A happy coincidence and a library that's getting me excited!

Today is the last day of our In Country Training (ICT) and as of Monday, we're on our own! Since we arrived we have been looked after by the Programme Office staff here who have organised our timetable for what we're doing every day. From Monday nothing is organised for us anymore. Gordon goes off to work and I properly start the job hunt (although in the meantime I'm going to be doing some work at the VSO Office, helping with a new communications strategy which I'm really looking forward to).

This morning, the volunteers had meetings with the their Head of Sector (all volunteers work either under Education, Health or Livelihoods) and I had some free time on my hands. I've spoken to some agents who are helping us look for a house (we've seen lots but none that are right. Possibly we (ie me) are just being fussy, but I have hope we can find somewhere we love). I had great plans to write lots of emails and catch up on lots of things but the lure of Google proved too much and I found myself reading the blog of a certain Danny Murphy...

For anyone who went to Crieff High with me the name will be familiar - our 'headie' for a few years the name had come up in conversation a few times when we arrived here (mostly because he had a lovely apartment!) but it was only one night after a comment about a past Scottish VSOer who worked in education that it finally clicked who it was. This morning I've spent a lovely hour or so browsing through his blog and reading about his first few weeks here in Cambodia. For those that are interested I can highly recommend it:  http://dannymurphyvso.wordpress.com/

I've also spent quite some time looking at the books in the Programme Office library. I've not read a thing since I came here which is really strange for me - I normally get through a book or two per week and had expected to have finished all the books that we brought with us both in traditional form and on our fab Kindle.There is nothing I like more than lbrowsing books and the fact that these have all been left here by previous volunteers just adds a certain something to them. I've recommended a few to some of the other volunteers who are heading off into the sticks and are stocking up on reading material (another thing I love doing although more fraught with panic as I have no idea what they like!).

I'm really quite excited about reading some of the books as there are many that I've been meaning to read for years, or feel that I "should" read. I think I'm going to start with Iain Crichton Smith's Consider the Lilies. I've not read anything by Crichton Smith and it will be a nice reminder from home. There's also a novel by Robin Jenkins that I have my eye on - I read The Cone Gatherers in SYS English and loved it and am looking forward to reading more by him. Straying away from Scotland Jack Kerouac's On the Road has been earmarked for a perusal at a later date and there are loads of other interesting books that I can't wait to get started on. 

Anyway. Enough ramblings. Gordon should be finished in a few minutes and we're off out for a 'working lunch' as we evaluate our ICT and language training.