I uploaded some pictures onto flickr; check them out. (Make sure you log-in first or you won’t be able to see very many.)

Tower at the Grand Bazaar, originally uploaded 18 May ‘08, 5.04am EDT PST

Things have been weird lately. Just really freaking crazy. I’ve been in this continual state of mild to moderate stress (with occasional bouts of freaking out) since March and now that things are beginning to settle down, I don’t know what to do with myself.

Urumqi is definitely nothing like we imagined. Even though we were expecting the unexpected, things are so extreme here. We’re never bored, if nothing else. There’s no time for boredom, between the insane thrills and the general insanity that is Life here. But if I ask myself, what have I done since I dropped everything and travelled to the other side of the world? there’s so little that can actually be put on the list:

• Met my extended family
• Got a job teaching English
• Found an apartment

We haven’t even been anywhere outside of Urumqi in the past three months. And yet. Oh gods, the things we’ve done. Or maybe it’s better to say the things that have been done to us. There’s no way I can write it all up that would even come close to doing justice to everything we’ve been through. Has it only been three months? It feels closer to a lifetime. I think back on the the things I thought and said and worried about before leaving the States - or even the ideas that went through my head when I first got here back in January and February and I’m amazed at how young I seem in my own memory. Forever on my life will be split into two periods: Before Urumqi and After Urumqi.

I guess that makes it all sound negetive, and that’s not my intention at all. There were definitely low points (read: the Month of Hell, which I may discuss later if I feel up to it); and yet, not for a moment have I regretted coming here. The things I’ve learned about people and culture and society could fill volumes, and those aren’t even the most interesting bits. And that’s not even to mention how much I’ve learned about myself.

Aja and I keep talking about how we haven’t even begun to process the great majority of the things we’ve experienced here. I’m already in emotional and intellectual and sensual overload with the things that I must deal with while I’m here; everything else gets compartmentalized in my mind -  a kind of defense mechanism - to be taken out of neatly labled boxes and examined carefully at a later date; at a time when I’m somewhere far away, safe where nothing can touch me. Everything touches me here.