Traffic, Teaching, Ten

Traffic...Jam

Just got out of a 2 hr 30 min traffic jam.

Wanted to blog just to remind myself that I survived this.

Even with Max slowly clapping to the sound of the nearby beeps of cars and tuk tuks reversing into each other; even with Will eating his way towards insanity with the despair that we may not perhaps ever have a square meal again (literally: at one point I'm pretty sure he took a chunk out of my leg) and even with Victor - his signature move of "sleeping" taken to a new level as he curled up in a foetus-like form. Even with all this, I still survived.

The road to insanity...moves excruciatingly slowly

Teaching...with a Twist

Now that I'm posting-away, I might as well divulge a few more juicy tidbits about this week past.

Last week was the end of September, and moving into October, we got new kids again. I'm not sure if you remember me posting about this (see Happiness, Slacking, Khmer post for more details) but the school system in Cambodia means that every month the kids switch between morning and afternoon, so in other words - or the twist is - that we get new students.

However it wasn't all a big surprise - mainly because we received many familiar faces back into our classes, who we had been teaching back in August. One of the sad things about the end of the month was that the assistant teacher at Youth School was leaving to study at university. All the luck in the world to Sorpeak, who has been an excellent translator over the past 2 months!

Sorpeak's last day!

Ten...%? Approx.

Tientsin (or 10cent, if we are using her official-teacher name) recently gave me an idea that if you write three things about your day that made you happy, it will increase your happiness by 10%. Well maybe not those exact figures, but it seemed like a pretty good idea to me. So here are my three things for the day:

1. Seeing the familiar faces of the kids from last month - the same smiles under new haircuts and slightly more maturity.
2. Getting to visit Rudi Boa with Victor and Max, and speaking to so many kids that I lost my voice!
3. Seeing some of the most awesome street aerobics (up close!) that Phnom Penh has had yet to offer me.

I even have some video evidence of the aerobics mentioned. Hope it tickles your fancy.

This weekend Will, Alex, Max and I are off to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam! Anticipate a blog on this...it's going to be one hell of a holiday.

Juliet