All over the place

Woo. The end of the semester came and went by pretty damn fast. Not my best semester but I managed to survive. Man, so glad I'm done; hoping next sem isn't as much of an emotional roller coaster. The whole housing situation totally worked out too so I don't have to pay rent until I get back in August! Yay!

The three weeks at home flew by in a blur as well. I mainly spent it over-eating, sleeping and terrorizing my brother with love :D Oh, and meeting up with people. I even went to a photo project on bersih my friend was organizing with some other local photographers. They did it in this abandoned mansion in Bangsar which made it interesting. I also took a couple of pole classes which were pretty awesome - I managed to learn quite a few new moves and start on a handspring mount to eventually go into a jack knife (http://poledancedictionary.com/moves/276/chinese-flag-contortion/) which will come in handy for when I get back to the 808 and start up superstars. Just need to remember to keep up with the core and strengthening exercises so I can actually pull moves like those off.

I'm in Cambodia now. Have been for the last two days. Tonight is the last night of freedom before the kuli work starts up. My day starts at 5.30 AM tomorrow and that's the way it'll be for the next two months. Yay, summer hols! Maybe this is why I'm feeling a little burnt out? I haven't actually had a proper break since 2010. I think I need to make it a point to go for a local Hawaiian staycation in the next year or something where I do nothing but touristy holiday stuff in order to relax and recharge.

Anyway, it's been alright. didn't do much but play with the prof's kid and wander around Siem Reap a bit. I did a little shopping for fruits and toiletries and spent like an hour in a Khmer bookshop choosing Khmer children's books for myself :) I'm kinda excited about that - I got Cinderella in Khmer (Disney in Khmer? I'm there!) and this one with a winged elephant on the cover because, really, why wouldn't I want to read about a flying elephant? I'm sure the vocabulary in that book will come in handy somehow. Also snuck into a conference about religion in Angkor - it was good to finally put some faces to the big names I've been reading and some of the presentations were interesting but there was a range in the quality of the presentations. One guy did his on the sinozation of mainland SEA and he literally did not have much substance to his presentation or his arguments. So many fallacies, contradictions and speculation of the "i observed/i think/i asked my mom" kind.

My roomie, Phoebe, is going to start her PhD at UH next semester so I've been talking to her about everything and anything under the sun but especially about continuing with the PhD. I've already decided to see how it goes this summer and in Fall before I decide if it's not for me, at least for right now anyway. But I've talked to my mum and my sis and now Phoebe and they're all kinda saying the same thing - take time off and come back later. There's obviously a lot of merit in following their advice but I've also got other concerns about taking a break - making feasible contingency plans, paying back my student loans, taking too long a break and not returning for the PhD, etc. I've got a couple of other people I'd like to talk to and see what their two cents are but it seems like the scale is starting to tip to once side. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think that I'm definitely gonna stick to my plan of giving myself a year to figure out what I need to do, whether it's a PhD or a plan B/C/D, but the advice I'm getting is really making an impact on my decision. Oh well, I've got a year so we'll see how it goes.

I'm hoping to actually update more regularly on the Cambodian craziness this time, really.