Powerless in China

Below is a blog I wrote on 24 August. At the time, it was meant to be a smattering of updates about what I had been doing. Now, I guess you can read it as a smattering of highlights from my last couple weeks of training. 

Blink

Editor's note: I wrote this blog on 22 August.

Nearing the end of PST feels like I’m reliving the last month of college. Everyone is coming to the realisation that these times we cherish will not last forever. PST is only the beginning of our Peace Corps journey, and like the colon blinking on my alarm clock, every moment is gone in an instant, another taking its place. Every laugh, joke, memory: blinked away—the blinking of my clock no different than the blinking of my eyes...

Watching our language teachers blink away tears after laughing at my inspiring interpretive dance... My laughter later joining theirs when they ask me if I’ve ever had dance training—they noticed I pointed my toe really well...

Amidst various levels of singing, we blink through squints, trying to read the words on the KTV screen while belting like a karaoke champion...

Blinking astonishment from friends as I rap the entirety of Eminem’s “Without Me”, only looking back at the words once...

Cutting a moment’s blink in half, I flash a wink at a friend staring at me...

My computer is on the blink every time I attempt to send an email...

Blink.

Our group hangs on every second. I lose myself in thought, watching the blinking of my friend’s digital-faced watch. He never wears it in class—only leaves it sit on the table if he’s not spinning it around his pen.

With each blink, we get closer to saying goodbye to the friends we’ve made. Friends forged through like-minded aspirations, lengthy safety sessions and waiting... lots and lots of waiting...

Can you count how many blinks exist in a single day? Can one count the number of cultural interactions—somewhere on the spectrum of failure to success—we have faced? Each one helped us grow as individuals, but more so as friends.

Like eyelids, we were brought together. We have connected and bonded, but like each blink, we will now be separated. One cannot see with their eyes closed. 

Inspiration...

This is me, being serene.
Notice my favourite
Chengdu food?

Looking back through my written blogs, after Model School, there is a break. After a bit of thought, I remembered this was the most anxious time of PST—we were interviewing to determine our site placement. Then, that fateful Wednesday, we all met for a long morning (that no one remembers) before being given our placements after lunch. 

Everyone was so nervous. I tried to approach the day with serenity. There was nothing I could do to affect where I was going, so why worry about it. The Peace Corps goal was to choose a school where I could flourish. I trusted them to do just that... I mean, my other option was to go home? Not happening. I remember how electric with anticipation the room was—not a loud stadium electric, though. It seemed like most everyone was quiet and reflective with their emotional amalgamation of excitement and dread. 

I had my Kindle ready. I promised friends and family back home I would live-update facebook and twitter as soon as I knew where I was going. In hindsight, this ended up being an unknowingly introverted decision. While everyone else was flying around the room to see where their friends were headed for the next two years, I was hunched over my Kindle, reflecting and typing; by the time I had successfully updated both, much of the buzz had died down (it is labour-intensive task to type on the Kindle's keyboard).