Today was my bon voyage party. My sister threw this together pretty quickly, and I always love her parties. Of course, that may be because they are usually for me. I like the way things just seem to fall into place when you watch someone throw a party for you, unlike when you try and throw one yourself, and everything seems to fall apart. I'm not a person who plans things out, arranges things well, makes decisive maneuvers of any sort. That is one reason that I find it so odd that I will be in China tomorrow. There are many reasons I find that odd, but one of them is the extensive planning involved in a thing like living abroad for a year, and the lack of planning I seem to have done. I did my share of the work (the endless paperwork, that is), the packing, the google searches about what to take, and what to expect. But still, the day has arrived, and I have had this feeling that it's all so sudden, somehow. Little thoughts spring up, like, How can I be moving to China, when I was going to see that movie coming out in two weeks? Did I tell someone I was going to be a bridesmaid in their wedding? Wasn't I going to be a ladybug for Halloween this year? Who was it I promised I would take to see the world's biggest rollercoaster? How can I be moving to China, when I haven't finished watching this season of A&E's Intervention?
What I'm saying is, there just seem to be so many things I started and didn't finish.
And if I had been doing the proper planning, wouldn't I have tied up all the loose ends?
In any case, I enjoyed my party very much. It was a Chinese potluck, and everyone brought their favorite Chinese food. Fried rice, crab Rangoon, sweet and sour chicken, sesame chicken, almond cookies, pepper steak, Pocky sticks, and about a thousand fortune cookies. I mean, this spread was just beautiful. I thought I was going to cry when I realized that I was too nervous to eat anything but Pocky sticks and Mountain Dew.
My stomach was all jittery and I felt like I was going to the moon, not China. All my family members showed up, and no one quite knew how to act. Should they be sad that I'm leaving or happy that I'm doing something interesting? I decided to show off to the kids by letting them hold my pet rats. My cousin Candice asked why I had rats, and the worst kind of rats too, with the beady red eyes and white fur. I told her they were my lab rats from a psych class about basic learning principles I took in college. She thought this was amusing and she said something like, "You've gotten so interesting". And I was kind of taken aback. Isn't that the sort of thing every person just lives to hear? Hey, you're a pretty interesting person. You do interesting things, and other people can just tell that about you when they talk to you. I admit I was very flattered, even though that's probably in bad taste. And look, I'm sure going to China for a year should be it's own reward, but it doesn't hurt any to hear that it's also an impressive feat to others.
