DIMINISHED THOUGHT

So I'm in China. The hardest thing to adapt to is the language barrier...I have no idea what is going on. The food, however, is awesome. The cafeteria provides a smargoshboard of grub for about 8 rmb (a dollar) that harkens back to the day of school lunches...except these school lunches are Chinese!!!

The plane ride over was awful. The plane that I crossed the Pacific on wasn't very nice and didn't even have the head rests that would prop your head up. The seats looked like those you would see on any regional jet. I have to admit that I slept a good way and was grateful to !finally get off the plane. I didn't get to bed until 3:30 this morning becuse of various things....

So this morning I had the most assinine (spelling?) experience. I woke up and looked at my cell phone and it said it was 5:30 PM. I looked and my watch which also told me that it was in the afternoon. Slightly panicing I got up and went downstairs and asked the girl working at the desk at the foreign dormitory what time it was. She didn't understand. I drew a clock and beneath it I wrote 06:00 and 18:00. She pointed to the 18:00. I about lost it. I had slept the entire day! I went back up stairs dug my phone out and called the number of a program administrator that had been given me in case we missed the ride from the airport. "I'm sorry...and I'm really embarassed but I think I slept through the entire orientation." "What are you talking about?" She then slowly tried to convince me that I was disorientated and that it was still in the morning. I hadn't missed anything...but I had woken up one of the programs coordinators at 5:30 in the morning. Way to get off on the right foot.

3 more days till I leave for China!!!



This is my map of my travels this summer on wayfarer. Wayfarer is a neat little mash up of Google maps that allows you to place waypoints on maps, describe them, and connect waypoints with routes. From your descriptions you can add links to other websites and include pictures. I've been adding journal entries I've kept and hope to make it a really in depth site of what I've done this summer. I probably won't work on it while I'm in China but check back and see what's up from time to time. (Note: My Amsterdam waypoint is the closest to what I'm aiming for...)

3 more days till China!



Today I took a break from packing, getting lesson plans ready, and all the other little things I have to worry about and hiked up Pinnacle Mountain with my friend Aaron. We've been going up there sporadically for years and it's nice to make a quick jaunt up the slightly more difficult east summit trail. We normally get off the trail and try to climb up some of the rocks. I'm by no means a good climber and it's not that technical of a climb but it's all good fun. Here's a picture of Aaron when we went up in January. Unfortunately I forgot my camera this time....

Six more days till China!

I had to go to the doctor today because apparently I had a bad sinus infection but he's got me all patched up and ready to go. I also scanned in important documents for safe keeping while I traveled. Here is a copy of my Chinese visa! (Minus all identifying information of course).

One week till I'm off to China! I'm looking forward to it. My friends at home were asking for soveniurs and William has made me promise to bring him back some SARS. Go figure. Mom is being a mom and has made me promise to stay away from all poultry that I might encounter despite the fact that I don't think they've had a case of bird flu in Beijing. Right now I'm in the process of packing and it looks like the FBI has searched my room. Clothing and articles are strewn about the room. It looks like someone had opened up my bag and just started slinging it about their head. Here in a second I have to go get things cleaned up.

Alright I admit it. I'm doing something slightly geeky. The last thing I plan on doing in the United States prior to getting on that plane for China is to go see the new Superman movie. I found a theatre that has a 10 o'clock showing Tuesday despite that fact that it's being advertised as not opening till Wednesday.

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Last night was so sad. Ray Winder field, home of the Travelors for the last sixty years is in it's last season. Apparently the minor leagues think that our park is just too old and doesn't have nice enough facilities to host a AA team. As a result a new stadium is being built across the river in North Little Rock. I'm sad to see the team go. My Dad used to take me to games at Ray Winder ever since I was little. When the church youth group went out we often went to Ray Winder.

One thing will always dissapoint me. Ray Winder had been there long before they decided to build a freeway behind the outfield fence. This of course presented a problem. If a homerun was knocked over it would go directly into six lanes of traffic and that would of course be a bad thing. As a result they built these huge chain link fences along the outfield to stop any powerful home runs. Ever since I was little I always wanted to see someone hit one past the chainlink backstops and I never have. Last night they had a home run derbie prior to the game and apparently one of the players hit not one but two balls over the chainlink...and I missed it. I got there too late.

I make no judgements but go to Google and type in the word failure. Observe the top result. How did this happen?

Today for some reason I've been thinking about Tony Maceo, who by all accounts is a strange man. I haven't seen him in about a year and a half and I don't know why of all days he came to mind but I think I'm going to say a bit about him.

In my opinion Sgt. Maceo is teller of tall tales. I never knew when to believe a word that came out of his mouth. I first met him when I was running a little video store in 2002 and he would come in and talk you to death. He was one of the sorts of customers that would come in during the slow part of the night and stand around and chat. The reason he was a little less than tolerable was that I didn't really believe most of the things that came out of his mouth.

With a name like Anthony Maceo it might conjure up an image of a wiry little italian. In fact Maceo was a tall black man in his early-40's with a military cut flat top haircut and a pencil mustache. That he was military was a given. You could tell by his bearing. Everything else was up for grabs. He claimed to be a chemical weapons expert but having never exceeded the rank of Sgt. I wasn't so sure I believed that. He would stand there and describe in detail what would happen to you if you were exposed to various gases that the United States had stockpiled. Additionally, he claimed to be a judo expert and insisted that he taught lessons in North Little Rock. This seemed a bit more credible given that he was a former marine.

The last time I saw Maceo he cornered me in a Barnes and Noble cafe and sat himself down at my table as I was trying to read articles for a paper I had to write. It was around Christmas and he seemed to have little enough to do other than hound people that he knew in passing. As soon as he sat down I knew what was coming and immediately started considering ways to escape the coming story. I wasn't so lucky and somehow we got onto faith.

Up until that point I had never realized what a deeply spiritual man Maceo was. Still my problem was the same as any other time he told a story... I didn't know what to believe. I wish now that I could remember all the details but it was a strange story. Furthermore, I'll probably never be as gifted a story teller as he. He said that as a young man he had been "wicked" and a tough. He out on the street surviving and would have died. An old woman took pity on him and brought him into her house in exchange for work that he did. Apparently this old woman was in the habit of collecting strays and also had a whore living there as well. Her one stipulation was that Tony would never touch her. That wasn't going to happen under her roof. She would read the Bible at night and would always invite Maceo to read it with her which he always refused. One day he picked it up on his own and "it got down in" him. So he studied and worked. His failing came the day the whores pimp came for her. He came up into the house demanding that she go with him and he said "Hell no" and fought with him. I wish I could impress on you the way in which recounted this. Like I said I never believed a word coming out of this mans mouth for the most part and he framed this fight like it was the struggle of Jacob with the angel of the Lord. Totally bizarre. Even in winning though he lost.

He told me about the things he saw in the first Iraq about how evil he felt war was. How he hated being asked to kill. How the members of his platoon (or troop, or whatever they're called) could be as dangerous as the enemy. How when men commited atrocity all had to be on board or they had to be dead. He told me that after seeing something he shouldn't have he refused to participate in troops deeds and had his life threatened for it.

...alright that's enough for today...maybe I'll talk some more about what he told me later... man was crazy.

So all my brothers have come home and subsequently moved their stuff back into the house for the summer. Which means my computer, and my pocket PC, and two Xboxes, a television, dvd players, vcrs, surround sound, subwoofers...well you get the idea. All this stuff gets crammed into the game room and becomes what my mother refers to as the "electronic ghetto". I love it.

Ok, once again I'm blatantly posting famous poems on my blog... This one is by Pablo Neruda and is for old times sake. Those of you who read Spanish enjoy.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos."

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche esta estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque este sea el ultimo dolor que ella me causa,
y estos sean los ultimos versos que yo le escribo.

This is at the very least a solid argument for intelligent design...admit it folks there's something to Darwinism.

OK, I gave in and made a flickr account. Here are some pictures from my European vacation. Be sure to check out the rest of the photos on my flickr page!