the goodbyes begin

Yesterday afternoon I was so tired and had so many little things to do that I ended up paralyzed, staring at the wall. In a 2 hour period the most productive things I accomplished were to find out crucial answers to the tests Which Golden Girl are you?(Blanche) and Who is your celebrity chef match? (Emeril Legasse). I was bummed because I wanted Sofia and Jamie Oliver. Apparently my theory that food is fun is what did me in.

Today I had my farewell lunch with the NPA. They spoiled me incredibly. We went to a phenomenal vegetarian restuarant at which they create foods that look and taste exactly like non-vegetarian options: worms, eel, etc. but all vegetarian. crazy! I also ate something called stone lotus fruit which is supposed to be dipped in honey and restore your energy. Was given a small nation's worth of jade and can now start an export business using all of the high quality tea I have been given as gifts. Found out that jade is supposedly lucky and wards off evil. Really helped all those landowners who were lynched during the cultural revolution. Maybe there was a shortage in that decade. In any case, the thought was very sweet and I'm trying to deal with the fact that I feel so undeserving. Jenny gave me a card that wished for me to get everything I am hopping for. Indeed. I think one of the issues I have with being showered with gifts and free meals and whatnot is that I don't really want to be important to that many people. Because if I am important to people that entails responsibility and I just don't know if I can be responsible to hundreds of people. It makes me nervous. Sharon cried this morning about me leaving. I wish I could be more emotional. I feel like I want to be able to express a reciprocal amount of emotion, but it's very hard for me to muster outward emotion--sadness, at least. my sister Corinne cries easily. Maybe I can get her to fly over here for a week to be my crying proxy. It will be like at those buddhist funerals where they hire people to shriek and wail in agony. I would cry about leaving, but I'm happy about leaving this mindscrew of a company. And I'll see everyone again at some point, you know, everyone worth seeing. I'm not only happy, but I will be flying to meet three of my best and dearest friends whom I have known since freshman year of high school. And I'm just *excited* about it. Not sad in any way. Maybe I can cry when I leave the kids at the orphanage. I cried a little when I had to give onion back to the orphanage.

Jenny asked me if I had gotten a haircut. I said yes. Actually, I havent gotten a haircut in months. I just felt it was easier than saying that for inexplicable reasons my hair just looked better and different today. Sometimes it's easier to lie than to try to communicate things in Chinese. This comes back to a question I once asked Julia, "Do you ever just...lie?" I don't want to lie, not actively. But if someone I will never meet again starts a conversation with me in line and says "been a long day, eh?" and actually I had a great day or just took a nap, I'll just say "yep." Why be contentious? If that person needs solidarity, I'm the last person to ruin their quest for sympathy by telling them that their life sucks more than mine or that they are ignorant morons who have just made a totally errant assumption about who I am, or my hair or whatever.

Today I bought a new battery for my camera...and my camera turned on and rewound the new roll of film I had just put in it. Grrrr. No pictures of the crazy buddhist vegetarian restaurant where monks eat for half price. Anyway, for buying said camera I got two free Hello Kitty pins. I got Hello Kitty Zimbabwe. Hello Kitty Zimbabwe, you ask? indeed. 7-11 is having a Hello Kitty countries of the world giveaway and when you buy a certain amount of crap, you get a corresponding amount of Hello Kitty pins. Hello Kitty South Africa, Hello Kitty Taiwan, Hello Kitty France, etc. I think they should only have the countries from whence the child labor used to make these frivolous pins come from. How about Hello Kitty India with one of her legs sawed off from leprosy?

Anyway, I have to go use my healthy legs now to exercise so that I can continue one of my favorite activities which I call "fitting into my pants."