San Francisco

Well the time has come...

My body is about to rest for the last time in the US until I return in about 27 months. I just finished the staging event in San Francisco and am about to pass out. The flight in this morning was not too bad, but the jetlag is really killer. With a good night's sleep though, I should be remedied for tomorrow.

Staging was a success and the other volunteers all seem very nice and driven. I have already made some friends and am very excited to continue on to Tokyo tomorrow. Some of the other volunteers have actually studied in Japan before, and they have promised to take us to get great food in the airport during our layover for dinner. Then on to Bangkok! Finally at around 0900 local time, we will land in Cambodia this Friday. I really need to start studying the Khmer language lessons I have saved on my computer on the flight. We apparently are going to have a language assessment first thing on Friday. At some point this upcoming weekend we will acquire our cell phones, so I should be able to make some calls this weekend. If not, early next week.

I hopefully will beable to update this next week and will provide pictures of my training village. If you want to Google map the location, it is called Takeo Province. I do not know exactly where I will be, but you will be able to get a good idea of the topography and the population density form the sattelite image.

Talk to you soon!

Preparations

Well, in a little less then two weeks I will be headed overseas to start my 27 month stint with the Peace Corps. Finally I am fully set to depart. I have the majority of my packing list and only have to invest in a couple of books, mainly TEFL teaching aid books, and then off to Asia!

So far my Khmer (pronounced Kha-mai) studying has stalled with three quarteers of the consonant side of the alphabet, but once in Cambodia I am confident that the high level of immersion will kickstart my brain into accepting a new way of communicating. I am sure hunger and thirst will add some incentive in mastering basic Khmer.

Mostly this past week I have wrapped up loose ends with the bank, credit card company, and have spent time seeing friends. Saturday I'll fly back to the Puerto Rico to spend a couple of days with my parents since by the time I return, September 25, 2011, they will be living off the rock and hopefully back in the US.

Thanks for following in my adbenture! Once I get over to Cambodia I will post as soon as I have internet access, hopefully with pictures. Wish me luck, and if you are feeling cheritable you can augment my pathetic salary by sending cash to... just kidding.