Yesterday, I submitted the two tasks for speaking and writing. The director said in her reply that, when I came back to Singapore, she would apply to obtain a student pass for me so that I could stay with reassurance. Very nice of her. I await her comments for my work. I hope they are not totally off the points. Today, there was no important message in my inbox.
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I’m finding out yet again that being with someone all the time is not easy, and even so frustrating. Only being alone, I can work or read… if someone
watched me work/read, I can’t. I truly appreciate my private hours. Yesterday and today, I sent messages two of my friends using Skype. I’m getting tired of here, maybe…*
I went out alone tonight for the first time. I just walked around the block and was stopped by two pimps. Both were riding scooters, and the first one looked a beautiful guy, who was saying to me, “XXXXXX” (Japanese four-letter word). The second one was a middle-aged woman who was saying, “Young beautiful woman to your hotel…”
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Where is my home? Japan? Singapore? Vietnam? Or some place else? Can I find an answer or any answer in The Alchemist, which I plan to finish during my one-day trip to Cambodia?2008年2月25日（月）0:14 (Vietnam time)
Off to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, taking a tourist bus that leaves here at 8:00 am. It takes six hours to reach Phnom Penh, and I’m gonna spend only one night there.
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The director e-mailed me saying that we would discuss my tasks when I returned to Singapore…2008年2月26日（火）15:49 (Vietnam time)
About 10 minutes after 8:00 am on Monday, I, with a few other tourists, got on a mini bus only to move into a large tour bus, which was going ahead of us. I don’t know why we didn’t hop on to the large one in the first place. Anyway, here we went to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The change of the scenery was stark. Green rice fields and water buffaloes appeared. After we crossed the b
order over to Cambodia, a pavement work of the road was going on and the ride was a little bumpy, and simple-built raised-raised floor houses (or rather shacks) were everywhere. The signs of the Peoples’ Party, Sam Rainsy Party, FUNCINPEC and Human Rights Party were also seen.Introduced a guesthouse by the tourist agency where the bus stopped, I took a tuk-tuk for the first time in my life. I paid US$2.00 fo
lmr the ride, maybe ripped off, but the enjoyment of riding a tuk-tuk was much stronger. The guesthouse room was good enough just for one night (US$6.00), although it had no toiletry (even a toile
t tissue, which I had no choice to buy at the reception at US$0.50) and hot water shower. When I settled in the room, it was around 4:00 pm. It was an 8-hour trip.When I was having an Angkor Beer and waiting for my fried noodle to arrive, a tour driver approached me. Because I had only one night, I accepted his offe
r to bring me to the Royal Palace to look at it from outside and took photos and the “Russian” market. He charged me US$4.00. Ripped off again?
He asked, “Night lady?” I replied, “No energy…” Then, he asked, “Smoke?” I, ever innocent, didn’t understand the question. So I asked back, “Smoke?” He answered, “Yeah, marijuana.” I declined.
Phnom Penh was quite clean and the level of development compared with outside it was contrasting, though I saw a desolate apartment block.
For the room, food and drinks, I paid $15.15 to the guesthouse. To the departure point, it cost US$2.00 again but this time by a motorbike.
It took only six hours, as scheduled, to come back to HCM. On the way back, I finished “The Alchemist.”
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From Part Two: “Even though I complain sometimes,” [the boy’s heart] said, “it’s because I’m the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
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