Not Tibet.

Not Tibet, but Chengdu. Tibet ended interestingly. I was guaranteed good stories out of this trip, but this was probably more than I bargained for.

China is always something familiarly foreign. No one I meet understands me when I say that I'm American.

Our Tibetan students amaze, inspire, and terrify me. Their diligence paralyzes me. They write down everything we say and memorize it overnight, and then ask for more the next day.

Our bathroom continues to smell worse and worse.

I grow increasingly fond of hot pot, milk tea, dripping ice pops snatched from a street vendor's freezer for less than one RMB.

Also have grown intensely fond of Tao Lin, whose poetry is among the pile of books we brought to China and includes sentiments like:

my favorite emotions include 'brief calmness
in good weather' and 'i am the only person alive'
without constant reassurance i feel terribly lonely and insane
i have moved beyond meaninglessness, far beyond meaninglessness
to something positive, life-affirming, and potentially best-selling
i have channeled most of my anger into creating and sustaining an 'angry face'
i have picked up a medium-size glass of coffee
and used it in the onventional way
because i am conventional in all situations, i'll be right back

It makes more sense at 2 a.m.

Strangest thought of all: I'll be home in two weeks, gone again in three. The future never seems close enough or far enough away.