Siem Reapers

This is the name of our group chat for everyone that lives in Siem Reap (Siem Reap is both a province and a city, we live in the province). But in this group chat I was invited to go to the city for free, and I was def down. I needed to buy some stuff for my room anyway. What I didn't expect was 1) I was going to spend $300, and 2) I was going to start being in an NGO. It was def a weird turn of events, but I wasn't upset about any of it. Since I've arrived, I've been penny-pinching because my income is literally the cost of a Starbucks drink. It stresses me out because though it affords me small pleasures in Cambodia since life is so cheap, it makes traveling (far) and buying gifts near impossible. Right now so many people's birthdays are coming up, and I'm just trying to prepare, but I don't think it's going to be possible T_T (sorry girlies). I mean, I know that everyone knows the PC doesn't pay much, but I didn't expect myself to not be able to send things home, I guess. Any who, I went crazy after buying a couple of things at the $2 store. I bought jewelry, some clothes, home goods, and food. I forgot how much I love shopping (and low-key I was on a high I kept stopping at every store after a while) and before I knew it...I spent $300. Luckily, Peace Corps gave me that much money though some of it was supposed to be for school supplies, whoopsies. I gotta go back into the city to buy a couple more things, and hopefully I can control myself this time. But the reason I got a free ride was because the other Siem Reapers knew this dude that trained them during pre-service training, and he offered them a volunteer opportunity. I said I didn't mind helping either since he did after all give me a ride, but I didn't realize the volunteer opportunity was going to be an ongoing situation where I'll be teaching English pronunciation to ESL learners during the weekend for a couple of hours. So now I have my first secondary project when I'm not even suppose to start one until the very earliest, 6-months in. But here I am. At least I get free food and a ride to Siem Reap, so it's overall a net win in my opinion.

Aside from that, I got sick from some old fried hot dogs (low-key I think I have parasites and I think it helped flush some of them out... I swear I saw some stuff swirling around that shouldn't've been there). I injured my back, which meant I couldn't do my stretches for about a week, but I started back up again, though I'm not at 100% yet. And I finally got my school uniform, so you can say that I'm now a teacher! The most exciting news is that I bought my MCAT prep course, and I'll be taking my MCAT August 19th in Bangkok! I'm so nervous, but excited to start doing some hardcore studying. Naoni said this year is lucky for us, so I'm hoping with some prayer and some extra luck from this year that I'll get a good score back in September :)).