In this world, there are some people who love the way they are and some feel dissatisfied with the way and where they were born. I was one of those people, well, perhaps a small bunch of people who regret being a national of a troublesome country. There is an important fact to be aware of: We cannot control where to be born. As one can claim, if the ability to control that happened, we would then protest against something that gives us life, nature. Uncontrollably and automatically natural processing…

It would be senseless to talk about unfulfilled wants of everything everybody desires since people want this or that non-stop. It might be useful to pick up a little of the story to analyze.

Frustrated by everything that has happened to the country itself, I’m certain many Cambodians can’t stand what is happening to the border and the inner management of the country. Cambodia is mired by corruption and poverty, does it sound quite hopeless to help?

Almost every day, you get up to possibility of rackets or noise of people labouring near your house or on the streets trying to make some cents while many other people sleep in though it’s just Monday. You can always see the big obvious gap in front of you with naked eyes. You can almost stumble when you are informed there are more poor residents than the rich here in Cambodia and the rich “plow their paddy fields through farmers’ backs.”

All I want is that the gap between the rich and the poor is narrowed down. I don’t want to go into details as to which one I want the most. There can be the richest or the poorest, but the most preferred one is always the middle class: bourgeoisie.

As soon as the night gets darker than usual, I can get very sleepy. There are some nights I find a lot of sweat around my forehead. Some nights I sleep and get up with nice feelings. I don’t know if there is something wrong within me. But my nightmares aren’t about ghosts, devil or anything. They are always about school and studies. Oh, why are they my nightmares?? The reality is that I dread of going back to my 12-grade class (high school) and going back to meeting my English tutor. I can’t remember how many I have dreamt of going back to school. I always get up exhausted and scared. I hope I won’t bring this with me till I grow up.

A few nights ago, I dreamt about being in my English tutor’s class. I was fighting between the reality and the dream. I no longer wanted to be in his class, even though I was always his favourite student or even best student, as he claimed.

Why did I dread? What made me afraid of dreaming about that? A student who liked their her teacher should have valued such a dream! But why not me? I figured that out and found a few right reasons why I was even afraid of dreaming about him and his class. He has changed a lot. A great teacher I used to idolize has changed unbelieveably. Or have I myself changed?

My inner self tells me that though I’m maturing, my life principles have always been the same. Do you believe that money can change one person to become a completely different person? I am not sure. I am not in his shoes so I don’t know what else he has gone through in our absence.