I trust you are doing well.

Time flies, and I almost finish my courses at university. I sent you the result of my previous course with grade A. That’s another satisfying achievement. This term, it has only 3 courses I have to complete, and another important one is the senior project. My team member’s name is Sokheang. He has already finished all courses at university, just waiting to finish the senior project. He reached out to me to see if I would like to join his team, as he was unable to find a suitable team member due to the limited number of students and the fact that most of them had just graduated the previous year. We are now in progress because I have recently met our advisor and we need to set the timeline to complete it on time. One more thing, the school updates that the defense of this senior project would be in June, but it’s not a must.  However, we just need to speed up our work as we want to do it in June as well. In my classes, it’s interesting to share with you about this. I got 100/100 from Dr. George’s class, Contemporary Political Theories. It’s tricky and confusing, while all students needed to retake the exam, but I didn’t.

Today is also one of the days we celebrate Khmer New Year. It happens 3 days normally as we follow the year of the Buddhist Calendar, 2568 enters 2569. In Cambodia, we have been influenced by Bali and Sanskrit, so the words used today also link to their roots. For instance, Sangkranta(សង្ក្រាន្ត) or Sangkrant, which refers to the coming of a new year we can be seen in the inscription during the Angkor period as well. Thailand and Laos are also the same, as they are now celebrating in their traditional way. Every year, there must be an angel of God coming to look after the kingdom. The name of the angel this year is Gorukak Devi (គោរោគទេវី). In CRST, we also celebrated CRST Sangkrant with all CRST students. Aviv and Jess also joined us, including Isabelle and Andre from France. We had the models of each CRST project and department represented by CRST models. Plus, we had the performance of the story from the famous novel in Cambodia, Kulab Pailen (Rose in Pailen Province). We played with power and other funny games. We really enjoyed dancing together with the mix of modern and traditional songs. I am now staying at my hometown, spending time with my family. It’s a meaningful time to meet with our beloved persons and friends. Happy Khmer New Year!

We also installed another Village Street Library (VSL) this month at Anlong Pi village, Prasat Bakong district in Siem Reap. That is one of the most beautiful VSLs as we didn’t paint it, instead we printed the picture designed by Jess. It’s the dedication in loving memory of Nili, Aviv’s mother, who has just passed away recently. We gathered more than 100 primary school students to join our reading campaign and the installation day. Our Rotaractors also led the assigned group to read the books with students. It’s lovely to see everyone got involved in each team, and used good strategies to manage the students. I know that working with the kids is not an easy task. We need to be more patient and open-minded. My gratitude to Maria and Brendan with the Rotary Passport Melbourne for sponsoring this new VSL to that local area. Just to let you know that the village is located near the landfill and all the wastes are dumped there.

Thanks for reading my update, and I hope you love it as well. Wishing you the best of luck during the Khmer New Year!🤩🥳