no time! no time!

for months, i've been suffering from severe insomnia. for a while, i thought it was stress or too much caffeine or anticipation. but the days and weeks have come and gone, and nothing's changed.

sometimes, while i lay alone in the dark, i put my hand on my chest, and i can feel my heart racing erratically. "calm down," i tell myself. there's nothing to worry about. yet it beats so wildly that i'm certain i'll die. i try and try to close my eyes, but sleep won't come. i try to write down my thoughts. what's wrong? did i forget something? will i get my life together enough these next few weeks? what if rachel and i don't make it into the program? is it him?

the anxiety weighs on me, even in my dreams. i toss and turn, wishing i could forget about my day, or my exhaustion, or the fact that i don't feel like i'm ready for this summer. wishing that, so long as my eyes are closed and i am, at least physically, sleeping, the anxiety will lift and i will feel free, unburdened, and excited.

my room is a disaster right now, full of half-done things. my half-done visa process. half-packed suitcases. books strewn about, because i've only half-decided to give them to angie and half-resolved myself to keeping them. half-answers on moving out, id cards, and international sims. the fact that this cursed mother's day event is only half-done, and chris' half-completed present occupying my desk and the end of my bed.

i calculated today. i teach 5 classes every morning, and 1 class every afternoon. except, last semester i was teaching 3, so let's average it to 2. i also teach 1 class every night, but that doesn't include when i was carrying double class loads after chad left. according to my calculations, i teach 8 classes a day, 40 classes a week, 160 classes a month, and it seems up to this point, over 1,600 classes this past year. i'd never done the math until now. and each day, like clockwork, i feel pressured to invent some new idea for them, to make learning fun and entertaining, so that they forget that their life of academic misery is only beginning.

and each day, the same things wear on me a little more. i'm very, plainly, completely dry. i've heard the expression "i've got nothing left to give" and i always thought it was an excuse. it's not. sometimes, while standing during the morning's song, i'm certain that i'll pass out right there on the spot, because i'm just drained.

but it's only 6 more weeks.

我的中華的朋友你好!

today, after work, i was tying up some loose ends on my visas and watching the office, and this clip came up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AC1oj_SWJU

now, i'll be the first to admit that my chinese isn't great, but i've really come to appreciate this. i had to listen a few times to fully figure out what he was saying, but it's wo de zhonghua de pengyou, ni hao! which means, my chinese friends, hello!

okay, nobody else will think it's funny except chris, but i was dying.

oh no!

i am officially booked for this summer... trains, buses, hostels, flights. everything except those effing visas. but otherwise all confirmed. i get back to the states on july 10. oh man.

i was reflecting for a moment on the utter pinnacle of gruel i will be consuming in my summer months. the taiwanese say that chinese food is dodgy. they also said the same about thai food, and i found thai food, even that of the dodgiest sort, to be immensely more appetizing than the so-called food i often eat in taiwan.

but even so, i might just have to become a vegetarian in china, as one can't be too careful when we're talking billions of socially and politically repressed people. maybe unlike taiwan, they actually find a use for all those stray dogs.

kidding!

but seriously, it will be onto mongolia. now i've had damn good mongolian barbecue, but i've seen pictures of ulaanbatar, and we are talking the fringe of civilization as we know it. i borders (literally and metaphorically) on all those -stan countries i have no desire to visit. kazakhstan. uzbekistan. turkmenistan. like polygon-shaped states, i avoid -stans. one can only imagine what they're going to dream up while i'm camping in the middle of nowhere and living, it seems, just like abraham. which is totally awesome, i might add. i've heard rumors of raw meat, which, even in my hungriest of states, i'm not sure i can stomach.

russia is another story. i know people who've been to russia. i've heard stories about russia. i've had an inexplicable desire to visit russia as long as i can remember. i had twelve year-old fantasies about the glory of petersburg while reading anna karenina. don't judge me for thinking it would be sweet to be a member of the russian aristocracy. unless i was a woman. especially an adulteress. or a romanov. or living anywhere -bouts that whole revolution.
but still!

all that aside, among the stories, i've heard about how indescribably horrible the cooking is. how you wonder if it's really cat they're feeding to you. in which case, i won't live on vodka, but 7-11 or its kin might continue to rescue me.


then, as i make my way back into western culture, there's london. with countries with such a reputation for excellence in cooking, i've wondered how london's food continues to be so... so... disastrous. is disastrous the right word? it's like they are incapable of listening to the french. or the spanish. or the italians. hell, even the swiss, for that matter.

all this further pumps me up for mexican food and in-n-out. perhaps all that cheap hippie kickboxing will count for nothing in the end.