So I disappeared for a bit...

2013 was a bit of a shit year, to be honest. After I read and reviewed Ghostwritten, my life sort of went down the rabbit hole. My boyfriend and I broke up -- we were in a long-distance relationship, so the absence shouldn't have mattered so much, right? Even so.

So I disappeared for a bit, and I stopped reading, and I stopped reviewing. I found it difficult to sit still by myself with my thoughts, and so I was just running around, doing as much as I possibly could. I went to Kep on weekends with new friends, went to Jakarta on another weekend to visit an old friend. I started cooking again, this time trying to make Chinese-style noodles (hor fun), or pierogis, or just meals that consisted of the four food groups. I adopted a kitten and named him Biggie Smalls. I fought with friends, made up with friends, said goodbye to friends. I went to new places, new events that I wouldn't have bothered with six months ago, and I met up with old friends who visited Phnom Penh. I bought a nice camera and (somewhat) learned how to use it. 

First day in Jakarta

Jakarta city-view

Parts of the city were waterlogged when I was there. 

But people still seemed positively cheerful 

With Christi and her boyfriend, hanging outside in the balcony

Biggie Smalls, when he was very small

Biggie Smalls, two months later. Dude got huge!

My pierogis. I was very proud of 'em. 

Jane and I looking like hot bitches on our way to a classical music concert (Photo by Ben Woods*)

At the night market with friends (Photo by Ben Woods)

Always at Liquid. Etan (third from left) visited me in Phnom Penh for about 48 hours. (Photo by Ben Woods)

And this was all while working my ass off at my job, which is utterly life-consuming in some ways. Work was a relief during this time. I complain about it a lot, but I do love it. 

In March, I returned to the States for a month for Cynthia's wedding. It was beautiful, of course, and it was great seeing her again. Talking to her always feels like such a relief, like nothing's ever going to change between us and that if there's one thing that I can rely on to be constant in my life, it's my friendship with her. Her husband, Chris, was very sweet, very funny, and loves her very much (obvi), and I, naturally, think that he's lucky to have found a woman like Cynthia.

We don't like each other. 

Puppies kissing Cynthia before the ceremony

Cynthia walks down the aisle with her father

I also got to spend some time with my mother. We took a trip to central California, to Solvang, and its surrounding towns. This place was like weird farm central. We went to an ostrich farm, a miniature horse farm, a miniature donkey farm and a lavender farm. My mom also accompanied me to a beer brewery, called Figueroa Mountain Brewery.

miniature ponies!

miniature donkeys! (This one was sweet)

The donkey was trying to get my mom to pet him. 

Ostriches are fucking freakish looking. Also ginormous, and have huge talons. 

Then New York, which was exhilarating and exhausting. I stayed with Marissa, and just had a schedule full of seeing family, friends, mentors, and former colleagues. I drank way too much beer, ate way too much good food, and spent... not as much money as I expected, which was a nice surprise given how expensive the city can be. But I guess since I was visiting from Cambodia, everyone seemed to want buy me lunch, dinner, drinks. I also got to go to a concert in Bushwick, which made me so happy. Haven't heard live music in ages. The band was Crushed Out aka Boom Chick -- a drum/guitar duo. They were great.

View of uptown from my uncle's office. He works near WTC.

My cousin. She got so big! And understands words now. 

I meet the Polish hotties in the East Village.

I miss these girls so much. 

got a hipster card from the girls

Last week, May 3, was my two-year anniversary in Cambodia with Emily. We didn't do much -- just had sushi for dinner to commemorate it, then went out drinking with a buddy who was back in town.

Two years in Cambodia. Nuts.

Anyway, it's been a pretty eventful four months. I'm glad that I was more willing to put myself out there and do different things, but obviously there have been some down sides to being unwilling to settle down and allow myself to be ok with just. sitting. still. But I'm trying, right now, I really, really am. I've even started reading again -- besides that Ron Vitale book I reviewed below, I've read three other books. I'm aware that puts me way behind my CBR5 goal of 26, but I'll keep trying.

(*My friend, Ben, has more photos of Phnom Penh at his tumblr. He's a great photographer.)

CBR5 #2: Cinderella's Secret Diary: Lost

We often dismiss the young adult genre as being filled with a lot of trash and cliches, but I believe that being able to write a good YA novel is an underappreciated art. Some of the books that I call my Favorites of All Time are from this genre. If it's written well, and is able to posit some great ideas, these books can go on to shape young people's minds. The Golden Compass (and the entire Dark Material trilogy, for that matter) was an eye-opening experience that made me realize that adults might not always have your best interests at heart, or they think they do, but they really don't know what they are doing.

Of course, we can't hold Phillip Pullman's masterpiece up as a yardstick for every YA novel, because if we do, then everything else basically pales in comparison. But there are other enjoyable and important YA novels of a much smaller scale that I hold dear to my heart. The Giver by Lois Lowry, everything Roald Dahl has written (The Witches scared the shit out of me as a kid), The Girl with Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts (This one is not amazing and not a classic, but as a kid, it really spoke to me). 

And herein I arrive at my point: One does not have to aim for the stars to be a great YA writer but one should not condescend to their young readers either. 

And for Ron Vitale's Cinderella's Secret Diary: Lost, the mark was missed on several counts. This was provided to CBR5 readers as a free e-read, which I am so appreciative for. I can only imagine what it's like to be writer -- it actually gives me a bit of a panic attack to think about putting my work out there in to the masses to judge and criticize... gah, panic attack. (Yes, I am a reporter for a daily newspaper, but that's totally different.) But we're encouraged to blog about these free e-reads, and also told to write how we really feel so... here goes. 

Lost is a retelling of Cinderella's story -- a "After Happily Ever After" of sorts. It's written as a dairy from Cinderella to her fairy godmother, maybe about five years after she and the prince got married. In the beginning, Cinderella is pleading for her fairy godmother to come to her and help her because she is unhappy: her prince seems disinterested in their marriage, she is unable to conceive and she feels like a bit lost in her life. The diary serves as a means to communicating with her godmother, and sure enough, after a few entries, there are responses that the godmother magicked into the diary for Cinderella to read. Eventually, Cinderella begins on this journey that leads to her eventually "finding herself." 

There are several issues with Lost. The first and foremost is the writing. It's bad. It is written in the most bland manner possible -- I'm not saying that writing has to be flowery to be amazing (look at Cormack McCarthy, whose writing is basically the most stripped down and concise, but delivers such an emotional punch). If Cinderella is feeling happy, she says she's happy. If she's sad, she says she's sad. I found it difficult to get a real sense of the character behind these words, which translated no emotion. There are also issues with phrasing and paragraphs that can be very jarring to a reader if they are not done well (and that we don't notice in books because these things usually go through a rigorous edit by a second or third person). 

Throughout the book, I kept thinking, "Well, maybe this is realistic. In my real diary, I probably wouldn't be using incredible language and diction and paying attention to syntax as I just whine my feelings out." But here is the second issue -- the diary platform that Vitale chose for his book. I personally think it's one of the laziest way of conveying a story. It's really a crutch that authors use to try and get straight to the voice of the main character. When it's done well, it can be amazing (Think The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I have personally never read, but everyone else seems to love) but it's so rare when that happens, and in Lost, it just comes across as thoughtless.

There is, however, one part in the book, where the fairy godmother is writing back to Cinderella and she said (I'm gonna paraphrase), "Your letters to me do not tell the full story. I saw you in your room last night and you were so broken up, I thought my heart was going to break." Something to that effect. And I thought, Oh, ok, maybe Vitale is holding back emotion on purpose, as like a character trait of Cinderella. 

But it's not worth it. It isn't. Because the writing is so soulless, I found it difficult to get through the plot or even to care. There were some surprises throughout the story, but it was hard to get invested at any point. Vitale had also inserted historical details throughout the book to let us know what time period this is taking place, but these details just frustrated me even more. If he took the time to think these details through to put it in his story, why couldn't he had thought his story through? Or taken more time with the writing? Or given more depth to his characters?

One of my favorite retellings of Cinderella was also a YA book -- Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. In that, there was a girl worth rooting for, a plot worth sitting through, and characters worth getting invested in. I wouldn't consider that book a stroke of great literary genius -- and looking back at the free preview on Amazon now, the writing isn't even that exemplary -- but it was still amazing, because Ella was made real to us. Sophia (as Cinderella's real name was in Lost) was just a cipher. 

(We were also given the sequel, Stolen, but I'm not gonna read that.) 

Cali shots

For Cynthia's wedding, I took a month off from work. Stopping over in California for two weeks, I managed to take a lot of photos (because I was so goddamn bored there). I also briefly considered on starting photo project of all the cul de sacs in our stupid, boring little town, but my lack of driving skills put an end to it. 

Nevertheless, here are some of northern Cali, where it was only about 10 degrees warmer than snowy New York, where I stopped in for two weeks as well

Cul de sac

Same cul de sac, different settings

Even my cat was bored

Nothing says suburban ennui like skateboarders in an empty park

I skateboarded too!

Word.

Sun setting

I went to San Francisco for a day to meet up with friends

I know these three from three different groups of friends. It was awesome to have them together.

Walking to Delores Park with beers to hang out

attempting close-ups

lavender shoes

Once I got to New York, I barely took any photos just because I got so busy.

My best got married

The happy couple, post-ceremony

My best friend from high school got married on March 10. I flew back to California to attend the wedding. It was held at a winery high above the city, away from the noise and people and crowd. The weather was perfect, the bride looked beautiful, and I might have even teared up just a bit during the ceremony.

CBR5 #1: Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

The writing for Ghostwritten is amazing -- which is to be expected for David Mitchell. The plot is interesting, and I was invested enough to keep checking through the previous chapters for connections/links. Characters were developed and sympathetic, even the ones who were crazy or supposed to be villains.

All that said, I did not like Ghostwritten as much as I thought I should have. I think part of the reason is because this is the fourth Mitchell book that I've read, and so many of his other novels are so absurdly ambitious that it's hard to not feel like I'm getting short-changed by the time I got to Ghostwritten. This was his first published book -- his first! And it's so good and so well-done, but perhaps because it is his first, he might have dialed down a little on how far he could soar. If you consider Mitchell's entire ouevre, it's plain to see how Ghostwritten is just a stepping stone to Cloud Atlas, to the Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

Ghostwritten is most structurally similar to Cloud Atlas as there are several stories that are all connected in some way, and each chapter is titled after the city/place it takes place in. There are nine locations, traversing the globe from Japan to Mongolia to London. In Okinawa, Japan, a member of some cult is in hiding after releasing some gas (I assume, like the sarin gas attack) in a Tokyo subway train; in Tokyo, a young man who lives his life for jazz music meets a girl and falls in love. Meanwhile, in Mongolia, a spirit who has no memory of his origin is jumping from body to body, trying to find out where he came from. Then there is a quantum physicist in Ireland trying to escape US Pentagon agents who want her formula that could lead to nuclear war.

Because all the stories were so interesting to me, it took me a little too long to figure out that cause and effect was the underlying theme that tied them all together. With each story indirectly (and even directly) connected to each other, it felt like no event is ever independent of the other -- which is kind of vague, but I'll admit that the theme felt vague to me.

Meanwhile, each chapter's protagonist seems to be really isolated. Quasar, the cult member, feels alone, not just because his fellow brothers had been arrested in connection to the Tokyo gas attack, but also because his way of thinking is so detached from reality. Satoru, the jazz lover, is the son of a prostitute who does not really aspire to do very much except live his life through music. Neal, a financial lawyer in the Hong Kong chapter, finds himself digging his career deeper and deeper into a hole. And then in the Holy Mountain chapter in China, an old woman has lived her entire life tending a tea shack near the foot of the mountain and is bearing witness to the historical upheaval her country has gone through.

But with each little connection, you can see that these people are not alone in their feelings of isolation and in their hope for some sort of happiness. But again, that is such a vague and terrifically generic way of putting things.

As I said before, this is a really good book, and it's certainly ambitious for a first book. But knowing what Mitchell is capable of -- which is the literary prowess of packing an emotional punch to certain turn of phrases -- I think this book falls short. He could have push the buttons harder, urged the plot and people's reactions to things further, been more overt about the theme and made it have more of a meaning than the vagueness I got from it. And then again, more people might like his subtle writing hand more.

Either way, a good work of Mitchell is, in comparison to other authors, a great work of fiction. As I've said before, if I haven't read Cloud Atlas, Thousand Autumns and Black Swan Green first Ghostwritten would have blown me away. (As an aside, I want to say that BSG really packs the emotional punch. It may have the most straightforward narrative, but it is fucking amazing in its execution.)

One thing that's really fun though is that there are certain things found in Ghostwritten that make references to his other books, so Mitchell fans will find themselves rewarded. For example, in the New York chapter, there is a caller into a radio show named Luisa Rey, which is the name of the reporter in Cloud Atlas. One of the peripheral characters, Kathy - wife of the financial lawyer - has a comet-shaped birthmark. Neal Brose, the lawyer, is also the name of a teenager in Black Swan Green, and he sometimes reminisces about his childhood in England. Stuff like that makes me wonder if Mitchell is taking his whole interconnectedness/cause and effect theme to a whole meta level, and all the novels he's written so far are really a huge plot device to a larger project.

Crazy? Maybe, but it's also fucking genius, and that's seriously what I believe Mitchell is. 

2013!

Happy New Year!

My resolution for 2013 is to read more non-fiction books. I'm really bad about completing non-fiction books, whereas it would kind of pain me not to finish a novel. I guess I just need to read better written non-fiction – which I sometimes stupidly refer to as real-life books – since I usually get bored with it.

Cannonball Read 5 will also help me with this. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated -- I do tend to prefer books written by journalists (they tend to be better written than the average real-life book) but I'm thinking I should branch out a little more to historical non-fiction. Add a little knowledge to my brain, is the idea.

Though I didn't participate in CBR4 last year (2012 is now officially considered last year, yo) I was paying attention to some of what the Pajibans were reading, and sometimes took up recommendations. And I definitely read a fair amount this year – but all fiction, of course.

Off the top of my head, some that I enjoyed were The Night Circus, Ghostwritten, The Sense of An Ending, Game of Thrones and Ms. Hempel Chronicles. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell was the last book I read this year, so I'm going to have a review up for CBR5 soon.

Christmas cheer in Phnom Penh

Secret Santa gifts under our anemic office Xmas tree!

Our office Christmas tree, which droops a little, is covered with joke editions of our newspaper. It sits in front of the desks of me and my colleague, so it's nice to be a little bit cut off by the busy-ness of the newsroom.

Her name is Pinglinda.

My Secret Santa got me a giant pink pig, which is kind of awesome. It's now sitting at the corner of my desk -- my colleague says it should remain there as our corner mascot. The EIC said, "You don't seem like a stuffed animal type of girl. You're too serious." He's half right, I suppose, so he gets half a credit for that.

There were plenty of other really great/hilarious gifts. Our editor-in-chief got a watch with the prime minister's face on it, one of the Khmer editors got two bottles of soju and a gangnam style T-shirt, and one of the copy-deskers with long hair (and some dreads) got a hairbrush. Booze and mugs was a favorite though for the Secret Santas. And only one person got a crappy pen! (which was incidentally in a box that was beautifully gift-wrapped) -- so we can say that it was a successful round of Secret Santa.

I've been through a couple of these office Christmas parties, but this one was actually really fun. Everyone seemed pretty excited about the gifts, which were all nicely wrapped (surprising to me, since Khmers don't really celebrate Christmas). Since we had all filed our stories, we just hung out and drank beer, shot the shit while our poor editors wrestled through our don't-give-a-fuck-because-it's-Christmas-bitches copy.

I do miss New York desperately though, and wish I could experience a cool Christmas. I guess I'd just have to make do with Phnom Penh's dropping temperatures. It's down to seventy degrees now. And it's windy!

So cold I had to wear a scarf with my thin T-shirt!

I signed up for Cannonball Read 5 for next year, so hopefully this means more posts to this blog. I've more or less neglected it (as I always do) but not having Cannonball Read this year was a real lack -- I missed being a part of the reading community and staying on top of commenting on other people's reviews. And besides, it motivated me to read, so why the fuck not, yea?

Anyway, Merry post-Christmas and Happy New Year!

(PS. Crappy image quality is due to me taking the photos with an iPhone.)

buildings in the sunrise

I love this video, absolutely love everything about it. I love that it has the streets of lower Manhattan and bars of Brooklyn. I love that the frontman and his bandmates remind me of the Boys I know in New York (even if they would hate me for making this comparison) and I love that they are eating gyros at a street cart. I love the soaring anthemic Carry Onnnn as they slide across the marble floors of Grand Central, and I love the piano in the bar, and I love the fist-pumping to the chorus. I love the view of buildings (Water Street?) as dawn arrives.

Maybe it's because I've been feeling impossibly heartsick for New York, and the repetitive chorus probably punched a little harder with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I don't know, don't care – I just love this song and I love this video.

[im]patient

"This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone. You have to figure it's going to be a long process and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time." 

Murakami, Norwegian Wood.

I met someone a month back who told me that he's seen too many young reporters drop out of the industry too soon, give up too quickly, duck for cover before anything's even been shot. He said it's a pity because you just never know what could have happened. Nowadays, I just keep holding that in my head. 

Here's a Cambodian legend (provided with no comments)

I've been really lax about updating my blog. Can't promise this will change (mostly because I always do and it never happens, so we know what good it does) but this particular story has been nagging at me. It was just begging to be retold. 

My Khmer teacher and I were talking about the Mekong dolphins. They live in the Mekong river and can often be seen in the northeastern Cambodian province of Kratie. He asked me, "Do you know where the dolphins come from?"

"No," I said.

"Well, a long time ago, there was beautiful Cambodian girl. She was the most beautiful girl in her province and her parents were afraid that she would be stolen away so they kept her in the house. Because she was never in the sun, she had the most beautiful white skin."

(I'm jumping in to say that Cambodians—and Asians in general, actually—are obsessed with having fair skin. Women here would wear sweaters and gloves to keep the sun from marring their skin, even in 90-degree weather.)

"There was a giant snake who lived in their village that everyone believed was a magic snake. It was very big and beautiful. So the girl's parents decided that she should marry the snake."

And I thought, "Woah, this story got weird quick."

"So they got married, and the parents made the girl sleep in the same room as the snake. But the snake was hungry in the middle of the night and he ended up swallowing the girl whole."

"What the fuck does this have to do with dolphins?" I wondered.

"In the morning, the parents found the snake with a giant stomach and they realized that their daughter had been eaten. So they took a knife and cut the snake open. And the girl was still alive!"

"Oh, good..." I said.

"But the inside of the snake had made her dirty. Her skin was very black and no matter how much they tried to wash her or clean her, they couldn't get her skin to be white again. So her family disowned her as she couldn't be married anymore. She was very sad so she went to the Mekong River, put a bottle over her head, and then walked into the water."

I was stunned silent.

"And that's why we have the Mekong dolphins! That's why the dolphins have heads that look like bottles," my Khmer teacher finished with a smile.

"Wow. That wasn't what I was expecting," I said, totally traumatized.