for the record, hermione would be a fantastic middle name

so i just found this fantastic essay, written in response to a different essay, but most importantly, an essay that speaks to my very book-loving soul.

recently topher and i began a year long gin game (you know, you play with cards) that will culminate in a fantasmic trip to an imaginary prize counter of our creation.  we're keeping score for total points overall, total wins, number of wins over the other spouse, number of points over, etc.

essentially, we've allotted "points" to each of the categories and upon the conclusion of our year+ of gin games, we'll each have some points to spend at our self-devised prize counter.

what i'm most excited for? not trading in for a meal of my choice, prepared by chris, or an early morning dog walk, but this, a prize of my own creation:

one pregnancy/baby related decision.


in theory, i'd spend this on choosing where we'll have our child, or whether or not we find out it's sex, but i'm anticipating that we're actually on the same page when it comes to those things.

i'm going to save my decision for something i've always wanted:

the chance to give our children a middle name from literature.

chris, in his rational way, is adverse to this given that we've already decided to give our future children family middle names.  and, logically, he's against giving our children four names.

as are most of the people we've shared this debate with?! which lends me to wonder why i am friends with all of these rational, even-keeled people?! where are my passionate, overzealous friends that support decisions simply because they seem illustrious and different and exciting?! is it because i am too passionate/overzealous/different that any opportunity to friend these people was overshadowed my own huge personality? let's not answer that.


this all brings us around to the essay that was making the tumblr/internet rounds nearly a year ago, but which i just discovered and in my passionate, overzealous way fell head over heels in love with, and believe it to perfectly support my desire to give our children a literary name in line with their curious, meandering, unique future personalities, experiences and world perspectives.

so yes, i do believe that hermione is a perfect second middle name for our future daughter, and i've got two fantastic literary middle names picked out for future sons, one of which is actually from CHRIS' favorite books and resonates dearly with both of us.

thus, for my husband, who loves and hates my ability to disappear into a book, my incredibly-heavy handbag with a book always in tow, my pleading eyes as I silently ask for it to be ok to settle into my imagination and current novel on the long (and short) car trips...

and for those who question and misunderstand my long-windedness, my overthinking, my endless pursuit of adventure and uniqueness, my deep belief that josephine march, anne shirley, elizabeth bennett and even hermione granger are my sisters and friends and soulmates despite their lack of corporeality...

to all, i plead, read this, believe this, own this, know this.  and then understand me.

You should date a girl who reads.

by Rosemarie Urquico

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

book report: the best in a year

in the last year, i've read nearly one hundred books.

not all of these books have been life-changing, enlightening, or stimulating (though i've held off on the fifty shades series thus far!), but all of them were entertaining.

a few stand above the rest and are heartily recommended for your perusal if you're in the mood for a good book recommendation.

some are recent bestsellers.  others were popular a very, very long time ago.  

but all are damn good.

and you should read them.

unbroken by hillenbrand

read it

so ms. hillenbrand is married to a professor i had a crush on in college.  but beyond that, this is probably THE best book i've read while in cambodia. it's a fantastic true story, written with such candor and with such a narrative structure that i devoured it in less than a day.  honestly, amazing.

i know this much is true by lamb

read it

i realize i am incredibly late to the wally lamb game, but this book is fantastic. another huge book that i couldn't put down and read it at a rapid pace over the course of a weekend.  amazingly written story about a brother's love and his own winding history and the impact of daily decisions on an entire life.

pendergast series by preston and child

read all of the pendergast series

chris introduced me to these authors and these books and they're fantastic.  a charismatic, brilliant fbi agent from new orleans solves a lot of really weird puzzles.  sounds so corny, but actually awesome and often even a little terrifying!

the immortal life of henrietta lacks by skloot

read it

this is the book i just completed, and i have to shout it from the rooftop: you must read this.  an amazing TRUE tale of the woman who changed science forever, how she wasn't even given the right to agree to do so, and the implications of the intersection of poverty, race and science.  marvelous.

the paris wife by mcclain

read it

this really well written novel sparked a month long stalker-like interest in ernest hemingway.  i'm still reaping the rewards of that and have yet to finish two of his books- but this not-quite-true story of his first wife was wonderful.

little house on the prairie series by ingalls wild

read them all

i mean, we should all re-read them at some point in our life.  and they're great!

bossypants by fey

read it

you had to have heard how hilarious and well-written this book is.  it's not overrated and it's a nice, easy read. perfect for the beach and summer!

what good books have you read recently?

our future children

i love my husband.

but.

with these sweating genes, there is just no hope for those future kids.


***
dear yet-to-be-conceived chunk monsters,


your mom and dad love you. a lot.  even though we tried to give you lots of our good traits- you know, your dad's even temper and general likability, your mom's overzealous passion and love of reading- we probably passed one of our more unfortunate genes down the line.


more than likely, you're probably rocking sweat stains like this:

you're welcome. and we're sorry.


love,
those people who keep accidentally flinging salty sweat-water in your face while we change your diaper.  it's all in the name of love.


promise.

what's in a year?

5,403 texts sent or received.

1822 kilometers biked.

750 liters of water slogged.

523 bowls of rice consumed.*

303 cold showers enjoyed.

152 movies watched.

124 life long friends made.

88 skype conversations held.

83 full books and half of 5 books read.

70 warms showers enjoyed even more.

39 seasons of various television shows viewed 

(6 seasons of dexter, 3 seasons of glee, 7 seasons of the office, 6 seasons of how i met your mother, 5 seasons of the big bang theory, 5 seasons of always sunny in philadelphia, 3 seasons of archer, 2 seasons of game of thrones and 2 seasons of park and recreation.)

25 stops to fill flat bike tires.

14 amazing boxes from home received.

9 khmer ruffled shirts measured, purchased, worn and covered in sweat.

7 sampots measured, purchased, worn and covered in sweat.

7 new family members acquired.

2 cases of giardia and countless bouts of diarrhea.

1 year of a life-changing experience that can't be measured...

1 year now completed.

one year in.

*actually incredibly low compared to other volunteers.

what's happened in the last year of your life?

ten days of joy

it has been a frenetic and exciting ten days.

let's discuss.

it all began with some of this:

after a bunch of this:

oh dairy queen, how you enliven my soul and sustain me through the darkest of hours. 

like, nightime in cambodia.

i love thee, sweet swirly vanilla ice cream!

**

and then, i was lucky enough to be drawn in a pcv raffle to see madame secretary of state clinton on her asian world tour as she stopped by cambodia for a few days.

i hung out with these fantastic people:

and snapped a shot with this kid:

while waiting for this awe-inspiring woman to show up:

which she did. and it was ten minutes of pure awesomeness. 

this was the second time i was lucky enough to hear ms. clinton speak and be within five feet of her.  the last time, as an intern at emily's list, she was senator clinton.

and of course, she rocked it.

**

and lastly, we welcomed the newest batch of peace corps trainees to our little corner of the globe, which meant an excuse to see some of my absolute favorite girls in the 'bode.

and as tradition dictates, we screamed and terrified the new group as they arrived off the plane and did our best to show our enthusiasm for their arrival and the beginning of their own 27 month journey.

i stole this picture from facebook. specifically, tony. thanks tony!

topher and i, along with several other volunteers in our province, spent the last week helping out with their initial training (which is happening in our province again! what up.)

and today, those fantastic fifty eight trainees made their way to their villages to begin the next seven weeks of language and technical training, which really, we can just call:

learn how to live in the excruciating heat without the amenities you're used to while cramming your brain with as many new phrases and words as you can and using them whenever you can to build your language abilities, as well as diving into figuring out how to do the job you've been assigned, alongside making bunches of new friends and finding lifemates that will endure alongside you for the next two years.
while living with a host family.


yep.

fantastic.

so i say unto you americans, get thee to a dairy queen! enjoy that delicious swirly goodness! like a cone! or a dilly bar! or even a blizzard! 

how was your week?

everything i wanted to say, said better than i could

i'm pretty sure i've titled five draft posts, all with the words "one year" in them.

i've been drowning in the how, the how of capturing what my life has been the last twelve months, what living in cambodia as an american volunteer is like, and how i can help you all see it without constantly streaming my every thought and interaction.

and then a fellow volunteer, a k5 just like me, and an awesome married one to boot, wrote this:

Reflections on Cambodia: Year One

and it has struck a chord with every single cambodian peace corps volunteer i have spoken with.

katie captures our daily life here, the frustrations, the reasons for our heartache, for our questioning of ourselves and our work, the reasons for our hope and happiness and the deep exhilaration at the beginning of each day.

some of my favorite lines from katie's eloquent post:

Cambodia is the sound of roosters in the mornings and dogs at night. The monks’ rhythmic chanting drifting from the wat. It’s the discordant sounds of a wedding or a funeral. Dishes clinking next door or a baby crying. Cambodia is Pitbull and K*Pop, Karaoke and Prom Manh. It’s that same female voice, shrill and submissive, blaring from the TV. Cambodia is the deafening sound of a monsoon falling on the roof. And it’s a silence, a devastating silence, when voices should be heard.

and these:

Cambodia is emerald fields and killing fields. Disappearing forests and lakes filled with dirt. It’s a flood that ruins the crops. Cambodia is border wars and broken promises. It’s a billion dollars of aid and discouraging results.

and finally, these last words:

Cambodia is rice farmers. Factory workers. Small business owners. Cambodia is a yay with a checkered kroma tied on her hairless head. A grandfather speaking French under his breath. It’s a teacher trying to do the right thing. A mother standing up for her community. Cambodia is a seller in the market, giving a discount and a smile. It’s a tour guide, beaming with pride. 

Cambodia is exhilarating, inspiring and exhausting. 

And, for now, Cambodia is my home.

please click over and spend a few minutes immersed in her post.

while i return to my five empty posts and begin again processing this experience and attempts at insight.

and then i was revisiting our life a year ago.

topher and i are thirteen days from our one year anniversary of arrival in country.

today, in america, the new groups of peace corps cambodia almost-trainees are descending upon the district (of columbzzz!) to begin their staging- their pre-plane ride info extravaganza!

these past few weeks, they were probably doing the same things that el hubs and i were this time last year.

mainly, i hope, EATING AS MUCH DELICIOUS FOOD AS POSSIBLE. preferably with family members.

saying tearful goodbyes to their said family members and such.

topher and i attended our staging in san francisco.  this was the absolutely farthest west chris had ever been in america.  prior to that, his first time west of the mississip? 

visiting yours truly in the ye olde grande idaho.

after the seven hour staging (read: orientation) in san fran, chris and i enjoyed our final meal in america:

can we just agree that the hot food/cold food/salad bar/bakery at whole foods is pretty much the best grocery food bar of all the grocery food bars?

back when chris and i used to look like this:

we would visit the WF pretty frequently, even if just for their cookies.  it was just a short university shuttle ride away, and right next to the video rental store (which is, sadly but not quite surprisingly, no longer in business), and a bit more gourmet than our other option of swedish fish and reeses from the cvs around the corner.

(the fish and the chocolate, being more within a college students' budget range, we enjoyed even more frequently.)

our final night in america was spent battling the san francisco wind to reap the spoils of the whole foods food bar.

and what spoils they were.

yes those are three desserts and a spoon/fork.*  

we are the type of people that can remember to buy three kinds of dessert- chocolate, berry and cheesecake- but forget to grab utensils.

priorities.

*chris would like to maintain that his steel spoon/fork is a spork.  now, we know that it's not. a spork inherently shares the same base/bowl and allows the spoon to gently swoop into the tines of the fork.  but, he's adamant. and wrong. but we love him anyway.

getting around: cambodia

transportation in cambodia is...

different.

few people own cars.

nearly every single family has a motorcycle or large scooter, called a

moto.

getting from your homeland (that is, where you live) to a large city or the country's capital of phnom penh is...

an experience.

here's an assorted collection of photos, an homage if you will, to the transportation options most available to me, given my budget...

plus some moto pics thrown in for fun, even though i've never ridden one here, as we have a 

chbawp klung

or

strong rule

against it in peace corps.

(it's the leading killer of people on the streets, i tell you.  dozens, if not hundreds, die in moto accidents each year.  and thousands are injured.)

(i didn't look the stats up to confirm those numbers but their mostly maybe true, i tell you, true!)

the bicycle. my main mode of transportation.  the cheapest form of transportation, used mostly be children going to school and poorer people.

 a van. always, ALWAYS, filled to the brim.  full of humans, objects, rice, fruit, whatever. just full.

pictured below, a not-so-crowded van. i think we only had 22 people in there. 

you can grab a seat in a van by heading to the place in the town that they congregate- if you know it- or just stand by the side of the road and flag them down. easy as pie.

no A/C. no seat of your own. only $2 to $5 dollars to get most anywhere!

tuk tuks! they sit by the side of the road in phnom penh, or near large monuments or statues in our town, and wait for people to walk by. if you're foreign, you're also lucky enough to usually get graced with "hey lady! tuk tuk?! lady?" or "need tuk tuk, sir? sir?!"

 ahh. and now, my favorite, the bus.  our bus to our town is itty bitty, without storage space below for bags- only large boxes of fruit, if dare- as well as the low price of just $3 to get from Phnom Penh to our town in around three hours, on a road that usually takes a car one hour.

chock full of load televisions that blare khmer music videos, whether you want them to or not.

 and often full of people who struggle with car sickness, as detailed here.

in all seriousness though, the bus is my favorite mode of transportation in cambodia. fairly reliable, most likely to lead to a seat all your own, and low cost.

and the illustrious moto.  

seen below is the topher's favorite sight- "five on a moto!" and the common "carpool" to pick up kids after school.  usually driven by a man or woman not wearing a helmet, the image below is actually rather positive, if you can look past that whole four-kids-without-any-sort-of-protection-at-all sort of thing.

you know.

how do we get around in america again?

i think i've forgotten.

at least, my wallet and sweat glands have.

man, i can't wait to drive a car again.

you know, in fourteen months.

on the universality of unbridled joy

june was a big month, secondary-projects-wise, for le toph and me.

secondary projects are those things we do outside of our main roles as peace corps volunteers. our main, official jobs are english teacher (chris) and teacher trainer (me) and the two big projects we both completed in early june revolved around the less defined umbrella of "youth development."

the first weekend in june, topher and many other male pcvs arranged a weekend workshop just for young high school aged males.  they named the workshop B.R.E.W. Crew- an acronym that stands for Boys Respecting Empowered Women- and focused on understanding the nuances between males and females, especially in cambodia, and how these young men could use their leadership to both sustain and grow their own impact and health, but also work to grow their understanding and support of women's roles, power and significance in a global, ever changing society.

it was a fantastic weekend.  the pcvs who planned the weekend did a great job and i was honored to be asked to support their work and even present alongside chris on the topic of healthy relationships and more specifically, our healthy married relationship.



and finally.  there is one moment from the B.R.E.W. weekend that will forever go down in my books as one of my top five favorites from my entire two years living in cambodia.

the final evening, it was arranged that these hard working, smart, funny khmer students would visit the beach, which was a short tuk tuk ride from where the workshop was being held.

and that moment, when the majority of these fourteen through eighteen year olds, jumped into the ocean for the first time in their life, and exclaimed with glee and excitement and overwhelming, unbridled joy...



in that moment, my heart grew three sizes bigger.

welcoming america to our little corner of cambodia.

i'm effervescently excited about this summer. for a large number of reasons: number A having just occurred, letter 2 to occur in two short weeks and number C happening in mid august.

number A: my parents just visited topher and me in our little part of the south east asian world.  we met them in thailand and dazzled them with our noodle and curry eating abilities.

and then we actually impressed them (maybe?) with our khmer-speaking ways in cambodia.  while here, we visited angkor wat (for the first time!), hung out at a fantastic hotel in phnom penh, introduced our sleepy town to the watts' and spent a night at what might be chris' and mine favorite hotel this side of the national date line.

i'm waiting on my mom's pics before i do a full recap, but it was truly fantastic having them here.

this week, topher and i and jill and other PCVs in our little province are helping out peace corps with the training of trainers- providing advice for dealing with americans fresh off the boat, being guinea pigs during role plays, and generally helping to prepare twelve awesome khmer men and women for that which is pre-service training.

in just over two short weeks, we'll be welcome nearly sixty new trainees to cambodia which just SHOCKS the hell out of me.  can i really have been here for a year? is this job, experience, life really half over already?

i am ready to kick pre-service training into high gear though as well. i and three other TEFL volunteers have been working with PC staff for months now preparing sessions and tweaking objectives and drafting information sheets in excitement for eight weeks of technical training so that our mainly-generalist new cambodian trainees can become rock-n-roll teachers!

and those that know me KNOW that there is very little i love more than providing any assistance and wisdom i have for those brave enough to trek down the path that is educating young people, whether it be in urban baltimore or rural cambodia. bring it k6s! woot!

and finally, can we just pause and get real, real, REAL excited for august? when one of my most FAVORITE of people on this EARTH joins chris and i with her glorious husband for a week in cambodia? paige somehow decided that the best way to celebrate completing her bar exam was to fly thirty hours to visit this girl in the hottest place on earth.  and she's even foregoing what i've heard are beautiful beaches in thailand for more time with us in the 'bode.

this girl! 

amazing.

and that, my friends, is how you write a blog post mainly about things that did happen without providing details and things that are about to happen without any pictures as proof.

alternately, how you write a blog post that reads like a diary entry of a fourteen year old girl.

happy friday!

i'm not dead

despite an alarming lack of writing, both me and this blog are in fact NOT dead or even on a respirator.

the past two months have been a good kind of insane and happy and full and fulfilling.  i'll share some of those most favorite moments soon, but it has been the best to feel, daily, completely and utterly serene with one's place, both emotionally and physically.

i still get excited thinking about my career post-cambodia and where we'll go next as a little family- do we grow? when? are we ready?- but mostly, i'm content in the day to day, simple life here in cambodia.

it's a heady thing, realizing how unflinchingly lucky you are when you are given over two years to simply exist, experience and expand with your favorite person.  we gave up a great deal- me, a job i adored with people i admired and respected and both of us, a home that we love welcoming people to or enjoy lounging around in on a lazy sunday afternoon and families that love us more than we deserve- but we're getting a great deal in return.

we've received swarms of amazing friends, both american and cambodian alike.  people whom, i have no doubt, would do anything to help us at the simple request of "please."  people who feel comfortable sitting, talking about nothing for hours on end.  friends that i know we'll have for the rest of our lives, and that our children will grow up calling aunt and uncle.

we've received an additional family, complete with a host mother who gets mad when i don't return her calls fast enough and asks me every single day if i need anything, a host sister that loves to joke around with us but can kill a menace on eight legs faster than anything and the best three little host nieces and nephew who's screams of "aunt! uncle!" when they hear our bikes click up to the front gate are enough to turn any sort of frustrating, sweaty, disappointing day into an instantaneous success.

we've received new skills in the art of living and working with people, especially those whom initial ideas and customs are inherently completely different.  and i've received a new motto for my life that will guide me through my deepest fears of not-over-planning and not-being-the-best:

mistakes are new experiences.

so, in sum:

there is contentment taking a permanent hold of my heart.

there is anticipation of what the next fourteen months holds.

there is commitment to sharing the steps along the way with you all.

*******

and now i have to go watch topher attempt to beat a new level of angry birds.

and then gloat about my supreme awesomeness of crushing those irksome little pigs. ha!