I thought about deleting that novel of a paragraph, but changed my mind (and exactly how long can I make this title, anyway?)

I’ve been mopey lately, and I’ve finally decided it’s due to a general feeling of unfulfillment. Tonight I went shopping. (Don’t worry, there’s a connecting thread*.) I don’t go shopping very often, and as a general rule try to avoid the experience all together. But for the past few weeks I’ve been desperately missing my Nalgene, which I accidentally abandoned in my favorite fried-rice hole-in-the-wall sometime in June; yes, that is indeed an item one can “desperately miss”. So tonight I finally bought one, and on the way home started thinking.

Four (holy crap, four?!) months ago, I was wrapping up one season and setting out on another - and was dragging through the same blahs. I was tired of work and class being my only outward evidence of worth, and was finding precious little comfort in the pair. It’s a new season, a new semester, a new month - and the routine of life has dumped me in the same place again. School, Work, Family, Life, all proper nouns which have little significance when I remove myself from their influence, yet which I all too easily allow to become my defining factors. I feel temporary. Regardless of where I live, I live out of a trunk, and allow myself satisfaction through lack of permanence. I miss … something… and for a long time, since the last time around, I’ve thought that something was China.

A few months ago, not long after I got there, I went on a hike. It was not my first hike of the trip, nowhere near my last, and far from the longest. It was really not that strenuous at all, yet my lack of concern (focus, preparation, experience) made it by far the most difficult. We started out on a bus, which in that part of the world means much less than it does here. We fishtailed up mountains for a few hours, before hopping out on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, to climb to a vaguely-located village. We found the village rather empty, and my partner decided to hike through the valley, to the next mountain, where there was another village - one we’d visited earlier in the week. It wasn’t that far at all, and a through-hike was better than the up-down-around alternative. But I hadn’t thought ahead. I’d had no breakfast, brought no food, and only one *Nalgene of water. I wasn’t used to the altitude, I hadn’t begun to actually work at this, and I was still woefully out of shape. What should have been a few hours work, four at most, became a six hour slog which brought us barely into the rice fields of the next village. Along the way I managed to dump myself into a creek not once, but three times. We spent a few hours at the village, refilled water bottles, and made the hour-and-change hike up to the Da Lu, big road, where we hitched our way back to town. It was dark when we made it back, and we still had a dinner appointment to make. I was tired, frustrated, and all I wanted was a shower and sleep - yet cultural obligation demanded I sit in a humid, boiling, hotpot restaurant for the next two hours. I get home eventually, where, six flights up, I crash headfirst on the couch. I discover exactly what those creek encounters got me, and my still-damp shoes get tossed to the balcony. All the windows are open, the two balcony doors slid to their widest. The electricity is off, meaning no hot water, but that doesn’t matter. At that moment, as China’s “Windy City” earns its name in grand style, I let the breeze blow the day out of my head. I am aching, I am sore, I am thirsty still. I am dirty and in need of a shower, my feet crack and bleed. I am frustrated at the lack of progress during the day, and the seemingly wasted time. Yet, I slowly realize, I am content. I feel as if the blisters have been earned, and as I remember the encounters of the day - the farmer in his rice field who stopped to help us through to the trail (was he more concerned for us or his field, I wonder?), the traditionally-dressed ladies stopped for lunch under the trees, and the endless glasses of tea at dinner - the day seems long. Unwasted. Fulfilled.

Confession: I don’t miss China. I mean, well, of course I miss China, but it’s a longing for no more or less than the sum total of people, places, and experiences “China” denotes. What I miss most is something that could, in theory, be found here, yet I’m not even sure what it is. What I am sure of is that, whatever that nameless elusive was, I went half-way around the world to find it. I have no doubt I’ll find it again… I just wish I knew what I was looking for now.

Google ate my brain, and I’m ok with that

(But I think I already said that a few years ago. In the first of tonight’s “other news”-es, that really was a few years ago. Snap.)

Finally re-acquired my photos (yay!) yesterday, so tonight I loaded the least-crappy ones onto Picasa. I had no idea that, since I last checked, Google’s web album service had gained the things I asked for (tagging, video support, & easier organization). Granted, it’s been like… a year… since I thought about it. So that’s nifty.

Three albums cover the summer; at the moment they’re not public so just bookmark or some such.

• Month the First: Yunnan Province
• Hong Kong & Shanghai
• English Camp

Eventually I will get around to georeferencing* locations, tagging things and writing captions - really.
*I’m a geography major, I can actually use that word legally.

Side note: has the horizontal rule (<hr> tag) been deprecated, or is my current code just wonky? I’m curious, yet too lazy to find out.

As promised, in other news: for the non-Auburn characters, work & class started back this week. Work went well; we have a new guy who seems like he’ll make it on our little funny farm. I don’t think I actually got to sit in the office for more than 5 minutes Thursday, and I ran around not one, but two, buildings - yay first week goodness. I’m fairly ambivalent over class. I think I have finally, finally reached acceptance of the fact that ‘holy crap, this is my last semester here’. The heavens opened, rain fell, thunder shouted it’s approval.

And finally, in other, other news: Ryan North has an awesome hat, but really needs a tan. For serious.

No longer jetlagged, merely confused

Sign one should step away from the keyboard:

Realizing it’s morning - not because of light beginning to stream through the window 3 feet away… but because the sun has come up on my google homepage.

For what it’s worth, I did sleep about 4 hours, just got up too early.

[Home]

I returned to the USA Sunday afternoon. (I think. I lost track of days somewhere along the way.) I spent an overnight in LA, and got home-home-for-real around 3am Tuesday. I then proceeded to sleep from 8am-7pm Tuesday, because I’m really brilliant and that was incredibly conducive to getting over sleep deprivation.

I am currently bummed because all (ALL) my photos are on a friend’s computer, and it’ll be at least a week before I can get to them. Apart from that I am doing well with reentry… but I think a lot of that is because I haven’t actually participated in the world yet. I spent most of my awake hours yesterday (this morning? Today?) catching up on emails, blogs, comics, and news (in that order). Sweet, sweet, unlimited intarweb. In a few hours I’ll actually head to town, run various errands, and generally see if the world of here is still there.

It is very strange to wake up, go outside, and have no light & noise pollution assault me (minus effect of on-again-off-again yard light and currently-nearly-deserted highway). If I were you, my response to that would be “oh, ha ha, yeah no doubt!” — but think about it for a second. I haven’t legitimately seen stars since May. This. Is. Exceedingly. Strange.

It is also very strange to be freezing in my own house. I had forgotten just how cold A/C dependents keep their habitats. Yay warm-bodied kitties and unlimited blankets.

Taking a shower - in my shower - was blissfully strange. Hot water and clean clothes and soap, oh my.

And finally… it is strange to have silence and solitude. And that in particular is a very, very welcome “strange”.

For this purpose I have raised you up

“I got stabbed - right here!”
The following paragraph is justification for getting to say this until the novelty wears off.
Last week I camped at the beach, and realized that I couldn’t roll my own sleeping bag. I’ve pretended since March that my left hand wasn’t screwed up, but unfortunately bag-stuffing-skills are kind of necessary for my summer adventure. Yesterday I took my doctor up on his standing offer of voluntary torture. My mom learned a lot about my vocabulary in those minutes.

So I leave tomorrow night. No doubt you’ve either gotten an email, facebook message, phone call, etc. over the past two days — during the majority of which I’ve been pretty excited & upbeat. I truly am, but with a solid undercurrent of anxiety. My most overwhelming concerns are as follows:

• Found out yesterday the travel agent Fed-Exed my paper ticket to me. Yesterday.

• I still am homeless in HK, as far as I know.
• I realized this week how woefully unprepared for teaching I am.
• I’m still not packed.

As far as the ticket goes, as of a few minutes ago Mr. FedEx has agreed to have my firstborn - so that’s resolved. Homelessness is because I don’t know if anyone’s meeting me or not, and I’m hesitant to book a hostel until I know for sure. Unpreparedness is partially par for the course, but somewhat due to actual real unpreparedness (crap.). Lack of completely packed bag is simple procrastination and nerves. Trying to remember this purpose is bigger than me.

In any case, you shouldn’t hear from me here until the fall. Skip over to True Places until then.

Party like it’s 1992

I live in the country. I live in a quaint (quaint!) little zone, in which the monopoly that is Charter Telcom has solid rule. Behold, the eternal suckage:

In March we received notice that our monthly bill was going up $5, as our area was converted from 5 to 10 Mbp/s lines, thank-you-and-have-a-nice-day. (Insert skeptical eyebrow raise, proceed to prank Charter HQ with a tire iron).

Do they have a flag?

[[No flag, no planet!]]

Also, plug for True Places. Today’s leading source on all-things-[Sara+China]. Arrangements are going (ever-so-slowly) and I should be leaving in 4 weeks. Whether or not I take a loan out to cover my attention-deficiency remains to be seen. Ya, really.

Along the same lines, I’m still trying to decide what I’m doing after this coming December. Grad school is tempting, and I’ll get there eventually, but I’m not sure I want to immediately. I visited the school I like and the faculty liked me; coupled with a somewhat-uncommon, super-compatible research interest, I’m not seriously worried about landing there. The question is: do I want to do so in 2008, or 2010? When I’ll be… holy shit.

Bloody hell, I’m old.

Frustration, trepedation

I found out this evening that the travel arrangements being made on my behalf officially are ass-backwards from what I had been assuming since January.

Point the first: I now need to buy a domestic roundtrip (ATL-LAX) that I was first told I didn’t need. More money I still don’t have.

Second: I won’t arrive in PEK (with people to take my extra luggage, a place to stay between traveling, and a sweet connection flight to my final destination) like I thought - and I will need to arrange my own travel in-country. So not only am I arriving in SHA with not a soul to greet me, but I have two city-hops to arrange (half a country north, 7/8ths of a country west)… and purchase. Only one hop if I sleep in the SHA airport and drag a suitcase of teaching-month-stuff (which I’m seriously considering not taking) to the decrepit backcountry.

Bah. Blargh. Et cetera.

I’ve been so overly concerned with twisted logistics and increasing expenses recently, that the past few days I’ve been constantly asking myself… why am I doing this again? More to the point, why am I letting everything I once loved get muddled with the general idea of ahhhh-[breath]-ahhhhhh!.

Also, if you happen to see a bundle of faith walk by, please tell it to return home. I miss it.

wo bu shi ‘tian tian kai xin’

I am tired.

And sad.

Swearing into the ether.

Apparently posting aimless-status-update-things in bad Mandarin.

That is all.

Live, from… somewhere, it’s …something!

True Places. Go, visit, spread the word.

Remember last year, when I had a couple really ghetto URLs getting floated around, with All-About-China-and-Sara type stuff? Well, I officially consolidated all of the above into a hopefully-significantly-less-ghetto site. Added bonus is the idea of public vs. private, so anything that was posted separately on a locked blog (sucking up whimsi’s space here) — will now be inline (there) along with everything else.

Oh yeah — final detail: actual honest-to-goodness accessibility from behind Ye Olde Great (Fire) Wall. Hooray.

So go see, register, and try not to scratch the paint.