back to my original blogging desk

I've noticed an hour doesn't exactly mean what it used to. If I have an hour to wait, it's almost hard to decide what to do with it because it's just not enough time for me. Hours are spent like dollar bills. It used to be anything green and paper was preciously coveted in my pocket. But here I am in China and hours and bills are spent more freely. I don't know what to attribute it to exactly, has my mind acclimated to our constructed version of time to the point where it can only anticipate duration but not feel it?

I don't feel as if I just finished an entire semester at ACC, but my actions tell me differently. I　slept a lot, and still feel like sleeping. Of course that could because I'm getting over a cold, but still, last week was hell, but now I'm sitting in Xi'an, back to the desk where I wrote 50+ blog entries three years ago, back to the same bed I slept in for 3.5 months, and back to a beautiful city that literally feels like home.

It's good to be here, especially after my friends from the summer semester have packed their bags and left for the liberty and straightforwardness of America leaving me here, alone in the oldest civilization that history has preserved, a history of turbulent preservation.

I got here, to Xi'an, and was instantly met by my host mother. I can tell that my Chinese has improved, if not as much as I hoped it might. But being able to understand over 50% of what's going on all the time is a good feeling, but has also, in the past 2 months but especially now, left me embarrassed and frustrated with myself.

I look back the time I spent in Xi'an my senior year of high school and realize that it was definitely a long time ago. The kind of time that not only looks like a long time, but feels like it too. I wrote a lot of things back then that just reveal how ignorant and self-concerned I　was. I abhorred speaking Chinese at points, I hated getting up before dawn to run with my host mother, and I just could not bring myself to do anything but buy cheap dvds and presents for people back home while I was here. it's a really embarrassing part of my study abroad then that i wish i could take back.

some of the things i think i can attribute to simply being young, but others, like my weakness for consumption, I'm beginning to believe is a part of American culture that I was representing. This need to over consume if the opportunity arises, is really repulsive. I'm not sure what it is, but I think it has something to do with a competitive spirit, the feeling that you are winning when you buy shit (and I'm talking about shit, not stuff you need) at a relatively low price.

Who knows, but much of my time in Xi'an in 2005 was reserved for buying, buying, and more buying. That's something I regret.

It's a double-edged sword- realizing that you've change. I think it's a rare occasion that a change is entirely good because you still must negotiate the old with the new. Even if the change is for the better it is disturbing knowing that before you were wrong. I guess the cliche to be learned is that we are never entirely right, don't count on yourself being right in the long run. I'm sure there's a daoist saying that would fit.

But back to the topic of time and money. Perhaps it is change that dictates the true length of time. As we harden into our patterns and regularities, change becomes harder and less frequent, and time folds itself so that the space between feels like seconds while the clock on the wall has passed hours, semesters, and years.

sorry for the bad grammar and spelling etc