Tuesday, June 30, 2009

jury duty and other thoughts

hey hey...got excused from jury duty earlier. i told the clerk it was my last week at work and showed them my assignment for peace corps. they require dates, so the lady photocopied the front page of my assignment and my invitation letter. but, since i will be keeping my ca driver's license, i'll continue to receive jury duty summons. bummer--i'll let my parents handle it.

there will be a language assessment when we arrive in cambodia. so, i am trying to keep up with my language study. we will only have 8 weeks of language training before we go to our permanent site. i can barely say "how are you"...

peace corps cambodia wants us to read at least one book on the country before we arrive. so, i am currently reading Stay Alive, My Son by Pin Yathay. i'm only on the second chapter, but the book is a personal account of a man who was forced into a labor camp by the khmer rouge and was separated from his only surviving son, Nawath.

being on a fixed income, i don't have much financial wiggle room. with that being said, i purchased a netbook from costco. it should be arriving this week. acer 10 inch...i hope its worth it or doesn't break down the day i arrive in cambodia.

other musings you ask...THURSDAY is my last day at work! after that, i have 18 days to prepare and "do stuff". i'll be up in sf for one weekend. hopefully, i'll get to go rafting with lisa and tom while i am up there. ryan is taking me to chez panisse one last time! yum!

hold the phone!!!! ryan just said that its no longer chez panisse---and that it was a surprise...huh? what could it be?

time to go eat some hummus....

Thursday, June 18, 2009

32 more days!

I made strawberry stuffed diafuku mochi the other night. fun. fun. fun. anyhow---

I will be flying up to San Francisco, July 21st. We are having one day of staging-- its orientation and pre-training info. I'm anticipating a lot of paperwork and a lot of talk and reflection. Stuff like that. But, I'm excited.

We have a long haul trip to Cambodia though. Our flight schedule looks like this:

July 22nd, leave from SFO for Tokyo on an 11 hour 15 min flight.

July 23, leave Tokyo for Bangkok on a 6 hour and 40 min flight

and finally on,

July 24, leave Bangkok and arrive in Phnom Penh on a 1 hour 15 min flight...phwwww...

I'm still thinking about what I should pack. I think the roller duffel I purchased from Costco may be too big. The dimensions are within Peace Corps limits, but I don't think I'll be packing for 2 years.

Using my handy desk calendar at work, I am realizing that I am only bound to 10 more days of work! wowo! However, I mentally signed out like 2-3 weeks ago (blogging from work...). pretty ridiculous. And, you know what else?!?! I have jury service duty my last week of work. ughhhh..so annoying.

I'm trying to meet up with family and friends before I leave. All this meeting up and eating is really cutting into my running routine (I ran one day this week):

  • This past Sunday, I had dinner with my Grandma and my aunts and uncles;
  • Monday, I had dinner with Naveen;
  • Wednesday, I had dinner with my uncle Charlie;
  • tonight, i'll be joining my cousin Ben and his wife Cherie for dinner;
  • Friday night, i'll be making mochi with Jennifer;
  • Sunday is Father's day, which probably means Baccali
  • And, for the next 3 consecutive sundays, I will be attending Hollywood Bowl shows--which means, I will need to cook food. I love Bowl shows!
Okay, gotta go.

Here's a video of me feeding geese in Cerritos Park---