Interweb Braindump

It's been 17 days since I got the internet in my apartment.

Less than 2 weeks after the new JICA volunteer Fukimi told me that she had wireless in her apartment, Voila, I'm connected once again to the world. Specifically, now I'm able to do things like video-chat with my favorite people at a mutually convenient hour -- something that was difficult to do previously since most of my friends & family are 14 hours away, and though local internet cafe advertises 7am to 9pm, the reality's a bit more limited.

I went to visit Kizuna Internet, the local Online reseller, where the sweet young guy walked me through all the details in Khmer-nglish while his mother and sister undertook a friendly interrogation about the purpose and the probable duration of my sojourn here in Kampong Cham. A week later, I was back in the office handing over a couple of crisp Jeffersons (in exchange for a receipt and a bag of those good-quality rambutans). Two days after that, Kizuna boy and his moto trailed me and my bicycle back up to the apartment where he efficiently clipped the telephone wire to attach the DSL line and configured my modem all within the lunch hour.


My Family DSL package, compliments of the Online company entitles me to unlimited hi-speed access from 7pm to 7am on weekdays and all weekend. Surprise surprise, I've noticed myself slowly start to mold my schedule around the new presence in my life. Each night around 7, I plug in my router, and first start up the iTunes downloads for the night -- an episode of Grey's Anatomy (don't judge), 3 new Ted Talks, NPR's Most Emailed Stories, and some foodie podcasts. Then it's straight to Gmail, then to Blogger, then on to the tasklist I've compiled for the evening, which looks something like this:

-- respond to all emails
-- post new blog post + pix
-- upload new fbook pix
-- get picture of urban cambodian school, CD-rom, and "rural Cambodia" (creative commons)
-- research green school architecture
-- look into Global Giving commission for KAPE
-- d/l examples of good local NGO websites for Channa
-- add new reviews to goodreads

My internet tasklist is a new invention of mine that came of having to ration my online time when hitting up the local internet shop in the old pre-DSL-at-home days. And as much as I love the new flexibility of having internet in my house, I'm happy I spent those first 5 months without because it helped me to internalize some things that I only halfway intuited before:

1) The internet's a tool -- amazing for some tasks, of negative value for others. (Think: distraction, distorted perception of the world)
2) Internet use, like a lot of things, is subject to diminishing rate of return.
3) Growing up with the internet really has changed the way I think and work, in many very good ways and in some that seem not so good.

The first two ideas are pretty straightforward and not so controversial (unless of course you find yourself in a certain cult of tech-worshippers). The last also seems obvious at face-value, but it was the most surprising for me when I actually started considering just how much information access affects the way I personally think and work. For example...

3a) Easy access to data all-the-time, any-time means that I tend to undervalue the importance of actually filing facts away in my mind. This includes both personal facts -- what day is my best friend's birthday? check Facebook! -- and general trivia. This second lacuna is constantly brought to my attention here in Cambodia; for example, when a group of high school students asked me questions like -- How deep is the Grand Canyon? What year was the Statue of Liberty built? What percentage of people in your country live in urban areas? I find my fingers itching to reach out to a keyboard and perform a simple search. And it simply baffles them when I shrug helplessly and more than a little ashamedly and admit that I just don't know.

I think this is the same condition that makes it so rare for any of us these days to memorize or recite poetry, or to remember famous quotes. Why remember when Google can remember for you? When the internet is for all intents and purposes, a repository of facts that plugs in to your brain, your brain itself can dedicate itself to being something less like an encyclopedia and more like a supremely complex computer that takes random facts and (in the best cases) fits them together into something new.

What (if anything) do we lose in this relationship, though? There seems to be something hollow about this kind of mind -- one's put in mind of these competing images: a giant pulsing cerebrum hooked up to an IV drip of information versus a glowing green brain sprouting from the ground, an organic product nurtured by sun and soil and all that other nice stuff.

3b) An obsession with what's been done means learning from what's coming before, but also possibly relying too much on past models and dampening innovation. With every new idea I have -- a business idea, an opinion of a book, a philosophy -- I find myself compelled to find out what other people have done and what other people think. This has a couple of effects. First it reduces the number of times I have to "reinvent the wheel," which seems more efficient (e.g. finding a checklist on how to perform an energy audit to "green a school" means that I don't have to make one myself). But it also happens to reduce the number of times I have to "reinvent the wheel," which often makes for a superficial understanding of the wheel in question (e.g. energy use at schools) and also might make me lazy and likely to settle for what's out there rather than innovate.

3c) Related to 3b, a depressing (and I believe, incorrect) feeling that everything worthwhile in the world has been done already and it's a lost cause trying to have a new idea AND the conflicting feeling that the world is full of so many opportunities that it is impossible to choose which one to pursue (check out Barry Schwartz's Paradox of Choice, or the recent NY Times article "The Benefits of Closing a Few Doors")

Neon Lichens and French Ghosts

When we set off to Kampot last weekend to trek up Bokor Mountain, the footage in my head played back a gently sloping dirt path through luscious (but just-so neatly pruned) jungle -- the occasional whoop of a monkey, the busy chirp of cicadas, the far-off trickling of a waterfall. The word "trek," in fact, seemed to be a romanticized overstatement, for marketing purposes only. Though it wasn't the soul-scraping, test-of-will adventure of the kind I imagine you get in Nepal or those other countries where rosy-cheeked sherpas laugh behind your back at you and your shiny Patagonia gear, it required more sweat than I anticipated.

We set off from Sen Monorom guest house at 7am, bellies full of pork rice, doused in 97% DEET, hanging on for dear life as we perched on the sides in the back of the pick-up truck. The core crew consisted of

1) Lauren - lover of trees and of the French and my first friend in Cambodia;
2) Tom - Lauren's new boyfriend, a younger man, interested in knowing things about current events;
3) Chris - Lauren's easy-going ex-high school boyfriend, randomly in Cambodia;
4) Matt - a pescatarian designer who likes beer and is training for a marathon with Lauren;
5) moi

L&T were nearest the cabin and Chris and I were directly across. Matt hung precariously off the left-back corner next to Lauren.First we stopped to collect Alps Man, a solitary, broody, slightly greasy figure, who (despite our well meaning attempts at friendliness) sat down next to me, then got busy ignoring everyone and focusing his dark energies on strategies to conquer the mountain. At the next stop, a couple hopped up into the cab, an attractive Puma employee and a very German German Finance man, who I only later realized were emphatically just friends. Next, at a guesthouse called Orchid (or something similarly tropical) some familiar faces from drinks the night before -- Ricky and Mandy -- a cheery, young and thin British pair, clean and pretty like a soap ad. Last in were our Khmer guides and so we were off.

The ranger and his gun who were scheduled to accompany us up the mountain had apparently had too much to drink the night before, so after waiting 30 minutes, we decided to brave the wilderness sans automatic rifle and headed towards the trailhead.

At first the going was easy. Then, we began to hit sections where the trail wound up and up so that I often bent my smallish legs at 90-degree angles to take the next step and found myself flailing at smooth saplings to pull myself up and over the next slippery obstacle. We stopped at a waterfall and sighed at the hugeish multicolored pile of plastic & styrofoam (miraculously absent previously on the trail) and did our best to snap artsy shots of the huge and diverse lepidoptera. While some folks showered off the sweat, our camo-clad ranger and his gun snuck up on us, his posture an awkward mix of sheepish and don't-give-a-damn.

It's not clear whether everyone else was simply a powerhouse, or if they, too, were shamed by our wiry nearing-50 guide who leapt blithely up the hill; a man in comparison to whom we (graceful Mandy included) could be nothing but large clunky white folks. But despite the slight shame, I felt good. I'm sure any and all toxins that lurked in me oozed out with all that sweat; the rests were sufficient, and I had an extra bottle of water. And best of all, two hours in, we met a group coming down who exclaimed (not a little jealously) over our breakneck speed.

So we put our chins down and puffed our chests out and continued up the hill, and at the point where our jungle trail intersected dirt road, we refused the offer to wait awhile for a lift from a truck.

Eventually, we hit the summit and the King's Concubines' retreat. (In fact, it only took about 3.5 hours for the 3000ft ascent -- not bad at all). We rested and at lunch -- a sort of potato, veggie fried rice concoction with an egg a-top that made all of the boys ill later that evening. Then we started off on the last 8 or so miles of mercifully flat dirt road.

Unmercifully, the flat dirt road turned out to be nothing much more than advertised -- and flat dirt gets a bit boring after awhile, so around mile 6, I flailed my arms at a huge yellow dump truck, and to my great delight, I saw that the guide's son had beat us to it and already made arrangements and motioned for us to clamber on in.


Hair blowing in the wind, feet sinking in construction clay, we made our way over the last few miles to the ranger station where we'd spend the night.

The sky was clear around the town, despite previous reports and expectations, so after a brief sit-down on the steps of the ranger station, a few of us broke off and went to explore the concrete ruins up on the cliff's edge. We skirted the massive hole where construction of the new casino was underway. Scampering up between two buildings, past a huge concrete umbrella (or mushroom?) we headed towards the old casino. As we made our way up, the mist dropped silently in around us.


The hotel-casino was covered in moss and emergency-orange lichen, dripping and disintegrating and now shrouded in dense grey.


We explored the building basement to rooftop ceiling, thoroughly spooking ourselves considering the ghosts of the lavish parties of the haute monde that must have boogied down in the decaying ballroom.



We walked over to the edge where cloud dripped off the high plateau onto the thick forest cover below. Up beyond the construction site, the compound was completely silent, but approaching the edge of the cliff, the sounds of the jungle rushed up to envelop us in a sort of acrophobic, one-with-nature trance.


We tucked into bed by 9pm, only that late by extreme exercise of will. I got lost for an hour or two with a German, but the hike down the next morning was otherwise uneventful. By 1pm, we were in Kampot eating fried rotis and drinking piping hot masala tea.

Les Frenchies

Once upon a time, there was a crew of four friends who went on a journey to far-away Kampong Cham.

Marie, Clara, Yann and Raphael (better known to some as Les Frenchies) came from the same medical school in Caen and decided one day that they'd had it with all the camembert, brioche, and apple tarts and flew away on a plane to far-off Cambodia.

Yann was older by a bit, and serious. Marie was level-headed, authentic and had a beautiful smile that surprised you when you didn't expect it. Rafael was energy and craziness -- a marvel on the dancefloor, and Clara was the sparkle, a beauty who looked right at you when you spoke, who loved acting and could tame wild horses.

When they arrived in their new home in Kampong Cham town, they had no idea that just upstairs lived a solitary, shaggy headed American girl and her Cambodian cat. And so, for a full month, the Frenchies lived and worked in the town went about their business, working at the local hospital, meeting cute children, looking out for river dolphins in Kratie; while the girl upstairs went about hers, writing reports, playing with her cat and cooking spicy curry on her two burner stove.

One day, the shaggy headed girl had a visitor, A. Her friend, like her, loved food, so they hatched a plan for an elaborate feast. Since it didn't make sense to have a feast for two, the girl decided to invite her downstairs neighbors up. At eight-o-clock sharp, they knocked politely on the door with cold Angkor beer and Pringles, and so began their friendship.

The Frenchies, the girl, and their friend A had many adventures together -- dancing until dawn on a ship moored in the river, watching a frog fisherman near the abandoned airstrip, eating beef soup and eels, presenting to a room of monks in saffron robes, playing & cooking for a weekend-straight. They got to meet each others' sweethearts and talk a little about dreams. They called the girl ma Jess because she helped them out with some little things, but in exchange she had the time of her life, and an education in key French phrases: "Truc de Oeuf!"

Sadly, Les Frenchies were not to stay forever, and eventually, one-by-one, they hugged her goodbye as they headed off on other adventures. They told ma Jess to come visit in Caen and they would feed her Boeuf Bourguignon and good red wine and teach her more cool things to say in French.

After a trip back to her own country, ma Jess moved into their old flat. Many mornings, when she heads to the kitchen to make her morning coffee, she thinks about Les Frenchies and what they're doing now.

Good Advice, Good Mentors

Lisa -- educational consultant extraordinaire
Lisa and I have actually never met in person, but she's been a fantastic sounding board over the past few months as I've been adjusting, coping, learning here.

"No matter what you do, I am certain that you will be contributing, so become an advocate for yourself. If there is something else you want to do within the organization, ask them how you can make that happen. [...] Maybe it's time to be a little selfish and think about your own goals.....like I said, I am certain that when you are doing what you want to be doing, you will probably be contributing even more."

Chris -- brilliant education innovator & co-founder of the African Leadership Academy
Chris and I met in 2005 working on a project with Linda Darling-Hammond in the Stanford School of Education. A personal hero.

"If it makes you feel any better, I spent 5 years after college with basically no idea what I was going to do and chalking up random experiences – and then all of the sudden it came together and made sense and I have relied on each of those experiences in my current capacity. So. . . I think you will be fine."

Yoli -- passionate advocate of youth and overall awesome person
Yoli took me on as an assistant in 2005-06 on a project called ADAPT at McClymond's High School in West Oakland. Beautiful, authentic and passionate and completely inspiring.

Diana -- social entrepreneur in Cambodia; founder of Bloom Bags
I've never met Diana, but my half-Singaporean self feels a strange kinship :) My dream is to start a social enterprise as well, but back in the States, and I love her ideas and her passion.

first 7 tenets of her Bloom Manifesto:
"1. We believe in the right of all people to a decent life, free of poverty and with access to education

2. We believe you will be enriched helping the poor

3. We believe workers should always be paid a fair wage

4. We believe if you knew the truth, you would not be an accessory to the exploitation of workers

5. We believe exploitation is evil

6. We believe in the power of good over evil

7. We believe in the power of the individual to bring about change..."

Barbara -- Kingsolver, that is. Author of (among other things) Small Wonder
Perhaps it's just the case that my open mind's just the perfect size and shape at the moment, but her essays struck a timbre in me and shook me down in a way that will definitely shape the next few steps in my life. Oh, to write like that.

Raja Grows Up -- a Photoessay

Baby Raja in the drawer at the FCC, the morning after rescue in May

Momma Mayumi feeding Raja with the syringe back in Kampong Cham

Looking less than gleeful post bath

Her baby nose is peeling

Getting her scratch on

Raja meets pappa Jaime for the first time

Still an alien cat

Playing it cool on the balcony

Getting more love from Les Frenchies

Sitting pretty on the bed spread

Chowing down

Jess as Producer

Just signed a new contract this week to product three short videos for an international NGO. I put together a little movie as an experiment and it turns out that some folks in this NGO liked what I had done and decided to hire me to make more over the next month or so. I feel a bit like an impostor given that I have no previous experience with video editing, shooting... production, but I'm going to do my best and see where that takes me.

Things have been rough at the local NGO. The project I was working on was abruptly cancelled, leaving much of our staff (including myself, the expensive consultant) in limbo for the past couple of months. Without burdening this (small but elite) audience with boring details, the project's death was a basically the perfect case-study of all the things that can go wrong in development (project-based funding meaning salary insecurity for local staff; petty corruption; international NGOs making ridiculous requests and bullying local NGOs).

Thankfully, yesterday we got two pieces of really good news which have lightened up the atmosphere in the office considerably and mean that I'll probably be able to continue this video gig until I leave. Pretty spiffy.

Kitty's growing up

She's looking downright purty...

Life ADD

8:54 p.m. this Monday night, it's post-shower and I'm slathered with skin-so-soft, sprawled out on my bed like a beached porpoise.

Despite an unfortunate interruption of my shower -- suddenly no more water from the showerhead, or the faucet, or in the other bathroom, OR THE KITCHEN SINK -- I was finally able to rinse off some of the suds by emptying out my water filter. I guess all the effort put me in a contemplative mood.

The brief period of mourning over losing my friends is coming to an end and I'm starting to get busy again. I realize that my habit of wanting to do everything (KAPE work, BSDA, this new American club, photography, cooking experiments, parties, travel, blogs, emails, reading tons, figuring out what to do with myself post-December) often means the peanut butter gets spread too thin. I, for one, HATE my bread with too little spread. Yet (to draw out the analogy in an agonizing fashion) I not have figured out how to achieve a balance -- more peanut butter (energy! motivation! passion!) spread over a smaller slice. (I could go on to talk about cutting empty carbs, but that might be going too far).

Writing seems to be essential to keeping my sanity; emails, to keeping my connection with the outside world. KAPE work's necessary for the salary, plus the experience I'm now getting with the video stuff. Cooking/travel/hanging out/taking pictures/reading are all just fun.

But where am I supposed to fit in my "life's work", my big project that will define my life and change the world? I'm always taking on these new small projects: Learn Khmer, make a video, keep a record of the books I read... but I seem sort of short on the follow-through. My attention span wavers after about 3 mos (maybe 6 mo to a year for things that are less monotonous) and I'm on to something different. I've been searching for something to inspire me, so I can dedicate my life to its pursuit, but it seems to me that life is just so full and varied that I'll always be distracted by something new.

Not that I pretend these feelings are original, I know a few 20somethings of my generation with similar angst, but that only makes me feel marginally better.

In this respect, seems like I need to lock myself into some pattern (med school?) that forces me to stick with something for awhile. Perhaps passion at first sight of my true life's path is a bit much to ask and I need to stick things out a bit more rather than hope for an instant "click" and quick gratification.

On the other hand, what better time to explore than when you're young? I only feel like I'm losing time -- like I should have done more exploring and less "achieving" when I was still in high school and college. Alas, something to think about when I have children of my very own.'

Bye Bye July (and August)

The blog suffered in the last month, but thankfully my posting frequency had a direct negative relationship with FUN over the last 5 weeks.

Jaime arrived on the 19 July and stayed for 3 weeks. No need to replicate the play-by-play from my journal, but here are some highlights:

Biking the big temple circuit, sunrise at Bayon temple & Indiana Jonesing around Beng Melea

Sunsets and a raucous all-day, all-night party weekend in Kampong Cham

Plus a 2-day dive trip in Sihanoukville -- including great coral and some awesome seafood spaghetti

And... unsticking an unstickable traffic jam and joining the road repair crew to rescue our bus.

Unfortunately, my camera suffered an injury and will be out of commission until further notice.

On 8 August, we headed out of Phnom Penh airport for Seattle. We finally made it after some $20 bowls of ramen and a 7 hour stopover in Taipei. My family met us at the airport. Jaime headed home to Bellingham and I had my first burrito in 4 months (heaven!) and fell asleep in the plush white linens of the swanky downtown "W" hotel.

Me, mum & dad, Cameron and Beck headed to Bellingham a couple days later for a rousing game of kickball and delicious brats with Jaime and crew. Then we headed out to the San Juan islands for a gorgeous week of biking, hiking and kayaking. It was the most exercise I've had in 4 months for certain, and it felt GOOD.

Needless to say, the trip left me missing the states, but I'm keeping myself busy and am settling back in nicely.

Won-weey, so won-weey

It's 8:01 Saturday morning and it's been a bit over half-an-hour since my lovely friends Clara and Nico left. So far I've washed some dishes, started some packing, fed the cat, discovered a big cut on my right foot.

But now, before I commence with moving all my stuff downstairs (my landlord recently decided to let my flat to a German woman and has decided that I have to move)... I'm going to indulge myself and give in to the sadness and the slow-moving violin accompaniment in my head.

Last night the three of us had a last hurrah at Frank's bar, with cocktails, a bottle of wine, and some beouf bouignon, just like France. This morning, I sent them off with coffee, omlettes and potatoes to Siem Reap. And now I'm sitting in my half-emptied house alone, contemplating what to do with myself this weekend, this month, and in life.

Being by myself generally suits me just fine. I must have a limited store of social energy and all my solitary time lets me bottle it up in reserve for times when I need to be at my scintillating best. But having just come off of a three-week tour with Jaime, a flurry of merry-making with my new French friends, and ten exhilarating days hiking, biking, and generally living it up with my own family, this sudden isolation is startling and sad.

Sure, all good things must come to an end, but why must they all end at once and so abruptly?

(on a random note, the folks at the Expat Women Blog Directory asked me to submit my blog to their site. It's weird to consider myself an "expat" still. For some reason it conjures up images of old white men with Cambodian girlfriends. But anyway...)