Category Archives: teaching
For Weddings or a Funeral – Life in the Provinces
There is no better time to witness the charms and mystery of Cambodia than the first hour of every morning. As the ever punctual sun rises, promising another day of scorching heat, there is a magic in the first rays…
K440 Expat Interviews: ‘Horace’
After stumbling into Cambodia 15 years ago, long-term expat Horace has made the country his home. Marissa Carruthers talks to him about the highs and the lows and how Cambodia has changed over the years. “I much preferred the Cambodia…
Back to School, Past the River of Smell…
After a pretty hectic December I now fall happily back into my happy, humdrum routine. It’s great to feel the warm but un-aggressive ‘cool season’ sun crawl up from behind during a 6am balcony coffee before embarking on a refreshingly…
Running Away from Exhaustion in Cambodia
Throughout the whole of October my dreams were bizarre, lucid and persistently awful – the kind of dreams that cling throughout the day and result in emails to loved ones back home: ‘Mum…all good? Just checking because I had a…
No Arrival or Waiting for Moto
“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.” Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot I was sprawled out, wrinkled, rumpled, unbuckled, slouched out all over the carriage of a tuk-tuk. Informal pose, semi-formal wear….
April is the cruelest month…..
APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. — T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land They said it would be hot. April, that is. March was hot,…
Conkers, Minnows and Elastic – Childhood Revisited in Cambodia
Last Friday I sat on the edge of a desk, surrounded by the stench of half-eaten pizzas and sticky pools of splashed Fanta. It was the day of end-of-year parties. The bossiest girls from each class had collected a few…
Happy Hour at the ESL Bar and Grill: Amusing the Students to Death
One of the things I like to do during the first week of a new course is have the students write a letter to me. I say to them that you are not just students, you are people; and as…
InterNed in Cambodia: Part 1 ‘Sudden Departures’
Prior to February of this year, it had never, ever, not even remotely ever, even slightly, never – at all – occurred to me, at any point over the course of my entire life, from birth up until some fateful…
Am I Wrong to Secretly Wish For A Chair Fight?
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I teach two grades – grade six and kindergarten one. Whilst the kindergarten class keep me on my toes with their brilliantly un-developed sense of acceptable behaviour, my sixth grade class sometimes leaves me feeling a little flat. It is…