Bieber no show, disappointment

The sole point of this blog post is to disappoint you.

There was no Beiber performance at my church. After rehearsing the song a bit Samuel and I decided that we didn't quite have the voice to sing that high for so long so we thought it might no be a good idea. In the words of Samuel, "I think we should save face, and maybe do it another time." So maybe another time, maybe not. Sorry to all my fans out there but it was a no show.

How do you say 'Santa' in Khmer?

I hope I’m not letting anybody down, but there are currently no new massive adventures to report on, I’m thinking my raft adventure will be hard to follow anyways. However, just to keep my homies all updated this is what’s going on:
 

For those of you who haven’t heard, I accidentally deleted my entire iTunes library. You’d think that the ‘IT Support Specialist’ would know how to not delete an entire music collection on accident, but here we are. Perhaps it’s a reminder to the world that I’m really not that much of an ‘IT guy,’ it’s more of a hobby than anything really; but I do love the work I’ve done here. Thankfully a few of the other MCCers have similar music tastes (as in awesome) as I do and have helped me get both old and new artists in my library. To my delight, one of them was Sufjans Stevens’ X-mas album. It’s a great CD and was a complete reminder to me that it’s actually ‘Christmas Time.’ In Phnom Penh you’ll find a few western shops and offices try to imitate a few decorations and jingle bells as reminders and there’s even blowup Santa Clause next the Russian Market right now, but to be honest it all feels a little out of place. It’s pretty amazing how stimulated we are by decorations and atmosphere back home. The snow alone is a symbol of the holidays, so here I just don’t even seem to react to the idea of Christmas. Which is probably a good thing because I’m not going to be celebrating it in the same sense that I’m used to. No decorating of a tree, atmospheric Christmas music resonating through the house, or smell of delicious holiday-themed treats floating round the kitchen. I admit for well that I’ll miss the family gatherings and spending time with relatives in Illinois and Indiana, but to my comfort I’ll be spending the last stretch of December back in Sihanoukville (again) and then to Siem Reap so Merry Christmas!
  

In similar news, my Church is doing some sort of Christmas-celebration-thing on the 10th and 12th and once again I really don’t have any idea what it actually is – my Khmer is still improving slightly but when it comes to listening to church meetings in Khmer I’d have a better chance of learning how to do kung-fu by magic than to actually hear and understand what people are saying. Then it happened. If you read my blog post about ‘Friendship Camp’ in Sihanoukville you’ll be familiar with my Justin Beiber/Sean Kingston performance. Well turns out they want an encore for the Christmas bash. This time Samuel and I are doing the song ‘Enie Meenie’ karaoke style on a stage in front of dozens of Khmer kids. My host brother emphasized that it be a good performance since there were going to be non-believers there. He went on to ask me if ‘Enie Meenie’ was a Christian song. “Not in this universe.” “Well, what’s the message,” he asked. I responded, “Ummm, it’s kinda about girls who play around with this guys heart. But he wants a girl who will love him for real.” Then my brother smiled at me as if he had a solution, “Ok so after the song you can give a testimony talking about how sometimes girls will play with your heart and give you love that’s not real. But Jesus’ love is real and he will always love you and never play with your heart.” And the go-ahead has been given, I will rock the house with all my heart and soul on the 12th of December, that’s a promise.
  

Aight so that’s enough talky, here are some bullet points to give a little more detail to what’s new:
  

I’m back in Prey Veng right now for 3 days to do some computer work. We drove out to a school in the rural parts to have a meeting and the way there I got to ride in the truck bed the entire way and then we got stuck in the mud while passing through one of the villages. I got to get out and help push. It’s a total off-roading adventure because the ‘roads’ have all kinds of imperfections and would actually be a great place to bring some 4-wheelers or dirt bikes. Confirmed: I am a country boy at heart and wish I were spending more time out here, the villages are so beautiful.
  

I’ll be starting my web design class soon, I’ve gotten word that I have 5 confirmed students. Need to write my own lesson plan, should be fun.
  

The honeymoon stage of SALT has started to wear off, but I don’t expect the depression stage to really sink in. Phnom Penh has lost it’s initial excitement for me but I’m not ready to go home by any means, there’s still a lot of experience to be had.
  

The other week I was walking down the street and a man wearing a shark costume came up to me and asked me in Khmer if “I’d be interested in learning how to make hammocks.” He said he was going to travel around the countryside and sell them to villages and he wanted an apprentice. I told him I was interested and he took me to a small stand in the Russian Market where he worked. But everyone there was wearing hats with frowny faces on them.  He had one for me and told me to wear it, I told him that “I’m not the kind of guy to wear these hats because I’m a happy person.”  He frowned at me and told me there is no room in his hammock team for someone like me. Oh well, maybe some other day.
  

One of the bullet points I made is not real.
  

Ok well I hope everyone is doing well and in good health. I know I’ve made half-ass plans to skype with some people and I’m sorry for not making it happen for real. So if you’re one of those people who want to skype I am definitely down, send me an email or something and let’s set a time :D