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Part of Grief.

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 Tonight is the first night since 20 March 2020 that I am sitting in my own living room, in my own apartment.  I don't want to ever speak lightly of the difficult lessons learned in the last 16 months. I want to honor the struggles and pain. The loss was more than I have ever had before. I normally prefer to skip over the hard painful parts of memories but tonight I think it is okay to acknowledge them. I’m trying to allow the grief and loss to air so that I can appreciate what I have right now even more.  I'm working at my Alma mater, Southern Adventist University, a place that I credit with guiding me to become who I am--mainly due to incredible staff and faculty. I pray I can be the same to a student.  I have a part-time job creating Vision Trips for student's lives to be changed, just like mine was on my first trip to NYC in March 2002.  I am enrolled in a grad program learning how to continue doing what I love better, international community development.  I can do my t
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26 March -- Day 3

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Goal for today : Start Starry Night puzzle by Vincent Van Gogh (he made the painting, not the puzzle for clarification) Because of the time-travel-lag my sleep involves a lot more dreaming. I always dream but I feel like these are more so because I'm not currently sleeping as deep as usual. I'm having a lot of stressful dreams about self-isolation, every night. I dream about being self-isolated for the right amount of time, about explaining how it works and this morning it was more of a scary dream. In it I was talking to people while being self-isolated but then went to say goodbye and realized I was about to hug them and stopped just before, terrified that I had contaminated them. And that's what I think these dreams are all about. I'm afraid that I'm going to hurt someone. Self-isolating is not the worst, I get to sleep in, watch movies and do what I want, it's basically a staycation EXCEPT, it's not. I'm here because I traveled internationally an
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25 March -- Day 2

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Goal for today : to not succumb to time-travel-lag. * heads up * I failed the goal for today. I took a beautiful hardcore two hour nap. It happens. It's funny how I would LOVE to take a day off work to sit and read or watch tv at any other time in life. Now that I only can do that I wander around in circles in the living room. I think I'm afraid to give myself permission to lounge and I feel like I need to be productive. It would also be different if I was in the middle of an epic book or book series, so if you have any suggestions now would be the time to share! This guy looks like Brian Regan Emo guy. This morning I cultured myself. My friend sent me the link for the Met Opera in NYC and we watched an epic story called: Das Rheingold, in English it's The Ring. It's a 4 part opera that is familiar to Lord of the Rings. . . you could guess as to what is similar, I don't need to tell you. The stage was awesome! It was simple but could change and look
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24 March 2020--Day 1

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My goal for today was to survive the first leg of time-travel-lag. I find it harder to survive when traveling back in time. I even got out and walked around the house for 30 min, it was like recess and by the end I was that one kid who wanted to get back inside so I could get out of the cold. Day 1 Self-Isolation tattoo number 1. I made soup to keep warm. Watched a couple episodes of my favorite show: West Wing. I talked on the phone to a lot of people since I was muuuuch closer to their time zone. My friends loaned me their cat so I could have company since Chmaachi, my cat, couldn't make the journey. Let me tell you Chmaachi is TINY or American cats are HUGE! With his cage my cat only weighs 5 kilos. This cat you have to make sure you lift with your legs! Merle's a good cat, he's bright eyed and fluffy but he's not the same as Chmaachi. I'm grateful for him none the less because when I'm talking out loud I can at least pretend I'm talking
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The Short Back Story.

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Okay, here's the how I got into self-isolation three days early. Sunday 22 March My friend messaged me at 9 pm Sunday night with the information that Taiwan was closing their boarders at midnight on Tuesday 25 March for all foreigners, including transit people. Within 20 minutes I had another flight booked that left 14 hours later. From their out it's a whirlwind of emotion and chaos. Monday 23 March 6:00 am: Find a temporary home for Chmaachi until I can get back to Cambodia or get him to the States. Luckily I was able to leave him with an Australian friend who stayed in Cambodia to continue her work at the NGO she is at (hers cannot close during all of this as it works with a vulnerable population of young people). 7:30 am: Make multiple trips down the 7 flights of stairs with rubbish and suitcases. So much sweat. So very much (it's the start of the hot season so it's normal to be sweating before even leaving my apartment but seriously this was a bit too much
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10 March 2020

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This letter has been started many times even before 10 March. I've created a more recent update but thought the older version would be helpful to see where things have been. Hold on for a crazy ride of updates: 10 March 2020 Dear friend, I hope this letter finds you happy and health! I can't believe I've almost been in Cambodia working for RAW Impact for 4 years! This is the longest I've ever worked outside of the United States. It's been such a great experience thus far, I love living in Cambodia and I've learned so much from my Khmer friends. This year, 2020, is turning out to be quiet a big year for me. In January I became the In-Country Director at RAW Impact, which means I help communicate between our Australia and Cambodia offices, I get to sit in a lot of meetings and help mentor our staff as well as still helping to fill in the hole left in the education area of RAW. I am loving the challenges and ready to continue learning how to best blend the
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Technology Test *insert person facepalming*

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My favorite emoji is the face palm emoji. I feel like it represents most of my life well. It says not only, "Oh no." but also, "Here we go again". It just covers a world of drama. I would post a big picture of it right now if I could. . . I may just go look for it on google. I want to post it because I'm simply trying to get an update written about all the dramas that is going on here in my life with the pandemic. But when I try to post the letter I wrote it goes all wonky. Ugg. This is simply a test to see if it's me or technology. It's looking like it may be me. Thanks Emojipedia for the options.
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