May 15, 2013

  • Mud

    It seems like only yesterday that the hardest thing I had to do was to succeed in a campaign to change all conditions in my life. As it turns out, the last few months have entailed letting go of things buried deep in my heart and pleasure center, and there will be more of it to come.

    From here, I can’t precisely decide what happens. What I do know is that my body has begun to be as corrupt and depressed as my mind has suddenly become. I can’t explain why, but I have almost daily physical pain of some kind. One day, it’s a tooth ache, the next day, some kind of facial inflammation. The last few days, it’s as though I can feel overabundance of blood in one spot or another part of my head or brain.

    I wonder if it’s just imaginary pain, if my shunt is malfunct or what. I don’t know the cause or how to fix it, or if any of it’s connected. I don’t know if, one of these days, I’ll find myself in a waking death, unable to move or do anything but lay there and slip away. This is the same condition in which I found my mom, that Sunday. I don’t know how I feel about it, except that if that’s what’s coming, I’d like to know. I’d like to know so I can put things in a certain order. I’ll leave standing orders of what to do with me, my remains and what little money and valuable I do have. That’s something she didn’t do and it was one of the sources of the current civil war that’s gone hot in my family.

    There seems to be nothing left of my family these days. Just a drawn line that neither side will cross, and on our side, we know that we’re all going to scatter into the wind, soon. I met a new-old face when I came back here, and the most epic challenge is not letting her see me at my worst. We have or had been friends for.. oh 4 or 5 years… and I don’t really know what kind of duress she was under but we just recently talked things over into something official. The reason I say it must be duress is that she made it somewhat clear I wasn’t her type before. I’m not sure what changes. I’ve only ever done small things here and there for her that I’m sure any capable friend would do.

    I’ve been helping her wage war on her school assignments, up to about 2 or 3 weeks ago. During that couple of months, I have been using that and my own work as something to be busy with, so as not to think about what all is going down and around in my life. Somewhere in the middle of that, she suddenly wants to talk about becoming more. She had some kind of realization at heart and she poured it out to me. I didn’t know what to think of it at first. It’s been a loooooooong long time since I thought of her as anything but a friend who I help out. But it’s hard to ignore someone’s feelings, especially when they could be something important. So I thought it over, and eventually I thought I should hear her out and give things a chance. I need something new to keep my feet on the ground anyway.

    I probably never will stop looking over my shoulder for the day to come when she finds somebody else or… suddenly snaps out of whatever feelings she just told me she developed. It’s happened to me more than enough times that I know I’ve got 2-4 years before I’m on my face in my own blood, again. But you know what? Even with that knowledge, I also know that it’s probably worthwhile anyway. I guess that’s the attitude I’ve worked up toward love. It starts, it ends. But it’s worth the trip, fall and inglorious death. That’s better than being completely pessimistic, isn’t it?

    I do know she has changed from the person who turned their nose up at me, once. I think her age and circumstances have changed her perspective. I decided I won’t second-guess her intentions and try to take her at her honest word. It could simply be that she really did have some point of realization at the same time I happen to be the closest one helping in life. It could be that she’s been here too long by herself. She only gets to see family when they come to town because she’s a billion miles away at school. It could be that she’s almost 25, and it’s time to catch a serious contender (in which case, why choose me of all the dirty rotten scoundrels in the bunch?). Whatever it is.. there’s not much denying I kind of need somewhere else to look toward, because the house and the whole kingdom are otherwise coming down around me. Just like always, the things I’m sewing together now will be all I have to fall on, in the future.

    Maybe this is another one of God’s cruel experiments or maybe this is him putting together something that needs to be, for a while, if not for good. I found something out a long time ago, and it let’s me feel that every relationship I was given before, even the ones that ended in a fiery NASCAR crash, was good for me. The thought is that things which are meant to be have an additional dimension: time. Everyone always assumes that when they meet someone or learn about God that this relationship is meant to be, forever. That’s our assumption and it almost always leads to aches, pains and death. But what if you consider that people, even God are here, gone, back, and maybe lost from life all for a reason? What if you think more about what was achieved while you loved somebody, and not annul it based on how it ended? What do you lose if you can see the value of what you had, even once it’s gone? I guess that’s the way I’ve fashioned some bravery beyond the way I used to feel about it. I have to keep an open mind and and open heart, no matter how many bullets I’m meant to take, in the process, right? I have to do that in full knowledge that loves will be lost and God will from time to time forsake me and my life, leaving only stretches and stints of love and positive memories.

    That may be a better way to appreciate life.

    For the first time, I am not sure what the future brings. All I know is that the ground is coming out from under me and I have things to be doing. I also know that, in a way, I got my wish. This life, this place and my close connection to the here and now are about to be destroyed. This time, not by my hand.

    The challenge for me, now, is to overcome the current sinkhole I seem physically stuck in.. and get ready to pick myself up and ante up, because no one can use a physically or spiritually weak man for anything. Everything about my current situation tells me that I don’t have the luxury of time to bleed or feel hurt.

    At the least, I finally have the strength to look back on myself and realize that it’s time to reprogram again, get up and fight again.

May 3, 2013

  • Return to the Precipice

    Have hope, not sadness. Eyes forward, not backward. Continue your campaign to the end, and don’t give up and lay down.

    I have to tell myself those things every day, when I wake up and when I go to sleep. The purpose being so that I avoid sinking into a toxic depression, the likes of which I’ve been fighting off for the last few weeks, now.


    I really don’t know what lays ahead for me, but I know I have options and I know I have some choices. Last year was quite possibly the most amazing, peaceful year of my life. I just want to go back to being a trillion miles from all troubling things.

    Now I have a different feeling, though. I watched my family fall apart at a feverish pace. There is no chance that we will go back to even workable incivility. I’m really not sure what happened here while I was away, but the fact that we have lost one of our parents seems to have made a permanent rift between my sisters, I, each other and our remaining parent.

    My sisters have erupted into full on conflict over small small things, but seemingly because of years of pint up aggression. I don’t fully understand it, but they are both expressing some anger at me for not taking sides. It’s not my war, I just landed here.

    My dad can’t understand why they are fighting, much less how long they will be fighting in the future… and he also doesn’t realize that this isn’t his moment to shine and seek reconciliation with either of them. He spent the better part of 2012 alienating and trying to belittle me, as well.

    But if I’m 8000 miles away, living my own life and doing well at it, there’s very little you can say that will actually put me down so much as it will piss me off and make me not acknowledge you unless and until I feel up to dealing with a douche.

    As for myself, everyone is about to go their separate ways. I had a while when I was kind of struggling with my mom’s sudden death. It seemed to put things in my mind that made life even more difficult.
    Now, I’m fine… I just don’t know which way to go. I’m armed to the teeth with money I’ve been saving and haven’t spent.

    I ….would like to go back overseas. Maybe to the same place. Maybe somewhere different. I have some things I have to do here, though, before I decide.

    I have to help close up my mom’s home and belongings. I have to be here to keep to some of my obligations I’ve committed to since coming back. I have to give my nieces and nephew a little more time to have an uncle they identify with.

    There’s all the things I have to do, and then there’s all the things I want to do.
    The next year can be a very good year, if I remain in control of my emotions and my actions.

    It could be a very bad year, or indeed my last one, if I don’t keep control.

    There’s times like this when the best thing I can do is maintain my connection to my spirituality and my resolve to complete the tasks at hand.

    Keep calm and do God’s work.

April 2, 2013

  • The Wind That Scatters

    If ever there was a blow crippling to me as a person, this was it.

    I am not still standing, but I did get back up.

    We’ve just seen a change in the wind & we know the mother of all storms is coming to scatter what’s left behind into the wind, rain and lightning.

    The time came when we all asked ourselves and each other what just happened and what is about to happen. I’ve had the time to come to terms with some, but not all of it. What I now have to do is plan and execute the end game.

    It’s premature, but I can’t stay here without being sunk into the hollow life we all are stuck in here and without reliving and remembering all of her last moments, in which I was here, right where I was needed but could do nothing.

    So long as I’m here, I’ll remember watching the most precious being and only true source of pure love in my life run away quickly.

    So, I’m afraid, I have to go. If it ever was, this place is no longer my home. I’m reasonably certain she would’ve wanted me to go and be happy, like I showed her I was when I did exactly that, this last year.

    The greatest consolation is that I do not have to wonder, whatsoever, where my mom went. She went to the place where I sent her, and wrote back to tell us all, in her own way.

    Of that I am both unnerved and relieved.

March 11, 2013

  • The Event

    10 days ago, my time in China ended and I came home on a relatively painless journey through Japan, California and back home.

    I didn’t originally plan to come back to Detroit and up until today, I’d spent the time in a funk, missing the distant life of peace and a little-less luxury I just came from. That morning, I sent my girlfriend on her way to another city so she could make her way and I rushed to Shanghai, all the while not worrying about anything but catching that high-noon flight.

    I didn’t feel any remorse or hurt about going our separate ways because I know I gave her enough money for her to land safely and I planned to come back, if there’s anything to come back to.

    Since I’ve been here, I’ve felt a painful disconnection because I thought I was at rock bottom again and back at square one. A couple days ago, I started to emerge from jet lag and from that funk.

    But then, today happened. I’ve been back at what seems to be the family home for a few days now, and
    just as I come, I get to see my mother have a hemorrhage, panickingly carry her out of her bedroom and watch her get carted away. I then get to spent not more than 2 hours before I and my sisters are told that she’d has this hemorrhage, and it’s an injury from which there is no viable recovery.

    A little later on down the line, she’s given about 48 hours to live, if that long, because we all agree she shouldn’t be intubated, as was her expressed wish a number of times.

    As I understand it I lost my mother on March 10, 2013. This is the event, and all I have to remember is that I panicked. I didn’t get to her earlier than I did (even though I’m told that it would not have mattered exactly when I found her). She lost what I understood to be a busy, content little life, because I came back into it.

    That isn’t logical, I know… but we kept contact frequently while I was in China and.. it seemed like she was living a hustle and bustle-some life and speeding toward happiness, and then I come back just in time to see it end.

    It hasn’t hit me completely yet, but I said before that this was one of those events after which life changes irreversibly and I become a different person.

    Fights will be had. It’s going to hit me like a ton of asteroids, sooner or later.

    I got a chance to say a prayer over her and I wished her off to find the peace and warmth that I believe waits for those who want it, when life is over.

    Right now, I wonder what is wrong with me that I’m not more impacted to tears, that I was able to wish her well as though I planned this moment for ages, and that I wasn’t more vigilante on her well-being.

    I had my plans and I don’t even know if God just changed them. My gut feeling is that everything’s changed and I need to …speed up whatever I’m going to do.

    I can’t judge whether or not I brought a curse on this house. I’m not sad for my mother either. I’m sad that I didn’t watch over her, that I went my way for a year plus and wasn’t here to pull her back from this moment.

    But what’s happened has happened and now she’ll be off to the warmth and eternity that I’ve spent far too long of my little life conceiving, someday soon.

    The thing that makes me wonder about myself is.. I don’t feel sad like I think I should. It’s been hours and I’m still not crying. I’m wondering how this can be real, but the panic is past, and I said my peace to her at her bedside. I feel I need to honor her work for my life, as misunderstood as it might’ve been until this last year, by picking up and going on and being strong.

    Perhaps I feel this way, not grief stricken to tears, even happy for her… because she lived a long life of service and distinction to her loved ones, and I legitimately feel this is her moment to rest from it all. I feel like crying for her life would take this moment away from her.

    That’s also why I gave her my prayer for peace. Nobody knows me deep enough to know that that prayer, that wish that she find peace and warmth… in the kingdom or the valley or the light ..wherever lies ahead.. I always held that for myself.

    I gave it to her, in case she could hear us and thinking that she might be terrified since she was fine yesterday and now laying and going and unable to respond today. If she was in there, I wanted her to have peace and to have my thanks and my love, and my promise to pick up and continue fighting for mine. I don’t want her to be terrified of the suddenness. I don’t want her to worry about her children or grandchildren. I don’t want her to be scared to leave. I don’t want her to be concerned with anything but going home, now that she’s got the call.

    If you are one of those people who doesn’t like mile long posts and yet is subscribed to me, let  this serve as a warning of the things to come. I have much to process. I’m gonna grieve eventually, and after that.. another high speed chase in my life is about to begin. You’ve been warned.

    Right now, I just want to concern myself with my mother, who’s path through the mud, blood and toil of Earth is about come to an end and try to really believe that peace and warmth are her reward, the way that I said tonight and wish in my heart to be true.

October 17, 2012

  • A Small Thing


    I’d like to talk about something personal (lol…), no but.. something besides the usual.

    I want to talk about some feelings I’ve been having. I met someone about 4-5 months ago, and we’ve been hang gliding and getting by together ever since. I don’t know how exactly to say my feeling is toward her, though. Ever since I got here, I have deliberately avoided most of this kind of closeness because, the way I see it, I left all those kinds of things back in the states. Some of my reasons for coming here were that I was tired of fighting the way I was, and also tired of giving love with no end result besides death.

    But this person has somehow sabotaged my asylum claim. She came into my life, having nowhere else to go, at the time. If I hadn’t have picked her up, I’m sure her family or someone would’ve, but I still don’t believe in accidental circumstances enough to say it wasn’t a significant happening. I almost threw her back in the street, for being an overly jealous, somewhat destructive and generally invasive being. Welcoming someone into my life was a lot like adopting a small, jealous little girl.

    But things have changed, or they haven’t changed and I’ve just learned to button down my things and ignore it. We work together. We go out and get to know this city, to which we’re both still new together. We cook together. She is currently fast asleep, less than 1 foot behind me.

    I cannot even think love applies to this situation, but what I do know is these have probably been the best days of my life, for no other reason than I’ve been sharing them, meaningfully and constantly. I do know, it is nice to have a family that I chose. Not to say my own family wasn’t good but I never felt very close to any one of them, beyond a certain age and I’m sure I didn’t help that improve with my separatist campaign that landed me here.

    After that and after all the handful of times I worked up the courage to give someone my trust and hopes and best wishes, hoping to get their handful of the same thing only to… not have that happen time and time again, I can say, this is a nice life.

    I think about this because I keep having dreams, about going home. About the time when this is all gone and a memory. They feel very real. I’m not sad, but disturbed by them. I’ve been told that when you have dreams that hit home like that, it usually means God is trying to tell you something.

    I don’t know what to call this. I know what it isn’t. I also know I will miss it when it’s gone again. At least this time, when I fall back to Earth,I’ll have a few things that no one can take from me.

    I’ll have memories to bring with me, take out and play with when I need to remember how good life can feel, and bite down on when life hurts.I’ll have the things I felt that I don’t have to share with anyone beyond this. I’ll recall enjoying myself deeply, the way I have done so few times in life, so far.

    I don’t know if it makes me hopeful about life. I just rejoice at the fact that, willing or not at first, I got some time to experience this kind of happiness, even though it’s only been just a few months, and may only be a few months more.

    If that’s all I get, I’m grateful, still.

October 9, 2012

  • The Time & Place

      

     Time and time again, I’ve reflected on how things have changed this year. I have arrived at the conclusion that I do not regret anything except the things that I wasted time on.

    I wasted time muddling through school and displacing it for things more immediate, for example. As a consequence, the day will come when it’s all done and I can move on, but not for a while, still.It bothers me immensely that my 20s will be virtually gone, by that time, but better that than not at all. It could be worse, I suppose.
    Besides that, I don’t think I have a single regret, so far.I’ve used this time away from my old world to set as much of it right as possible. I have a new world to stay within, though, and that’s usually on the front of my mind.
    Unlike the past, I don’t have a big dream anymore. No future glory to fight, bite and scratch for. No certain thing to achieve.I’m quite done searching this planet for a home, for final happiness, for any sort of promised land.
    I did find traces of that, though, by following through to now. When I stop thinking so much about how much life is going to pass by as I wait to finish my Master’s, I realize that that’s a couple or a few more years that I’ll have to enjoy this wonderfully simple life that I have.
    I can’t stay here, and the time is soon coming for me to go back to a more intense set of circumstances but I have been able to confirm that this is one of the places to which I want to return when it’s time.I’m ready for it. 
    The next time I return to a state of war, I have memories, not fantasies, of what I intend to earn my way back to.
    I found a peace that I’d like to enjoy. I found an opportunity to make for myself a normal life.I always knew I’d have to come this far to get it and that’s why I don’t regret any of the past. That’s why I’ve made an effort to forgive. That’s why I’ve reached for peace.

    That being said, I do realize that I’m only in the middle of that precious struggle. That hard part is over and the next will require strength, endurance, meticulousness and intelligence. I’m well dug into it, already.

    Sooner or later, I’m going back to finish my business. I will do so with my trademark resolve. 

    After that, I’ll be back here, to build something more permanent. I don’t want any conflict nor any trouble. I have an extremely clear objective which is already in play. As I understand it, times are going to be tough for myself and for the country I am returning to.

    That’s why I’m getting my spirit ready. I know what I have to do. I function best when I do.
    I’m never going to abandon this part of my way. It’s gotten me far. It is me.

July 30, 2012

  • Mensch

      

    There’s a point in life, when you begin the change. The sum total of your experience digests into lessons. You learn the answers to all the “why me?” questions you’ve asked. Good things, bad things, and ugly things happen to you and they produce this variety of experiences.

    You then start to make choices you never would make before. You are knocked, perhaps forever, off your holy high horse and a grade down on your scale of principals, by the choices you make. You discover that lying, cheating, stealing and so forth are a part of survival on Earth and that you must do them at some time or another to survive from one moment to the next, if not to prosper.

    In this period, you cease to be the person who believes that you’ll be the one to take the high road and be an example. You cease to be this person who dismays at the world, for all it’s deception and weaknesses. You cease to do so, because you’ve found yourself faced with choices and, although you can still discipline yourself, it is harder than you ever remember it being.

    You come to a place in which being good and true seem to clash with your goal of ever attaining happiness on Earth, if it’s at all possible. You let go, inside, realizing that the world isn’t going to crumble into an apocalyptic state just because you let yourself join the rest of humanity and do as they to, to get yours.

    Choices in life cease to be majorly about right and wrong, but rather about profit and loss, joy versus pain, politics and gain.. with the conscience only able to get a word in edgewise.

    This seems to be the world I’ve been exposed to, for some time now. A lot has happened in my life and as more things change, I start to realize just what sort of planet I’m on.. and how I have to become to survive it.

    I like to think that I have changed in some good ways. I’ve learned how to forgive and forget. I haven’t lost much more time to depression. I have taken my clean break from my past as my chance to work hard, rebuild, and become something great.

    I stupidly forgot that I am still on Earth. The things and people on this side of it are just as capable of creating more good, bad and ugly experiences as those I am distant from now.

    Sometimes I wonder, will I become the same as those around me? Will I become capable of betraying people in my life, for whatever reason I think is good enough? Will I become able to walk past people in need and not so much as think of them? Will I be one of the ones lying to get out of trouble, cheating to make a little extra, stealing because he has and I need?

    I’d like to say no, but reality hits hard. Life on Earth brings a full understanding of “never say never”.

    I can see that I am already becoming this kind of person. I have not hurt anyone around me, but I can no longer say that it isn’t possible.

    I can no longer say that I will keep a promise I make no matter what. I can, but I’ve seen one too many times what it does to me when I do.

    I can no longer say that I won’t steal, given a good chance. I can no longer say that I shalt not covet my neighbor’s wife (well, in general. my neighbor’s wife isn’t quite covet..worthy?.. but you know what I meant).

    Some people might say I need to find God. I found God, several years ago. He was waiting for me, the last time I really tried to end my life. We had a good talk, that time and that is what got me here. Because I woke up where I ended up, filled with a terrible resolve and given new orders.

    I found God, and that was what he did for me. I was not pointed to a book or a covenant or a house or any wise elders. I was only given a firm denial of my intent, and motivation that saw me through to the end of my first war in life.

    But, as I came here, I have not been able to take hold of anything or anyone constituting a foundation for  happiness. What’s more, I know it isn’t my time to. I know I’ll have to return home to finish a grueling year of studies, like I should’ve done years ago.

    So I’m wondering, when I finally have completed my fiscal reconstruction.. what will be left? I won’t be the person I was born. I wont be the person who came here. I won’t be a being of peace or righteousness, or many other virtues.

    I’ll be just another man, building his empire, trying to get his 4 things, by whatever means necessary.

    I don’t see this as inevitable. I also don’t see it as a completely bad thing. A part of me relishes the idea of being a little more calculated, a little more hedonistic and enjoying most of my decisions as long as I think them out well.

    I guess I’ve finally grown up.

April 24, 2012

  • Erroneous

      

    I notice that each time I make a mistake, whether it be in love or money or my education or my work, I don’t know how to move past it fluidly. When I feel like I made a mistake, or something fails to go the way Iplan it, it sends me back in time. I can’t help but recall and focus on every stupid thing, every misstep, every moment I wish I could do differently. I recall all those moments and then conclude that I am an awkward human being.

    Actually, I think I have known that for a very long time.Usually I accept my way was an inexorable part of who I am and I find myself exceptional in some way. Usually, I have high self-esteem as I acknowledge the way I am.

     But, in this context,I think of it in a way that I don’t accept about myself. At these times, I feel like a defective machine. I tend to sink into a depressed state that lasts for however long it takes me to come off the ebb and into the next high tide. I feel like I should be punished in some way for the stupid things I’ve done in life. In a way, recalling my entire life’s slate of errors every time I make anew one is a punishment. I definitely wish I knew how not do to that and how to avoid feeling like a worthless broken thing, while I wade through those memories.

    I wish I knew how to truly accept and tank onward to the next thing. I’m reasonably certain this is something that occurs in a lot of people. I can’t assume that it’s just me that experiences this. I just wonder if I will ever come to a place in life when I completely accept the way I’ve gone through life.

    It’s not enough to think of the fact that all of the things I’ve done wrong and all of the ways that I am messed up are a part of what got me here.  It’s not enough to think that everything happens for a reason. Maybe it’s because I haven’t gotten to that place when all the wrong turns amount to something profoundly right.

    At least I haven’t given up hope that place does exist and I will eventually get there. Rather, I don’t have the courage to give up. I’ve come too far to lay down.

March 30, 2012

  • East Side Story

      
    So, I’m entering my 4th month in Shanghai.

    I’m dug into a comfortable apartment which I shared briefly but now have to myself. I’m contemplating moving to another city, just because I can. I recently found out that I’m on a 90 day multi-entry, year log visa.. which means that my victory isn’t gonna be as short lived as I previously thought.

    There are a lot of difficulties that I have had here, but overall I don’t regret for one second coming here.

    Since I’ve been here, I’ve gotten lost, had my overdue dose of heartbreak, had the best pizza in several years and been in tons of awkward/scary situations.

    What I face here is a brand new kind of difficulty, different hardships than before. What matters the most to me is that I left the time and place of hopelessness behind. All of what I’m experiencing here is endurable.

    I will have to go back, eventually, but my visa here isn’t over for a long time and I intend to use it all.

    I have lost many important things but I would say that, overall, God has been good to me. I’m still not a religious person, but I think I’ve been at war long enough to know that I’m not solely responsible for my victory.

    I would venture to say to anyone, without meaning offense to their beliefs, that life is truly 50% the path opened up to you and 50% your willingness to step forward into it. I can’t say it with copious amounts of information to support it other than this is what I’ve experienced.

    I was at war for 6 years, fighting my way out of a time and place of hopelessness to create a direction for my life to go. Things haven’t gone completely according to plan but I am where I intended to be, all those years. Now that I’m here, more of the path is starting to reveal itself to me.

    For the first time, I’m able to say that I know what direction I’m moving toward. Also, for the first time, I am not afraid to venture and make more small steps to see where I can go.

    I have to leave here, every 3 months or so, though. And my first 3 months ended last week. So I took a trip.

    I briefly invaded Hong Kong. What a place. No words can even describe the vibe there. It’s the most universal.. international place I’ve ever been to. It was completely surreal to walk among people from literally every corner and cranny of the planet, all speaking English along side their native languages, hustling, bustling and interacting. I was only there for about 2 days.. but I think, if I don’t go to Japan, I’ll go to Hong Kong for a week, instead next time. I mostly ate Indian food, even though there was pizza and everything else. It was nice to eat something fried and crunchy yet still new to me.

    I came back to Shanghai yesterday. I found a few treasures in this place, too.

    One such priceless thing: I found out that the Pizza Huts in Shanghai deliver… which, for about a week, was dangerous as it is really good here…

    While I’m here, I work any way I can and continue my studies. It’s a lot easier to study now, without a billion distractions. It is a bit lonely here, but I’ve been lonely for several years so I think I’m functionally accustomed to that. I did make a lot of friends here :3. I had one relationship, which just kind of died on the table.

    It’s very hard to connect with people, on any level because most people here are just too busy. Which is cool, too. I imagine when I do finally get this degree finished (in.. damn.. still 2 years?!) I’ll be just as busy and sapped for time as them.. only I’ll be making 3-5x their wage. Which is sad, in a way.

    I wouldn’t say I’ve forgotten about my old life. I write back to my family often. I don’t know if there’s a peace* between us now, but there is definitely a new understanding. As far as I’m concerned, the war is over.

    I will say I don’t miss that life. I do miss seeing family, but I don’t miss the past circumstances.

    I’m here on a mission.

    I’m here making something of myself. I’m affecting people’s lives positively. I’m changing my life in a net positive way. I’m commanding every aspect of my destiny that I can control, absolutely. I’m surviving, making my own mistakes and learning from them. I’m adapting and growing. I’m going to some of the places that I always day-dreamed about. I’m in bombing distance of most of the others.
    I’m documenting every worthwhile step of this because the children back home who have similar dreams as I did need to see it.

    I always wanted to be the person to lead them out into the world they want to be a part of. Now, I have my shot.

    This is what I always wanted. It’s kind of a shame that I had to go 8,000 miles away to achieve that but I said from the start of the war, that that was necessary.

January 24, 2012

  • Shanghai

      
    I just sat through a completely loud and bright Chinese New Year celebration here. Fireworks everywhere. The displays here dwarf anything back home. It’s understandable, this is the biggest holiday here. Everyone typically vacates the big cities to go home to their hometowns to see family. I’m pretty much the only one who fled their hometown. Consequently, I don’t know many people here, at present.

    I have been here almost a month, now, and have set up base in a pretty small but still lively part of town. Any given street here is crawling with people, going about their daily lives. It’s very.. normal.. here. At least in this city, it’s not the misery dispensing police state that media and people with armchair, NPR-back world views back home makes it out to be. There is a cop on every corner, justabout.. but they seem to be doing their job: patrolling and intervening when something does go wrong, like the random fisticuffs that do sporadically popup. Either that, or their not giving a damn about the average person.

    I probably have to be the strangest thing people here have seen, but those in uniform don’t give me shit. Not that I’m defending China but.. it’s far different than what we seem to think, and you can only know that once you’ve been here and circulated in order to see that this place has ups and downs just like our place has em. The difference being that their hustle and bustle is alive and well.

    I’ve so far managed to connect myself with all necessary resources and/or improvise. The CNY shutdown of most small restaurants I usually eat at has forced me to acquire things to cook myself; I shall be blowing up the kitchen tomorrow afternoon :D . The maiden dish: two varieties of skillet-fried shrimp.

    I can’t think of what besides salad I can eat as a side dish but this’ll due. Everything resumes normal ops in about 5 days, but I think I’ll try cooking more.

    I have plenty of money to survive on. I’m still making it from back home, also. I’ve conquered the subway and have access to all my native not-getting-lost references. I also have a phone :D . They’re way less of a hassle and mess to get, here.

    I brought school with me, also. I aced another class last week but I don’t know about the next class. You wouldn’t think “Informal Logic” would be hard, but it’s a challenge in comprehension most of the time. This might be another class that breaks my shuffle, to be honest. It doesn’t matter, as long as I pass it. I was just trying to keep the A streak going. I bumped once in a class I didn’t have to, already.

    I think I’ve started this year, the right way. The last 2 things I did back home where to hand off a bunch of gifts that I spent a good deal of effort picking out. I got to see a lot of happy faces on Christmas day. I spent my last night with CT and Vanessa.

    .. I left some premium icecream that they never ate, it seems. But we had dinner and drank quite a lot. Despite having tanked 6 shots of Disaronno, I woke the following morning, at about 4:30 AM, sharp and ready to go the last mile (or few miles) to the airport.

    I’ve battled various forms of anxiety about all the things I’m not familiar with, here.. but overall.. I’m at peace, just for the fact that I left so many troubles behind and they are as distant as this place and today once were.

    I’m having to relearn language, because I have no experience with “Shanghainese” (this dialect has a name, it seems).. and so my listening is totally thrown off. I’m able to interface successfully and speak understandably, at least.

    I’ve written back home and have relatively few pictures, but it doesn’t matter. What does matter is.. I’m now sure that this was the right thing to do.. and my next objective is to tough out the remainder of my studies here, so that I can keep the peace that I’ve fought for.

    I still haven’t found where exactly I’ll settle and dig in further, but the invasion has only just begun.