Define "bored"

So yes. In my large beard-oriented rant earlier that probably lost me half the people that were under the false impression that I am a cool person I mentioned that use of our free time is often a challenge out here. One of the common questions is “what do you do in your free time, teacher?”

“Well Little Sophorn, glad you asked….”

Of course, much of the following entry relates to my time when school was out of session because when teaching we are often occupied with various school related activities. Also, thankfully since I began to write this entry I have begun to work with a great grass-roots NGO that will give me my fill of other types of health and agriculture activities. So my time to come as the school year begins will be anything but vacuous.

But I am never one to let reality stand in the way of comedy. So here are some of the things I have done with the slower moments of my time here…

-Teach. Obviously. The job I came here to do. Wicked.
-Plan lessons for the classes I teach, usually by myself though I’m trying to convince my co-teachers to participate. Not holding my breath on that one, but they are good guys so I’m still excited to work with them this coming year. Maybe I can use my white-man voodoo.
-Think about how I can convince my school director that me painting a giant geography lesson for the World Map Project on the wall of a school building won’t ruin his current “dirt” theme.
-Go to my NGO. These guys are awesome and doing great grassroots work. I will expand more on this as I get back into the swing with them this year. Plus I don’t want to ruin the ridiculous vein I feel this might take by dwelling on something logical and useful.
-Hang out with my neighbors. This sometimes consists of literally hanging in a hammock. Or maybe we drink moonshine made from (prepare for the shock): rice (this may be a theme you notice in much of my journaling). There are many ridiculously awesome interactions that occur with “So then they broke out the rice wine…” I’ve chosen to overlook the fact that sometimes the alcohol arrives in plastic petroleum containers. Ignorance is bliss.
-Read Peace Corps manuals on development and English teaching. We have at least 30 pounds of books we have gradually accrued on many different approaches/projects/topics that we might find to be of use here, and more are coming in gradually as the months progress. As I finish reading perhaps I shall build an addition to my room with them.
-Read for fun – so far East of Eden, Dune, Life of Pi, half of The End of Poverty, Brave New World, Slaughterhouse 5… feel like I’m missing one? Most recently I have been working on a Cultural History of Russia to get a background on the literature of that country. Then on to Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace and other easy reads of that nature… I am also passing on some of my favorites to people for the first time: Zach read Ender's Game, Conor read The Golden Compass, and Fel just started Dune. Apparently when Jason asked her if she had sunblock the other day she said "you know, the Fremen? They don't NEED sunblock! They have blue eyes. And stillsuits." Freakin' awesome.
-Sumrah. Sleep. Nap. Count water buffalo. Check the inside of my eyelids for holes. You get the idea.
-Do situps/pushups/etc in my room. Also got some sort of elastic band I can use for upper body. Though frankly this sort of exercise I find almost more boring than doing absolutely nothing.
-Go running. This is usually me doing wind-sprints out in the rice paddies while passersby stop their walking/biking/driving to watch me run around for 30 minutes. As of yet I haven’t been able to find an effective way to do running of any sort of appreciable longer distance in the village. This is primarily due to the fact that there are about 23526 vicious and possibly rabid dogs in every front yard that seem convinced that simply by running past their house I am going to destroy everything they hold dear in this world. I’m thinking about just finding a good 4 foot piece of bamboo to go running with. The dogs seem to recognize such an implement as the international symbol for “I come in peace.” Or “@#%* off.” Either way works for me. I mean, people ski with rifles in that one sport right? Same deal.
-Cry because the mice ate something new of mine, and I just can’t do anything about it.
-Write emails on my computer.
-Write journal entries on my computer. Why did I even write those two activities out…I want those 30 seconds on my life back.
-Play a game which involves letting sweat run down my face and bead on the tip of my nose. I then calculate the precise moment the droplet has reached critical mass, judge the optimum angle of my head, and then blow air directly from my pursed lips towards the tip of my nose to see how far I can send the droplet flying. I anticipate being able to knock passing travelers clear off their motorbikes with this technique eventually. Another variation is my occasionally shaking my head vigorously to send a shower of sweat from my hair outwards in a circular halo from my head. Distance of spray as well as symmetry of the circle are important in this event. I see no connection between this activity and the fact that everyone gives me so much more personal space than the other volunteers get.
-Play guitar. Will be a white Jimi Hendrix in 2 years.
-Watch as every Khmer person wants to hold my guitar and pretend they know how to play it.
-Say “no, I don’t know how to play ‘Take Me To Your Heart’, ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes’ or any of the other karaoke songs you want to hear. Would you like to hear an awkwardly played Radiohead song? No? Yeah, I don’t blame you.”
-Make French toast for my family. They mainly have small baguettes here so it was a little awkward, but it turned out sort of like little sticks which was nice. Also I could have probably put maple syrup on shingles and they would have told me it was delicious. Not because it actually would have been, but just because they are nicer to me than my blunderings would warrant.
-Think of ways to kill my dogs without being caught.
-Eat nome and bong aim. These are the khmer words for any sort of cake, and desert. I have eaten ones made from banana, bean, tapioca, peanut, rice (duh), coconut, palm sugar, pork… you get the idea.
-Constantly search for/buy these boiled banana and rice things wrapped in coconut. They are called “ansom jaet”. I fully intend to write an entry entirely on these glorious snacks soon. Don’t know the Khmer word for “junkie” yet.
-Plant rice. I had wanted to do it for weeks, but was constantly told it would be “too hot”, “too hard”, “there are leeches that can burrow into your brain through your ear” and other such minor details. Eventually my neighbor let me and while this was a totally awesome and unique experience… they weren’t kidding when they said it would suck. Along with giving me a true appreciation for what most of this country does to sustain itself and its children, it also gave me knew appreciation for what my spine was incapable of doing without mind-numbing pain the next day. And while everyone out there with me was so so kind and appreciative of my help and the novelty of it, I hold no delusions that I actually made much of a contribution. In fact, I didn’t realize that when you go in having no expectations that you can actually be WORSE at something than you originally thought. Can’t say exactly when I realized my impotence as a rice farmer… maybe it was when the 8 year old girl blew past me planting and laughing. Could have been then.
-Bond with my bike. Her name is "Kong" and she's a Virgo. Kong means "bike" in Khmer. I'm a genious. Sometimes she is good to me and I her, othertimes the opposite. Its a love-hate relationship.
-Yell obscenities at my "road", which is at the moment could better be classified as a "mud river". I have a similar relationship to the one with my bike. Except here, there is only hate.
-Come up with new and exciting ways to avoid teaching English when I am going full speed on my bike and a new eager learner holds pace next to me on his moto. Tried several tactics including actually practicing English 1.5 hours into a 2 hour ride, and telling them "sorry, I'm about to die. I can't practice speaking right now." My favorite response to that was "I know you don't want to talk to me right now, but I want to speak English with YOU." Ha. The best solution I came up with is to just say in Khmer "Sorry, I'm German."
-Stare at dust. There is a particular technique involved in this pursuit that I have to explain because otherwise it sounds deceivingly simple. First, pick your target area of dust. It depends on the individual but speaking for myself, I prefer a patch of beige-colored soil (though when pressed I’ll accept khaki. While not an ideal shade, it is tolerable) about 15 feet away from me in the middle of my front yard. Anything too close and you get distracted by minutiae (ex. Wind stirring your motes, dogs copulating on your chosen area, my brothers having caged death-matches with crickets, etc) and anything too far and you can’t truly appreciate the subtleties of the experience. Once you have found dirt that appeals to you, take several deep breaths (through the nose is best as it facilitates the best transfer of oxygen in the lungs. This is actually true. Seriously.) and allow your eyes to gradually lose focus. You can’t rush this process, but if done at the correct pace you will take on a glazed expression while not entirely blurring your vision. Once you feel your eyes submit, next turn your focus towards your facial muscles to coax them into relaxing. The goal here is not so much to actually relax your face, but your jaw. You will feel it gradually begin to hang slackly and you know you are following the path with grace and accuracy when saliva starts to build in your lower lip. This is the most crucial part of this undertaking – you MUST NOT DROOL. I can’t emphasize this enough. A balance of forces in essential, and nothing will ruin your chi like giving in to such a hackneyed expression of extreme boredom. You are Siddhartha, not Homer Simpson. Assuming you have progressed this far, the next and final stage can only be achieved by a true master – you actually fall asleep in this position. What glory there is in this accomplishment! I eagerly await the day when my efforts will culminate in this ultimate moment of fulfillment. Go forth and practice, Grasshopper.
-Stare at bugs.
-Stare at palm trees.
-Stare at my dogs.
-Stare at my family/neighbors. Though this does little good as they usually are already staring at me.
-Stare at passing bikes/motos/trucks on the village road.
-Stare at the amazing skies here (look, just assume this theme continues. I will win every staring contest I am ever in. Ever. Bring it.)
-Watch my brothers have caged matches with monstrous crickets they tie to the end of strings. The loser is then spun repeatedly in a big circle because this “makes him bite more.” And I believe it.
-Count the number of times Sting says “Roxanne” in the Police song. If memory serves I think its 17, though it depends on if you count the fading out ones and such.
-Try to move things with my mind so I don’t have to get out of my hammock. I swear to God I made the cat move a centimeter last Friday.
-Grow a beard. See the “Pogonotrophy!” entry for an unnecessarily ridiculous expansion on this topic. I can’t go into it more here; it gets me all hot and bothered.
-Text other volunteers. Topics range from beard growing strategy (surprise surprise), to music, to Lord of the Rings, to teaching advice, to ridiculous anecdotes, to discussions on amount of nome consumed, etc etc. This really isn’t doing justice to how key these texts are in my life here. The support/comic relief is invaluable.
-Perform Jedi mind tricks on various taxi drivers so they stop ripping me off. Plans for a bamboo lightsaber are in the works.
-Eat rice (who didn't see this coming).
-Eat more rice (ok, just wanted to reach 40 bullet points).
-Embrace the ensuing carb-coma.

Anyway, while there is plenty more ridiculousness I could probably pour onto the page, I’ll cut myself off here because… well frankly, my laptop screen is covered with insects that are attracted to the light and I can take it anymore. Time to count those water buffalo.