One Day More

Traveling.
Again.

Today is our last day in this country, and although I KNOW it's our last day I haven't really FELT it. I would have thought it would be a more emotional experience. I'm going to college, I'm an adult now, I'm going to have to get used to crazy Americans and figure out what being a TCK really means. I'm leaving good food, good friends, unique experiences, hard-core reality.
Kind of reminds me of Brave New World, really. I'm like the Savage, and I have no idea what I'm about to get into. But I'll figure it out.
I must remember the truth of the mater, that things won't be as different as I feel like they will be. My whole identity isn't changing, just my position. America isn't Mars; people aren't aliens, and I'm not an alien either.
I think tomorrow, when I land in England and see my grandparents for the first time in months and their son for the first time in years, when I give Myth a big hug and spend the night at her house, the reality will finally have sunk in. No more Urdu, no more fleeting, 'deko, Ungrez!" no more cool clothes and amazing Rickshaws and shocking surprises on the road. I'm going to where cows graze in fields of beautiful grass, not where they graze in garbage heaps. I'm going to where there's more pigeons than falcons, where people wear mini-skirts instead of burkas, where I'm no longer considered an unmarried adult but a wayward, rebellious college student.
And then there's the positive elements, like hair down, no head covering, long walks by myself without a care in the world (Seriously, I can't WAIT to be alone outside for once!). I'll be able to be loud and spontaneous and crazy and no one will think I'm insane (well, at least MOST people won't). No one will stare because I'm fifty shades lighter than anyone nearby. But then I'll get stared at because I'll forget that bus no longer means "cut it out" but actually means a large lumbering vehicle of mass transport. I'll forget that eye-contact with men is no longer totally taboo, but actually what is expected of me. I'll forget that people care about completely different things than the people I've been around for the last three years. I'll forget that people will expect me to be an American, even though I no longer think of myself as one. I'm an Ungrez, a foreign English-speaker, no matter where I live.
I'm tired just thinking about it.

Colossians 3:12-17

Happy seventh day!


The Holy Bible by Chr, Wordswo (Google Affiliate Ad)The Holy Bible by Chr, Wordswo (Google Affiliate Ad)

What are You Afraid of?

            “What are you afraid of?”

            I stand close to the abyss, so close that my toes almost touch the emptiness. If I lean too far forward I am sure to disappear forever, yet I cannot move away. My will has left me completely. Why do I tarry?

            “What are you afraid of?”

            Suddenly I do not remember how I got here, although it seems the darkness has been hovering beneath me for a very long time. This is the first time I have seen it, but it’s been there all the same, hiding somewhere beyond the recesses of my sight. No, sight cannot see everything.

            It’s so dark. I have never seen such swallowing emptiness in all my life. It’s so dark that when I glance hurriedly around me at the field of bright flowers and calm, straight fields, all the colors I had adored a few moments before now seem dim and dreamy. It’s like going outside in the warm bright sun and then coming inside again—and one realizes how colorless everything is—

            No, it’s not quite like that. It’s the opposite of that. I try to think but the darkness has scattered my thoughts and I am too petrified to string them together.

            “What are you afraid of?”

            I have flowers in my hand. I had forgotten them so quickly, but realize with a jolt that the little bouquet I had been collecting before the darkness—and eternity ago!—now lay clenched in my fists. I hold them up and slowly let my will pry loose my entangled fingers. My hands seem small before the darkness and the crushed flower pedals seem surreal. They had been alive a few moments before, and beautiful, and unique—sort of like people—

            “What are you afraid of?”

            The wind blows. Some of the pedals drift into its flow and sink slowly into the abyss. Now the once still air, the deathly silence that muted all hope, carries the faint voice of the wind.

            “What are you afraid of?”

            The wind has blown something else away. I slowly step backwards and face the field.

            “I’m not afraid,” something inside me whispers. “Not anymore.”

“If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Frederich Nietzsche

Ode to NT2

Four pages of beautiful, thought-through elaboration on the New Testament. I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. Name: NT2, paper for school.
6 pages of notes for another class. Name: OT2.
OT2 managed to duplicate itself. It asked what I wanted to save it as. I said NT2.
Goodbye, four pages of beautiful, thought-through elaboration on the New Testament. You were replaced by 6 pages of notes for another class.No, you weren't turned in. No, no matter how long I worked on finding you, no matter how long I spent re-writing you, no matter how stupid I find my computer, you're gone. You fell into the deep abyss of my stupidity. Dark place, I know; I've been there myself several times.
I had an online teacher that, whenever he cut out, he'd come back saying, "Oh man, I just said an incredibly brilliant thing that would change your life, but I've forgotten it and you'll never know what it is." that's how I feel about my dear NT2. Even though I struggled with writing it and probably thought it was stupid while I did, now that it's gone it was brilliant and perfect and faultless and better than what I now have written in its stead.
One of my friends writes her assignments  by hand. I think I'll try her approach someday.

I want a goat

Hey, I know, it's been a while. It's May, when teachers suddenly realize they've forgotten to give us half of our schoolwork so they give it to us now. It's also when I realize I haven't done half of my schoolwork for the entire year and get it done...haha.
Recently a friend and I were talking on skype. She had this hilarious conversation with her sister that...was just too cute. I couldn't see what was happening, but this is what I heard.

Sister: "I want a goat."
Friend: "That's not a goat, that's a sheep."
Sister: "I want a sheep."
Friend: "You can't have this sheep."
Sister: "I want a...birdie."
Friend: "I don't have a birdie."
Sister: "But I want one!"
Friend: "Ok, you can have an eraser."

Compromise, all the way.