I don't miss America but would still like care packages.

Before I got to Ghana, I was in full Peace Corp anticipation mode, meaning impatience and anxious. I couldn't wait to leave the situation I was in then. I consciously ignore all potentials downsides of being a foreigner in a developing country. No hot shower? No car? No family? No problem. I have always liked to think of myself as low maintenance and independent, Peace Corps life is totally the life for me.

Now, more than 10 months later, as I continue to spend night after night alone in my house after dark in front of the candle lights. I've come to realized a few things or two about this life. 

Peace Corps life is still the life for me. 

I have no electricity and no running water. I live by myself and have no neighbors. My closest friends are my 47 years old counter-part and his wife. My other closest friends are the 10 years old twins who don't speak any English but like to sit on my verrendah as well as their older brother who is also just as young. I have to walk an hour by foot to the next town to charge my things. I can count on one hand the type of food that's sold in my village, and my toilet is a tiny hole in the ground. 

And I don't hate it. 

All things outside of your supposed comfort zone are view to be much more difficult to deal with, but once you get used to the rocks and pebbles of this new ground, you're in a new zone. Through humility, I still managed to have my electricity charged. Through understanding, I find trust in strangers. Through some mysterious force of nature, I find that I like kids. Through patience, I now have great toned and lean legs. Through discovery, my belly is still full every day. And through the good gracious of higher beings, my stomach has not required me to do a latrine run in the middle of the night.

Someday things are shits.

Ignorance. Harrassment. Racism. Sexism. Pure and simple stupidity. My inability to take anyone’s shit or keep my mouth shut and consequentially raise my blood pressure every time.

But this too shall pass.

Be it numbness, or surrender, or new found coping mechanism, thing don’t bother me as much anymore. I get that initial of-the-moment-high-temper-table-flipping -what-the-fuck-did-you-just-say-to-me? feeling, but it would be over as soon as it started. I dwell less on what happened, and focus more on the humor of the story—because every story involving dumbass deserves a laugh.

I was not prepared for loneliness as I thought I was.

I remember writing a post bragging about how I am not afraid of living alone, and that I don’t need to be around people or their companionship. Now I take that back. Being a lone is a physical state. Loneliness is the rougher mental part. I can sit by myself reading a book for hours, but 30 minutes of feeling isolated, left out or forgotten and I am ready to throw in the towel and want to run away to somewhere, anywhere. This usually happen at night, when I don’t want to do project planning, the books aren’t interesting, and the candles are on their last life – I would end up going to bed at 7pm.

Being alone and loneliness are two different things, and they come with the territory.

Beside married couples, all PCVs live by themselves, essentially. Some have neighbors, some share a compound with other people, some live in a giant house by themselves with lizards being the closest living things to a roommate—like me. Regardless, everyone shares the similar agenda of waking up alone and going to sleep alone. At night, I sit alone and plan my project alone. Some nights, it is as natural as a part of the job. Other nights, I exhaust my phone battery texting other people because sitting alone with my thoughts is an overwhelming loneliness. So I try to use my alone time productively, or take preventive measures against loneliness through the form of extra phone batteries.

So things are still rough, but I am not quitting. About a year and some odd months to go, but I am not seriously counting down. I don't miss America, yet. I could use more communication from people back home, but life is hectic, and I shouldn't be upset about it. I don’t want to go back yet, and it makes me sad to think about that day. All in which, I think, is a surprisingly positive result for having to live with a monthly candles budget.

P.S: In case you miss me and want to send me a well crafted care package to show that you care. Here’s a few ideas of what could go inside:

- Magazines: something maybe of educational values so I can donate to the school later-but things of current events is great. I am very out of the loop.

- Gummivites/ Fruitsnacks/ Gummy Candies: Who doesn’t love them?

-Packaged soup mix, instant soup mix, instant mashed potatoes: I love soup. And as of recently, mashed potatoes.

- General snacks: Milano cookies, Chip Ahoys. NO cheese or peanut butter flavors.

- Candles: Did I mention that I have a candle budget? Help me go nuts. Unscented or vanilla, other strong scents might catch bugs.

- Seaweed/good ramen from Asian stores: I am Asian afterall.

-Toothpaste and floss: Floss are exceptionally shitty here.

Packages are to send to:

CHAU NGO

P.O BOX 5796

ACCRA NORTH, GHANA

WEST AFRICA 

For easier packing, take things out of boxes before stuffing them inside. For easier custom search, put 'old magazines, of no values' on the packages declare list.

Thanks!

Four months vs. forty hours.

I have about four months or so to get my shit together for departure, and working forty hours a week doesn't leave me much time to do anything else (or actually give me anymore money, ironically). The good news it that it only takes me under 30 mins to get home from work now so more shopping and planning time. The slight-downside-but-I-already-saw-this-coming is that I don't have that much money to spare in term of buying and spending because now I'm paying for rent. But I don't hate it, and I'm complaining because it's my blog, and I can do whatever I want. Wah.

In term of paper works wise, so far, I have turned in my aspiration statement and update resume. Other pending things to do are:

- Yellow fever shot -- To fight off the disease, not the (Asian/yellow) people

Yes, another vaccine shot. Just when I thought I had gotten them all, there is still one more. This shot costs somewhere between $112-$120, but Peace Corps will reimburse me up to $150 so it's not a problem. And I can get it at Vons. Cool, right? Who would have thought, stop by the store for some bread, and leave with more than just ingredients for a sandwich.

- Ghana Visa, Peace Corps Passport, Passport Pictures -- What? You mean, my American Passport alone isn't enough? What is a Peace Corps Passport? And I have to take an extra 10 passport pictures?

I don't know about anyone else, but having your passport pictures (or driver license picture) taken is never a fun experience. You don't get to smile/show your teeth, you don't get to wear hat/scarf/sunglasses or maybe even earrings, and if you have bangs, sometime it gets pinned on the side and not always in a cute fashion. It's just a full frontal face snap, plain and dull. The only different between this and a mug shot is that you pay somewhere between $5-$15 bucks for your 4 pictures while a mug shot almost always include some overnight time in jail. I don't know who got the better deal here.

- Deferring my loans -- Pretty much the numero uno important thing in my book. Get those pesky debts taken care of. Ugh, the things we have to deal with for higher education.

- Packing or form a concrete packing list -- Don't even let me get start on that shit.

who gives a shit

"Not everyone can be a doctor," this was said to my mother by someone whose own daughter is a doctor as they discuss (and probably compare) their children. And this person thought she has the upper hand because her own child is now a successful doctor while I am still a post graduate who's about to enter a semi-nomadic lifestyle of being a Peace Corps volunteer. She even told my mom, "I wouldn't let her go to Africa if she was my kid." And she probably thought that she would appear sympathy trying to 'comfort' my mother in light of me leaving for a poor 3rd world country.

And for that, I feel bad for my mother having to listen to this person gloats, but that's the only thing I feel bad about. To the rest, I say, who gives a shit.

So what if I'm not a doctor. I have plenty of friends who are studying to be doctors, and that's cool because that's what they want to do. Not me. Chemistry excites me as much okra, and okra is gross. I don't want to be a doctor, and I'm okay with it. I don't want to touch, cut, feel, heal people. But I still want to help them... in some other ways. My mother is still getting used to it, and she'll come around, so really, who cares about what you think, dear person who probably don't even know what the box is to even phantom the idea of thinking outside it.

But then of course, this is a norm in the Vietnamese/Asian culture. People living against a master standard and if something/someone doesn't measure up to it, it's considered worthless. Again, if you ask me, I say, fuck that shit.

I don't need to be conventional or follow any traditions against my will. I will do whatever I please, and I will make it. I won't be a doctor but I will do other things, and hopefully in the process, make my mom (and dad, and grandpa and grandma and other people who care) proud. Just you wait inside your box and see, if you can even see that far outside the lines.

hump day, but not the fun kind

It's 9:15pm and I probably will have to go to sleep in an hour. I just got home from work 1.5 hrs ago. I hate this. I hate having so little time to take care of things, to relax, to watch some shows, to do some paper works because I spent the of my free time in traffic. Every. Fucking. Day.

How do people do it? Same thing, same drive everyday. It's been only about 3 going to 4 months for me and I seriously am going nuts. A couple more days and I will have a different route and hopefully it will be less shitty than this one.

I really don't see myself doing this 9-5 (or 6) routine again anytime soon in the future. 4 more months. Ohmygod it's four more months? Again, how do people do this for years? Decades? Their entire lives? If this is what the real world is, it sucks. If this is 'living' I'd rather be in a coma. Why not? I already feel like a zombie from this mind numbing routines that people seem to be so comfortable with. If this is 'growing up', how do I stop?

I don't remember what fun feels like.

what a pleasant surprise!

Yesterday, one of my former student whom I used to tutor math emailed me out of the blue. I hadn't spoke to him since March when I left for Vietnam. I just thought he had lost my email or didn't care to stay in touch, which is kind of a bummer because I really liked the kid. He was pretty mature for his age. Despite being a poster child for punk/rock emo kids who wear trench coats in the summer and can pull off the dark eyeliner look better than I could, he was sweet and funny, and we have spent quite some of his 'studying' time discussing Dragon Balls. (I might have started that conversation.)

When I first started working with him, he had an F in the class, like a 20 something percent, and after one semester with me, he went up 40 percents and ended with a D+. So he didn't pass the class, and I was pretty disappointed, but he motivated by saying that he didn't even think it was possible to get up there, so I shouldn't let it get to me. (Wasn't I suppose to do the motivating?)

Anywho, he emailed to tell me that thanks to my help, he got an A on the second semester and retook the first semester and ended with a B+, and that he missed our tutoring session because it was "fun and educational."

Well shit, that just made my day.

Occasionally I wonder what goods came out of my 6 months stint in San Diego except for the rock bottom feeling and endless Vietnamese sandwiches, and that short email was a nice reminder.

A pleasant surprise indeed. But that's not all!

"Why are white people at the Harlem Pride!?!?... What are these old white people doing there?!?"

Ever since I finished Misfits last week, I have been feeling empty on the inside. Probably because I have little else to look forward to after the hour drive back from work.

And thank goodness that work is enjoyable, making my one hour drive each way directly toward the sun semi worth it. Sitting in the same corridor with my immediate boss, having to light turned off the entire day because he too, does not enjoy strong lights while listen to him talk out loud to his emails (i.e: today's post's title) and give his computer sass for being non-cooperative has been a blast. There is always something for me to do, I don't have to constantly watch my back for a personal neck-breather, and I can eat at my desk anytime I want (probably not a good idea in the long run). I guess I am blessed to have found this job after almost a year of struggling. And despite Peace Corps being on hold for now, I consider this a part of my Peace Corps training since I'm sure what I see/learn here will be useful in Peace Corps.

Plus, every day, I get to enjoy these wonderful perks such as:

a. Mexican fruits stand from across the street. Can you say fiber?

for only FOUR dollars

b. random non-homeless looking individuals passing out in front of family oriented locations such as this elderly home

some people just like to forget
that Tuesday ever happened

And that's pretty much it.

Every morning, I drive to work dreaming of being somewhere else, especially on days when the sun is so fucking bright at only 8am (which is every-fucking-day). Ihatesummer. I don't particularly miss San Diego, I have had my times there, and it was/is time for me to move on and out, so not being there doesn't make me sad. I am only sad that instead of being in SD or somewhere else, I am in LA.

So many factors play into the reasons of why LA is a terrible city for me. And as this blog is pretty much always on the borderline of personal rants vs. a display of my travel and experience, I'm gonna put one foot over the other line today and complain today, so this is your last chance to stop reading now.

Alright, don't say I didn't warn you.

Getting lost and my first gray hair.

Well hello there,

"I know I've got a power... I can feel it in my balls."

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been meaning to be prompt with my news, but I stumbled upon a wonderful distraction in the form of this show. Misfits, a British comedy original. As my apparent fondness for the Brits and their humor grows, I have not been able to stop watching this show upon its discover... two nights ago. So instead of spending my little free time I have now sharing my life with the world in the form of this blog, I've just been watching TV. Thank goodness that British television has about half the number of episodes in one series in comparison to American shows, otherwise, I don't see how I could possibly get any work done.

Anyway, the show is a sci-fy, fantasy comedy with the usual brilliant British screen play, and I'm more hooked than a bait worm. Since I have already professed my love for British television, I won't bored everyone with more of this love sick shit. I would just like to recommend the show for anyone who's down for some wicked humor and semi Wolverine style super heroes. Find it on Youtube or watch-series or wait for it to come out weekly on Hulu, you won't regret it. (Unless dark, offensive, politically incorrect humor isn't your thing... then maybe you shouldn't even be reading this blog.)

Now, onto the real reason why you are here.