growth.

surely these thoughts will be rendered outdated as the years go by, just as thoughts I've had before that seemed so eloquent and enlightened at the time no seem cheap and shallow and thoughtless. No matter:

I have some time on my hands. It's a sensation I'm not used to anymore: I haven't had more than a few days to do fully as I please since about August of 2007, and the freedom of it all is a bit fun and also a bit uncomfortable, but I'm making the best of it all.

The first thing I did was to take a trip. I spent 17 days wandering across Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. For my own false-humility's sake, you'll have to ask for these stories on your own. I have tons of stories from my time in asia, but I've chosen to omit a lot of them here because I want you to ask me about them instead of stalking me from over the cyber-fence. That isn't to say I'm not glad you're here, just that I often save many of my favorite parts for those who ask for it. I might get around to it, but if you really want to know, ask me for it. Life together is more special than reading things on the internet. But I digress..

Now I'm back to lovely old Bangkok, along with a few remaining friendly faces. and the next thing I'm doing is going through everything. The chaos of the last many months has left my organization in a shambles. You know how when you're on vacation you take seven of the same picture and you think, "oh, I'll go through and whittle them down later." this is later. and it's a mess. and one feeling I especially can't help but feel as I go through all the pictures and documents and music on my computer (only the first stop on the organization express) is just how much has changed in the last four years. for one thing, I'm a much better photographer than I was 4 years ago. Although I lament the current sad state of my camera, it's taught me well. and by that I mean, my topic selection and the way I would frame a shot used to be really bad. minimalism, dear children. And looking at old papers that I wrote (which deserved lower grades than I received, which were lower than what I thought I deserved at the time. Thanks, Dr. Quinn.) and old albums that I thought were great and would share with friends that now seem unlistenable, and poetry that I wrote that I thought was pretty good at the time, that wasn't. Beyond all of this are the emotional things that come up. Mistakes I made, things I would have done different. People who didn't get to see the best sides of me.

And the first instinctual reaction to all of this is to cringe, in a sort of embarrassment for the past self. but I've quickly gotten over it. It's not that you can shrug it off, it's the comfort you can take from the fact that that's who you used to be. and if that's who you used to be, and you are where you are now, and all of the steps both false and true along the way brought you to become someone better than you were all the way back then, imagine what tomorrow might bring, and what further refinement might come. When even the sorrows become ingredients for joy, our joy is infinite. Therefore, I will not stop wondering, and I will not stop learning. Mistakes are sure to be had, and we will learn from them. And in that all despair flails under the weight of our great hope.