Tuesday Night Chatter

Can be summed up quite simply:

Stress.

And the elections. (which is a main cause of said stress.)

It is not the only, as this week is the first week of about a month long stretch of insanity. On the work side, I'm leaving one job (I think) and as such have a million projects to finish, starting another (I think) and getting a trial by fire as far as I can tell, and then on the job that isn't changing, there are two incredibly important things happening (a festival and a delegation) both of which I am doing a lot of work for, not including the incredibly important grant for which I am in charge of translating all the documents. (ulp!)

On the personal projects side, I had to pull the plug on one project due to a gross misunderstanding of the project's goals, process, and expectations with my collaborator, for which nobody is really at fault but you just can't work like that. Until it was resolved yesterday, it was cause for a lot of uncertainty and anxiety on my part. Then, in a couple weeks, I'm starting a new project, which I'm very excited about but will add about 20 hours of rehearsal with my students to the schedule (hence why I'm leaving the one job, I think.)

And then there are these elections.

Which is all I really want to say about them, except that it's very scary.

Anyway, all of this I am assuming is why my stomach has been tied up in knots all day, as that's usually how I process stress. I don't want to be a drama queen and I can imagine you, my dear readers, are wondering to yourselves, so when is she going to talk about Cambodia and not about all the stuff she has to do??? -- and I wouldn't blame you.

To tell you the truth, I don't know what 'Cambodia' is right now. I don't know what stories to tell and what makes a good story. Right now, Cambodia is what I'm doing. It is not anymore the markets or the crazy this I saw. While it is not "home" in that way, and I don't think it ever will be fully -- it is comfortable. The mad traffic is normal -- the fact that four months after buying the bloody thing I realized that my back brakes are controlled by the LEFT handlebar on my bike is not -- as well as the food and the crazy fruit. And the "hello lady" shouts I still get.

I am no less of a barang than I was before but perhaps I am getting used to being one, being the Foreigner, and it doesn't jar me quite so much as it used to. Occasionally I pick my head up, like at lunch today while pulling out the meat from a still very much intact fish (which for my previously fishhead-shy persona would have been impossible), and notice the changes.

It is the subject of another blog post about how I feel about that. In the meantime, I think my point is that these projects, the work -- not the elections, thank god -- that is what Cambodia is right now. If I think of some more adventure type things to discuss, I will.

Basically, tonight is about -- sometimes I think my head is not big enough to fit everything it's supposed to be keeping track of -- and the bloody elections.

We should talk more after tomorrow.

Or not, depending on the outcome -- if it goes badly, you'll find me somewhere in a corner. Then we'll have to talk in a week or two.