it is impossible for me to send a meaningful email from work. i am in cambodia for work. i am working. i am permanently in a work state of mind. i wake at 6am. eat breakfast at the hotel. get to work by 8am. and then i am at work until 5 or later. i get home to my room which hasn’t been air conditioned all day, and it feels hotter inside than it is outside, and i strip off all my clothes and just stare. at the ceiling. at a wall. out the window. maybe for an hour. until either hunger or the bathroom or the need to work more calls me. eventually the room cools down, and i am back on my laptop, and i will myself to do more as long as i can. music helps. small discrete accomplishable goals help. then it’s getting close to 9pm. i’m exhausted because it was only the other day that i arrived on the other side of the world. getting to sleep won’t be hard. staying asleep til 6am might be.

these trips are like exercises of will. like would i be able to cut off my own arm with a dull knife if i was trapped by a boulder with no food in a canyon crevice? or will i be able to wake myself at 6am and endure insurmountable frustrations only to find out at 5:30pm i am on my own as far as finding transportation between the embassy and the hotel?