hey, its me -- Amy!

......... Cleckler....... Amy Cleckler. 

.....aww, come on. i havent been away that long!

there are two lucky things about me that make me perfect for livin, jivin and thrivin in the Orient. i am not sexually attracted to Asian people (there was that one Asian, but for the most part, the entire race is a no-go), and i dont like dessert. 

i want to talk about Asian desserts for a minute. for the most part, dessert here means you get a big plate of fruit. im ok with that. its even a good idea because its healthy. (whats considered a scrumptious dessert in Cambodia would be considered an unacceptably-low-cal breakfast at any eating disorder treatment center in the States.)

however, if you go someplace fancyshmancy, instead of getting healthy yummy fruit, you get something that looks more like this bowl of stuff pictured below:

not such a great photo, but let me explain the sitch. we went to a fancy $12/person buffet dinner for someone's last night in town (i cant remember whose - its always someone's last night in town...).  $12 is an expensive freakin dinner here, yall, and the buffet was a mile long. it just went on and on. i tried to take a photo of the dessert table, as i was inspired to blog on it as soon as it came into view -- but two women approached me before i had the chance to aim and shoot, and starting waving their hands and saying, 'Not The Food! Not The Food!' i tried to explain that i was doing research for my internet project, but that got the same response, as did trying to get friends to surreptitiously pose in front of that kilometer stretch of The Food. 

so, i just loaded up a plate and photo'd it at the table.

allow me to explain...

its all ball- or cube-shaped, and its all made of tapioca. yes, youve got it -- tapioca balls. then it is drenched in coconut milk. there are many colors and designs, but they are all tapioca. 

.... or usually, they are. i ran into a colleague on the street on Monday who was purchasing an ice cream sandwich from a man wheeling an ice cream sandwich cart. it was no boring, yummy american ice cream sandwich - no! it was a white bread hot dog bun with 5 scoops of ice cream inside, sprinkled with cane sugar. yummers...

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i know youve all been getting up early to see if i posted any photos of myself overnight!! thanks for all the comments demanding some pics of my big white mug. here for the first time on my little blogging adventure, i will add a recent picture of myself.

here's me making the face i make when i am asked to try tapioca-gelatinball desserts.*

 

i think the haircut is growing out nicely, dont you? 

i have been having some trouble seeing straight, but i think i just got some pollution in my eyes.

another exciting development:

i went to yoga! this is thrilling to me. the class was on the roof under a covered awning at 6:30 at night. it was taught by a very fit Khmer gentleman who had obviously been practicing for some time. he was very kind and a good teacher, but struggled a bit with some english words, which caused me confusion at times. ankle was often mistaken for wrist, for example, leading to some new creative poses that may have, in turn, led to the extreme lactic acid overload of the following days. he was not nearly as phased by the presence of the bats that dove in strange arcs around us. if you want to take your practice to a new level, you can practice balancing half moon in the near-dark with bats circling your head -- a special new challenge to balance and heart-rate.

in addition, he and i pronounce 'breath' in different ways. he kept encouraging us to take very deep breasts, to deepen our breasts, and feel our breasts moving throughout our whole body. he even suggested that i push my breasts out more strongly through my nostrils. i wasnt able to to that, but maybe tomorrow... theres always room for growth and expansion in yoga practice.

i personally prefer small, perky breasts, but trying that just seemed to make me dizzy. maybe hes on to something...

[this experience has been reminding me all week of Phyllis Diller telling Bob Hope that her bra size was a 36-long.]

the only drawback to going back to yoga after 5 weeks off from all manner of cardio/stretching/endurance/strength exercises is that you feel like this when you start up again:

even the muscles on the front of my throat were sore. 

*This is not really me. This is humanoid robot named "Saya." She is making the facial expression "disgust" during a demonstration at an elementary school in Tokyo May 7, 2009. The robot, developed by the Tokyo University of Science professor Hiroshi Kobayashi, can speak different languages and make facial expressions like happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, anger or disgust with motors inside her face.  [Reuters]