A Phone Number, a Top Ten List, and a Thought About the “New Tiger”…

1. The Beauty of Living Out of a Suitcase – One of the worst parts about leaving a place is the packing. When I left New York it honestly took me weeks to box up my life and get it out of my apartment. Yet this time around I’ve avoided that problem completely. When it’s time to go I’ll I’ve gotta do is zip up my suitcases and walk out the door.  

2. A Lucky Number – I expected people to ask me for things before I left, but what I didn’t expect was that 90% of those requests would involve my phone number. That’s right, my Peace Corps issued phone number (not my phone, just the sim card) is honestly the most coveted thing I own. Apparently 017880990 is a “lucky” number and in Cambodia lucky numbers are always in high demand.

3. Birthday Presents – Here’s a picture of the gifts I received for my birthday last week. I was hoping for iPad, but ended up with two toy turtles, a clock, a wind chime, and some kind of strange fish sculpture. I’d say I about broke even.  

4. PC Cambodia Top Ten Lists – Another Peace Corps volunteer recently posted a bunch of Cambodia/PC related top ten lists on her blog. They’re all really funny and worth checking out (KaitlinDoesCambodia) but the “ten things you shouldn’t tell your host family” is particularly good so I’m copying it below. Check it out…

10. I can drink a lot of beer
9. This meat is delicious. What is it?
8. What you really did last weekend in Phnom Penh
7. That this anonymous friend of mine actually gets into the water tub for bathing, using it as a pool, sometimes drinking coke while floating in the cool heavenly water, and comparing it to being “resort like
6. How many people you’ve kissed
5. This fish head soup was really good. Thank you!
4. Our teenage live-in servant let me do the dishes
3. Thailand is amazing
2. I saw Dad with a girl on his lap at the Karoake bar last night
1. I you will get $7,000 when I leave Cambodia

For More Top Ten lists check out KaitlinDoesCambodia.

5. A Final Half Marathon Note – Well it turns out I wasn’t the only one who had a hard time with the course on Saturday. Apparently the top two women got lost and didn’t go the full 13.1 miles. As a result they got disqualified and missed out on $1000/$750. I’m also fairly certain that some of the men went off course, but I don’t it affected my place or cost me any money. 

6. The Cost of War - What could you do with $113 billion dollars– the amount of money we’re spending this year in Afghanistan? Below are a few ideas from ThinkProgress, who calculated ten investments America could afford if we were to pull our troops out today….

• Provide 57.5 Million Children With Low-Income Health Care For 2011
• Provide 23 Million People With Low-Income Health Coverage In 2011
• Give 20.2 Million $5,500 Pell Grants To Students In 2011
• Provide 14.35 million Military Veterans With VA Medical Care In 2011
• Give 14.7 million Children Head Start Funding In 2011
• Give 14.26 Million Scholarships To University Students In 2011
• Employ 1.93 million Firefighters In 2011
• Hire 1.75 Million Elementary School Teachers In 2011
• Hire 1.65 Million Police Officers In 2011
• Equip 67.8 Million Households With The Ability To Use Wind Power In 2011
• Equip 25.39 Million Households With The Ability To Use Solar Photovoltaic Energy In 2011

7. Quote of the Day- “It was not in my nature to be an assertive person. I was used to looking to others for guidance, for influence, sometimes for the most basic cues of life. And yet writing stories is one of the most assertive things a person can do. Fiction is an act of willfulness, a deliberate effort to reconceive, to rearrange, to reconstitute nothing short of reality itself. Even among the most reluctant and doubtful of writers, this willfulness must emerge. Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying, ‘Listen to me.’ This was where I faltered. I preferred to listen rather than speak, to see instead of be seen. I was afraid of listening to myself, and of looking at my life.” Jhumpa Lahiri: Notes From A Literary Apprenticeship

8. Someone Needs to Start the “Tuition is Too Damn High” Party – From Annalyn Censky: “In 1988, the average tuition and fees for a four-year public university rang in at about $2,800, adjusted for inflation. By 2008, that number had climbed about 130% to roughly $6,500 a year — and that doesn’t include books or room and board. If incomes had kept up with surging college costs, the typical American would be earning $77,000 a year. But in reality, it’s nowhere near that.”

Even more shocking – for the second year in a row, student loan debt exceeds credit card debt in the United States.

9. The New Tiger - Rory McIlroy’s performance at the US Open was pretty damn impressive, but lets not get ahead of ourselves with the “next Tiger” talk quite yet. In my mind he’s gotta win at least one more major (and sleep with at least half of the cocktail waitresses in Vegas) before he’s worthy of that honor.

10. Culture Clash - This is what my life has been like every day for the last two years. I feel for this guy…