February: a month of plentiful blog posts

Alright loyal blog readers, I'm hoping February will be a great month for blogging, and here's why.  I just reviewed my calendar, and due to national holidays and national testing, I teach for a grand total of 8 days this month.  That's right.  Eight days out of twenty-eight.
So I'm going to try and theme some of my posts this month.  This week's theme is (drumroll, please) parties!  I have blogged before on a few holidays and celebrations, but now I have videos!
Recently I was invited to a harvest celebration, which was probably one of the most awkward days of my life.  Although my Khmer is vastly improving, all I could decipher about what was going on is that this happens every year, everyone would eat the same noodle dish, and there would be dancing involved very close to our house.  So I sat at home all day waiting for the noodles and dancing.  At one point I came downstairs to discover about 20 people I did not know just hanging around my house.  Now, normally this would not really be an issue, but Cambodia has changed me into a crotchety old woman who hates changes in her daily routine.  Much like this cat:

What my face looks like anytime I can't go to bed at 7:00pm

So these 20 people were all waiting around to go dancing, which I was told would occur at 7:00 (the time I normally head to my room for some quality blogging/reading/movie watching/sleeping time).  We did not leave until 9:00.  I was tired and a little overwhelmed with all the Khmer and confusion, but I am so glad I went.  It's really great to see people I see all the time at school or in the market, just having a good time with one another.  I also got to do some quality dancing, which I was also able to record for you all.
This first video is an example of traditional Cambodian dancing.  You pretty much just walk around a pole and wave your hands around.  I have yet to really perfect this.

However, a lot of parties now include some western songs, and obviously, K-pop.  Gagnam style has completely taken over Cambodia and everyone goes CRAZY when this song comes on.  They also play it at least 20 times at any party.

Those kids sure know how to dance:-)
Well, that's it for now, but I'm going to an anniversary party on Thursday (it's not what you think) so you can look forward to an update on that (including how I found out that the meaning of anniversary is a little different here).