take your classes (they register for your classes)--and I'm so anti-charismatic that of course, I lose business. For months, I was so hungry from not being adequately cared for, that I was just plain crabby, thus making the non-popularity even worse. A self-perpetuating spiral.

I've spent 12 hours a day, 6 days a week just sitting around, hoping someone would show up. I literally sat on my butt so long, my rectum started destroying itself. The mile I ran when I first came here is now an impossibility; I've atrophied in ways that are quite sad (this coming ON TOP of 3 years of illness). I can't even clean my room without my muscles getting sore. I'm getting as soft and useless as the rest of the population.

So as it now stands, 

- I've spent more money coming here than I've earned
- I haven't been able to do what I came here for
- I can't afford any form of distraction
- I can't respect my employers
- I'm completely out of fitness

Why do I stay, you ask?

I'm a prisoner. A financial prisoner; and the only place I have left to go back to is my beloved, hated Cambodia, where all my bad Karma was burned off and which threatens to utterly destroy me if I return for any length of time. And I'm STILL earning more here per month than I ever did there.

I haven't managed to think of anything that I'd "rather" do in an entire year, and I no longer trust myself to make a beneficial decision. See the blog title, "BAD CHOICES"? Exactly. Everything I've done since the age of 26, while gloriously adventurous, was ultimately self-destructive. I've brought myself down through my own ambitions and dreams. I'm a failure. I'm a NAPOLEONIC failure, and I may as well resign myself to my little island.

That's why I stay.

(Backdated from June 2015, on 20 April 2017)