It won't be long now.

After school today I rode my bike to The Shop. I sit in my usual place and order my usual thing.

They know me here. This place is comfort, habit.

The behavior of the people around me suggest it is late afternoon. No one is in a hurry, everyone has accomplished their tasks for the day.

Two ladies sit and drink tea while they read their books.

A couple in the next room cuddle on the couch.

A mother and her two daughters who I recognize vaguely, sit across the room.

And then there is the man. Now, if you've ever been to Asia, Cambodia in particular you may know the type that I am talking about. They are in search of something, they wear their Asian pants and sit with their notebooks open, drinking whatever it is people who are searching drink, taking it all in, thinking thoughts, trying to experience.

They wander the streets in awe of the trash, the heat, the difference in lifestyle. And then they sit in places like The Shop and write about it.

I don't know what they hope to find. Enlightenment, hope, change, love.

All wonderful and valid things to search for. But sometimes it seems so forced, so strained.

I feel a little remorse for judging this man, pushing him into this stereotype and I turn the light on myself. I've been here ten months almost. I came in search of something, I used to walk around in awe of my surroundings, I used to sit in this place and write and write, I wanted to take it all in.

And as I sit here at the end of the day, and nearly the end of the year, have I accomplished everything I wanted? Have I learned everything I needed? Have I really experienced everything I could? Have I been pushed far enough? Have I loved deep enough? Worked hard enough?

Have I grown?

Three more weeks.

Three more weeks.

"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?" Donald Miller