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JacksonRules06
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Name: Tyler
Birthday: 4/16/1987
Gender: Male
Interests: Having a purpose, Jesus, reading, good friends and companions, good music, classic rock, school, a strange mix of over- and under-achievement, cigars, the ladies, flip flops, hookah, movies
Expertise: Sticking it to the man. Intercepting unspoken messages. Being hairy.
Message: message me
AIM:  Guyty416
Member Since:
7/28/2004
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| http://tylerchina.blogspot.com/
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| Well, it's been quite a while, so I suppose I'll update on how my life is going. Things are well. I spent the summer in Georgetown, and I've been teaching swimming lessons. In a note of irony, early on in my job search I was hoping to avoid being a lifeguard this summer, because I didn't want to sit in the sun and be exhausted all day. I ended up, however, being a swim instructor. Which turned out to be about the same money as a lifeguard, and twice as hard. But it was a good learning experience. And I feel like it will look pretty legit on my resume. And I learned patience. And it tested my patience. But all in all, I won't work here again. I might consider teaching swim lessons if I can teach my own and work for myself, then I would be making good money, but not like this again. But it's been fun to have my own house. And to have an actual house, and not a dorm. Where I can drink beer whenever I want. It's pretty cozy. And my roommates and I have a good time. We are all pretty absurd. Sometimes I consider getting a camera and making short comedy clips with everyone in the house. Sometimes I will get home from work and Webby will be yelling at me like an overbearing asian mother from the top of the stairs. "TYLER! WHY YOU NO MOW LAWN!!?? HOW YOU BE DOCTOR YOU NO MOW LAWN!?!" And things of that nature. And my girlfriend is home from studying abroad in Spain. And it has been nice to have her around. And it's been interesting to see what it's like to have a college girlfriend, and to see the differences. And lastly, I leave for Shanghai, China in approximately 28 days.
4 weeks.
1 month.
The amount of time into which I told myself "Erin is almost home because we are out of school."
And it's crazy. I've been doing all of the preparations. Tonight I had dinner with a friend of mine who had studied abroad in Shanghai a little over a year ago, and I picked her brain about everything from practical information to the most minute and nuanced questions. And it was good. It was good to know. To try and prepare. And it's been China week on the travel channel. And the Olympics are coming up in Beijing. And China is in the international spotlight right now. It's funny how that works out.
And I want to document my time there. And I want to use my words and record this experience. Perhaps this will be the adventure of a lifetime. In all honesty, I have no idea what the fuck I am doing. For all intensive purposes, I will be illiterate. I will be immersed in a culture entirely and wholly other than my own. These are people who have their own history. Who can trace their words and thoughts and ideas to a history and story utterly different and utterly independent of Western thought. A place untouched by the Roman empire. By Christianity (until recently anyways). A people who had invented fireworks before my people had invented Democracy. A people who built a wall that is longer than my nation is wide. A people who will dam the Yangtze. Who will solve an overpopulation crisis by simply decreeing that everyone should bear one child.
I am, in many senses, delving into the unknown. It is a personal, 21st Century Lewis and Clark Expedition. Who knows what awaits me?
But I hope to use my words. And to attempt to harness what it means to be alive in this corner of history. And to take my place among a people who are burning and rocketing into the night sky, burgeoning with electricity and colorful flame. And to hope to do the same.
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| And you give yourself away.
And you give yourself away.
And you give. And you give. And you give yourself away.
I can't live with or without you.
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| I was thinking today, about how at this point in life, I feel like a nomad. Or perhaps like a plains indian. At this point in my life, I have no set home. I am moving from place to place. My home changes with the season. This is where I live in the summer. And soon I will be in China. And then, who knows where? And then, who knows? It's like I follow the wind. A nomad. A wanderer. Wonderer. In a society of nomads. Who, for lack of constant familiar setting and routine, cling to each other, as their only constant. And we love each other, knowing we are on the move, and knowing that we will not move farther from each other. And you are my home. And I am home even in a land of babbling and foreign noise, the land where hotel lobby snacks taste like a home cooked meal, and the twin beds fused together by lack of telephone wire. And my home is next to you.
I want to go home. | | |
| I had to go to the doctor. But I still have about 2 more hours of class time left. And I don't wanna go. hmmm, choices choices choices.
I have a lot of good friends. And a lot to be grateful for, really.
And to think that the last time I saw your face, you were blowing me a kiss in the airport line. You'll never know the way I wept when I turned that corner.
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