So Busy!

I am going to cheat here. This is an abridged email that I sent to Merrin my first week here. I would like to write more, but I spend all day at a computer for work. I don't want to spend my free time anywhere near a computer! I can't avoid it though; I am using Rosetta Stone to learn Chinese, on top of the classes I take twice a week, but language is the most important factor in my life right now so it must be excused.

I had a dream last night about living at New College. It was more of a slightly fictionalized remembering. I am not sure why the characters in the dream were who they were, but it was remembering the feeling, and the feeling was what the dream was about.

I woke up and laid in my bed and thought about my life and how lucky I have been. Thought about how and why I was who I was. Then I thought about 'Karma'. Now that Communism has collapsed here the economy is thriving but the poor people aren't doing so well again. There is a lot of homelessness, and I don't think social services are so good. In the US I never give poor people money. Here the poor are not just poor in spirit but actually destitute, with no possibilities of getting better. 'Karma'. I can not know why, and I can not change it.

I thought about dad and what I know of his life and where he is now. I felt so much peace and sadness. I am so happy that we are doing well, and doing things that he can be proud of. I think that we have become everything he could have hoped for and more.

Then I thought about the future. Holding onto what I have valued and moving into the future with freshness.

Yoga has given me so much. What was it that created that 'me' who lived with no thought of the future or past. Can I have that intensity of presence and a normal life? I don't know what 'yoga' is even though I have been looking at it for 10 years! Now I will start practicing martial arts. It has been the Buddhist yoga of the far east.

I got up. My hot water is still broken. I washed my balls and arm pits in the sink, spiked up my hawk, did 6 sun salutations and took off for work. I walked to the food stall under the foot bridge and threw my money into a bucket. If I am their only white customer or not they still recognize me. I don't know if they had my breakfast ready for me or if it was a coincidence, but I did not have to wait for them to make it, only heat the parts and put it together. I get an egg filled pita type bread with some sauce painted on wrapped around a piece of lettuce and some mystery meat. Two of them only cost 7 kuai, about 1 dollar. No words were exchanged until I left "xie xie" (thank you), "bu ke qi" (don't worry about it). That's about all the Chinese I know at this point any way. Pleased as anything I smiled as I walked to the subway station. I love the subway, and hate it. I love it because it is so cheap and useful. I hate it because it is an hour of my life to and from work. I don't know if it will bother me by the end of the year, but right now I think it is funny how crowded it is. I get to the station and race to the train. Rushing around and jockeying for position. When you get on the train you have to push and shove so that people will squish together and you do not get smashed by the closing door. I was tempted to try to lift my feet from under me to see if the pressure from the people would hold me up... I didn't. When the train starts and stops we all move like a wave and if you are up against a pole or wall you get squished. I really need to get an MP3 player so that I can listen to Chinese lessons on the train. For now I meditate and do energy practices. It is good because I am very out of practice with both, especially the energy practices. I have just arrived at work. Someone came in and was introduced. People clapped for him and I didn't understand what was going on. Now that my personal emails are taken care of it is time to do some work. I have to write a "What's Up" column for the web page. It is not very good, or serious. I am going to try to get rid of that task. Nobody who lives here would use it and we might as well send potential au pairs to useful sites so that they can get a full range of what is actually happening. Aside from that I have some interviews to asses the English of potential outbound au pairs and my personal project to attend to. Oh! I get to listen to music at work here! I put in headphones and dance in my seat and nobody cares! Using my computer is a pain in the ass though. I can not read the words in the menus etc. They said they would fix it last night but it is the same, all Chinese.