independence day

My fierce little tiger watches the open balcony door for mosquitoes that she can hunt. I am watching Daily Shows from the first of April. The eighteen EMU students arrived in Nanchong tonight and I was pleasantly surprised by how, at least, they ate the tofu. Have my expectations really fallen that low? It's always so good to see Papa Myrrl, and I was swept with warm feelings of pride sitting in the back of the room while Leah introduced the school and gave a short orientation. As Myrrl said later, it feels a bit like family. Libby pushing herself around in the office chairs and Johnson leaning in to share the day's gossip. 

At lunch Jeff talked about the NGO he's volunteering for - Raleigh International (the one Prince William? famously did a stint with).  Jeff hopes to do one of the month-long leadership, community, and adventure "expeditions" this summer. He said some of his classmates worried that it might be a pyramid scheme, brainwashing thing. I felt slightly moved when he talked about his passion for students to "just know that there are people doing things other than just studying and getting a job" . . . he was inspired by a Nanjing student who'd taken a year off of college (something that's INCREDIBLY rare) and traveled to India with the program. But I felt removed from his excitement, and noticed how much my worldview has shifted these years away from NGO's and straight-up volunteering stuff. I get much more excited about the idea of gathering people around a viable business (and I'll soon find out if it can work) . . . or maybe it's just that I distrust and dislike working with anything that resembles an institution. Freedom in some form (though I think we usually end up sacrificing one kind of freedom for another).

Today is Sam's birthday. He turns thirteen. It's also the two-year anniversary of the earthquake, and the one-year anniversary of my liberation from a wrong relationship. I think I'll make a cake.