This last week was practicum. An experience I dreaded, hated, and am glad I was forced to have. As many of you may know, I am not particularly excited about any activity which requires that I stand in front of large groups of people. Practicum required that I stand in front of and teach English to a group of 40 Cambodian students who probably understood little if any of what I said.

The first morning I couldn’t eat. The second morning I couldn’t eat and I may have called my dad crying, saying something to the effect of “I hate this and I don’t want to do it...” I got a pep talk which consisted of the sentiment “suck it up it’s good for you…” more or less (put a little more delicately of course). I am glad to report that I did in fact suck it up, and it was good for me. By the fourth day I was eating breakfast, and by the last day I was actually enjoying myself a little.

We had all heard from k2 volunteers that we would more than likely start getting text messages from our students who would someone get our phone numbers. I didn't think this would happen to me, but alas, it did. The other night I recieved my first; it went a little something like this "Hi teacher! How r u? This night good dream. Thank for teach me for one week. I want to study with you for along time. Good night. Sweet dream!" Had this been from a male student I might have been a bit sketched out, but it was from one of my female students who also lives with one of the married k3 couples. They had inadvertantly supplied her with my phone number but I thought it was funny. (some of the other volunteers were less amused...)

I suppose I will leave you with a list I have been compiling of things that would be "deal breakers" in the States but have a certain "I feel you brother" quality in Cambodia:

1) Excessive backsweat not associated with exercise
2) Accidentally leaving an unemptied chamber pot in your room for multiple days
3) Discussing your relative ability, inability, or regularity of certain bodily functions
4) Not using toilet paper
5) using various recepticles for bathroom purposes that were never intended for bathroom purposes

There are certainly more but I will save those for another day. This coming week we will be in Phnom Penh, finding out our permanent placements, and visiting our permanent placement, so I am sure I will have pleantly of things to report this time next week.