4 Sept 2008 - Thursday night EST

Greetings. Consider this the first of many entries I intend to deliver. I'm still in the States, at home with my mother, two suitcases strewn across my bedroom, one packed to the brim, the other patiently waiting for clothes to finish washing. Patience. Indeed a virtue that must be held carefully like glass. I'm holding my patience as I wait for my visa to get me to China. Visualize. Look clearly through the glass and see my visa, with little white wings, flying from Washington, D.C. to my home in Warner Robins, Georgia, before my arrival to Hartsfield-Atlanta early Tuesday morning.

Aside from not having my visa, I'm not nervous anymore. I haven't been this excited over something in quite some time. It's a different kind of excitement, one that is personal, monumental. I'm evoking change upon myself, I am in control. It has taken me a long time to say that with genuine confidence.

Specifics: Flying to Beijing Tuesday morning. Making a stop in Chicago (such a divine city, it's a shame I won't have time to fumble around), then Toronto, then Beijing. My flight from Atlanta will be early as hell, around 7 am, so I won't be going to sleep beforehand. I am one of the most nocturnal persons you could ever meet. I intend to finish my second round of packing in the wee hours, then my mom is taking me and bidding adieu. I'll be living in Baoding, a hour-by-train from Beijing, and teaching at Hebei University. When I'm not teaching I'll be sleeping, writing, singing, making new friends, whatever else it is an eccentric person like myself does when placed in a foreign environment.

Before all of this happens, I still have my last weekend ahead of me. Saturday I am bartending a bar mitzvah for some extra cashmoney. Then it's a Bon Voyage bar crawl starring myself and several close friends in Atlanta. I don't want anyone getting mushy on me. This isn't the first time I've bailed, however, this is indeed the first time I've gone somewhere for myself. Sunday will be spent back in Warner Robins, this time I'm going out to dinner with my mom and family friends. Monday, my final day to get shit done. And hopefully the flying visa-bird will tap its beak on my door so I can be on my merry way. We'll see. Visualize patience. Clear. Calm. Sharp.

Please read my blog whenever you have the time. I like having readers and I want to be able to share this experience as much as possible.

Peace.
'misu