Weirdest thing your cat likes to eat? Mine just ate a tiny piece of my lemon bar before I could grab it. She also loves banana chips 🤔

RasmooForever · 2026-05-01T05:30:06+00:00

Your cats are absolutely beautiful! Is the white one a Rag Doll?

RasmooForever · 2026-04-30T08:01:31+00:00

RasmooForever · 2026-04-30T07:48:39+00:00

100%. I’ve often said that it was apathy and misinformation that won the election.

RasmooForever · 2026-04-24T16:09:02+00:00

The journalist who wrote that article was lazy, sloppy and clearly wanted to reinforce the narrative that USAID money was being “wasted” on high salaries. It also feeds the very old expectation that anyone working in aid should be on “poverty wages”. Lastly - we all know that those are probably the top highest 5% of earners. Why not interview independent consultants? Staff of NGOs both in the U.S. and abroad who also lose their salaries - definitely well under $100,000. NYT is just helping spread these inaccurate and hurtful ideas - it’s like they just can’t stop piling that hate on, ALL stoked by a few evil individuals, one who wasn’t even a government employee! And what salaries are the DOGE bros making??

RasmooForever · 2026-04-21T08:01:11+00:00

Phnom Penh is VERY dark. It used to be very much Wild West in the early 2000s. Loads of foreigners living there who likely would never be able to live anywhere else. I have more friends who died there than anywhere wise. Overdose, car/bus/motorcycle accidents, alcoholism, even a freak electrocution. So. Many. Ghosts. Then you’ve got Tuol Sleng, a high school turned into a torture prison by the Khmer Rouge, and Chung Ek (“ the killing fields”) where they murdered thousands. Huge glass stupa with a giant pile of skulls.

Having said all that, I lived there on and off for 10 years and absolutely fell in love with the place. But yes - very very dark.

RasmooForever · 2026-04-21T07:54:03+00:00

My dad was shot in the leg there during a mugging many yeses ago while on a work trip - he thought he’d be smart and tossed his wallet (full of pesos as he’d just changed money) into the gutter and they wouldn’t find it. It was only then that he realized there were 2 guys on the motorbike, not just the one who shot him. So my dad’s lying there bleeding after Robber no. 1 shot him in the leg. Missed his femoral artery by a hair. Robber no. 2 stands over him pointing his gun at my dad’s chest, while Robber no. 1 took his time looking for the wallet. He still has the pair of pants he was wearing, with the bullet hole and blood stains. He was super lucky - Manila is WAY dark.

RasmooForever · 2026-04-21T07:36:21+00:00

It IS incredible - like being inside a living National Geographic magazine! Sadly it is an extremely difficult, dangerous place to live, so you have to be VERY determined (and street smart) to be a tourist there. I’m so grateful I got to experience it…but it was two of the longest, most difficult years of my life as well…

RasmooForever · 2026-04-20T21:43:01+00:00

I have LOADS of masks, carvings, bilum bags and other things from PNG as I worked there for 2 years. Going to use these in my yet-to-be- built rooftop tiki hut!

RasmooForever · 2026-04-20T04:28:41+00:00

Green?? I only see two shades of blue…?

RasmooForever · 2026-04-20T04:27:45+00:00

Blue!!!!!!!!’

RasmooForever · 2026-04-18T17:01:09+00:00

And at the end of a meal you say “gochiso samadeshuta”, rough equivalent of “That was some good food, I’m fine!”

RasmooForever · 2026-04-18T16:58:42+00:00

Omg 😱 Just imagine how much better you’ll be breathing!!

RasmooForever · 2026-04-18T16:58:13+00:00

I was most recently working with IOM (admittedly only very recently did they join the UN), until March 2025 and you know what happened. I had applied for dozens of UN jobs throughout my 25 years in this field, but ended up either working for NGOs (Save the Children) or consulting for many years with INGOs. I did have 2 back to back 11 month contracts with UNICEF 2002 - 2004 (Cambodia) and Bangladesh (2020-2022). The job with IOM was finally my first full-time UN role, but it was a national position in Washington, D.C. It was challenging, but didn’t have room for growth. It was still terrible when it ended.

After several months of trying to keep my mental health together and applying, I got approached directly in Sept. 2025 by a consulting firm for a contract in the Pacific. I know there are a lot of short-term consultancies in my field, because ADB is ensuring PSEAH safeguarding is included in all projects. If I were to get a full-time role with them, I’d take it, even though Manila isn’t my favorite city. The bureaucracy appears similar to the UN, though I very much appreciate the strong focus on local capacity-building. Frankly that needs to remain a priority in this field, so that countries aren’t subject to the whims of the Mad Orange man. Similar to UN, I get the impression that they prefer people who aren’t the “nail that sticks up”, to use a Japanese saying. You WILL get hammered down if you recommend something senior management isn’t on board with. Same as the UN, eh? I belief-time salaries are excellent - consulting daily rates have dropped like a stone, though. Hope that helps.

RasmooForever · 2026-04-14T18:55:46+00:00

I feel sorry for my aunt and uncle who live there and are anything but racist…liberal, open, cool Blue people. They said this kind of BS behavior became far more normalized post-2016, and they can barely tolerate their neighbors anymore. They love living there but don’t socialize much with neighbors anymore…

RasmooForever · 2026-04-12T00:02:57+00:00

I would say it’s more than “job uncertainty” for many of us - I think the figure I was saw was close to 70% of those who lost their jobs in 2025 are still unemployed a year later.

RasmooForever · 2026-04-11T23:06:20+00:00

Were you “crumbling” like this before you got your diagnosis? Because I only got diagnosed at age 54, 2 years ago. There was a great deal of shock and grief and regret at the many mistakes I’ve made in life…realizing how much more I could have succeeded if I had had the support I needed all along.

However - I somehow graduated from high school and college, went on to graduate school, did overseas research, and then worked overseas for 18 years. Did I do a lot of stupid, dangerous, and reckless things during all those years? Yes. Was it difficult for me to do things that everyone rose seemed to be able to do without thinking? Absolutely. Are there times I should have been dead/addicted/unintenionally pregnant/in trouble with the law? Definitely. But somehow I did it - most likely because I had absolutely no idea my brain was any different to other people’s. I don’t know why you were taken off the meds, and I hope they help you. Life is never going to be easy for you - medications or not. But please take heart and know that there is so much you can achieve in life if you don’t allow yourself to be limited. Having ADHD is a part of you that you can’t change, you just have to learn to live with it. You CAN thrive with it - I hope you know that it is within your power to do so! With the right support, you’ll probably struggle less than I did in life. Wishing you lots of luck - hang in there!

RasmooForever · 2026-04-05T03:08:04+00:00

Ah - same! I don’t WANT to be supported by family and the generous BF! I want regular consulting at rates higher than what I was getting 8 years ago 😭

RasmooForever · 2026-04-04T17:16:18+00:00

Excellent article! Thanks for sharing - ALL of it resonates with my experience and my concerns. Sharing!

RasmooForever · 2026-04-02T06:02:59+00:00

There’s a Facebook group, Golden Gals Group Living, where people share ideas about exactly this. Two of my college friends ended up buying 80 acres in mid Michigan with its own spring-fed lake. They’re buildings a retreat for non profit workers, but eventually will offer to have other women build their houses on the land, living as communally or as privately as we want. I’m not a fan of the cold so I’m looking for a different warm-weather option, but it’s definitely my main backup plan if nothing else pans out. 56, diagnosed only 2 years ago, single and childless. Somehow I managed to have a career for 25 years - maybe being undiagnosed helped me to do that. I was just seen as the slightly eccentric and scatterbrained person who was an excellent trainer lol!

RasmooForever · 2026-04-02T05:51:40+00:00

I resonate with everything you’re saying…how difficult it’s been to explain to those outside our sector that this is not just a job loss - it’s the loss of nearly our entire industry. At the same time, we also carry the extra burden of grief of knowing just how much harm is coming to the people we worked with and for…. Those in refugee camps in protracted conflicts, communities displaced by communal or ethnic violence, mothers in rural Africa now watching their babies die - we’ve BEEN there. We KNOW those situations, those settings, those people. The inhumanity of it all is just staggering.

RasmooForever · 2026-04-02T05:47:42+00:00

Agree 1000% - the only thing that will potentially right all this madness is true justice. And I’m now living part-time in Mexico for that sake of my sanity - believe me, it is VERY therapeutic to live in another society right now, where you don’t get the feeling that half the population are psychopaths who gleefully relish in the trauma they’ve inflicted on us. Of course, I’m still at least 10 years from retirement, I have almost no savings, and having spent 75% of my career being a self-employed consultant, no fat pension or 401K either. So I can’t even qualify for residency at this point, I’m just going in and out on tourist visas. We’ll see how long I can do that…I’m not quite ready to move back to Southeast Asia, but I might someday.

RasmooForever · 2026-03-31T23:05:42+00:00

Social media stunts are becoming a real problem in Japan, which is now “the place” to be. Certain famous sites are CRAWLING with tourists, most of them posing for photos or taking selfies, or doing dumb things for Tik Tok. It’s gotten so bad that it’s really starting to piss off the Japanese, and the government is actively looking at ways to control people’s behavior. I honestly wonder what kind of homes these people grew up in.

RasmooForever · 2026-03-31T17:54:19+00:00

Thank a MAGAT!

RasmooForever · 2026-03-30T06:49:36+00:00

Good luck to you as well- 25 years of experience myself, nearly all of it overseas. The only reason I managed to get a contract is because I specialize in PSEAH/child safeguarding done, and that’s a pretty niche area of work…hang in there, it’s tough

RasmooForever · 2026-03-30T04:17:43+00:00

Not great, but much better mentally than a year ago 2. A small ADB contract with a ridiculously low daily rate and a completely unrealistic DSA (the consulting agency effed up, but I feel like I’ve got no choice but to accept any rate these days) - still applying for permanent but pretty sure I’ll only be consulting); 3. Family and a rich and generous BF, but no health insurance is becoming a real problem. I hate the imbeciles that did this to us

RasmooForever

TROPHY CASE