I was cursed recently by a fortune cookie. Twice really, since the print looked as though it were printed twice in rapid secession which caused a shadowed look to the words. Bam bam, rapid fire curse casting; two hits, dead on. What was this horrible curse that my unfortunate cookie cast upon me, you may ask? The little, white, two inch piece of paper simple read, "You will live in interesting times."

Interesting times? Is that so bad? If you have to ask that then apparently you have never really lived through interesting times. Think about history. What happens during those interesting moments in history that we tend to remember and study? Usually it's something pretty drastic, like war or massive outbreaks of disease, or act of God type things. Now that doesn't mean that I believe my fortune cookie has now caused some sort of butterfly effect that will create global disaster, but I don't like the omen that my life might be "interesting" in the sense that I've already lived through some pretty "interesting" times and have had experiences that aren't the norm, and now I kind of just want to live and nice quiet little life were there isn't so much emotional upheaval. "Interesting" and emotional upheaval tend to go hand in hand, trust me.

This all leads up to my big question which is what truly IS normal? A nice, normal life; a nice, normal relationship; what is normal? Can you really make it to twenty-six (which is just where I'll be come March) without accumulating piles of emotion baggage? If you start a relationship now is it basically guaranteed that you are both going to be dinged and scared from past relationships and cluttered with doubts and uncertainties that will have to be dealt with? That could taint or corrupt the new life, the new relationship that you are trying to build? Once you live through interesting times is it pretty guaranteed you will continue through interesting times simply because they brand you and create more upheaval?

Why wasn't I hit by the knowledge wand when I became an adult so I could have the answers to all of these questions? I thought adults were suppose to know these things! I am greatly disappointed to discover that it was all an act and that even once you reach "adulthood" you are really just as ignorant about the big issues as when you were a child, only now you can understand that the big issues are WAY more complicated than you can ever imagine and that you have no real hope of every really solving them. Adulthood means you know the hopelessness of your situation and now you just trudge on as best you can, making up your own rules as you go along all the while pretending that you have it together and that you know what you're doing.

I still feel twelve.

I have way too many of these things! Thing being blogs. I completely forgot about this particular one, to tell the truth. Currently, if I write anything on a blog at all, it will usually end up on myspace. Aside from that you can pretty much follow my trail from blogger to xanga and everything in-between. I think I picked this site up because of travelpunk. The only posts on here are about my trip to China that took place two summers ago. (I think it was two?)

The trip to Chengdu, China did turn out to be the biggest adventure of my life. At least, as far as travel is concerned. I spent an entire week in Beijing before flying into Chengdu in the Sichuan province of China. I studied there for five weeks, living in three bedroom apartment with two other students. Actually, my things lived in that apartment and for about four weeks I was pretty much living with a friend in his studio on the twelfth floor of the apartment across the street.

I have a ton of pictures, all of them still unsorted, but all well treasured. I still talk to a handful of people I met. It's funny how you leave a place fully believing that you will stay close with these new friends all your lives, and then two years later you maybe say hi to them via facebook once a month. Ah well, so things go I suppose.

Now I am on to other forms of adventures. The setting is no where near as romantic as China, but I think the relationships are a little more lasting.