toilet humor

I fell in my toilet today. It all happened so fast...I am not sure if I can accurately describe what went on. Anyone who has been to my apartment (I realize that this is a small portion of the reading audience, but still a significant percentage) may have noticed that when any amount of pressure is applied to my toilet seat, it becomes a volatile flying saucer which has more than once sent "users" sailing across the restroom (the sadistic side of me loves the sounds of surprise that emanate from the bathroom when new visitors experience flight). All things come full circle though. Over time, I have learned how to perch delicately enough to remain on the stool.....but my time away must have muddied my memory. The only electrical socket in my bathroom is about 5 inches down from the ceiling above the toilet. When I want to plug in my small heater to dry my clothes in the bathroom, I have to stand on tiptoe on the toilet seat to plug it in. Unfortunately, the day before I left, there was a small electrical fire involving the socket and the said heater which mangled the rubber and metal of the plug on the heater. Though the socket was replaced, I was having trouble fitting the mangled prongs in to the socket. While in the middle of this, I shifted my weight, and the toilet seat went airborne, cruising across the bathroom striking first the kitty litter and then the cat food---sending litter, food and water flying. Somehow, I must have jumped off the seat to avoid flight, throwing the heater into the living room to avoid electrocution, but then landed, two-footed, into the toilet bowl......jamming the toes of my left foot in the crook-part of the bowl and soaking myself silly.

I do so many ridiculous things while I am alone. Its a good things no one knows about them!

Up for a swim?

We found this sign on a beach in Hong Kong, I don't think I am alone when I say a shark bite is more than an inconvenience.....but thanks for the apology.....

I accidentally wore my pajama pants to teach class on Monday. It was my day of regretting the slimming tea. I had changed into black pants in the morning, but as I got sicker and sicker, I switched to my pajama pants to increase my comfort. I was on my way to class when I realized I forgot to change, and there was no time to go back. It is like those nightmares when you go to school naked....only not quite so bad. Anyway, let's hope that is not an indication of the rest of the school year!

Thanks for all the support and encouragement. It means so much to both me and Zheng Si Si. Thank you, really.

I am not sure how to approach this, but I just found out my dearest friend here, Zheng Si Si's father is dying from a stroke. She is a single mother, unemployed, looking after both her parents who are living with her and her 8 year-old daughter. In her free time, she basically looks out for the poor and underprivileged of this entire nation (mainly Tibet and Southern China, as well as local folks). She is completely reeling. I've never actually dealt with a crisis situation in China before. I never know what to say in America, much less when someone is hurting here. "Comforting" words hold even less meaning.
All this to say, I have to do something. Si Si is my entire lifeline here. /She helps me survive everyday though she has so many worries. I hate to ask this, but can anyone contribute any money? I have some to give, but it won't even come close to covering the cost. Among foreigners here, it is discouraged to just come to the rescue with cash......as it is dangerous to the social structure, personal development and responsibility, and international relations(mainly, westerns have the money, so let's just let them do it). But I don't have time ethical squabbles right now. If anyone reading this could just send 5 dollars to my parents home, they can deposit it in my account and I will withdraw it in kuai and give it to Si Si as a gift of love from my dear community. It is so little for us but so much for the Chinese (average employed wage is about 5 dollars a day) All I can do is give you my word that I will do with the money what I have promised and hope you will trust me.
And, if you are a praying person, please do that. Si Si has been a Christian for about 2 years and I am afraid I see rocky times ahead for her. If you are a praying person with a great phone plan (tel3advantage for example...specifically kt and chris, jane, kristin etc. etc. etc.) you could call her at 8613958014443 and pray for her in person (her English is great, but speak slowly with no special Christian language). She really gains strength through prayers spoken to her and I am unable to do that right now. Or, if you want, email her with a word of encouragement <sissy_zheng@hotmail.com> and just let her know you are a friend of mine and wanted her to know you were thinking/praying for her. I know it might be awkward, but all I can do is ask for some help. Please.
Thanks for listening and helping if you can. LOVE!
email me for my parents address if you need it cammiebrennan@gmail.com . i don't want to exploit their home on the internet.
ps the pic is of Si Si at my halloween party as a mummified chicken.......don't ask.....

confessions of a veggo

At heart I am a vegetarian. In theory too (I've been reading for Buddhist theories and Gandhi's take on the subject lately) but I had a break-down in Bangkok. I am not really sure what happened, and I was so nervous to tell the truth. I started feeling really bad...just lethargic and irritable. In the 7-Eleven, I passed the tuna. After I passed it, I couldn't stop thinking about it, it just sounded SO good . Two days later, I gave in and bought some. After that, there was no stopping me. I was out of control. Tuna everyday. I am done now. My holiday is over, and I must return to being an honest vegetarian. I just had to let you know.

I'm slowly transitioning into real China life....first Singapore (which was clean-out-of-control) and now Hong Kong. I could do without Singapore, nothing to fabulous there but a lot of laws...oh, but the merlions were great........and Hong Kong is wonderfully entertaining. I am also with 5 other aimless lower-twenties people and that is encouraging :) It feels strangely wonderful to be back in a smoke-choked net bar listening to the manufactured sounds of violence from the PC gaming and the blaring Chinese rap.

I am coming to the end of my rapidly fraying rope, mentally, physically, spiritually and ecumenically. (can anyone name the two movies I just quoted in that one sentence????) Cambodia makes me tired. I gave blood at a children's hospital today (which was another horror show of its own inside.....remind me never to get sick outside the united states). There is a Dengue Fever Epidemic and sort of a blood crisis. A Greek girl came in shortly after me and we were chatting it up as we reclined with needles in our arms (I must say, I have never started a friendship in a blood bank before, and on top of that, when it was all over, we found out we had the same blood type......fate.......). She told me she loved Cambodia to the point of obsession; the energy of the place she said. I almost fell off the blood donating table in disbelief. Maybe it is because I am tired of traveling, or maybe I just can't deal with the country, but I will be glad to get out of here on Tuesday. Glad I came, but glad to leave.

At some point this week I told Jane, ":I have to get out of here!" The oppression, pain and poverty are suffocating, every time you go out, people are literally pulling you in a million different directions at once. I mean, I have been to Third World countries before, I currently reside in one for that matter, but I have never seen such desperation. People pleading with you to separate with your money. I felt so trapped.

Jane reminded me that that is exactly the point, poverty is trapping. And how lucky are we to be able to escape it. I just can't take it.

Furthermore, every time I open up my email box I am driven to tears by either good news or awful news from my community. I loathe being away from it. How I ever managed to find such amazing amazing people is beyond me and I hate hearing of their hard times that I can't help them with. It also hurts to miss their celebrations as well.

I am finally out of Phnom Penh.....a place I never want to go back too....ever.......Jane and I visited a few typical tourist spots like the National Museum, the Silver Pagoda (the floor is all silver!) and the Royal palace, but we also made it too some horrific sights. With the Khmer Rouge reign in the 1970's over 2 million Cambodians (one in every 5) were executed in the name of fanatical communism. We went to an old high school that had been converted into a prison and torture center for Pol Pot's prisoners. Over 17,000 prisoners were taken to this center (called s-21 then, Toul Sleng now) and only 12 survived. The Khmer Rouge would arrest the entire family of a wanted "criminal"and then in due time, execute them all after several months of torture.

They documented every part of the process with written biographies of the prisoners, pictures of their arrival and then their deaths. The Khmer Rouge abandoned it quickly as when the regime came to an end in 1979 leaving evidence in abundance of their horrific crimes. The museum left everything almost exactly as it was.....chains, torture weapons, blood stains....and has also taken effort to display the pictures of every prisoner; man, woman and child. Pictures line room after room. Pictures of people alive, and pictures of people with their entire heads blown away, or bloated from being purposely drowned, or with bubbles coming out their nose from the acid poured down their throats.
I've never been to Germany, but I am sure the concentration camps must be like this too. We also went to a place outside of town known as the "Killing Fields"; acres of land filled with mass grave after mass grave of intellectuals, professionals, and enemies of Pol Pot where over 200,000 bodies of men, women and children where discovered. There is a stupa in the middle, filled with hundreds of thousands of skulls arranged by sex and age. In the sunken graves scattered across the field, bones and pieces of clothing still protrude from the ground.

Ironic, that these museums are made to honor the dead and to encourage the living to never let this happen again. Tourist file through and murmur their horror and shock, shaking their heads......and in a few decades, the same thing will repeat itself in areas like Sudan, Rwanda, and Bosnia....our children with file through the museums, murmur their horror and shock and shake their heads at the terrific tragedies that we are allowing in our current lifetime.
To see a better picture (and to be really depressed), rent the movie "The Killing Fields"

We left Phnom Penh by boat....roof of boat actually. We traveled up the Mekong River on the roof of a passenger boat with 50 of our closest Cambodian travel friends for 6 hours until we reached Siem Reap, the site of the largest worship complex in the world, Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, the sunburns Jane and I recieved yesterday are unforgiving and we decided to spend the day out of the sun and resting. Angkor Wat has waited for some 800 years, it can wait one more day.

I don't know what they are calling it these days. (I was going in a completely different direction, but when I typed that phrase, I thought of coming into our guesthouse last week and seeing a cluster of people around a ground floor window. They were looking at two people practicing massage on some mats and pillows..."I guess that's the activity room," said Jane....."'Activity,' eh? We call it something different these days," I replied.)

Anyway, I don't know what they are calling it these days, but Katie and Chris have decided to live their lives in way that is somewhat in communion with the poor. When they talk about it, I always think that it sounds so great, like something I want to do someday too.

I have changed my mind. I have no desire to ever live in poverty like they do. I know it is dreadful and selfish to say. If this trip has taught me anything, it is that I love my luxuries. I love my bed. I love having heat in the wintertime and a-con. in the summertime. I hate smelling myself and dirt-encrusted nails make me nervous after a few days. I like soap bubbles and I love hot water. I must floss before I go to bed and I secretly revel in getting to visit the dentist. I don't always have to have complex, expensive food......but I like organic and fresh, and sometimes I must have to have pizza or something ridiculously unhealthy and delicious and cheesy (mmmm, cheese). I long to have technology at my fingertips (with a diet coke on the desk). I am possessive of my free time, I like to have an aesthetic environment, and I think it is fun to put together weird clothing combinations. Travel makes me think, makes me smile, makes me hope; but it is such a luxury. So many of my students have never been out of their hometown, much less their province.

I am not saying that I would die without these, but I want them. I really really really want them. But maybe that is the point......that which we love becoming a distraction.

I don't know what the answer is.

Going to Cambodia tomorrow...another uplifting journey......for information on the recent reign of Pol Pot see http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/cambodia/

"the elephants got out just in time"

I am entirely toooooo sleepy for my own good. All this good weather and smiling people can make me want to nap. I miss the nap. It was such a staple in my college life. This week, we went to the rainforest to ride elephants. Our elephant was most amiable and sooooo big. I was quite surprised. I guess from afar, they seemed much smaller.

We also went to the New Life Center here in Chiang Mai. The New Life Center is a shelter for girls that are either at risk for prostitution or are ex-prostitutes that have been taken/sold from their villages into brothels and then rescued by Thailand Social Services. At the Center, the learn a trade as well as an academic education and they are also protected from brothel owners/ fathers who want to get them back to their detriment. It was a good but really really hard visit. The manager of the Center gave us a tour. We got to meet the girls and she told us their stories. The stories where unimaginable.......families abandoning or selling their girls, the conditions in which the brothel owners kept the girls----having to service 30-40 men a day combined with very little food, sleeping on the floor and being abused. It seemed unbelievable that these girls were standing in front of me, strong and smiling. I can't imagine living through that pain (physical, mental, spiritual, emotional) and not simply dissolving into little disposable pieces in some dark corner and disappearing. It gave me a passion for wanting to work with those girls in the future (I have to get an emotional grip first).
for more infomation on the new life center see: http://www.newlifethailand.org