Feb 08 2009
Readers of this blog, though they know me only in a virtual way, perhaps know me better than the real people I know. For one thing, I would never never never never never never never never never admit to a colleague at work, for example, that I’m a sucker for John Lloyd and Sarah Geronimo. [...]
Aug 25 2008
In my last week in Phnom Penh, Honey and I were driving to work on our usual route. On the way, we passed by the Royal Palace on our right while the great Bassac River (which connects to the Mekong River just a few miles away) was flowing serenely on our left over the [...]
Aug 15 2008
I am not afraid of ghosts. Except when I’m alone. At night. In Cambodia where millions of people died of genocide in the seventies. Last year, when Honey had to go to the Philippines for work for almost two months, he left me in this kingdom far far away where I was alone. [...]
Aug 12 2008
I’ve received letters from a businessman on a business trip, a future teacher, and a future expat in Cambodia. Here’s one from a future tourist:
Dear Toe,
Hi! I found your blog via Kristene’s blog and I think you’re one of the best writers in the blogosphere (hindi kita binobola!).
I live in Dallas, Texas (originally [...]
Jul 29 2008
Note: this is such a long-delayed post… it’s almost moot.
In the middle of our last choir practice before of our performance, I made a little impromptu (okay, okay… it was quite long and drawn-out) speech to the choir. I said it mostly in Filipino, and this is more or less the translated version:
Okay [...]
Jun 29 2008
So you see I’m supposed to be stuffing those boxes at the right with clothes and books and cds and all my personal stuff. And instead, I’m watching a marathon of How I Met Your Mother on the pirated DVD channel, playing Freecell, and YMing all at the same time. You might be [...]
Jun 18 2008
We’re not exactly the Philippine Madrigals, but hey, this is not my real job after all and my singers are not Conservatory graduates nor professional singers. Instead, they’re teachers, accountants, sales and marketing managers, and IT experts who took time out from their jobs and their families here in Cambodia so I can bully [...]
May 27 2008
Dear Toe,
I’ve been reading your blog in preparation for going to Cambodia. I am going there to teach in an International School run by a US-based missions organization, but I’m Pinay. Your blog has been very helpful and I’m grateful since I knew nothing about Cambodia until I started reading up when I got the [...]
May 18 2008
As if the stars in heaven were aligning themselves to outline my fate, in May 1970, Cambodia, the country where more than thirty years later I was destined to go for my first foreign posting, was all over the international news.
May 11, 1970 cover of Time Magazine
May 11 2008
I blog mainly to express myself and to record the details of my life. But I am very happy that besides being an outlet for my thoughts, I also have the opportunity, through my blog, to help other people. These people are mainly future FSOs, and recently, future expats and tourists to [...]
"We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter."
Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones
