Day Four: You Take Your Sorry Back

Part I:
I wake up at exactly six a.m. on the nose. The sun is just about to rise over the city of Siem Riep. My alarm isnt supposed to ring until 6:30, but I don't try to fall back asleep.

Have you ever been conscious of the fact that you're showering in the same room as a spider? So you keep an eye on it the whole time, just in case it moves? Yeah, that was me this morning. It was just a daddy long leg. But who wants ANY kind of spider crawling on their skin??



There are a lot of "Engrish" signs at the Angkor Tep guest house. Here are a few examples:







We leave the guest house around nine a.m. Destination: Angkor Wat.











Angkor Wat is a temple built around 1100 A.D. It is also the birthplace of prostitution in Cambodia. We get some photos and footage of the structure, which is, in and of itself, very beautiful. Judah points out some engravings and describes how, allegedly, they depict children being sold as sex slaves to the king. It is a commonly held belief in Cambodia that having sex with a virgin will give you power, veracity, and can cure AIDS. That is why the children are sold so young - the clients want to make sure that they really are virgins.

We make our way to the market, just across the way. Judah knows some people that have a shop here. They give us all coconut water, which we drink through a straw straight from the coconut. The shops here (and I'm not trying to be racist or anything) are EXACTLY like China Town in New York City. If you've never been there, all the shops are the size of the inside of a large van, they're all divided by a single, thin wall, and all the store owners and their families (who work there) are VERY persistent. They will follow you everywhere you go and guilt you into coming into their shop, or into buying whatever merchandise they are carrying around. One kid with big buck teeth that looks like he is ten or twelve starts following Landon around, trying to get him to buy a souvenir magnet with a picture of Angkor Wat on it.

"You buy magnet, only one dollah," he insists.

"No, that's ok," Landon politely replies.

"Three for two dollah?"

"No really, I'm ok." We keep walking away.

"You buy magnet. Only one dollah!"

"No thanks, sorry," apologizes Landon, still walking away. The boy stops dead as we continue to walk away.

"You take your sorry back..." the boy says in his soft voice, trailing off, the tone reminding me of Stuart from Mad TV. Asian Stuart.

At the market, I have offers from three different people, offering to buy my shirt. That was kind of a weird experience.

Judah introduces us to Lei:



Lei is a small-framed girl who looks to be about 14 years old. She claims she's 22. She is also a prostitute. We need to interview her quickly, because she has an appointment with a client in thirty minutes. Judah sits down with her and starts asking her questions. I am floored by her answers. She's been a prostitute since she was ten years old. She does it because her family is poor and she needs to help make money for them. In spite of everything, she never stops smiling. My heart breaks for her situation.

We have to stop the interview, because a police officer and a large crowd has gathered. They don't like the idea of a bunch of Americans exploiting Lei's situation. The seven of us get out of there fast.

Later, we pass these two adorable kids sitting on the ruins.



"Can I take your picture?" I ask. Even if it's a child, it is polite here to ask for permission, rather than to just assume it's ok. They excitedly oblige. When I've finished taking the picture, one boy speaks up.

"You give us one dollah?" he asks with a hopeful smile. Uhhh...I hadn't expected to pay the kid for the picture! Then he noticed I was carrying a bag with all of our empty water bottles (garbage cans here aren't all that common, and I'd been looking for one for a while). The boy points to a bag on the ground in front of me that I hadn't noticed. It was a small bag with only a few bottles in it. As I kneel down to put my empty bottles in their bag, I realize that these kids are here to attract tourists. Their parents coach them to ask for money if someone takes their picture. They sit in the hot sun all day and wait for people to come along so they can collect their empty water bottles.

I guess my childhood wasn't so bad.

We finish touring the grounds of Angkor Wat, and get back in the tuk-tuks we've rented for the day. They take us back to our guest house, where our luggage is. We eat lunch at the restaurant there, inviting our two tuk-tuk drivers to join us, which they do.. Mike points out that it is probably the biggest meal they've had in a long time. When we finish, it is time to gather our belongings and leave again. It is going to be another long day of traveling from this point on. Our tuk-tuk drivers take us to the bus station, where we are to board a bus to Phnom Penh. We are told it will be another five and a half hour ride.

I guess there'd been some miscommunication between Judah and the tuk-tuk drivers as to the amount we'd be paying them for renting their services for the day. He's given them each $7 dollars.

"Too cheap," one argues. He holds out his hand for more. Judah doesn't budge.

"That was our deal," he says. Something tells me that the details of this "deal" have gotten lost in translation. The drivers look pissed. I tell Mike of what's going on and he finds the drivers and gives them each an extra $5. They seem a little more satisfied with this arrangement.

Part II: Satan's Bus

We board a bus. Destination: Phnom Penh. It departs at 4:45 p.m. It is scheduled to arrive at our destination at 10:15 p.m.. It soon gets dark. There are no street lights, or lights of any kind to light our way, aside from the bus' headlights. It then becomes ice cold aboard Satan's bus - the air conditioning is relentless. There is no way of turning it off or even redirecting it. We try to get some sleep in spite of this. This effort is futile.

We can't possibly sleep, because the ride is so bumpy. It is more than bumpy. It's like we're traveling the road into the depths of Hell. The road has so many potholes and inexplicable mounds. Why are the mounds there? How did they come to be? I would like to know. Suddenly the road construction that seems to be ongoing in Utah doesn't seem to be that much of an inconvenience. Most of the roads we travel on are unpaved, here aboard Satan's bus. It feels as though we've traveled back through time, to when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Each giant dip and mound are just dried up footprints of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

It is pitch black. We can't see a thing outside the bus. All we know is that inside the bus, there are knuckle marks on the seats in front of us where the handles are, from people that have come before, holding on so tight. We wonder if the last bus had had any survivors, or if they just removed the bodies with a shovel. It's almost like we're in a crappy Universal Studios ride, where the seats are moving and jolting you all over the place, but the screen projector is broken, so you can't see a single thing that is going on.

9:00 p.m: We stop in the middle of a Cambodian ghetto where the driver fills up on gas and the passengers have the chance to use the bathroom. I exit the bus and stretch my legs. I don't really have to pee all that bad, but I figure it's probably a good idea, since I don't know when will be the next chance I'll get.

The bathroom is dimly lit, with only one small, flickering florescent light in the far edge of the room. There are ten stalls. I look in each one...there is no toilet paper. Instead, there is a spray hose next to each toilet - the ghetto version of a beday. I rack my brain for ideas. Paper towels perhaps? But there aren't any. I get back on the bus without "going". I'm sure we'll be there soon enough, I think.

10:15 p.m: This is when we were supposed to arrive at our destination. The word on the street is that it'll be another two more hours. At this point, I can't feel the lower half of my body.

12:15 a.m: It is now two hours later. We have been on this bus for seven and a half hours. Judah gets up to ask our estimated arrival time.

"One more hour," the driver assures him. Yeah, right.

12:45 a.m: I have to pee. Reeeally bad.

1:00 a.m: We arrive at the bus station. And I'm in a pissy mood. Just as taxi drivers in New York wait at train stations for trains to come so they can be the first to bid for potential passengers needing a ride home, the tuk-tuk drivers wait at the bus station doing the same thing. I step off the bus and am immediately bombarded by three different drivers, each asking me where I'm going, how many people are with me, and if I need a tuk-tuk. The LAST thing I want right now is for someone to talk to me, let alone pester me about giving them business. The offers keep coming, and I blow them off. We've already reserved our own tuk-tuks. Leave me alone.

1:30 a.m: We arrive at the team house, a block away from the orphanage.

2:00 a.m: It's the second day in a row where we haven't had access to the Internet. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be that big of a deal. But I'd been promised that we'd have Internet tonight. I'd been counting on it. Andrea and I agree to go to the internet cafe tomorrow.

Day Three: Milking the Tiger

12:30 a.m. - I'd been asleep since 7 pm by this point; five and a half hours. (my body is still not quite adjusted to Thai time yet). I wake up and Allie and Andrea are asleep. While I was sleeping, my hat and camera had been relocated to a safe place on a shelf, as I had fallen asleep with them earlier. I'm not tired enough to go back to sleep. I bide my time, editing some photos on my computer that I'd taken yesterday. Suddenly, to my left there is a bright flash of light and the jolting sound of an electrical power surge. Andrea's converter that had been plugged into the wall, charging her Mac has fried. Neither Allie nor Andrea are awoken by this, so I shake Allie awake, who had been sleeping right next to the converter, to tell her about what just happened. She unplugged the converter. It was hot to the touch. Macs convert voltage automatically to the appropriate voltage it needs, no matter your region. Lesson learned. When charging a Mac in a foreign country, use an adaptor, not a converter. Or else it will be converted twice. Or something.

6 a.m. - ring! ring! We're awakened by the abrupt and harsh sound of the hotel phone by the bed. Allie answers it.

"It's six o'clock!" the voice on the other end announces in a very thick Thai accent. It is the man at the front desk. Mike had ordered a wake up call for us. Allie thanks him and hangs up. There is good news today: we found Judah! There had been a misunderstanding with the meet up date, but at least he is finally here. He arrived late last night from Cambodia, and is here to bring us back there.

We shower and get ready. The thing about humidity is that no matter how much you towel off, you're never dry. Our skin is in a perpetual state of hot and sticky. The bug spray and sunscreen we apply every morning only make it worse.

Our hotel serves breakfast. It isn't free, but everything is less than 150 baht, or five U.S. dollars. We sit at a table and begin reviewing the menu. Something small on the table moves and catches my eye. I look and notice the table is crawling with ants. I point this out to the group and for some reason, no one else seems to mind. I feel stupid for pointing it out. I already have the reputation with this group of being the "girly-girl". I try to hide my really girly side. It's a good thing we haven't encountered any giant bugs or spiders...yet.

I order some toast, hot chocolate, ham & scrambled eggs, and a plate of fruit. It is a lot of food, but I hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday, so I am famished. The hot chocolate tastes like tea with a hint of unsweetened chocolate flavor. It's not terrible. My favorite part of the meal is the fresh pineapple on my fruit plate.

I feel like there are ants in my nose.

We pack up and leave the hotel in two taxis. Our destination: the bus station. We need to take the express bus to the border of Cambodia, a six hour drive. It is hot and humid outside, and the air conditioning on the bus doesn't seem to work all that well. I take some Dramamine and try to get some more shut-eye. I wake up to a really weird part of a conversation that Allie, Andrea, and Landon are having. Something about girls pretending to be lesbians to get guys' attention....by this point in our trip though we've pretty much covered all other subjects, so I guess it is only natural for the topic to head in that direction. If nothing else, let's talk lesbians.

4 pm - We arrive at the Cambodian border. We go through the motions and wait in line, show some officials our passports, wait in line again, show some more officials our Visas, all the while hauling all of our equipment and luggage. We enter the city of Poi Pet.

Cambodia is VERY different from Bangkok. A lot of the roads are unpaved. There's garbage everywhere. EVERYONE is on scooters. Remember a few years ago when some papparazzi caught Britney Spears holding her baby on her lap while driving her car? And how everyone made such a big deal about it? Well here, they fit four people, including young babies, on one scooter. And no one cares. I really don't think they have any safety laws here.

It is incredibly hot, we're exhausted and drenched in sweat, and we haven't eaten since breakfast. It is Chinese New Year though, so not every restaurant is open. We take another bus that takes us a few miles into Poi Pet. The cars here drive on the right side of the road, unlike Thailand. We exit the bus after a few minutes, and then it's back to walking some more. Soon, we come to a coffee shop. Judah removes his shoes and enters the cafe. The rest of us follow suit. A man named Cham No owns the cafe and is a friend of Judah's. He takes us to another restaurant that he owns down the road, and feeds us there. Because I am afraid of the other items on the menu, I order grilled cheese, a decision I regret the instant I finish eating it and realize that I am still starving. Perhaps it isn't hunger that is making me weak, but rather heat exhaustion and lack of water and sleep. Allie generously shares some sweethearts and laffy taffies with me, which helps boost my energy levels immensely.

We have to push through the tired, because we're not on vacation. We've got work to do. Our next stop is the orphanage that Cham No owns. It is a gated farm with several fish ponds, banana and coffee trees, chickens, geese, and ducks. This orphanage houses 32 children of different ages. We interview him as he is fishing in one of the ponds at sunset. He has an amazing story to tell, but it's too long to share here.



The sun sets and it's time to go. Andrea finishes recording the ambient noise of the farm (birds and crickets chirping, water splashing, ducks quacking) and we set off for Siem Riep by van. It is a two hour ride. At least we had some really good air conditioning this time. We get to the Angkor Tep guest house and Judah books four rooms. There are seven of us. One of us will get their own room. Abraham and Landon decide to share. Judah and Mike take another room. Which means one of us girls gets our own room....so I call it. I really do love and get along with everyone in our group, but I need some alone time.

We each find our rooms and all of them are hot, just like the rest of this place. We see that there is an air conditioner in each room, but none of us can figure out how to work it! I volunteer to go ask the man at the front desk how to work the A/C.

I keep telling him, "Air conditioning. How do you turn it on?" he doesn't understand. "Air, cold!" I say. He leaves the room and I am thoroughly confused.

Man, this communication barrier is frustrating.

Then Judah comes downstairs and I ask him to ask the man how to work the A/C. The man from the front desk is back with his wife. They are carrying a mini fridge to bring upstairs to my room. Judah straightens out the situation for us.

It is now ten pm. We eat dinner at the restaurant just outside the guest house. I don't remember really being there at all, because I'm beyond the point of exhaustion. I sit in my chair, staring blankly at a wall. I've mentally checked out.

We get back and the four of us group members, Landon, Allie. Andrea, and I, meet up in the girls' room to discuss the focus of our documentary and what we want to do tomorrow and for the rest of the trip. It is productive, aside from all of the giggling. Again, we're way beyond the point of tired. And with that, I'm going to pass out now.

Day Two: Dog Meat?

We arrive in Bangkok on a "Bus Plane". There is no terminal; we exit the plane by climbing down some stairs and are greeted with the hot, humid air of Thailand. We take five steps on solid ground before boarding a bus that brings us to a building. It is midnight here in Thailand, but only ten a.m. in Utah. On the seven hour plane ride from Tokyo to Bangkok, I'd slept almost the whole time, so my body is still on Utah time. It's dark outside, but it doesn't feel like it should be midnight. My body is so confused. And a little angry at me for messing with it's routine. I guess I never knew the true meaning of being jet-lagged until now.

Judah is our client. He came to Bangkok a week ago. He's been corresponding with two of our group members as to when and where we should meet when we get here. We thought he was going to pick us all up at one in the morning today, the 21st. But Andrea checks her email again and re-reads his email.

"I'll meet you at Bangkok airport at one a.m. on the 22nd."

The 22nd? Crap. We're going to be sitting here at the airport for a while.

We wait until almost 2 a.m. then decide to take a caravan of three taxis (there's 12 of us) to the K.T. Guest House, since none of us have any idea where Judah is. I get to ride in a hot pink taxi.



Cars here don't exactly seem to have traffic laws, or the laws don't seem to be enforced, anyway. We spend most of this ride halfway between two lanes. Turn signals are scarcely used. The lanes and the driver's seat are all on the opposite side than we're used to. It is two in the morning, and apparently this city doesn't sleep. We're passing cafes and restaurants and people are just sitting outside drinking coffee and chatting.

We arrive at K.T. Guest House. I've never wanted a shower more in my whole life. The shower in this bathroom has no curtain, no divider from the rest of the bathroom. Just a small step down, and you're in the shower. I don't care. It is the most glorious and most needed shower I'd ever taken.

It is 1 pm in Utah. It is 3 am here. I slept enough on the 3rd plane, so I'm not tired enough to sleep. I spend a few hours on my computer until I decide it would be a good idea to sleep a little bit before we get going again at 7 am, Thai time.

It is 7:30 a.m. We still can't find Judah. He was supposed to meet us at 7 a.m. Our plan today was to take a bus to Poi Pet to ride the elephants and play with baby tigers. But we really need Judah to be our guide and our translator. So we work on plan B. We'll stay here in Bangkok for an extra day, practicing using our recording equipment and getting some shots and sound recordings of things we can use in the documentary. This way, even if we can't find Judah, today won't go to waste. We only have eleven days. Two of those days are travel days; which gives us nine days to shoot everything we need for our documentary. We need to get busy.

We're hungry, so most of us leave the hotel in search of food. 7 Elevens are on every corner here, so we get some breakfast there. Around the corner, a woman cooks some meat in her little food stand. It smells pretty good. Landon decides to be brave and buy some, although he has no idea what kind of meat it is. He takes a bite. I am debating as to whether or not I want to be brave too and try some. Landon lets me try some of his. It has an interesting flavor - not really in a good way. We decide it's dog meat. Landon waits till we're out of sight of the woman who sold it to him, then throws the mystery meat away.



9 a.m. rolls around. Still no Judah. Plan B goes into effect. We assemble our recording gear (cameras, lenses, microphones) and set out for the streets of Bangkok.

You may think this is a nice, pleasant little river. But that's poop water right there.


This is a tuk-tuk:








Everyone loves getting their picture taken here.
































We come across a man in the market. He has one leg, and is wheeling himself around on a tiny platform with wheels. His young daughter follows closely behind as he slowly wheels himself back and forth, up and down the pathway of the market. He holds out a bowl with only a few coins in it - he's a beggar. We give him 40 baht (slightly more than one American dollar) and ask if we can take his photo. He nods.



We meet back at the K.T. Guest House. Still no Judah. We part ways with six of our group members, who are going off to another part of Thailand to shoot a different documentary. It is down to Alauna, Andrea, Landon, Abraham, Mike, and I. Mike arranges for us to stay another night at the Guest House, as it is becoming more and more apparent that we aren't meeting up with Judah any time soon. We book two rooms; three of us in each room. By this time, we are starving! We take our cameras and audio recorders and head out again for a quick bite and then for more camera work. Mike has gotten the address to a restaurant nearby. We hail another hot pink cab and the driver gestures for all of us all to get in. All six of us (seven, with the driver). In a four seater Toyota corolla.

Mike and Abraham cram in front, while the rest of us squeeze into the back. I am defaulted to someone's lap, of course. Fortunately, the cab ride is short, and before we know it, we've arrived at the restaurant.

We eat, and everything is delicious. Mike and Abraham each order the same thing, and it is so spicy, tears stream from Mike's eyes, and sweat beads on Abraham's forehead. Although it may have burned holes in their insides, they claim they liked it anyways.



We hail another cab, and this time, Landon and I get to sit up front, while the rest of the group crams in the back. This time, it's a forty-five minute cab ride to the pier, where we run to catch a ferry, just as it's about to speed away from the dock. We make it in just in time. The ferry ride is only 15 baht, which is less than 50 U.S. cents. This is my favorite part of the day.









The ferry takes us to The Grand Palace, which is where the king stays when he visits...I think. I'll have to do some more research on that.

Next, we take a tuk-tuk around this part of the city. We stop at a Buddhist temple, and take some pictures of it while our tuk-tuk drivers wait.

4 pm: I don't know about everyone else, but I'm losing steam by this point. I haven't really had a full night's sleep since Tuesday night. We take the tuk-tuk over to a suit shop, where some of our group members order custom made clothes. Here, you can get three custom made shirts, a custom made suit, and two sport coats, also custom made, for only around $400 U.S. dollars. Alauna gets fitted for and orders a long, purple evening gown, and it's only $130.

5, or maybe 6 pm: It's time to go back to our hotel. We're all exhausted. We try to hail a cab, but instead, another tuk-tuk pulls over. We exchange glances. It's a long way home....should we really take a tuk-tuk, which would be smaller and less comfortable than a taxi? The tuk-tuk driver claims he can take all six of us. Yeah, right. We hail another tuk-tuk. Three of us get in the first tuk-tuk, and the other three climb into the second one. Some of us are more than happy at the chance to ride home in tuk-tuks, since there are two of them, rather than cramming everyone into one Corolla. It's a long ride, and it's getting dark outside.

The night life has already begun to emerge. The streets are crowded with shops and little carts with people selling food. We notice the prostitutes standing out on the corners with their pimps standing behind them, ready to make a deal. It's sad to watch, but at least these ones appear to be over the age of eighteen. We have yet to witness any younger ones, although we undoubtedly will several times over the course of our journey.

When we arrive back at the hotel, around 6 or 7 pm, I lay down on the bed, fully dressed, hat and all, and pass out. For several hours. I hadn't meant to! I was just going to rest my eyes for a bit, before getting in the swimming pool. But I was much more tired than I'd thought I was. I miss dinner, but that's ok. I wasn't really hungry anyway. I may or may not have eaten dog meat today.

Day One: 20 Hours of Daylight

The Plan: Meet at Andrea's house in Orem at five a.m. I dont trust myself enough to wake up on time, and I have a lot to do. I'll get plenty of sleep on the plane, I think. So I stay up all night, packing for the trip and cleaning my house. Listening to Muse and Skrillex to keep my eyes open. It works. 4:40 rolls around and the knots form in my stomach. Time to go.

I'm nervous because I've never left the country before. I've never flown over the ocean. Our destination seems dangerous, with sex traffickers and brothels all over the place. None of us know the language. But I worry too much! So I stop psyching myself out. Worrying accomplishes nothing.

Landon and I meet at Andrea's at 5. We load up our gear and are off by 5:15. We pick up Alauna in Lehi, and arrive at the Delta terminal of the airport by 6:30 a.m. The rest of the team are already there, waiting for us. We check our bags at the front and make our way through security and to the gate, passports in hand.

We will take a total of three planes over the next 28 hours. Our first plane takes off from Salt Lake and lands in Portland. I sleep for probably a couple of minutes, but for the most part I just stay awake, entertaining myself with a movie on my computer. We arrive in Portland and wait two hours. Then we board our 767 plane - it is the biggest plane I've ever been in. There were at least 40 - 50 rows, and 3 columns. My seat is in the middle column. It is 12:10 Pacific time when we take off. I think to myself, I should take some Dramamine now so I don't get sick during take-off. I am already feeling slightly queasy. But by the time I think to ask a flight attendant for some water, we're already about to take off, and it's too late.

It's our plane's turn for the runway. The engines roar and vibrate the cabin. We start moving. Faster. Faster, even. It's rainy outside. Visibility is low. We leave the ground and immediately there's turbulence. I just know I'm going to puke. I can feel it coming on. I am holding a Dramamine tablet in my palm, trying to muster up enough saliva to put it in my mouth and swallow it without water. After a few minutes, I am fairly confident that I have enough moisture in my mouth to swallow my pill. I take the pill between my two fingers and put it in my mouth. Immediately I am filled with regret. The pill begins to dissolve almost instantaneously - it's disgusting. I can tell that if I were to swallow it now, I would surely gag. I put my hand over my mouth and focused on getting more saliva in my mouth. Mike and Jack, who are sitting on either side of me are worried that I'm going to hurl all over them. I don't blame them. Finally, the bitter pill dissolves completely in my mouth, leaving my mouth entirely numb, and I manage to swallow what's left. I start feeling better.

This plane ride is eleven hours long. I try to sleep for a bit. Read a few pages of my book. Listen to music on my phone. Sleep a few minutes more. Play a game of Mahjong on my phone (in honor of being in Asia, I guess?). Sleep again. Mike and I watch The Island on my computer, using my headphone splitter. More sleeping. The flight attendants give us dinner, and then breakfast - in that order.

12:36 a.m. MST: We finally arrive on solid ground. In Utah, it is the middle of the night. It's 4:36 p.m. and still bright outside in Tokyo, and we have another two hour layover before catching our next plane to Bangkok. The last thing I want to do is sit, so we go walk around for a while. Some of us exchange our dollars for yen, and the cashiers at the souvenir shops help us with counting out the coins.

It reminds me of when I was on the other end of this situation, working at the outlets in Gilroy, California. Apparently it's a pretty famous outlet mall, and we got visitors from all over the world. One time two girls that were from Asia were at the checkout, buying some clothes. I told them their total, and they looked at me and just handed me all of their dollars and American change. I counted it out for them, and took what they owed for their purchase. It is strange being on the flip side of that.



It seems like no time at all has passed by the time we start boarding our last plane out of Tokyo to Bangkok. This time, I've learned my lesson. I ask the first flight attendant I see for some water so I could take my Dramamine. I am already so exhausted, and the Dramamine only makes it worse. I fall asleep almost immediately after I board the plane. I don't even remember taking off. For pretty much the entirety of this plane ride, I am dead to the world. That sleep was much needed. And now it is tomorrow.

Bucket List (in no particular order):

❋ Ride in a hot air balloon
❋ Go on a cruise
❋ Change someone's life for the better
❋ Visit Hawaii
❋ Marry and grow old with the one I love ♥
❋ Have the chance to grow a life inside of me, give birth to that life, and raise him or her as best I possibly can.
❋ Finish remodeling my house
❋ Learn to paint a masterpiece
❋ See Paris
❋ Become the kind of person that others want to be around, and want to be like.

"Space"

I don't need space. I never need space. I hate space. Space is the opposite of what I need - in ANY situation. When something happens that makes me or someone else upset, I need to talk about it. I need it to be resolved right away. If it doesn't get talked about; if no resolution is attempted, it festers in me like a cancer. My stomach turns to knots and I can think of nothing else.

I can see why others need space - especially men. Men aren't as social as women. When they have a problem, they think about it silently until they've worked things out in their minds. Sometimes they don't even have to talk to you about it afterwords - they're over it. It's done. Me? Well, maybe my brain doesn't work that way. Sometimes I don't realize I'm feeling a certain way until I say it out loud to someone else.

However, I don't like to nag. I would hate being referred to as a "nag". That would be horrible. I don't want to force someone to talk if they don't want to talk, or happen to need space. I've done it before, and it doesn't turn out well. So, if I'm upset about something, I might get quiet. This shouldn't be taken as "I don't want to talk to you." But rather, it should be taken as "Let's talk. YOU start".