2008

Last night Pub Street was packed with revellers, spirits were high (and abundant in glasses left right and centre) and the fireworks were ready to go. People were happy, the music was loud, all was well.

I went home at eleven and watched telly. Couldn’t be bothered.

New year’s eve I can take or leave, just like Christmas. Some highlights stand out, like hundreds of revellers in the shadow of York Minster at midnight, an amusing evening of sock-burning, fireworks and hedge-diving in Wakefield, or the millennium celebrations where I went to bed at ten and left the house on new year’s morning to walk around Malham Cove and had the whole place to myself. Last night was never going to happen, especially since I started living by the rule “If you don’t want to do something and you don’t have to do it, don’t do it”.

I’m ready to go home for a while… and take a break from Cambodia. I’m looking forward to good fresh milk, curly kale, Porkinson sausages and mash, Columbo on TV, my cat standing on my chest and purring at me at four in the morning, old friends, driving a car, red wine and a conversation with my mum, wrapping up warm, wearing jeans, Sainsbury’s, and all the joys of an English winter.

I love it here, but it drives me nuts sometimes. I can’t even list what is infuriating about living in Cambodia without getting into why I love it, and both lists are way too long when it is so late, suffice to say this place is just a little bit removed from reality, and that is dangerous, addictive and frustrating in equal measure.

I’m hopeful that this next year will be a good one. I still have work to do here, I need to find a job by the end of the year, and I have another interesting degree course to do, that being the biggest challenge of the year. Alice, a girl who is volunteering here, has an interesting way of looking at each new year – she doesn’t make resolutions (too prescriptive) but sets a theme for the year, something which has the potential to trickle down into everything you do. Hers for 2008 is perseverance and happiness. Mine might be focus. Focus on my course, focus on making the best of my time here, focus on walking away at some point later this year with something to show for it.