And we're all so hungry to live

When I write something here, I like it to feel like well-chewed food--for me at least. For you, I want it to be as sumptuous to the eyes as it is glide-worthy down grandma's gullet. Yeah, I brought up your ma's maw because stout cooking can't all be glitter and gauze. There's got to be some practicality and peristaltic compatibility if it's going to be digestible. In terms of tastefulness, I feel it should be thought provoking and a little saucy.
The problem I encounter most often is the more I have to feed you, the less time I have to plate it for you.
And we're all so hungry to live.

We've been back in Chengdu for one sleep cycle, having spent Sunday through Thursday either in transit or at our site for a short visit. Seeing our cohort again was pretty sweet, even if I did end up dancing to Empire State of Mind in an overpriced expat bar infested by our lot.

It was our buddy's birthday so we all chipped in a couple R.M.B each and bought him a fancy drink. I'm not sure how that became the Friendship Volunteers bar of choice, but I'm glad I got a chance to experience it. We'll only be with our host family for another week. After that we all move to a hotel and then head off to our sites for our two-year term of service.
The train ride to and from Lanzhou took twenty hours each way. Sebastien and I were lucky enough to have what's termed, "hard sleepers"

I was on the topmost bunk like that Grampa and toddler....the Darjeeling Limited, it was not. But we slept well enough and had a few basic conversations and successful negotiations of public and private space. For instance, it's normal for folks to sit on the bottom bunk even if they didn't pay for it or know you. They did not even ask before sitting on other Chinese people's bunks in fact. Whereas Sebastien and I had to gesticulate excessively before they would consider sitting on his.
One elderly lady even managed to trade a topmost bunk with a bottom bunk with a young man not from her family on the grounds that it would be too difficult for her to climb the ladder. The gentleman was not compensated and he and his girlfriend lost their hangout spot just like that. I think this is a testament to what people are willing to ask for and give in this culture. And I find it quite interesting. Sanitation wasn't a huge problem even with my head cold and a visit from the 'frailty, thy name is woman,' gods of tampons and cramps. But it was at times, challenging.

I  trust we had a taste of what it feels like a diplomat during our three day tour: We politely overate. Went willingly into question and and answer sessions in slow, deliberate English and agreed affably to courses of action that left us wondering what our other options might have been. But our cross was hardly the only one being borne in that precession. It really helped me in staying positive--despite the sore-throat, sleep deprivation and cramps to remind myself that all of our guides were going well out of their way to accommodate our unfamiliarity with social codes, the language and everything unseen and in-between.
Besides, the campus is beautiful and we'll have a good mix of what we both were hoping for to keep us comfortable and comforted in the years to come.

Well, I have a couple of syllabi to create, a short paper to write, and some laundry that we should get hanging on the line before dinner....and I really need to stop putting off my Kendrick Lamar rebuttal.
I'll post pics of the flat once we're really settled in and probably have more to say about train car culture once we do it for a third trip.
Oh and one last thing: If you like making mixtapes annnnd you blog, consider participating in the summer mixtape blog ring. All you got to do is send an email to mixxtape.makerz [at] gmail.com with your blog address before the end of August. Your post will appear on another blogger's page and there you'll have the opportunity to and explain the songs that populated Summer 2013 for you to a whole new batch of readers! It's a great way to meet new bloggers and hear new music--so get involved!
I need a caffeine reboot, right about now.
I hope the holes you dig this week are the kind you don't mind stepping into and that the people who populate your life are as happy to be there as you are to have them.