It seems the less money I earn, the more I want to spend, the less I work, the more I don't want to work and the closer I come to a zero dollar bank account balance, the faster I want to get there.
Recently back in Phnom Penh after a month long tour of futility in Vietnam, I'm seriously low on funds and seriously lacking motivation to get employed.
Being barely 21 years old, Caucasian and degreeless means that getting a job is as simple as looking presentable and not showing up to the interview intoxicated i.e. return to English teaching. However, after three months of babysitting spoilt Kindergarten beasts and six months of preaching business related English to bored teenagers, I'd rather not.
Of course, my only realistic option is teaching but everyday as I skim through the Cambodian Daily I still hope to see an advert that reads something like this:
WANTED - 19-24 year old Australian female
youth culture consultant
$2500/month + accommodation, visa
I would be perfect! I would revolutionize adolescent Khmers' sense of fashion and show them how to appreciate more western styles of music, clothing and art but then recreate it with a Cambodian twinge, bringing them out of the early 90's and straight into the present day. No more karaoke love ballads that help send you to sleep on long bus rides or poorly recorded hip-hop covers that seem to play for ten minutes too long. I want to hear some Kampuchea rock! No more secret codes of broken English printed on t-shirts that were probably seconds from some 80's designer warehouse. I want to see Cambodian designed frocks! (Preferably ones that also come in Western size.) People would write books about me titled Jamie Bennett: the New Style Creator or, better yet, How Cambodia Became World Famous for Fashion, Not Oppression: The Story of Jamie Bennett. Ok, ok, I realise how arrogant that sounds, but isn't daydreaming supposed to go in your own favour?
To slow down the damage of being unemployed, I've taken up teaching at an institute again but just one hour a day. And how it hurts! As the clock ticks closer and closer to the dreaded 5:30pm, my smile sinks further and further towards a frown. To be honest, it's not that bad. The $12 covers my room and food but I'm still dipping into my funds for everything else. When you've got nothing to do all day but wait until it's time to go to work for just an hour, the 'everything else' turns out to be quite expensive.
Now that I've rediscovered the joys of fine dining after living off street food for a while, I find that dropping ten bucks on meal can be done without flinching. Drinking at any Riverside bar can also be done very easily. No worries that the prices are often triple of what I'd normally spend anywhere else, it's nice to be in a classier establishment. Money is made to be spent, right? So why shouldn't I spend my diminishing funds on things that I like? Save it for a rainy day is a popular suggestion often given to me by those much older than myself. But come on, I'm in Cambodia and it's dry season! I'd have to endure another four or so months before I could allow myself to touch it and have a little fun. Not likely.
Obviously I should just suck it up and get some more hours teaching but I'm young and therefore have the right to be naive. I still think that I should have a job that I like and am happy to go to. I have this underlying hope that just won't die. I believe that against all odds something better will come along. Some NGO will discover me and give me a decent job with a decent wage and decent working hours (which, for me, means never having to start before 11am) I will actually enjoy going to work and it won't matter that I'm not really qualified for anything, only speak 1.5 languages and don't like to be told what to do. Some how it'll happen, probably when I least expect it. Then I'll be laughing!
Until then, if you happen to know anyone in the Phnom Penh area in need of an unqualified, but very enthusiastic, young expat, don't hesitate to give them my name.
The above article is a Blog submission and Not an article written by EAS staff.
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Links:
[1] http://www.expat-advisory.com/articles/77
[2] http://www.expat-advisory.com/articles/1152