There is a world elsewhere

Over the course of the walk back from Pub Street, I had become acutely aware that I needed to use the bathroom. This was the beginning of my microbial enslavement. Once upstairs, I relieved myself and showered. After a few minutes, Jake decided he needed to shower too. The taps refused. Somehow in the brief interim, the water for the whole building had shut off, not to return until the early hours of the morning. This was not good news for a man who had just found out he’d gotten food poisoning. 

Jake rises early. So, therefore, do I. Sue and Stephen were not awake yet, so Jake and I headed down for a bit of the guesthouse’s own breakfast. O eggs! Father of all our woe! These were the culinary abortions that would lead to days of incontinence and misery—and what’s worse, they were shit. 

For now, though, we were fine. The Irish soon joined the day—turns out Sue had gone to the market earlier anyhow—and were ready for some cooperative fun. Jake and I had been reading in our room for a few hours, and, disappointed by the meager and surreptitiously poisonous breakfast, were ready to eat again when the Irish suggested The Blue Pumpkin. The Blue Pumpkin is a chain bakery/restaurant found throughout Cambodia. It was clean and cool and we had a great conversation over mediocre sandwiches rendered brilliant by Korean’s complete lack of sandwich ability.

The day had a pleasant aimlessness about it—the kind of day where you stop traveling with a capital “T” and settle into a place. Sue later described this phenomenon thusly, while slightly under the influence: “I mean, we’re human beings, not human doings.”

Jake, the ardent Lonely Planeteer, suggested we check out one of the less popular spots in Siem Reap, little more than an unaddressed footnote in his guidebook. This place was described to us by Jake as a puppet shop—”I’m like, really into puppets”—but it turned out to be much more than that. A definite highlight. 

A bit outside of town, this place was a learning workshop for children. They were taught artistic methods with a focus on the creating traditional Khmer shadow puppets. As we entered and were shown around by a California artist and his wife, we learned about the traditions and practitioners of the art, and how it barely made it past the 1970s. In fact, there was an old man, nearly blind, in the corner of the room who was the only person to survive the Khmer Rogue that knew this particular style of puppet making. 

There were not only puppets there, but also larger, more intricate artistic displays that could be hung on a wall. Each was made from a buffalo hide, stretched, shaped, and dyed. As we looked around the shop, we saw pieces in different parts of the process. Some of the kids were even putting on a puppet show with a few of the finished products. It was informal and fascinating to watch. Unsupervised and unscripted, the children’s show quickly became a duel. 

Soon, the kids settled down to another task: drawing. They recreated famous works of art copied from a number of calenders featuring famous painters—Cezanne, Picasso, etc.  The Californian told us that coming here was the first chance for these kids to see major works of western art.  Most of the children there are better artists than I’ll ever be and they’re a third of my age. 

Sue, Stephen, Jake and I went back to the King Angkor Villa for a little down time before dinner and drinks. We ended up somewhere near Pub Street. We found a place with reasonably priced menu items and dug in. Steve and Sue remained entirely delightful throughout our time together. Jake and Steve ordered what appeared to the waitress to be an astonishing amount of beer for themselves, but we all remained civil, jovial, and other adjectives. 

They were leaving in the morning and, sorry that we had not had more time together, we parted ways. 

Mistakes were made. Jake and I were relatively sure that buses would be leaving from Phnom Penh every hour or so, but this turned out not to be the case—at least according to our guesthouse’s owner. She said they left at 9:30am (which we had just missed) and 12:30pm. She’d book us a ticket, but it would not be with the guesthouse’s “preferred service.” This is how I understood it: the times and prices we were quoted originally were not the only options. They were simply the companies that You Khin does business with most often. I have mentioned earlier that every business is intermingled in this country, and You Khin was no exception. They’d put us where they’d get the best commission. C’est la Cambodge. 

With some extra time on our hands before our bus left, we visited S-21, the famous high school-turned-prison that held thousands of prisoners over its lifetime—most of whom were tortured and killed. It was, as one would expect, a thoroughly depressing place. It soon became difficult to walk through room after dilapidated room with anything resembling maintainable interest. The mind builds walls around itself to keep these sorts of things out. Some rooms were empty with only the sun coming through in a shifting square on the scraped up walls. Some held the rusted iron skeletons of bed frames. Other were used to display mugshots and bad paintings. 

Some of the photos were of people bloodied up—split lips, gashes, wounds. There was a glassy blankness in many of the eyes looking back at you from these mugshots. The tired, hungry doomed. I do, however, remember vividly the wide, electric eyes of a young woman with closely cropped hair. Dust smudged her high cheekbones and her lips parted slightly. To think that the fate of this woman, perhaps 22, and those of the men, women, and children whose photographs filled the rooms at Tuol Sleng—to think is to be full of sorrow. 

Even when faced with something as staggering as the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities, Cambodia’s twittering merchants and relentless street kids shook me back. The kids are savvy:

Him: “Would you like to buy this book?” <shows me a copy of Ung’s memoir>

Me: “No, thank you. I’ve already read it.”

Him: “But you haven’t read the sequel!”

We arrived at the busstop around 12:10—”so early to go there,” the owner of our guesthouse said, without adding “because Cambodian buses routinely leave 20 minutes late.” We were seated in the back, a bench-seat we shared with a Pakistani couple and a rotating series of Khmer men. Ever few hours, one would get off and another would flag us down by the side of the road. It was six and a half hours of never-quite-comfortable—moving forward and back, twisting shoulders. My travel companion had it even worse: his bum shoulder would act up on long, confined bouts of public transportation. 

We arrived in Siem Reap and we were picked up by a tuk-tuk driver we didn’t know was waiting for us. Our old guesthouse had kindly called ahead. We pulled up to the King Angkor Villa, where we were to spend the next four nights. 

Here we met up with some old Dajeon pals. Stephen Kelly and Susan Wood, a lovely Irish couple who hit the proverbial road after their contracts expired, greeted us with mirth. Though they had also just arrived in Cambodia, they’d just come off a month in Thailand and seemed old hands at travel in SE Asia. We dined at a nice Indian place whose name now escapes me and walked around the city, getting our bearing. As we walked, Sue gave us the geographical gist—the triangle, the night market, Pub Street. 

We agreed to meet the next day and retired to our rooms. 

Walking alone at night is purest way to feel a new city, or to feel an old one in a new way. I have long been taken with the Baudelarieian flâneur, inspired by a diet of too much poetry into a position similar to though less dour and self-serious than that of our dear friend J. Alfred. Under the tungsten lights of evening in Phnom Penhª, however, walking alone is an invitation to offers of vice and illegality.

When we traveled together, the offers still poured forth with plentiful dispense. Drugs were ubiquitous. Nearly ever tuk-tuk driver you’d refuse would follow up with a list of his other services, none of them legal. But it was something else entirely to be a man alone. 

On my way to the market, I had to pass a row of massage parlors that Jake and I were (rightly) convinced are a kind of red light district, or at least a Russian Roulette game of legitimacy. These shops have men or women standing outside, trying to pull you in (sometimes literally). Just like the Central Market, all the vendors are selling the same product, so they rely on salesmanship to bring in business. Most women get up when they see you, smile and ask if you want “massage—good massage!” The men cajole, cooing slang familiarities like “dude” and “bro” while pointing towards the women in their storefronts. Walking quickly and shaking your head is the best medicine. My parents could not have conceived that the manners they raised me with would one day be used to politely refuse pimps. 

The first (but not final) instance: a young Khmer man around my age spread sluggishly over a plastic chair, idly spinning an unlit Maglite. He leaned forward when he noticed me walking by, but did not get up. 

“Sir,” he said in a hushed yell, “you want a girl?”

“No, thank you,” I said with the same quick smile I gave the hundred other offers for goods and services I received each day in Cambodia.

Just as I was putting some distance between us, he called after me again. “Sir, young girls. Pretty girls.” 

I sped up. 

___________

ª This takes place in Phnom Penh, but the same is true across Cambodia. 

Cultural day in Phnom Penh. Jake and I woke up a little after 8:30am and walked, refreshed, downstairs for breakfast: bread, jams, and a fruit-with-no-name. We laid out our framework for the day, starting with the Killing Fields.

Mohnay was lingering near the entrance, his feet kicked up on the front seat of the tuk-tuk carriage. A younger, attendant friend was propped up against the wheel well, laughing. Mohnay grinned when he saw us and quickly exited the back of the tuk-tuk, asking the question we would hear many times during our fortnight in Cambodia: “Where you go?” Our itinerary was met with assenting nods and muttered yeses that came even before the names of places left my mouth. He said he’d drive us around all day for 25 dollars, American. This seemed reasonable enough considering my love for open-air transport and the several places we’d be visiting that day. It would also save us the business of worrying over every price requested by the various tuk-tuk drivers. 

We set off. The Killing Fields were several dusty roads away, so we did what we’d done on the ride from the airport: absorb. Cambodia—what we’d seen of it—had a unique feel. Appearances put it somewhere near a less Americanized, more Buddhist Philippines. Phnom Penh indeed reminded me of Naga. I’m sure if I make it back here to Thailand, Vietnam, or Laos, I’ll find more resemblances there; but this observation is based purely on my own travel experience. 

We spent about 90 minutes at the Killing Fields, not because there was a terrible amount to see, but because the audio tourª was extensive. They had survivor stories that hit all the worst notes—murder, rape, infanticide—and we slumped around the modestly sized grounds listening. The main attraction, if that word is not too inappropriate here, is the central pagoda. A cold structure—tall and white—the pagoda is kept from beauty by its residents: 19 floors of human remains, classified and labeled. Adolescent female, adult male, children. Skulls, femurs, hips. Incense lit, soon dispersed. 

Along the fence, children asked me to take their picture and begged for money. If you give a mouse a cookie, 13 other mice will see you do it and request cookies of their own. Still…

The sky was choked with clouds and the air moved slowly over me; a few butterflies weaved through the high grass and weeds. None of this felt like it belonged in a place where, just before, I’d seen three human teeth on the ground. 

Aside: These teeth, like the bits of rag caught on tree stumps, are placed or left there for effect. I don’t really take too much issue with this because it is recreating real events. (They claim that new remains often surface during the wet season; there are still dozens of unexhumed mass graves.) Even though the Killing Fields are apparently run by a private tourism company now, the message of the genocide is powerful enough to withstand a few minor manipulations. There are plenty of genuine horrors, like the still-standing tree against which Khmer Rouge soldiers used to swing and kill infants. 

Reunited with Mohnay, we let our capitalist hearts lead us towards the Central Market, a large yellow building with a squat dome and several hundred vendors. The stalls all seemed to sell the same 25 items, but it was nevertheless interesting to serpentine through the huddled aisles.

We stopped at a watch vendor whom Jake asked repair questions. She was young and effusive, with dark lips and uneven shoulders. Jake gave her his faux-lex, asking if she could replace the missing pin that kept the band apart. She struggled for a bit with pliers and a small tray of spare parts—all sizes—before looking back up at Jake and saying “I very much want to help you. So much.” This phrase she repeated while almost gymnastically re-positioning herself at different angles from which to attack the wristwatch. Jake’s watch was fixed, and I ended up buying my own from her as well. Its large round face was faded yellow, trimmed with silver and a band of putative genuine leather (black). I liked the watch-peddler quite a bit, but that didn’t stop my timepiece from slowing to a halt less than 48 hours later. 

Our lunch was an amalgam of street food: spring rolls from one, drinks from another, and from a third muffin-like baked goods that had the texture of angel-food cake. 

Onward to Wat Phnom we went. Wat Phnom was an overblown city park which jutted upwards instead of out. The steps to the top were swiftly taken, but Jake was quite disappointed that we found no monkeys—”Thanks, Lonely Planet.” 

Mr. Disch, my travel companion, has vowed to become the King of the Monkeys, a feat he believes he will accomplish in Siem Reap over the five nights we plan to be there. This monomaniacal obsession began well before we boarded our flight in Incheon, and would lead us barreling towards our own death. Hast seen the gibbons?

Next we went to the Royal Palace, near the Tonle Sap. It was big and beautiful, but a bit of a let down considering how many buildings were closed to the public or unsatisfying once entered. The central building in this cluster had a huge stock of golden statues at the end of a long hall, down which we were not to travel. Its sides were flanked by pillars too large to see around. 

The silver-floored pagoda was more impressive, even though most of its silver floor was covered in mauve carpeting. It was filled with sculptures, palanquins, and various bits of the arcane. Almost more entertaining than the palace were the tour groups we passed once inside the walls. A large group of wizened old Israelis stopped every 17 feet to take photos and fan themselves. The French split up at the entrance and took separate guides. Two columns of Cambodian middle-schoolers removed their shoes and entered the disappointing central building. 

It is strange to see the middle school children happy and excitedly talking to their friends. Back in Korea, kids this age seem to walk about with a millstone around their neck. 

Finally, we poked around the National Museum—curious, only—and headed home. All of our belongings were moved to a separate room. We’d known this was going to happen ahead of time, but we were so sun-baked and tired that we’d forgotten about it and walked into our old, thankfully empty room full of new things. 

We each did some poolside writing over a shared platter of crispy spring rolls from the guesthouse’s kitchen. Briefly, we swam. 

After a bit of rest, we hit the streets, tuk-tuking over to Street 13 (without Mohnay! Quelle Horreur!). Jake had read about a placed there called Friends: The Restaurant and I was quite disappointed when I found out there would be no large portraits of David Schwimmer hanging over us during our meal. (I am relatively sure, however, that he was bussing tables.) It’s a place that rehabilitates street kids and teaches them useful career skills. The food also happens to be great and the premium not prohibitive. 

Boring Irish bar and then home.

_______________________

ª Jake and I agreed we do not usually use audio tours but that this one was well worth the time.

Back at You Khin, I struck up a conversation with some dear English retirees from Lincolnshire. Husband and wife, Graham and Barbara, had just come from Bangkok and before that, Goa. They are making their way around and ended up in Cambodia by chance. Some difficulties with Air France, which did not come highly recommended by G & B, had planted them across the table from me. They were drinking gin and tonics with the lady from the front desk and told me, when she went to refill everyones drinks, that she was looking to get married and have two children in the next three years. Graham gave me a wink, matched with a tender but slightly mischievous smile. Matchmaker.

The front desk woman came back with G & B’s glasses and told us she was closing up. Jake had shuffled off upstairs a few minutes ago, but the Brits and I continued our conversation.

Graham worked in fish. He traveled the world teaching businesses the proper way to handle and fillet fish, as well as safe but cost-efficient ways of packaging them. His business had taken him all over, even once to America—”Orlando, a dreadful place”. His best bit was about visiting a camp in the very far northeast of Russia, above the Arctic Circle. I believe he mentioned it being near the Kolyma camps, but I can’t be sure.

We swapped stories. I told them about my plans and they asked me about Korea. They even told me about a friend or acquaintance of theirs, Jeannine, who worked here. Did I know her? 

The night ended with two handshakes, an offered drink, a bumble up the stairs, and a long, sound sleep. 

Walking along the Tonlé Sap river in the early evening of 19 January, I almost bumped into a street boy and quickly apologized. When I was walking away, nearly out of earshot, he said something I couldn’t make out. I walked down the road for awhile, unaware that the boy was trailing me; he and his friend were, perhaps, 10 yards behind me. I stopped to look at a street vendor’s books, neatly displayed on table above the cracked sidewalk. She was very kind and informative, discussing Loung Ung’s memoir First They Killed My Father with me and keenly suggesting I buy Ung’s follow-up. I opted instead for François Bizot’s “The Gate,” a book I’d heard about before coming to Cambodia. 

Out of nowhere, the kid popped back up and said “why did you do this?” He pointed at the books he ha in an elongated tray slung over his neck that looked like something carried by hotdog vendors at baseball games. He said “why you lie? you say nothing when I ask if you buy book and you buy book here!” 

“I didn’t hear you,” I said. “I’m sorry.” 

He started giving me grief and, scoffing, said “buy one now, four dollars.” I politely refused an began to walk away, Lillian’s tips for handling street kids bouncing around in my head. “Three dollars,” he said. To this offer, I was again silent and walking away. “Buy a book, three dollars.” 

Then he got mean. “Whatever,” he said, ‘you’re a motherfucka.” His elocution strangely reminded me of Jonah Takalua. I kept walking. He pursued, saying things like “you motherfucka, fuck you.” He looked about 10. 

Against my better judgement, I turned around again and said “listen, I didn’t hear you. I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry doesn’t eat,” he said. 

Again, I walked away. Again, he followed. Now he began trying to trip me and gently kicking the back of my calf. I thought about grabbing one of the many policemen patrolling the area, but I’ve read stories about the police beating street boys, and I didn’t want it to come to that. I didn’t know the legal consequences of breaking a little kids nose in Cambodia, so I looked for a shop to pop into. But just as Jake and I crossed the street, the boy tried to spit on my left elbow then ran off. 

It was a bizarre experience, but afterwards I felt more sympathetic than angry. You want to help the poor here, even the less convenient ones (so to speak), but it’s not possible. Witness this exchange from one of the best episodes of Sports Night:

Dan: (re: charities) I’d love to give money to all these people, but then I’d have no money and I’d need someone’s mailing list just to pay rent.
Casey: It’s a vicious circle.
Dan: It is.
Casey: It’s a never-ending circle.
Dan: It just keeps going round and round.
Casey: It never ends.
Dan: That’s what makes it vicious.
Casey: And a circle.

A lof of these street kids have psychological issues due to things like malnutrition and gang indoctrination; and while it’s sad and something scary to see, you can’t do everything. 

Note: I recognize the very real difference between charity and patronizing someone’s business; but these street kids don’t work for themselves. 

A juggernaut of a day. The nineteenth saw the continuation of a journey had begun the day before—with an auspicious commencement. Jake led us to the bus stop with some false information. The last bus to Incheon Airport—which he’d heard left at 9:00pm—left at 7:25pm. We arrived just in time for the 7:45 to Gimpo airport, from which we took a subway train to Incheon and began our long, strange, sleepless night. 

We met a lovely woman on the Air Asia flight who gave us two names by which we could call her. We were having trouble rolling the “r” in her Indonesian name (Merlianny), so she offered us the use of “Sansan” instead. We talked extensively about life in Korea—she’d been studying there—and about travel. She got our information and offered me a place to stay in August. She is the nicest person I’ve met on a plane flight. 

All of this occured after a kefluffle about our short layover (45min.) and some bureaucratic hilarity that only a budget airline could dream up. After narrowly printing our boarding passes on time and some terminal misdirection at KUL, we arrived in Phnom Penh. There, we met Mohnay (whose name I have spelled phonetically, not having seen it written), our tuk-tuk driver. He drove us the 15km or so it took to get us to our guesthouse, which is a bit off the main drag but lovely nevertheless. You Khin Guesthouse has a large, semi-covered entryway which includes vegetation as well as a nice patio and pool area. Once fully inside, you notice to your left a Montessori school which is funded in part by profits from the guesthouse. The rooms were spacious and provided me with the best shower I’ve had since leaving the United States. 

Downstairs, there were a few hanging guitars in a sunken alcove (you use this word, alcoves?) that also has a low-to-the-ground chess set. There were, behind the stairs, additional Khmer instruments and a piano. These were no doubt for students, but we were not strictly prohibited from using them poorly. After eine kleine nachtmusik, I rejoined Jake upstairs and readied our departure. 

We decided that in the withering hours of daylight, it would be good fun to find our way back to the Tonlé Sap. We’d seen a particularly lively strip by the river earlier on our tuk-tuk. With a borrowed map in hand, we took off in what can only be described as its “general direction.” 

After the late bus nonsense and the short layover hassle (tickets found by my traveling companion), I wasn’t sure if I should let Jake do the navigating on this expedition. I had pedantically reminded him after his unchecked info of the night before that had fond us arriving in Incheon via Seoul of the Royal Society’s motto: Nullius in verba (i.e. never on another’s wordª, an axiom that applies as much to bus times as it does to science). But I decided to give him a redemptive opportunity. It was not a poor decision. We found our way almost directly there, seeing, smelling, and hearing new things continually along the way. 

We stopped in a Khmer restaurant that, despite its location in a narrow side street, seemed popular. Our combined bill was $6.25°. Even then, a third of that price was spent on a massive and “tasty” bottled beer ordered by Jake. My dish had flat, yellow noodles holding together chicken and various vegetables. It was divine if only because it reawakened hundreds of taste buds that had long lain dormant, unstimulated by delicious though homogeneously flavored Korean cuisine. 

We then made our way to the river. The shops and restaurants along the Tonlé Sap are filled with and geared towards foreigners. It’s not quite as pathetic or grating as Itaewon, but it does mean that there is a significant mark-up and a large number of beggars, hawkers, and grifters. 

After walking around for quite a bit and an incident with a surly street kid, we stopped for a drink on the fourth-floor balcony of a restaurant-slash-guesthouse‡. We looked out over the river. It was full night. 

A young tuk-tuk driver drove us home, blasting late ’90s/early ’00s gangster rap out of some rigged speakers he’d fitted into the roof of the trailer. You can find him in the club, apparently. 

______________________________________

ª Yes I recognize the irony of my relying on his word. 

° Most of the businesses in Cambodia accept USD. Their economy, because it is so reliant on tourism, runs on a pluralism of currency. It’s not a good idea to try to break large bills at local food stalls; but if sensibly undertaken, a trip from the US to Cambodia could be accomplished without any formal currency exchange. At the time of this writing, business make an even 4000 riel/1 USD auto-conversion, despite minor ups and downs of the world currency market.

‡ All guesthouses have side-businesses. Circle two or more: Guesthouse/Restaurant/Bar/Massage Parlor/Bike Rental. And certainly all of them are connected to other local businesses and will gladly help you with laundry, bus tickets, tuk-tuks, tours, &c. Commission drives the hospitality game. 

These last two weeks have been quiet ones for Dongdaejeon High School. Summer vacation means many of the students are out of school and that those that stayed are for the most part the quiet, studious ones. Summer School in Korea is a way to get ahead, not to catch up. The hallways are less frantic. There is less yelling. The pitter-patter of teenage boys punching each other in the arm has become a late-June memory. 

They might be silent altogether if it were not for the nearly endless drone of cicadas rattling outside my window, in the trees and in the bushes. I’ve read a lot of expat blogs or even travel writers from Japan and Korea that think these insects are a nusance, and I can understand their frustration. They no doubt cause farming complications, and a co-worker of mine was not too pleased when one tried to fly up her dress earlier today; but for me, they are strangely soothing, at least in an abstract, unseen way. The loud sound they make reminds me of some far off building construction or a table saw spinning at the end of a subway tunnel. My entomological curiosity is once again surfacing.

Most good poetry requires a dynamic understanding of the language in which it was written and the kind of patience and intellectual perseverance that few people have. Even among English majors in university, poetry is not a widely beloved subject. To really get something out of poetry requires you to read, reread, and, most uncommon of all, to sit and think about a single, complicated thing for an extended period of time. 

So I made Korean teenagers read some. 

We read and listened and read again and broke it down line by line. We identified words they didn’t understand and I tried to show them the forest and the trees. We read one of my favorite poems of all time: “When You Are Old” by W.B. Yeats. 

Then, I conducted an experiment motivated significantly by my own curiosity: after we had discussed the poem thoroughly, I made them translate it into Korean. We then went on to talk about other poems. At the end of the period, I brought us back to Yeats and made them translate the Korean back to English to see how much had changed. Here are two of results (compare with above link for maximum effect):

When you were old, gray, and falling on deep sleep

And standing fire, take out this book

And read slowly, dreaming out soft look

Your eyes drawing shadows deep

How many things loved your ______

And your beauty loved by love false or true

But one man loved your pilgrim’s soul in you

And ____ loved your changing face

And bending down beside ____

Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled

_____ mountains overhead

And hid his face belong to crowd stars

And another:

When you are old and gray, and full of sleep

Nodding by fire take down this book

And read it slowly

Once you have ____ soft, deep shadow

How many times loved of your glad grace

And loved your beauty of your true or false

But one man loved the ____ of your soul

And loved the sorrow of changing your face

And bending ____ besides ______

Quietly, a little sadly how loved leave!

And ______ mountain overhead

Hid his face among the crowd of stars

As funny as some of the changes are, I think they’re fantastic. I didn’t expect them to be able to replicate Yeats. I wanted them to think about the language and how it works. They said they really liked the poem “but it was sad.” I told them they can like it because it was sad, but they were a bit confused by that. It is plain, at least to me, which parts we discussed the most before hand; which parts I explained thoroughly or which words they were having trouble understanding; what stuck and what did not. 

Note: The blanks were lines left by the students. Untranslated bits that they couldn’t figure out how to translate back in the time allotted. I’ve left them in, as well as any grammatical or spelling errors that may have occurred. 

I thought, “I’ll wait until I have something to say.” It’d been two months since I’d left for Korea, and the occasional written updates I had promised friends, family, and myself hadn’t begun. I didn’t have writer’s block. I still held down a music column and extra freelance work from back home. I’d even taken on a 20 page paper on educational theory that a teacher recommended I write for an upcoming conference. It wasn’t as if nothing had happened, either. My days were filled with convenience store food and cultural idiosyncrasies. Misunderstandings occurred daily on linguistic or pedagogical levels—often both. I thought that I was waiting for some extraordinary to happen so that it’d give me something to write. The lie that I told myself was that I was too overwhelmed by work and all the little adjustments I’d had to make that nothing was getting through, pen to paper or finger to keyboard. 

But now, it has become clear that I should just write. Write anything, write everything: little things happen all the time in my classroom and outside of it. I will endeavor to take down what I find interesting or note-worthy. When I can, I will. 

I choose to glean inspiration from this quote from The Books’ “Smells Like Content”: 

“Expectation leads to disappointment. If you don’t expect something big, huge, and exciting, usually—um—I don’t know. It’s just not as…yeah.”