Lost in the Shuffle

I just read Rachel's blog, and it reminded me of all these wonderful things that I'd forgotten to post about because of all the suicide-birthday-leaving Northfield-surgery drama of the past week. So to briefly fill in (and sorry, I'm just stealing all your ideas Rachel):

Last Sunday, before the bad news hit, Rachel and Julie and I went for an afternoon of shopping in the Cities, followed by delicious Tibetan food - they make this thing called a Shara, if I remember the name right, that's like a lassi only thinner and with cinnamon instead of mango. And amazing. And then we went to a Futureheads concert at a very nice venue which was way more civilized than any concert I've been to in New York - lots of dancing and fun, but much less rowdy drunkenness and sticky floors. The Futureheads, as Rachel says, are like a cross between The Clash, Franz Ferdinand, and The New Pornographers, and if that means nothing to you, think cute British pop-punk. To sum up, one of the most fun concerts I've ever been to. Which makes me sad, in a way, because since I heard about my friend's death about 15 minutes after we got back from the concert, I totally blanked out the whole evening and would've totally forgotten about it if Rachel hadn't posted about it just now. So thanks!

And to elaborate on our last couple of days of aikido training, they made me really happy for a couple of reasons - aside from ending on a strong note, with a good class in the Cities and a big mess of birthday breakfalls, they made me realize what a very good group of people I'd been training with all summer. And not to give the boys short shrift, because the two of them were awesome, but I was really happy that it was just the three of us girls on my birthday, being super tough and pushing ourselves. It was a great girl-power kind of moment and I felt very lucky to have had it. Aikido (at least Yoshokai aikido, I don't know much about the other styles) is one of the more gender-balanced martial arts out there, probably because it relies less on strength and size, but still, martial arts can be very male-heavy if only thanks to the mental connections between men and fighting. And I have had to deal with a guy who was kind of a jerk to me because (I hypothesize) of his insecurities about being the same rank as a woman. So it just feels really nice to know that you're in a group of people who don't feel like they need to prove anything to anyone but themselves, regardless of gender. The five of us had a really amazing summer of training, reinforced by our visits to the Kobukan, which reassured us that Carleton is not an anomaly - aikido really does attract genuinely good, kind human beings. (The jerk I had to deal with stopped training early spring term; I think something about the art fits well with certain types of people, and they just happen to be good ones!)

What else did Rachel mention that I missed? I cut three heads of hair this past week (very successfully, I might add). And the birthday party was a resounding success, with hordes of people and drunkenness (read: totally wasted) and revelling, with none of the icky side effects like vomit or hangovers or massive cleanup efforts.

Oh, and I got my plane tickets to China in the mail today, which means I'm actually going to China! This is terrifying. There are FIVE plane tickets in there (NY->LA, LA->Hong Kong, Hong Kong->Kunming; and then the return trips: Beijing->Hong Kong, Hong Kong->NY) for a total of about 42.5 hours on airplanes. Not to mention layovers. Not to mention the fact that SIT hasn't told us any of those minor details like where we're going to live in Kunming. Not to mention the fact that I don't know any of the people on the program, and my last "study abroad" experience, a summer program in Switzerland after 11th grade, involved:
- 3 drunk/chauvinistic Southerners (the one redeeming side to this was the long, slurred discussion of the beauty of our derrières),
- a girl who was "secretly" cutting herself, and
- a girl who was simultaneously quitting smoking, drug use, and promiscuity.

So basically there's a lot that's up in the air (sorry, sorry) about this trip. It's exciting, yes. And so is bungee jumping. Or shooting yourself out of a cannon.