Sixthirtyone

Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: News

It has been close to a year since I came back from the other side of the Pacific, but recent events have got me a-thinking about memories. Recent events such as Valentine's Day, the wonderful Chinese New Year dinner and show held in ACAC a few weeks ago, and the ice storm that closed school and made it impossible to travel on the roads. How are those related, you ask? Read my tale and find out, or be slightly confused. The choice is yours.

I woke up the morning of May 12th with a smile on my face. Well, I should have at least. It was my girlfriend's birthday and the day before I left to spend a week traveling in western China. After I arose, I ate my daily croissant-like pastry filled with a layer of sweet black bean curd (do not worry, it is much better than it sounds) and looked out my window. The view from my room on the 12th floor of my dormitory in Chengdu, China, was fairly interesting.

My room overlooked a street in the heart of the Tibetan district of town, which means I had gotten a chance to view the busloads of rifled Chinese soldiers that had deployed during the Tibetan riots in March. But right now the street was calm by Chengdu standards, with an array of vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians that gave no indication of the danger building up underneath.

After a shower, I threw some laundry in the washer in the kitchen down the hall, and stressed about my door. It was a dilemma I often faced. To lock or not to lock? My Korean neighbors seemed quite uncriminal, but one can never know who is lying in wait, watching one's every move in an attempt to steal that 3 year-old laptop that one can't figure out how to lock to the desk. So I stressed, and mercifully returned to find that cunning criminal had not yet made his or her move.

After some packing, I went back to the kitchen/laundry room to gather my clothes and stress some more about my unlocked door. If I had thought about it, I would have realized there are more important things in life to worry about than doors left unlocked for a few minutes. But I did not have to. Instead I got told, with a capital "T". First my stomach told me that it did not like the way I was moving. I had not known I was moving, and asked my legs what they were doing. They claimed it was not their fault and they too were quite curious what was going on.

At this point, my ears interrupted with an urgent message: the world was ending, with the corresponding incomprehensible sounds of harsh screams and deep booms. So my adrenal gland decided epinephrine was necessary, and I dropped the clothes in my hands, running in slow motion for the window to see exactly how the world was ending. I would have preferred my running had not been in slow motion, but sometimes these things cannot be controlled.

Continued...

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