Home Sweet Home

I have made it home safe and sound.

It feels quite awkward being back. I feel like I never left at times...then at other times I feel like I have been gone for years.

I will write a much longer and more extensive blog when I get some time to do so.

Flying Home

Today is my last day in China before my scheduled departure home. I have a sneaking suspicion that something is going to go wrong on my way back. I am a little worried about my VISA because I am cutting it very close to the expiration date. I will be relieved once I am on the plane heading back to America, but for now I am holding my breath hoping that everything will be okay.

1/1000

So I am now finished with my idea submission to Google's Project and the deadline for submission has passed. Looking at Google's Project 10^100 page now indicates that Google received over 100,000 submissions to the project. Only 100 ideas will be released to the general public to vote on in January. This means that I have less than 1 chance out of 1000 to get my submission into that top 100 project ideas. I have confidence in my idea, but 1/1000 is pretty stiff odds. It's not the lotto, but it is pretty intimidating.

I am concerned that my project might not touch enough peoples lives to be considered as a top idea. There are sure to be other ideas that would have direct effect on more peoples lives as compared to mine. I am excited to see what other ideas have been submitted; January cannot come fast enough. I have found some other submission ideas that have been posted online by the idea authors. So far I have seen about three or four. I am not the only one trying to promote my idea prior to January. UVOL needs the support of volunteer organizations and volunteers all over the world if it is to be a successful website. Therefore, I have started trying to spread the word about UVOL now. Even if it not chosen as one of the top 100 ideas, perhaps my own efforts to promote UVOL will open doors.

When the idea for UVOL first hit me, it was like a rush of mental craziness as my brain started thinking of all the possibilities for what can be included in the site and how it could change things. I do not think this idea would have formulated if not for Google's Project, however. Since I began writing my submission last month I have been going over in my head how I first started thinking about what eventually came to be my idea for UVOL. The idea was certainly born out of my personal frustrations in finding volunteer work which stem back all the way to my high school days. Over the years I have had numerous experiences which have led to the formulation of this idea. The most recent experience I am still...experiencing. Had I known exactly what the volunteer project here in Jiaozuo was like, I probably never would have come. Things here are very disorganized and I still have my doubts about how trustworthy the project coordinator is. If UVOL had existed when I was searching for volunteer positions in China, I would have known to steer clear of this project and would have had a much easier time in finding a more worthy project of my time. I must be thankful for this project though; it has allowed me the time and opportunity to spend many an hour working on my UVOL submission and it has directly contributed to my ideas about what UVOL will be and how it will work to solve the problems volunteers and project coordinators face.

Searching for a desired volunteer project is like trying to find a needle in a haystack; after a systematic and planned search you might find that needle after hours upon hours of relentless searching. The only problem is, you never really know how the particular project you find will be or what the people are like that run it. Many times it takes a leap of faith that the project is how it is made out to be in the description (just like I had to do with this project). Same thing goes for project coordinators that are trying to find volunteers as well; how can anyone be sure that a volunteer is trustworthy and will do the things that he/she says they will? With luck, UVOL will make things a bit more transparent in the volunteering world. This will instill confidence in projects and in volunteers allowing people to make more informed decisions. Hopefully this will allow more people to volunteer who otherwise would not even try.

In the world of technology, simplicity is king. UVOL aims to make volunteering simple which will help volunteerism penetrate into the minds of the mainstream masses.

Okay, enough about UVOL. In less than a week I will be in Shanghai. I am very excited to be moving onto the next thing here in China. I always hate goodbyes though. I am not looking forward to saying bye to people that I will probably never see again. Saying bye to one of my Tai Chi teachers will be especially difficult, I think. He and I have become quite good friends even with our very difficult time communicating with each other. He has been teaching me things about Tai Chi that he is apparently not supposed to. The Chinese culture is very interesting in this regard. From what I have gathered, their "secrets" and wisdom that has been accumulated over thousands of generations are only passed down through family or to very select individuals. It is only very recently in Chinese culture has this trend started to change and the open sharing of information been introduced into the minds of the Chinese people. My Tai Chi teacher's teacher is very upset with him that he has been teaching me the things that he has. Even though my teacher is being open with me by teaching me these Tai Chi secrets, he makes a point to tell me that I am not to pass on the things that I have learned even to other Chinese people that he considers friends. He says that they are not his students so they cannot be taught this information. I do not fully understand this concept and tradition, but I find it very fascinating. In any case, I am very humbled that he has accepted me as his student even though it is getting him in trouble with his teacher. It will be very difficult to say goodbye to him.

I will be taking a train to Shanghai, but I will not be immediately meeting up with my friend Alan in Shanghai. Alan's family own an apartment in Shanghai where I will be staying for a time, but at the moment there are some plumbing problems in the house and we cannot stay there until those are fixed. Upon my arrival to Shanghai on Monday, I will be staying with a couchsurfer. I am very thankful for the existence of couchsurfing and not just because I get to stay in wonderful people's houses for free. Couchsurfing has also played a part in formulating my ideas for UVOL. Anyway, I am looking forward to staying with another couchsurfer and I hope that one day when I have a place of my own I will be able to host people from around the world as well.

UVOL: Google's Project 10^100 Idea Submission

I have been working long and hard on my submission to Google's Project 10 to the 100th. Thank you to everyone who has helped me along in this process, I greatly appreciate it. With luck, UVOL will come into being and make finding a volunteer position easier, faster and more affordable for all.

The document below contains the description of what Google's project is along with my submission to the project. If you cannot see the document below, click the following link or copy and paste the text into your browsers address bar:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7196515/UVOL-Googles-Project-10100-Idea-Submission

UVOL - Google's Project 10^100 - Idea Submission - Upload a Document to Scribd

The Wuzhi Project Faliure

I have a little over two weeks to go before I travel to Shanghai to meet up with my friend Alan. In the scheme of things, two weeks is nothing and will pass in the blink of an eye. It sure does not feel like that right now though.

I feel as though I am wasting my time here at this project. There is not much for me to do. Even when I do teach English it is for 2 hours at most in one day. The rest of the time here is spent trying to think of things to do which could occupy my time so I do not go crazy. The problem is, I do not have much energy and things that I could be doing I do not feel like committing any time or energy to. I could be spending a lot of my time trying to learn Chinese, like I was hoping to do before I came here to China. At this point though, I feel it would be a waste of time. I do not foresee myself coming back here to China after January and I also am not interested in teaching myself to learn a language. I have been spending a considerable amount of time learning Tai Chi in the early hours of the morning and in the evening. I find this to be a good experience. I do not particularly care for the ideas or philosophy behind Tai Chi, but I find it to be a good way to wake up in the morning, stretch, and keep my body in a healthy condition. I think I have been overdoing it a bit though; my left leg is currently injured. It started out as a small pull and eventually then complicated some other parts of my leg as well. I choose not to do any Tai Chi last night or this morning and I probably will not do any tonight either in the hopes that my leg will be well enough to wake up for some Tai Chi tomorrow morning.

Overall this volunteer project is not what it is said to be. It has potential to be a great volunteer experience and benefit a lot in the local community, however, the people that are currently running the program (which is Yao as far as I can tell) seem to be focused only on what can make the program money which at this point is just teaching English to a few school children. Yao is trying to liaison with others in the community here in Jiaozuo to expand the number of students that are taught, but it does not seem to be going very well. There are many other things that volunteers who come to this program could be doing to help the local community, but it seems that if it is not making any money for the project, Yao is not interested in it. This project seems doomed to failure if this trend continues as it certainly will not attract any foreign volunteers and people here in China are not even familiar with what the word volunteer means. Working for nothing is not a concept that Chinese are familiar with so the likelihood of finding people here in the community that would be willing to volunteer are slim to none.

I have to hand it to Yao and his girlfriend, Wangsha,though for their very kind nature in letting me stay with them. Even though I am doing very little for the program in terms of volunteering, I am staying with them for free. Wangsha cooks food for me on many days and they even just bought another computer because I was spending so much time on their laptop. Actually, they take care of so much for me, I am becoming quite lazy in a lot of ways; a feeling that I hate and is contributing to my not wanting to be here at this project anymore. I would leave this very instant if it was not for the kids that I am teaching English. There are two kids in particular that I have been teaching which are very keen to learn as much as they can. When I leave, I will miss them both and I hope that my time and effort in their English education will help them in the future. I do hope that one day they will both be able to venture outside of China to an English speaking country to see what the West has to offer them.

This experience in Jiaozuo at the Wuzhi project, coupled with many previous experiences with regards to volunteering and finding a volunteer project, has given me first hand experience with the difficult nature and, at times, all consuming task of finding a volunteer project that best suits me. Yao's project does not really suit me, and I know that now, but only after coming here and experiencing it first hand. These experiences have given me an idea for a website that, if successful, will make volunteerism a much easier and manageable task for not only would be volunteers like me, but for projects who are trying to find people as well (even here at the Wuzhi project). I have been spending a considerable amount of time writing up a project proposal that I will be submitting to Google's Project 10 to the 100th. If you have not heard about it, check it out here.

Many of you who read my blog on a regular basis have already seem some version of my project proposal. Thank you all for your feedback and input on the proposal. It is hard taking a step back and looking at my idea from an objective standpoint and you all have helped me in doing that, so again Thank You! I will be posting a blog with the final version of my proposal once it is finalised for all to see. With luck, my project will be chosen by Google as one of the 100 ideas that will be voted on by the public starting in January. I am hoping that with the exposure through Google's project, this website will become a reality and finally make it easy and fast for people to find volunteer projects and for projects to find the people that they need regardless if it is a domestic or international project. I am very excited by the possibilities of what this website has to offer volunteerism everywhere. The hard part will be convincing everyone else of what it can do and that is why I have been spending a lot of time trying to get my proposal just right.

It was bound to happen, and I suppose I am lucky that it happened now instead of earlier in my trip. My camera has died. I am sad to say that I will probably not be posting any more pictures from my time here in China. This is quite unfortunate since I will be traveling with Alan in Shanghai and Beijing. The great wall, the birds nest, the temple of heaven, the summer palace: all places that I will not have pictures of. Hopefully Alan and his mom will have a camera and I can take some shots that I can post after my return home. For now though, enjoy the last of the pictures:

China

Homebound Thoughts

I take very few showers here in this apartment. The water they use for the shower is solar heated, which is basically another way of saying it is cold water. I guess it is a very good way to conserve on energy, both in gas and in water because you rarely use any of either. I assume I am smelling pretty bad at the moment, but luckily I have a cold and cannot smell much of anything.

When last I blogged, I was not very sure about the place that I was staying in nor about the people that I am staying with. I am still not really sure about either, but I do know now that I will, most likely, be staying here for another month in Jiaozuo. Late in October I will travel to Shanghai and meet up with an old friend of mine, Alan and his mother. They will be on vacation for a about 3 weeks. I will stay with them and travel to Beijing with them as well. I am extremely excited to be meeting up with Alan. Prior to me leaving for this leg of my travels in February, I was trying to meet with as many of my friends and family as I could before I left. Alan was one of the people that I tried to connect with before I left, but was never able to. I am not sure how many years it has been since I have seen Alan, but it has been a very long time. It is nice that I will also be going to back to Beijing because there are many things that I intended on seeing when I was there, but never got the chance to. Being with Alan and his mom will also be a welcome change since they are people that I implicitly trust; I cannot say that about the people that I am living with now, unfortunately.

After my travels with Alan and his mother, I will be returning home for the holidays. I booked my flight and I will be returning to San Francisco International on November 14th. I cannot really explain what it feels like to know that I will be traveling home so soon. In a way, I do not really believe it. All this time that I have been away, I have been thinking about the day that I would return home and under what circumstances that would happen. My mind has run through countless scenarios about when, where, how and why this would happen. Pointless scenarios, yet that is what my mind does. So to now know the answers to those questions, it is almost as though my mind is just discounting these thoughts as mere possibilies of a return home and not the reality of actually coming home.

I do not know how long I will be home for. There are many ideas in my head for what I can do. I am just going to wait and see how I feel once I am home. There are to many what ifs that are still floating around for me to be able to know what is going to happen. My main goal will be to spend as much time as I can with my family and friends as possible. I want to see everyone and I am looking forward to being home for the holidays at the very least.

I am also very excited that by the time I get back everyone will know who the next President of the United States will be. I watched the first of the presidential debates today. This debate was much more tame then I remember the debates of Gore/Bush and Kerry/Bush being. Both candidates seemed to be very respectful towards one another, which took me by surprise. Since leaving in February, I have been very disconnected with the general feeling of the country on the elections. As I travel I have had many, many people ask me about who I thought was going to win and who I wanted to have win the election. I found it somewhat strange because this is not a conversation I am used to having in America. We in America seem to feel it is off limits to talk about politics unless you are very good friends with the person you are speaking to. It was nice to be able to have these conversations freely without worrying about offending anyone. Anyway, prior to me leaving I had no reservations in saying that Obama was going to wipe the floor with McCain. Although, it was hard to be able to say that as of late considering just how long I have been away and how disconnected I am with the feelings of other Americans. After watching the debates though, I feel I can state once again that I believe there is only a slight chance that McCain will be victorious. Obama is certainly the stronger candidate and the McCain campaign is not anywhere near the caliber of what the Bush campaigns were in 2000 and 2004. Next week will bring the debate between the vice president candidates which will be very interesting for me to watch. I have been very distant and disconnected from all the controversy surrounding Palin. I do not know very much about Biden either so it will be an educational experience for me to see the two duke it out. One more note on the elections: I can say that if McCain were to win the presidency, many people in many countries around the world will pretty much write off Americans as being naive, ignorant, and/or just plain stupid based off of many conversations that I have had with people about it. Many people in the countries that I have visited are still very confused about why the American people elected Bush into a second term and they are very afraid that we will elect McCain.

The other day I was walking through the streets of Jiaozuo trying to find some good things to take pictures of (there really are not that many I have found). While walking, this chinese girl comes up to me out of no where and starts talking to me in broken English saying she wants to be my friend. I said, okay. So now I have a friend here in Jiaozuo named Nana. We do not always understand each other because she has only taken 2 years of English, but we figure it out most of the time. She is a very nice person and has since taken me to her families house. Nana's mom cooked me a huge welcoming meal full for delicious food and I met her brother and her brother's friends who also speaks some English. They were very excited to see a foreigner, and of course, asked to take a picture with me. I am looking forward to spending some more time with my new friends in Jiaozuo. I trust them more than the people I am staying with.

Things with Yao and his girl friend are pretty much the same as when I got here. I am occasionally helping to teach English. When I am not teaching English...which is very often, I am reading and on the internet, of course. However, I have been spending a lot of time learning Taichi. I have been waking up at 5:30 in the morning and riding Yaos scooter a couple of miles to a square where a very nice 74 year old ex-doctor is teaching me Taichi. Then in the evening around 8:30 or so, I am learning from another Taichi master. Taichi is much more difficult then I every imagined it would be. When I was working for BART in Oakland, I used to watch the Chinese community come out in the early morning hours to do Taichi. It never looked all that hard when I used to watch. So it came as quite a surprise when I started just to do some "warm up" exercises the first day and was sweating and in pain just from stretches. Only after a few days though my body is feeling very good and I can tell that it has helped me out quite a bit. I feel like I am standing up straighter in general. Prior to me starting Taichi, my back was hurting a lot and felt very weak in general. After two days of Taichi my back stopped hurting and feels strong again. It is good stuff this Taichi and I hope to learn a fair amount of it prior to returning home. Hopefully I can continue with what I have already learned once I am back, and perhaps find a teacher near home where I can continue learning. I think, if it was not for the Taichi, I probably would not be staying here with Yao and his girlfriend as I do not feel like I am being very productive as a volunteer.

I have added some more pictures to my China album:

China

International Man of Mystery

I think I now know what it feels like to be a celebrity. Walking around in China everyone pays attention to me constantly. People stare, point, take pictures, whisper to eachother. It is an odd sensation to be the center of attention no matter where you go. Beijing was not all that bad. I ran into other white people every once in a while there. We would then stare at eachother like we too had never seen a white person before in our lives. For some reason, we would not speak to eachother just stare. Such an unusual social experience, China.

Now I am in a city named Jiaozuo. Every chinese person calls this a small city. To me there is nothing small about it. There are people everywhere. I have been told this is a city of 600,000 people. In relative terms, that is not that large. Fremont is a city of 210,000 people. I would say that there are about 50 times as many people on the streets of Jiaozuo then there are in Fremont. The proportions just do not make sense to me. It crossed my mind that it may feel like this simply because there are more people walking or on bikes or scooters here then there are in Fremont. I then looked at how many cars were on the road and there seemed to be more of them as well. The numbers just do not add up. This city feels more like it holds a couple million. Who knows what the truth is. Lets just say there are a lot of people where I am staying and they all stare at me. It is funny to see their faces as I pass by on a scooter; some of them seemed so shocked at what they are witnessing.

Yesterday I went on a tour of a couple of hospitals, an orphanage and an old folks home. Everywhere I went I was being treated like a VIP. Processions of people were following me everywhere. A young woman's only job seemed to be to take pictures of me as I walked around and was shown areas of one of the hospitals. I am not even really sure what I was doing in these areas. My only thought was that at some point I might be doing some volunteer work in these places at some point. The old folks home could really use some help. Even just to organize some people to come and spend time with the people who live there. They seem very estranged and bored. I tried to put forth ideas of organizing some days to come down and spend time with these people. Ideas that did not seem to sit very well with Yao, the person whose house I am staying with and the person that I was warned about before coming here.

It is still to early to tell exactly how things are going to go here at this "volunteer position". I hesitate to call it that at this point. I suppose I am volunteering my time, but so far the only volunteering I have done has been spent with two young boys on two separate occasions. Basically I speak with them and try to get them to use their English that they have already been taught. It helps them to hear a native speaker and it seems like they might enjoy it at times. I am still not exactly sure what else I am going to be able to do here other then that. It seems that Yao really wants me to teach english and only english. I am not sure what his intentions are and there are some communication difficulties. I ask a question and it does not seem like he understands what I am asking. Or perhaps he does understand it and he deflects it. It is very difficult to tell.

I have been able to determine that Yao cares a lot about this project and its future. He hopes to turn this project into a self-sufficient volunteer project that has enough money to operate and a constant flow of volunteers both from within and without China. At this point, I am the only volunteer in the project and I am living with Yao and his girlfriend. Yao is very intelligent and cares about the people here in China both young and old. I do get the feeling that there are things that he is not telling me about. However, I am not sure if that is because he does not know how to say them or because he fears what I may do with the knowledge. It is very clear to me that Yao wants me to stay for as long as possible. He goes out of his way to make sure that I have everything that I may want or need. Well, he makes his girlfriend go out of her way, anyhow. I do not like the way in which he treats his girlfriend at times. I am not sure if it is just cultural differences or if he just has a little domestic violence in him. From my point of view he treats her very poorly. He makes her do things which she does not really want to do. His girlfriend picked me up from the train station when I arrived here, come to find out that he basically forced her to come get me. Yao told me that he was the one who would be picking me up. Later that night, Yao and I were going to go out to dinner but his girlfriend did not wish to go along and wanted to stay home. I cannot speak Mandarin, but I understood that through his words he basically forced her into coming along. I do not like this behaviour, but I am not sure if this is the norm in Chinese culture. Actually, I am not even sure if I care if it is the norm or not. Even if it is normal in all of Chinese culture, I still feel like it is wrong and that Yao needs an attitude adjustment.

I am not sure if the people of China know what stars look like. It is so polluted in this country that you can never see the stars. I am spitting much more then usual in an attempt to get all the crap out of my mouth. It scares me to think that the pollution is only going to get worse here before it gets any better. I hesitate to think what worse will turn into. I never feel clean here. I am constantly thinking about the pollution and about how much pollution is in the food that I am eating or what kind of bugs might be in the water that was used to wash the vegetables that I am about to put in my mouth. Bottled water seems to be a norm though, which is great. I just hope that it is bottled in a part of china that is clean.

Toilets in this country are just plain odd. The traditional western style toilet is a rarity in public places. It seems as though people have them in their homes, but every public toilet I have been to has been a squat pot, as they are so lovingly called. These are basically holes in the ground. One step above a port-a-potty...they smell about the same though. Actually, port-a-pottys might even be better considering there is normally toilet paper in them. In America, before I left the house, I would check my pockets to make sure I had my keys, wallet, and cell phone; here it is wallet, keys, toilet paper. If you are caught out and about in China without toilet paper on you, things can turn ugly pretty quick. I am crossing my fingers that I do not get a stomach sickness while I am here in this country. I just cannot image what would happen if I am in some squat pot in the middle of no where without toilet paper when I need an entire roll, meanwhile a mob of people are waiting outside the bathroom to take my picture.

Here are some pictures from China and I also added some more pictures to the Germany album as well:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ddb123/China#
http://picasaweb.google.com/ddb123/Germany#

Oriental Warning

Since leaving the Christian community that I was volunteering at I have been in Düsseldorf, Germany. From here I will leave for China this coming Saturday. It is odd for me to think that in just a couple of days I will be in China. I have always wanted to go there and now I am doing it. For a long time I have been looking forward to the volunteer project, Wuzhi, that I will be going to on Wednesday next week, however, a few days ago a was sent a message warning me about the project. Here is what I was sent about the project:

Hi there,

I found your blog while searching the web for info on
the Wuzhi Experiment. My purpose was to find people
like you, that plan to join the project. I do it for
two reasons: I want to warn those people, and - I
admit it - I want to take sort of revenge on Mr Yao,
the manager of the project.

The project was originally located in Wuzhi, which is a
small city near Jiaozuo. I've joined it in January,
after spending 2 months in China and having no
concrete plans for the future. I declared to stay
about one year if only situation let me so; I needed
to find some part-time job to cover my living expenses
and the cost of my visa.

Now, the first problem of the project was that it was
much less developed than it seemed from the website.
Actually I met only 2 employers (manager Mr Yao, and
an English teacher), no foreigners, no social work.
But it was ok for me; I thought I could do some good
by helping guys develop the project. You probably know
by now, that they plan to fund the project with English
teaching. Well, since January they've been trying to
start a school, but failed eventually. And without
funds, project can't work (it needs money for
employers, renting fees, utility bills, etc.). The
failure was, as I believe, the fault of the lack of
cooperation between Mr Yao and the main creator and
sponsor of the project. It doesn't matter whose fault
it was. What matters is that since June the project
was managed practically only by Mr Yao, and he became
also a sponsor. We decided to move to Jiaozuo, and
that's when the problems started to occur... actually
there were problems on the way all the time, but this
time the problems were quite serious.

But first, about the period between January and June.
We had not much money to do anything. Well, we could
do SOME kind of helping, at least teach English free
of charge, but for some reason (maybe lack of
experience, or terrible problems you encounter in
China, when you try to help others) we almost didn't
do anything. There were some free classes in public
schools and nothing else. In that time there were
several foreigners that came here to volunteer and
left disappointed after a few days, because of lack of
volunteering work. All that time I had a part-time job
in Jiaozuo, in a small private school (from now on
I'll call it Qi Se Guang, which literally means
'7-colour rainbow'), which let me make the living.

After the crisis in June I proposed to quit my job at
Qi Se Guang, and find another, better paid teaching
position in the city, to fund the project. Mr Yao
didn't approve it; he wanted to cooperate with QSG,
which also has a programme at the local TV station.
So, we stayed with QSG. About one month later Mr Yao
changed his mind; he found someone willing to sponsor
a new school. They decided to open it together. That
man promised to give his 50% of the income to the
charity, which was a great thing. There was just one
problem - they wanted to open the school from August,
and I happened to be the one to work there. To do it,
I'd have to quit my job in QSG immediately. QSG had
two kinds of courses: all-year and a summer one. The
summer one was to be finished by the middle of August.
QSG asked me to stay one more month before quitting my
job. Sounds reasonably, doesn't it? Well, not to Mr
Yao and his new associate. They demanded me to stop
working in QSG from the beginning of August. They
didn't care that much about me working at their new
school, as about me NOT teaching in QSG anymore. The
reason why they did so, were students. QSG didn't
provide English training before they hired me. From
March to August they've been promoting the new course
and gathering more and more students, which actually
appeared quite a difficult task. If I had quit my job
at QSG in the beginning of August, QSG would have lost
the students. And then Mr Yao would propose the
students learning at his school. If not from me, than
from some other foreign volunteer he would be able to
find.

It happened so, that I made some good friends in QSG,
and I found the way Mr Yao wanted to split with them
very harmful;QSG would have lost good reputation.
That's why I didn't agree to work for Mr Yao anymore.
After less than two weeks, and some stressful events,
which I choose not to tell you about, the Public
Security Bureau (police for foreigners) officers came
into my classroom in QSG. This is how my teaching at
QSG ended. Oops, I probably forgot to tell you I had
no working visa. Well, I will write later why I hadn't
got it. So, Mr Yao had been calling police every day
and telling them about my illegal working at QSG.
Police (as almost everywhere in China) didn't want to
deal with such a case, but eventually got tired with
Mr Yao calling everyday and decided to intervene. From
the 15th of August I've been waiting in Jiaozuo for
their final decision. PSB officers in that time were
interrogating both Mr Yao and QSG owner. Finally they
decided to charge QSG with a penalty fee (actually
it's more money that they earned from that English
course) and not to punish Mr Yao in any way. This
decision came up today. I was asked to leave China,
and not to work illegally here anymore. In fact, I may
not comply, and they wouldn't be able to tell, but now
I feel simply tired with China, Chinese mentality and
this whole mess and I want to leave. My plane is on
the 7th of September.

Relations between me and Mr Yao.
He helped me a lot. In the January I told him that if I
could find some job in Wuzhi and buy myself a new visa
(my current one was about to expire), then I would've
gladly come to Wuzhi to help him with his project. I
had other option - stay in Guangdong and work for 5k
per month, but I preferred the Wuzhi Experiment. So,
Yao helped me with finding a job, he lent me money for
the visa and daily needs. And he helped me in many
other ways over past months. I owe him, and I know it.
What Mr Yao apparently forgot, I helped him as well, by
staying in Wuzhi for so long, which in fact was a great
waste of time and our potential. Mr Yao felt very upset
when I told him I consider not teaching in his new
school he was going to open in Jiaozuo. He also hated
QSG for a couple of reasons (like not appreciating his
work). Furhtermore, he wanted to take the students from
QSG over to his new school. That's why he told on me.
Actually, I believe he also tried to call the HongKong
border port when I went there around the 7th of August,
but he was misled by a thought, that border port would
trust his words.

About Mr Yao.
I think you saw his profile on CS. 'castlelay' is his
profile name. Yao is a young man, seems friendly. Also
very opened and sincere, but it's superficial. In fact,
he lies every day. I saw him doing it many times,
although he stayed relatively honest with me, at least
till the time I told him I didn't want to work for him
anymore. In July I got to know, that Mr Yao was going
to withhold the truthe about his project from people
interested in volunteering there. In his opinion he is
fair providing martial arts training, Chinese language
tuition, and others, in exchange for English teaching.
He wants to develop the social part of the project, but
it will take time, and actually after last six months,
I just don't believe he can organise any serious
helping. So, everyone that comes here to help others,
may be strongly disappointed.
Another lie Mr Yao probably told you, is the one about
getting a working visa. To obtain a Z-type visa you
need to find a big company, because only such ones are
eligible for hiring foreingers. I'm afraid there is no
English training school in Jiaozuo that would be able
to do it. Yao can get you a Z-type visa... from
Jiaozuo University :) Because one month ago he bribed
someone from there (for which purpose I had to give
him some of the money I earned in QSG, thus leaving me
almost without any money) and that person is willing to
help him with obtaining a working visa. There are two
problems. Firstly, you'll have to probably work that
visa off teaching English for free in some public
school in Jiaozuo. Secondly, that visa will enable you
to work for the Jiaozuo University, and none other
school. Hence, this kind of visa won't cover your work
at Mr Yao's school. As PSB officers told me, a
foreinger needs a Z-type visa for any kind of work,
even volunteering. You may think it's not that much of
a problem; there are many people in China working
illegally, and police doesn't do anything. But this
case is different, because Mr Yao has now enemies in
QSG. They know he is going to open a school and they
know he already has, or will have soon a foreign
teacher (actually it may be you). They're just waiting
for the moment he takes money from the students to call
the PSB and then he and the foreign teacher will have
same problems, as QSG and me in past three weeks.
All this lying Mr Yao does for the good sake of his
project; he believes, that only in this way he can
develop it, just as he believed that telling police
about my illegal work was a necessary thing to do to
protect the project :-/

It will be better for you to not to work in any way
with Mr Yao. Mind your own safety.

Sorry for such a long message.

Take care,

fijau

This is concerning to me, yet I do not want to rush into making any judgements about what is going on until I actually get to the volunteer site. Afterall, if things are bad there, I can always just leave and go somewhere else. I am not sure where I would go or what I would do, but I will cross that road if and when I need to.

I suppose I just need to go into this volunteer project with an open mind and have no expectations of what it should be like and instead take it for what it is. Ever since reading about this place for the first time a couple of months ago I have been very excited by the idea. After speaking extensively with Yao, I did get the feeling that perhaps things were not as I had pictured them in my head. That is all okay though. I do not mind if the project is just getting off the ground and they are having difficulties. That is to be expected with things such as this. What does bother me is the thought that the people I will be working with may be misleading and untruthful. If this is the case I doubt I will be able to stay there for very long. I do not get along with liars and I do not think I will want to stay and give my time to a project that may be misleading and untruthful even if it is for a seemingly good cause. Yao seems to be very commited to this project, but if that means taking actions that I consider to be unethical and immoral then I will not stay at this project.

I am looking forward to being in Beijing. I am going to be staying with a native couchsurfer who speaks English. The day that I fly into China just happens to be the annual festival of lights. Apparently a lot of Chinese people will be coming to Beijing to celebrate so I might see some interesting things and perhaps take some good pictures. I am excited for Beijing in general. I hope to see of the buildings that were created for the Olympics. I will be flying into the 14 million square foot airport which apparently is the largest building on the planet. I will only have a few days in Beijing before I head south to the place where the Wuzhi project is located. It is not that far away from Beijing, however, so if I choose to I can always go back if there are still more things that I wish to do and see.

The Tribal Life

Things have been quite busy for me here at the workcamp in Germany and I have been meaning to write blogs while here. I have had so little time to write and so much to write about that it has been difficult to post anything. So then, read at your own risk because this is quite a long blog with many thoughts spread over many days that make up the whole of this blog. I also cannot spell check this either so there may be many more mistakes than usual.

This place is basically a large home consisting of a couple of large buildings and smaller caravans for many different families and individuals who have decided to give up a traditional western lifestyle for a life that is more tribal in nature. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come and stay here in the community, but those that do come need to contribute to the society here. Contributing consists of many different activities, but mainly it means helping out with whatever work that needs to be done within the community, e.g.: cooking, cleaning, toy production and the construction, or rather, renovation of the community houses. Like I said, everyone who comes here is welcome, however, it is a Christian community and was started by a pastor in the 1970s who felt that his message of Jesus and God was not getting through to his church members and felt that in order to better serve and teach the work of Jesus and the bible that people had to live a life where everything is shared.

Today the people of this community do share everything they have with those that are here which includes their food, shelter, time, energy and money. There is a core group of people that run things here and make the greater decisions for the rest of the community. These people are members. Not everyone here is a member and only those that are of the Christian faith are allowed to become members. From what I understand, the only two differences between a person who lives here in the community and a person who is a member is: members give everything they own to the community and have made a vow to themselves and god that they will stay here for the rest of their lives (although this vow has been broken by members in the past). Becoming a member then allows you a vote when the community needs to make a decision about something. Overall though, the main thing that guides them is the bible and their faith, it seems. Not even the children that are born here and grow up here are members. The children that live here go to public school and are made to leave the community once they become a certain age to give them the experience of living outside of the shared lifestyle. Of course, should they choose to come back after a time, they are certainly welcomed back as part of the community. In order to become a member the entire group of existing members must vote unanimously to allow you to join. If one person does not feel like you should be allowed to be a member then you would be denied, however, that does not mean that you are not allowed to live here. From what I understand, you could live your whole life here in the community without becoming a member and everyone is okay with that.

Years ago when the community was first established, money was made for the community through "normal" jobs that the members still had working in the western world. This money was used for everyone in what was the community at the time. However, after a while, more and more people started coming to the community to live. People came that needed constant attention because they were drug addicts or alcoholics or who had just gotten out of prison and had no where to go. Over the years, more and more of the community members left their normal jobs and started staying full time as people within the community taking care of eachother. Alas, the money needed to come from somewhere so the members started thinking of things they could do in order to sustain their livelyhood. They wanted to do work that was easy for everyone to participate in regardless of their background, eductation and skill level so that all the community could help with the work. It was important to them they did work that did not harm the environment and used local natural sustainable resources. It was also very important that their work was helping not only the community but the rest of the world around them as well. It was with these thoughts in mind that the community members decided that they would construct wooden toys for schoolage children. It started out as a small experiement developing hand carved toys for sale. Today they have a large woodshop factory here next to the building I am in right now which produces and supplies wooden products to over 2500 schools within Germany.

Most of my time here in the community is spent on the renovation of one of the houses here on the grounds. This is a building where families once lived and will live once more when the work is completed. The 3 people overseeing the work within the building plan to have the work finished before December in hopes that the community population that is living in caravans currently will have a much more warm and comfortable place to live for the winter time. Work in this house consists of: taking what is called "tapetta" off of the walls in the house, which is basically a thicker form of wall paper, installing wooden beams on the interior and exterior walls, installing insulation on the interior and exterior walls, and installing bamboo on the the walls of the house. There was also a lot of lifting and moving and cleaning jobs in the first week of work here. It is now my thrid week here and I am mainly working on putting up bamboo which is a rather tiresome task. In order to do the job right would take a very very long time, but I there is no time to waste.

Work for everyone in the community starts at 7:30 in the morning Monday thru Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are free days for most people. I thought waking up in the early hours of the morning was going to be much more difficult for me then it is. I allow myself plenty of time in the morning so that I do not need to rush by waking up at 6:00. I make myself breakfast (some "hafer floken", which is oat meal), then I prepare coffee, tea and bread for the other volunteers since I am always the first to wake up. This seems to work out better for me compared to my other volunteer members because I am always ready to work at 7:30, but some of them have problems in the morning as they try to sleep in as long as they can and then rush to eat and get ready. Mostly, they are late and make us all look bad and lazy. Despite some of the problems with tardiness, I really enjoy all of the other volunteer participants in this workcamp. We have a wide range of people from many different countries, but they all speak English, which is great for me. They are all very nice people and we seem to all get along very well.

The people in the community, on the other hand, do not all speak English. Most of them understand a little bit of English, but not much. There are a few whom I can converse with where we can both understand eachother most of the time. The lack of communication does seem to make things difficult as it is hard for me to integrate into their community and I feel like an outsider all the time. I guess this is something I need to get used to considering I am going to be heading to China where I will not only have a communication problem, but I will be an obvious outsider based on my looks alone. Despite our communication difficulties, the people here are very nice and welcoming.

The entire community is very time oriented. There is a schedule of what is going to happen, when and they stick to it. Like I said, work promptly begins at 7:30, then there is a break at 9:45 for some tea and bread which lasts until 10:00 (for us workcampers is seems to last until 10:10 most days). Work then continues until 12:00 when lunch begins then there is a break directly after lunch which lasts until 2:00. I was unaware of this break the first day we started work and went out to continue the job I was working on. It did not take me long to realise that I had missed something, but I continued working anyway only to find that people were looking at me like I am crazy. There has been a few times when I have been working on projects that I wanted to do just a little bit more of or maybe finish before I left for a break and it almost seems to upset some of the people here that I am working during a break. This was a shock to me because the general feeling I have experienced in my work back home with regards to breaks is that I should not be taking any in the first place. At home when I take a break I feel like I am doing something wrong and I feel like my bosses are wondering why I am not working. Here it is completely different; there is something wrong with me if I do not stop at exactly 3:30 when there is another break until 4:00 or at 5:00 in the evening when work is over for the day. They live very close to the clock and a change from the schedule is an insult to them, it seems.

All of the breaks in work are filled with eating. When you are not working you are eating. Thankfully most of the food that is made here seems to be fairly healthy, but some of the food that we have had at dinner time has not been all that great for my body. I have eaten more cheese in the last week then I have compared to all the time that I spent in the UK. I suppose it is good there is so much food because we are expending a lot of energy during the day with all of our work and without all of that food it would probably be much more difficult.

The people here have chosen a life much different from that of their western world peers. They have chosen it willingly and with a lot of thought. I wish to understand what has brought each and every one of the people here to this community. I think what they are doing here is fantastic. They live a life here without violence and greed. The area gives off an auroa of safety, comfort and security. Even from the very first day I arrived here I felt very comfortable and safe. I did not and do not feel a need to lock up my belongings. Any of them could easily rob me blind, but I know that that will not happen. It is like one big family here. They are all very kind and respectful. The arts are very prevalent in the community, especially music and song. It seems that everyone here sings. I walk around and all I hear are people humming or singing. A lot of people here play the guitar. There are also drums and flutes and pianos. Twice now there have been community dancing nights which everyone is invited to. In short, their lives seemed to be centered around eachother, family and christianity.

The people here in the community look at the western world and feel that there is something wrong with our way of life. They believe that they have found a better way, and I tend to agree with them. I feel that they are certainly on to something very good and important here. To me it seems to be a return to our roots when people lived in small units consisting of many families. Perhaps it is just bred into us that this is how it has been done for centuries and this is where we feel right and proper. Somehow the industrialization of the world has ripped us apart from what makes us human and we have become so transfixed with the accusition of money, things, wealth and power that we have forgotten what really matters. Seeing these people and how they live gives me hope for the future of mankind in general. These people know nothing of greed. The things they do in their lives is for the good of all the people around them, not just for themselves. However, they would not be here if not for their religion and their complete devotion to God and Jesus; for me, this is a little worrisome. It is sad for me to think that the only reason most, if not all, of the people that choose to come to this community do so because they feel it is what God wants them to do. If these were non-religious people they would not be here nor would the community exist. I cannot help but wonder what types of lives these people would be leading today if they had no religion. I would like to think that the people here would have found a way to live a life like they are doing here, but I do not think that would be the case. I feel that they would still be living a traditional western life-style...although I could be wrong and I hope that I am.

Christianity is the main driving force of this community. When there is a question to be answered the people pray until they are given and answer by God and Jesus. What ever answer they are given by their faith is the answer that they go with. This form of problem solving worries me. To me it means that it is not up to me as the individual making a choice and solving a problem, it is up to God or Jesus. When a choice is made and things are done, they are not the decisions made by a people or person but rather by God and Jesus. I feel this is a disconnect from responsibility for ones actions. Like so many other people in this world who make decisions and take actions not in their own name but in the name of their religion this community does the same. Their actions are not their own, but of their faith and their religion, therefore it is much more easy for the mind to justify immoral or unethical social behavior. Thankfully there are no suicide bombers here in this community that I have seen, but their line of thought is a cut off the same block I am afraid.

I find it especially interesting to speak with the youth of this community. Not just because most of them speak better English then their parents, but to see their views on the western world and the state of our society as a whole. They never grew up in a traditional western household so they have a unique position to be able to view us objectively. They look at us and cannot understand why we live like we do. Why we choose to disregard our fellow man and live a life of selfishness and isolation. The youth feel very privliged to have been born and raised here. If you ask them whether they wish they were born into a traditional western family they all say no. All except one of them, apparently. I have yet to speak with the person about it, but apparently one of the children resents being born here. I am very eager to speak with him about it and obtain his views on this community. I hope to be able to do so before I leave.

I feel like the way people live their lives here is a step in the right direction for the people of the western world, however, there are some things that I do not feel are right here in the community. Mainly the problems revolve around the youth of the community. I was very surprized and pleased to find that the children here are not home schooled, but are sent to public school. School is about the only time they have away from the community though. The children here are only allowed to leave the community for 2 weeks out of the year. One girl in particular here has friends in the south of Germany that she rarely ever gets to see because she cannot leave. To me this seems a bit to much. I understand that work needs to be done within the community, but to only give your children 2 weeks out of the year to be away from the same thing day in and day out just seems a little to restrictive. There is also a rule that no child is allowed to date which basically means that if you are a child that lives here and you have yet to finish with school and leave the community you are not allowed to have a relationship with any other child. To me this rule represents a fatal flaw in the thinking of the community as a whole. The rule was made after a young couple within the community accidentally got pregnant. Due to this incident it was then decided that no child within the community shall be allowed to date until they leave, period. First of all, I do not believe it is a good idea for any parent to make a rule that is impossible to enforce and seeing as how the children are away from the community most of the day during school time this rule becomes impossible to enforce. Secondly, I believe it to be extremely important for children to learn and explore relationships especially once they are around highschool age. There are important life lessons to be learned with regards to relationships and I feel the sooner these lessons are learned the better of the person will be. Children here do not have the opportunity to learn those lessons until they leave the community.

It is now my final week here in the community. Most of the volunteers have already left. I will be leaving this weekend to go somewhere else in Germany before heading to China the following weekend. It has been a different experience living here without the other volunteers. Before there was always something to do and something going on after the work of the day; now there is nothing going on in the evening most of the time. In a way it is good because I then have time to write this blog which I started two weeks ago but have not had a chance to finish. I do miss the other volunteers though and there are times when I wish that they were still here.

Overall this community is a very pleasant and interesting place to be and live. I could not see myself living here in this particular community, however, I can see myself living in a place very similar to it.

Germany Pictures

Here are some pictures of me that some of the other volunteers took. I think they explain fairly well what has been keeping me occupied during the workcamp in Germany:

Germany

I am still working on a blog that describes life here at the workcamp. It is a long blog, but I hope to have it completed soon.

Paris Pictures

Here are some pictures from Paris:

Paris

Fast Plane to China

For quite a long while now there has been this looming question in my mind: When and under what circumstances will I be able to enter into China?

China has always been a place that I have wanted to travel to ever since I was very young. So, in a way, a trip to China has been a long time coming. I felt very disheartened that it seemed like I was going to need to travel back to America in order to obtain a tourist visa in order to get into China. After a lot of phone calls, questions, bookings and aimless wanderings through the streets of London in search for a way to get a Chinese visa, I am happy to say that I have secured it, finally. In fact, I will have more time in China then I thought I was going to be allowed. I have a double entry visa, meaning I can enter into China twice between now and February. Each time I enter the mainland of China I will have 60 days to visit. In other words, I have a visa that is good for 4 months of time in China since all I need to do is go to Hong Kong and then turn right around and come straight back. This is quite exciting, considering I thought the best I was going to be able to pull off (if I was going to be able to get a visa in the first place) was a 1 month stay. So this is a wonderful turn of events and I am quite excited about it. On top of that, since I already had to book flights into and out of China in order to secure a visa, I do not have to now worry and contemplate making travel arrangements.

I am certainly going to use the flight that I already booked to get into China, however, the flight that I booked leaving China I will most likely need to cancel or change. Thankfully, I found a carrier that will refund my ticket completely upon cancellation. If I end up changing to a different flight, if that flight happens to be more expensive than the first booking, then I will only need to pay the difference in the cost. The flight in question is from Hong Kong to Japan. I do want to see Japan at some point, but I will probably not head there on the day that I happened to book.

On September 13th I will be flying to Beijing. The instructions for turning in an application for a Chinese visa was very specific and stated that I needed to provide "flight" details in and out of China. I did not want to leave any chance of having my application rejected so I booked flights instead of booking a train ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway like I had always intended. This has certainly made things easier, but I am a bit disappointed I will not be able to experience the train. I am quite relieved though that I do not need to deal with obtaining a Russian visa as well. From what I have read and heard, those visas are even more difficult to obtain and are much more restrictive then Chinese visas. My first thought about how I would leave China involved me on a ferry to Japan. I was quite excited by this prospect, but again did not want to stray from the very precise directions of the visa application instructions. Also, there was no way for me to prove that I had reservations on a ferry leaving China with most companies I found.

Being in Beijing so soon after the conclusion of the 2008 Olympics will be an interesting experience. I think I am going to spend a few nights in Beijing so that I may check things out. I want to see some of the buildings that were constructed for the Olympics and just explore around in general. I was made to book a hotel stay for the purpose of getting a visa. It was not difficult finding a relatively cheap hotel in Beijing, however, I am thinking that it will probably be more of an experience to my liking if I stayed in a hostel rather than a hotel. I am still contemplating and considering this. In either case, I should not be out any money because my hotel reservations are fully refundable as well. After a few days in Beijing I will be headed straight for Jiaozhou where the volunteer project is located that I am interested in.

I have been communicating back and forth with one of the main people at the volunteer site over the past several weeks. It seems that once I am in the country on a tourist visa, it should not be very difficult to get me set up with a work visa. In which case, I could be in China for much longer than 4 months if I choose to do so. Then again, there are also some very inexpensive flights from China, Thailand, Japan to Australia or New Zealand. Who knows what the future holds. I am quite excited for my trip to China though.

Passion Purpose and Meaning

A week from tomorrow I will be getting a on train in London heading for Paris. Life, again, is about to change. I have grown accustomed to life here at my cousin's in Seaton, England. Things here are quiet (except for the occasional pigeon that will not stop hooting), safe, and relaxing. Well, it is a relaxing environment anyway. My mind is rarely ever relaxed.

Being able to come and live in a new place for as long as I have has been a wonderful experience. I have been able to participate in things that I never dreamed I would be able to partake in. I have invested a lot of time into making Jerry and Charlotte's house function better and I hope to one day be able to look at the finished product of their home and all the projects that have started or will be starting someday soon. Working very closely with Jerry on his test which he has such a passion for has been a rewarding undertaking. The test is coming along quite nicely I feel and I am excited to see what the future of the test will bring. All of my numerous stays in London have been great. I find that London can be a great place to just walk around in; even if there is nothing you intend to do, walking London you see so many things and many different faces (most of them international). The last time I was in London I must have been giving off an impression that I live there because many people kept stopping and asking me how to get to this place or that. Amazingly, I knew exactly what they were talking about and how they should get there. I felt as though I was back home working in a police uniform once more. It was at that point I think I realized that I had been here in this country for to long and that perhaps I have overstayed my welcome.

When I first arrived here in the UK, I had no intention to stay as long as I have. I figured I would be here at the most 2 months. After leaving to go on a tour of Scotland and Ireland I made the connection that something was wrong and I was not doing what I wanted to be doing. Yes, I was traveling; yes I was seeing and doing things that I had never done before, but I was not happy doing it. I felt lost, confused and alone with no answers and no escape. The prospect of coming back to Seaton sounded better and better every day that went by when I was up north. And so I returned to my cousins and to the projects that I had left uncompleted. I can now leave Seaton feeling somewhat satisfied with the amount of things I have gotten done in my time here.

Besides the last few days, emotionally, I feel have made progress in the recent past. I think I am on the right track to something good...not really sure what that good thing is. I am currently in Seaton by myself. Jerry is down in London. The day that he left things fell apart in my head. It has been a rough few days. I keep thinking about how I felt when I was traveling in Scotland and primarily Ireland. I cannot help this feeling of dread that I will experience the same thing again once I leave here on my way to Paris. I would like to think that things will be different this time around; that I am more prepared or something like that. I don't know...I suppose we will see what happens. Certainly this time will be different because I am heading to Germany where I will volunteer for 2 weeks. After that, things are still up in the air regarding where I will go next, but I am dedicated to getting to China. I will be applying for a tourist visa for entry into China this Tuesday. Fingers crossed, Wednesday I will have a visa in hand. In which case I will be flying into China on September 13th.

One of things that I have come to understand is that I feel as though I have no purpose in life at the moment. I have no reason for being here, and by here I mean life in general. I think this is one of the contributing factors to why I felt as I did when I was traveling Scotland and Ireland and why I feel like I do now. There has only been two times in my life that I can say that I truly felt like I had purpose and reason for being here. First was police explorers and second was Irene. Being here in Seaton has allowed me to feed off of my cousin's purpose. His passion has fueled my drive, but it is not my passion, my reason, my purpose. Now that drive has ended and my brain is again left to ponder the future and the big IF that has been on my mind for a long time now. Will I ever again find that thing that gives me my own fuel, my own passion, my own purpose? I suppose if I had no fear of not finding it then it would not really matter if I find it or not. I do carry that fear, however.

In other news, one of my credit card numbers was stolen and used for purchases in Florida. It is a good thing I caught this now because it is much easier for me to deal with this stuff while I have a base to work from rather than dealing with it on the road in hostels or internet cafes. It is much better to make phone calls to America when I do not have to worry about how much time I have left before I get kicked off the computer. My bank has cancelled my card and has issued me a new one, but cannot send it overseas. Thankfully, my parents are being kind enough to help as the middlemen in the transaction of getting me my new card. The only problem is: I do have another credit/debit card that I can use to get money, although I have not tried it here in the UK. I am also not 100% sure I remember the pin number. It might just so happen that I will have no money except for what is on me until I get to Germany. Amazingly, this is not stressing me out. In fact I am somewhat indifferent to it all. I know that it will all work out somehow or another. If only I had that same feeling when it came to my travels in general...or more importantly, my life.

It is upsetting to me that I am missing out on so much in my friends and families lives. I am missing getting to see my nephew and niece grow up and change. I just hope that when I do return I will be able to cultivate strong meaningful relationships with them even though I have been absent from their lives. I am missing out on friends and family members weddings. Today is my friend Jonathan's wedding day. I already missed my cousin V's wedding. I am glad I got to see pictures from it though. It looks like it was a wonderful day and I was sad to have missed it. Missing important events like this causes conflict in me, but I guess not enough to get me to come home though. It now looks as though I will miss the birth of the next child to be christened a Burgess come September. I have missed both the birth of Daniel and Laela which I now look back and wish I had the foresight to have made a better decision with regards to being there.

Change

My time in the UK is coming to an end. My 6 month tourist visa expires at the end of August. It is now time for me to set my sights on what I will be doing in the future and where I will be going.

I find myself in a realm of constant fear and doubt. I wake up every morning and the first conscious thought that comes to mind evokes a feeling of deep rooted fear. My stomach tightens and churns, my heart rate quickens and I take a deep breath to try and ward it off. Though I cannot say for sure what it is that I fear, I can make guesses and say that it is my future or my health or death. Perhaps I fear that there will never again be a time when I wake up with a clear and fresh mind; a mind that has no worries and can live life in the moment.

Living life in the moment. Living for the here and the now. This is something that I cannot remember ever doing. I am always thinking about the future and what I need to do now to make myself happy later and in doing so, ruin the now. I can see this conundrum yet I do not know how to fix it. I can barely remember a time when I did not think and live like this. In fact, I am not even sure there was a time when I was not constantly thinking about the future and what it holds for me. Certainly every day of school was a daily means of torture in the now so that perhaps sometime in the future when I had a good job and a house and a family then I could start living life happily on a daily basis in the moment. It is hard to say what I thought, or rather, how I thought, prior to elementary school.

How do I go about thinking and living my life in a way that I have never experienced or known before? As long as I can remember everything I do in the now is a means to an end, but never the end itself. I want to live a life with purpose and meaning. I want to live life with a reason for being. I want purpose in the here and now. I cannot stand living out my days in fear, suffering and depression with only a slight glimmer of lighted hope off in the distance that perhaps some day I will figure all of this shit out and be at peace within. It seems as though the more time that passes and the more thought I give it the more that light dims. A fundamental change within seems like the only course of action. Yet at the same time I am afraid of doing so.

I fear that in change I will lose everything that I have and know. I fear the loss of my friends and family. I fear the loss of me and my identity. In essence, I fear that by changing how and what I think I will lose everything that is important and good in my life. It then becomes this never-ending struggle in my head of needing to change but not wanting to at the same time.

This trip is all about change. One reason I left home was to distance myself from all that I know so that change would be an easier task to accomplish. Yet here I am at my cousins in a place that feels safe and comforting doing things that feel helpful and noble feeling as though I am stuck.

And so, again I look towards the future and to the next spot on the map where my feet will fall. I now know that it will be Paris next. I will be there for a few days starting on the 10th of August. Then it is on to Germany where on the 16th I will start a volunteer workcamp helping a communal village; doing what, I am not exactly sure. After that, I am leaving my itinerary open with only one exception.

There is a volunteer place in China that I have found that is quite exciting for me. In my search for a volunteer experience I have been looking for something exactly like this. The place is called The Wuzhi Experiment and here is the website. Given the opportunity, I would leave straight from the Germany after this upcoming volunteer position is completed for Wuzhi. However, due to the Olympic Games, it does not seem like I can get a visa for any duration of stay in China at this point. I find this quite odd because I would have thought the Chinese government would have made it easier for people to get into their country rather than more difficult. Alas, last April China implemented policy changes to the issuance of visas making it much more difficult for everyone to enter into China for any reason.

I have had the thought that I could come home after Germany and then leave for China once the visa restrictions are lifted in October after the Games are over. I would love to see everyone as I have been looking forward to it since I left in February. I do now know what will happen though. I can stay in mainland Europe for 90 days without a visa which could carry me all the way into the first week of November. There is also no assurance that the Chinese government will in fact lift the visa policy changes that were made in April after the Games have concluded.

Forced Inspiration

From Pictures of Me

My hair is getting pretty long.

I feel that it is time that I write something even though I have not really had the inspiration to write anything. I thought that years from now when I reread these blogs, I do not want to have to guess about what I must have been doing during this period when I was not writing anything.

I am back in Seaton, England at my cousins house once more. I have been spending much of my time here helping my cousin develop his test which I have mentioned on my blog before. It is exciting to have come so far in the development, yet there is still so much more to do. Lately I have been working on a parallel version of the test which basically entails making a whole new test that is assessing exactly the same things as the first test. A second version of the test is highly useful when it comes to testing people a second time because it will maximize the possibly that the only reason a patient is performing better on the test is because they are actually getting better and not just because they have already taken the test once or twice before and have learned it (although that would be a good thing for a brain injured patient).

When I am not working on the test I am typically thinking about my future and what my life holds for me after my time here in England. My UK VISA expires in late August. So one way or another, I am going to be leaving here come late August. I have been spending a lot of time contemplating where it is that I will go and what I will do when I get there. Home has been a huge consideration, but it does not feel right. Besides, I have no clue what I would do what when I got there. One thing that I have not really done very much of on this journey so far is volunteer. That was one of my major goals before leaving. I did some volunteering for a short period of time when I was in Mexico, but I did not feel like I was contributing very much. At that time I was just concentrating on coming back home after being glad to be alive after the sailing debacle. Anyway, one thing that I have been doing is trying to find a semi full time, medium term to long term volunteer position that sounds right for me. Not exactly the easiest of tasks. I have found that there are a lot of websites designed to help people just like me. Most of these sites (like to many things in this world) are all about making money and nothing else. They act as middle men to hook up volunteers with places that are looking for volunteers. You then end up paying them, the middle men, thousands of dollars to come and do some volunteer work which does not include the price of travel to the volunteer destination. Who knows how much of that money goes to the volunteer program or community and how much stays in their pocket. These people are providing a service though, so I guess it is only fair that they get paid for their service. I think I am still a little bitter about the prospect of having to pay money to volunteer my time. Or perhaps I am just cheap, like my father says. In any case, I am weary of these sites and how they try their best to sell these programs that sound shady in some respects.

Now then, having said all that; there are lots of possibilities of where I can go and what I can do provided I fork out some dough. Lately my focus has been looking for volunteer positions in China and the surrounding area like Thailand and Japan. There are some interesting programs I am currently considering, but I have not made any definitive decisions as of yet. Stay tuned as I will certainly write a blog when I know for sure where I am going and what I am doing.

I have also added a couple of random pictures to my England Album; have a look:

England

Between White and Black

I do not know what happens when we die (and by we I mean any living animal). It does seem to me that the brain, and what we here in western civilization call the soul, are coherently linked. When our brains are changed either by injury, drugs or other external source so is our personality and in turn who we are changes; our soul is affected. Thoughts, feelings and actions that never would have occurred before the change now do occur because of how the brain has been changed.

So then, when my brain ceases to get enough oxygen for the cells to survive what then happens to what we call the soul? What happens to what I know to be "me"? My memories, my feelings my emotions, my thoughts...do they all move on into another form? Are they preserved somewhere? They were preserved in my brain (or maybe they were just the product of my brain), but now that brain is dead and nothing survives in it. Will my energy, chi, life force, soul or whatever you wish to call it survive the disconnection from the brain in which it has been housed and developed? If my soul does survive do my memories carry over as well? After all, I would surely cease to be who I am if I were to lose my memories and experiences, right? Death is an unknown to me and therefore I fear it. It brings a great amount of sadness to me thinking about everyone I know ceasing to exist. Everything they were, are and ever will be stopping in a single instant never to return.

Prior to me leaving on my travels I feared that death would come to someone close to me and Joey did cross my mind in those thoughts. Now it seems this fear may come true. Our family cat, Joey, is unhealthy and is dieing.

Joey is around 14 years old; near the average age for an indoor cat to live to. Joey lives his life primarily outdoors coming in only when he is hungry, cold or wants to be sit on someones lap to be pet. The average life expectancy of an outdoor cat is significantly lower then an indoor cat because cats that spend a lot of time outside have to dodge traffic, humans, other cats and disease. Joey has had his cat fights in the past and one of them nearly killed him. In this case, Joey's kidneys are failing him. I do not expect he will live much longer. One way or the other it seems he will die shortly.

The thought of having another animal "put down" is one of conflict for me. It reminds me of having to kill my dog Charlie; something I still have conflict with even today. Watching my dog cease to be was extremely hard for me and to know that it was us that were doing the killing. We chose her death to come sooner in life because we did not want her to suffer a life of pain, misery and suffering. I do truly hope that we made the right decision, but I suppose that we will never know. We could never ask Charlie how she felt. We could never ask what she wanted. We had to guess that she must not be able to enjoy parts of her life because of the pain that she was experiencing.

I think the situation with Joey is much more black and white. Charlie was not suffering from a terminal illness, whereas Joey's kidneys are failing. He has surely already started down a path of deterioration which will eventually lead to a painful death if nothing is done about it.

Distractions

This blog post is an excerpt from an email that I sent to my friend Mike. I feel that it pretty much sums up what is going on with me presently so I thought I would post it:

Things have been pretty crazy for me. The travels have been going fine. I have just been hopping from one major city in Ireland to another. Today I am heading off to Dublin. So things on the traveling side have been fine. Except that I am not enjoying my travels due to my current state of mind.

I was hoping that by going to new places and experiencing new cultures on this trip that I would be able to change the way that I feel about myself and life. I was hoping that I would find a place or a person or peoples that would inspire me in my renaissance of the mind. I now know and understand that it does not matter where I go in the world or who I meet, I will always feel like shit until I figure out how not to. I have come to the realization that there is no person (no matter how wise) that can change me and the way that I think. There is no place that I can go (no matter how beautiful and amazing) where my mind will be in a "more receptive state" to bring about change. There is no culture, peoples or religion that will inspire me to bring about a change of my mind. This realization has made me feel completely and utterly alone in the world. I feel as though no one can help me and no one can understand what is happening in my mind and this brings about a feeling of solitude and loneliness no matter how many hostels I visit and how many people I surround myself with.

I have been going through massive states of depression and fear. I wake up early in the morning and cannot go back to sleep because I am constantly in a state of worry about my future and I fear that I will always feel like this for the rest of my life. Because I am going through all of this mental torture I have not been able to enjoy any of the places that I have been to since my trip to Scotland. I have also come to the realization that everything that I do in life, now and in the past, has all been a distraction from me and my feelings. When I say distraction I mean: every action that I take on a day to day basis that is meant to bring me a state of joy or happiness at any moment in time which is essentially everything that I do. Examples being: watching a movie, sleep, sex, eating, talking to a someone new, talking to someone I know, traveling to a new place on the map, etc, etc, etc. Basically everything I do, day in and day out, is a completely selfish action that is made with the sole intent of making myself feel temporarily better by distracting me from what is truly wrong with me. In which case, this means that all of my relationships with people are built on that of a selfish nature. I am friends with someone because I expect them to be able to make me feel better about myself which is a terrible job to place on another person and is completely unfair and selfish. It also makes me wonder if I have ever had a proper relationship with anyone.

As long as I have a goal and something on the horizon to work towards, my mind has been distracted from the underlying and fundamental problems that exist for me. During this trip I have come to a point where I had no where to go, nothing on the horizon and nothing that I was working towards. I was doing nothing, I had no plans to do anything and there were no people around to distract me. There was nothing to keep my mind from everything that is wrong with me and the way that I think. During these periods of no distractions, I was in a state of massive anguish, fear and pain until I got on a bus and headed to a new destination effectively temporarily relieving the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness by giving my brain something else to concentrate on. As soon as I got to a new location or city the feelings would return as once again there was nothing for my brain to think about except my own mental problems. This has made me come to the realization that until I change these fundamental issues within my brain I will be in a state of depression, confusion, anger and fear which will forever dominate my life unless I figure out how to change them. It does not matter who I surround myself with, be it my friends or family or Irene; it does not matter where in the world I am, be it the most beautiful and majestic place in existence; it does not matter what job I have, be it the best job suited to me...I will always be in the routine state of what I can only describe as "depression" and daily distraction from that depression until I can learn to change that which is fundamentally wrong. I just have no idea how to make that change and yet I know that I am the only one who has the answer to that question. I am the only holder of the keys that will unlock the hidden doors of my brain. I am the only one who can find the keys, find the doors and figure out how to unlock them. There is no person, place or method that I can encounter that will help me in this change. Again, this makes me feel completely alone and disconnected from the rest of the world.

So now I am at the point where I have no idea what to do. I know now that traveling itself is one more distraction from me dealing with my underlying problems. I am burning through money just as fast as it comes out of the ATM. Where am I to go? What am I to do? Do I continue with my travels that I am not enjoying with the hope that it may help me in the long run? Do I return home? If I do return home I will risk falling back into my old routine which was filled with distractions that I have meticulously developed for years that kept me from dealing with my problems.

Highland Hill Hopping

I am currently in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I just arrived a few hours ago and found myself a hostel to stay in, although I am not really sure how much I like it. I left my backpack in the dorm room all by itself. I hope nothing in it finds legs and walks away. At the present moment in time I have no idea where I will be going or what I will be doing with the rest of my travels.

In my last post I mentioned that I was trying to get into a school in England. I found out the day after my return from my tour of Scotland that I was rejected from the school. I then put a lot of thought into where it was that I was going to go now and Belfast is what I came up with. I am not really sure what is here in this city, but I suppose I will find out soon enough. Anyway, after I found out that I did not get into the school I felt quite down. I was fairly sure that I would not have much difficulty getting accepted into the school, but alas, I suppose I was wrong. I am planning on calling the school tomorrow to find out exactly why it was that I was rejected. Not really a conversation I am looking forward to, but perhaps I will be able to change their mind...maybe.

On a happier note, I absolutely loved the bus tour of Scotland that I took. I got to see a lot of things in a very short period of time. Many things that I never would have seen had I just traveled up on my own and did my own exploring around. We went to many locations on the tour some of which were: Stirling, Oban, Skye, Inverness, Loch Ness. If you are interested in seeing the route that we took on the tour I updated the travel map on my blog to show pretty much exactly what route we traveled and the locations that we stopped to sleep. The most interesting sleep location was Carbisdale Castle which is now a hostel. Supposedly the castle is haunted and has a huge list of strange experiences people have had while staying there. I and no one on this particular tour experienced anything out of the ordinary with this visit, however.

There were many parts of the tour that I found wonderful. We went hiking up to a waterfall; saw many many castles and old castle like structures; and in general just took in the amazing scenery that is the highland landscape. There are two experiences of the tour that stand out far above the rest for me. On the first day of the tour our driver, Greg, wanted to stop at a Loch so that he could skip stones. I am a huge fan of stone skipping myself and was quite pleased that I had my sandals on. I wadded into the water and found all the best skipping stones that I could. I never expected to skip stones on a completely calm and flat faced Loch in the heart of Scotland, but I did and it was fantastic. I have known for many years that I love skipping stones, but the second experience that stands out on this trip was completely new to me. I believe it was on the fourth day of the bus tour that we came to the "Bone Cave". As you can probably imagine, these were caves which happened to be halfway up the side of a hill in the highlands. It took about a little over half an hour to hike in via a riverbed then up to the caves via some rocky paths. On the way up I found that I was hiking faster than everyone else and was leading the pack even though I did not know where I was going. I had to slow down in order to not lose everyone else. On the way down I knew my way and jumped out in front of everyone. I started going quite quick down the rocky path and then I started running flat out. I experienced a true feeling of euphoria traversing my way down the potentially dangerous trail. I think it was at that moment that I felt like a true Scotsman, running as quickly as I could over jagged rocky, wet, up and down highland terrain. My instincts took over and my brain was concentrating solely on finding my next footing. There was no thought or contemplation about anything--only a sense of joy and happiness and for the first time in a long, long time I enjoyed running again.

Before I left for my highland tour and after I returned I stayed with couchsurfers. Both people I stayed with were very close to the center of town and more importantly they were very nice and welcoming people. Couchsurfing is an extremely valuable way to travel the world and it seems so foreign to me to have people be so friendly and trustworthy towards someone they have never met before. All three of my couchsurfing hosts have given me keys to their homes straight away and allowed me to come and go as I please regardless if they were home or not. That just boggles my mind.

One thing I have come to realize in my travels is that I really do not fit in with the travel crowd. Most travelers are big into drinking, drinking and staying up late while they drink. I like to go to bed relatively early and I do not drink a drop. It seems like the thing almost all travelers want to do is go out to the pubs and get plastered. Sometimes I feel like an extreme outsider in this respect and I am not quite sure how to react. There are times when I go along to the pub or bar and try to socialize as best I can. Being as introverted as I am, socializing is difficult enough already, but even more so when I am already set up as an outsider and different. Sometimes it is fun, but most times I just feel out of place and awkward. I highly offended a pub owner in Scotland when I asked if could have some hot chocolate. If only I got a picture of her face after she heard me; it would have been priceless. With a great amount of disgust and annoyance she promptly stated: "This is a pub...". I then asked for tea and got a blank stare that lasted quite long then an eventual roll of the eyes and a look away as she contemplated who knows what. Eventually I got my tea and all was well. There could have been a large highland ball of spit in it for all I know, but it sure did taste mighty good.

I have updated my England picture album with a few shots and have added a Scotland album as well. I think you will enjoy them.

England

Scotland