The longest day of the year.

I dropped the ball on writing the last few days. Don't know why. I felt still and unable to stir from it.

I think Y and I went to a market and A took me on a futile journey for teaware. Otherwise, we were at home and I was just sitting or sitting and watching TV.

I went for a run, 4 kilometers or so around the "block." It was the day after the seeded rain, a holiday, and the air was the clearest possible. It didn't hurt to breathe, and the sky was lovely blue. Breezy though, crisp and clean. All that color and clarity did not make the scenery more appealing. It's quite ugly out there and people toss their garbage upon the shoulders of the rural roads. It must cost them a lot to use official channels. Or, maybe they just don't care.

I think when I started the trip I had hoped for some kind of epiphany, or even a sense, about how to proceed from the way I've been living—this limbo between pursuing more education or working to pay the bills so that the rest of my time can be lived creatively. Nothing like that came really, not as delineated as I would have liked anyway. A switch may click in a few days, but I won't wait on that.

If anything, I was all too ready to leave everything for this brief immersion in China. When I did think or talk about my work life, I noticed quite a bit of disdain, particularly for the lab. I still feel no motivation to apply to school.

Recently, I realized that ambivalence might serve to prevent me from committing to things I don't really want to do. That is, perhaps I don't really want to go to school, but I'm so used to doing what I think I should do, and not what I really want to do, that I can't really tell what I actually want.

I'm sitting next to a guy again on this return trip. Few travel alone across the Pacific, fewer of these are women. I've never sat next to a woman on this route. His English skills are incipient; he giggles a little after each phrase. He asked what I do and I told him the easy-to-understand answer, that I work for the empire. That excited him. He asked if I had any of my work with me because he'd like to see it. But, of course, no. He asked if I've ever met Bill Gates, and again, no. It was a humorous exchange. This is his first trip outside of China and Japan. He says he's going to Toronto to seek a visa.