A video dispatch from Phnom Penh and a song for the Blawgirl’s faithful readers!

One of the great things about having hundreds, maybe even thousands, of NGO workers living and working in Phnom Penh is the fact that a whole host of restaurants and bars have sprung up to give them something to do when they’re not doing something NGO-ey. I didn’t know it at the time I booked my hotel, but the street I’m staying on, Street 278, is one of the more popular streets for these restaurants and bars.

For my first full day in Phnom Penh I decided to hit up the spots that most visitors to the city pass through, including the Royal Palace, the National Museum, Wat Phnom, the Russian Market and the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum. And while touring the city on foot is certainly doable, I decided to hire a tuktuk – a four-wheel, shaded cart hooked onto a motorcycle – for the day to avoid becoming roadkill on Phnom Penh’s busy streets, which could best be described as ordered chaos.

After almost a full day of travel that included a 13 and a half hour flight from Los Angeles to Taipei, a three-hour stopover in Taipei, and a three and a half hour flight from Taipei to Phnom Penh, I have finally arrived in the hotel room that will be my home for the next eight weeks while I intern with the Open Society Justice Initiative. To say that it’s a bit of a shock and a bit surreal to be here after the past three weeks would be an understatement.

After a three-hour Contracts final, I am officially done with my first year of law school! Wooohooo! Confetti, confetti! Feeling good does not even begin to describe it! Click through for a video expressing just how awesome it is!

Like Clark Kent and that Super Fella.

Also: We’re down to the home stretch, folks! Four finals down, one to go! After my Contracts final tomorrow, I officially will be done with my first year in law school and getting ready for Cambodia! Confetti!!!

I hope this isn’t the beginning of a trend, but for finals last semester and for finals this semester Undergrad Neighbor has done something unintentionally, yet incredibly annoying. Last semester, the day before my Torts final, it was inviting his douchey, possibly hipster friends to talk about Picasso, smoke douchey herbal cigarettes, and scream like Howard Dean while running into walls. What could possibly be worse than that? One word, nerds: Drums.

I’ve just returned from learning about and being immunized against all the nasties that could possibly hitch a ride on my insides during my trip to Cambodia, and, to be honest, for some reason it made me feel a bit like a super finicky, overly squeamish, ugly American.

Since my last video post earlier last month, things in law school have gone from 0 m.p.h. to being able to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. In other words: Son, this ish has picked up speed.