The Secret Parade
AboutProfessional Fridge Raider
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Thursday, June 28, 2012I'm not sure when it started, but I've always been adamant that my life be a giant adventure. I want to stand at the edge of vastness, I want to lie on a patch of foreign grass, I want to ride up a sand dune at 45 degrees with my ATV, screaming my head off. I want to take a plane alone for hours and hours and set foot in a strange land myself - lost, but excitedly so.I fly to China the day after tomorrow and it never really sunk in so far because I've been so busy. Tonight though, I met the girls for a potluck dinner (I brought a spring chicken HAHA) and they surprised me with a homemade cardboard card.  Beulah's brilliant idea HAHA he doesn't even look that great here thanks!? Anyway, behind the picture they wrote little notes of encouragement and well-wishes... and THEN it hit me. China. Five weeks. Tomorrow. And for the entire train ride home my heart somehow got caught in my throat. Five weeks isn't a long time, really. I know it'll fly by. What makes me scared isn't the adventure - it's the fear of a lack thereof. Five months in America last year was pretty much life-changing for me. I regret not blogging about it, because I forget so easily. There's hardly any ink on the pages of my journal chronicling July to December 2011, but for the little that there is, here are some excerpts that might help you understand why I left a little piece of my heart there.  So the 10 of us are on a road trip in a beat-up caravan like rock stars from the '60s, travelling across the Arizonian desert. We're all starving undergraduates from all over the world - Spain, Bulgaria, Germany, Russia, Japan, America and Singapore. This was the best caravan that we could afford - nothing works properly and it's hilarious. The heater spews out cold air (not great when it's 10 degrees celsius at night), the flush doesn't work (not great when you're the first to find out that your pee just isn't going down), and the door eventually decides that it refuses to shut.  For the first time in my life I see the colours of fall in real life when we stop at a creek in Sedona. No one has their swimsuits but they all plunge in anyway, and almost freeze their balls off. I'm seeing wayyy more of Abboh than I thought I would.  He looks like a tropical penguin. It's hilarious.  At night we cook pork chops over a fire that we built with twigs that Lena and I gathered. We take a walk to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. "First time seeing the Grand Canyon and I can't see shit," says Vincenzo. We lay out the mat and lie under the stars, frantically making wishes every time we see a shooting star. I didn't bother. The Big Guy up there knows the whispers of my heart well enough.  I love how we weren't really great at beer pong. I love how we'd bake a whole batch of fries the next morning and stuff them all into our mouths. It's funny how we thought that chair from Target would be able to hold our weights.     It's even funnier when it collapses. (picture unavailable because we were more concerned about our lives than about photographs) We should've known better than to get stranded in a thunderstorm at 4 degrees celsius with no coats, no umbrellas, and ridiculous winds. We call a cab and he asks us where we were. "WE DON'T REALLY KNOW, THERE ARE NO SIGNS - THERE'S ONLY A PORN SHOP... HELLO? HELLO?" For the first time I get a hint of what hypothermia feels like. A fat man huddles together with us and gives me his shirt - in my cold desperation, I take it without hesitation. The next day I wonder why.  I love how I spent my 20th birthday away from home, but it was anything but lonely. The dinner, the balloons, the surprise, the cake... Ah, what I would give to spend my birthday with all of you again! Hehe it's late so I'm gonna just end with a story of Nikki, a friend whom I never imagined I would have the blessing to encounter. She was assigned as my buddy under the buddy programme, and while many buddies didn't really care much about the exchange students whom they were assigned to, Nikki did so much more than I could ever imagine.  (Yes, we did finish those fries.) We went to the state fair together and ate giant turkey legs and fries. We rented a boat at Saguaro lake and drove it around. All those moments were great, but what really stood out was how she was with me every step of the way when I broke my clavicle. She drove me to all my orthopedic appointments, filled out all my forms because I couldn't write, and woke up at 4.30am so that she could take me to my surgery appointment. She sat beside me cracking jokes to distract me as the nurse stuck needles into me, and let me stay over at her place days afterwards so that her family could take care of me after my surgery. I'll always remember how I tried to carry out a conversation with her Mum when I was still stoned while being driven home after the surgery. HAHA. I kept talking rubbish and saying stuff like how I was so glad that I didn't wake up while I was being cut open. I don't think many people know this because I just keep laughing about my injury, but it really was a pretty inconvenient time for me. I had to do everything single-handedly (literally), and with my non-dominant hand. After surgery, I couldn't get the wound wet, so Nikki actually washed my hair for me in the kitchen sink every day. She'd also drive me to the magical Frys (this AMAZING grocery store with smoothies, sushi, candy, cakes, a boardgame-corner... EVERYTHING) and buy me smoothies hehe. I cried at the airport when saying goodbye to her because I don't often see such selflessness around, and she truly showed me what it meant to be giving and loving. My fear with China is that it would be nowhere as phenomenal as my experience in America. I don't think that I'd meet such amazing people, and have such amazing experiences. I guess I'm afraid to be disappointed. But no matter, an adventure's an adventure, and I'm gonna keep an open mind and dream big! (: |