------------------UNDERNEATH THE SURFACE------------------ (Sex Trade Documentary)

8/7/09 (Friday) Today was far too hot for me, I’m melting. I’m going to be in great shape after this trip between sweating the pounds off and going up all the freaking stairs.

We went to the Royal Palace today, and it was awesome. I found out that Cambodia has a king and he actually lives there at the Royal Palace and uses the various buildings that we toured. He is more of an icon than someone with power, but I still found it interesting. I had to wear a t-shirt out of respect, because you are not allowed to show your shoulders in the palace area. I thought I was going to cook to death, I was pretty miserable. I might have appreciated the experience a little more if I wasn’t dripping sweat.

The buildings were gorgeous and everything the tour guide told us was quite fascinating. Cambodia has adopted Buddhism & Hinduism and kind of lumped them together into one religion. I’d like to learn more about those religions. We saw a bunch of awesome REALLY old art work that showed the combination of the two religions.

Most everyone went to The Killing Fields during our break, but I spent it trying to figure out how to fix my stupid camera! I was at the Sony store for about an hour or so while someone tried to get the head cleaner tape to work, eventually it looked like it was fixed so I went back to the hotel. I was recording my room to make sure it was in fact fixed, but it wasn’t! It seemed like it was fine until I got back to my room. I’m not even sure how many times I used the dang head cleaner, and the footage is still choppy. At times it wont even play. I don’t know what’s going on, first I can’t get the batteries to charge on the dang thing, now I can’t record video without it being all messed up.

I found out that Jen’s HD Flip Video that I’ve been using isn’t working either! While charging the Flip Video a message flashed across the screen saying, “It’s too hot, charging paused.” Yet the thing wasn’t hot, that happened multiple times. When unplugged and looking at the screen it said “Time Left: 0 hours, 0 minutes,” and when I pushed record it read, “Camcorder Full” even though I had already transferred all the footage to my hard drive and erased the footage. Here’s the weirder thing, when I went to check the footage on the camera it said “Camcorder Full.” I’m not a genius but I’m pretty sure something can’t be full and empty at the same time. I’m beginning to think it’s me, that just by touching things they are breaking. :(

I don’t know what to do. It’s quite frustrating that one of the main things I came to do was to shoot footage for the documentary, and I can’t.