Look at me...

...updating from Bangkok! I don't really have time to say more than this:

I'm okay...having a great time. A polluted time. I'm sick of being hungover. I'm sick of Bangkok. I walked a tiger...sans leash. A monk shook my hand, which I think forces him into eternal Buddhist damnation, though I'm not sure. Tidal waves just missed me, though I know a few people that are/were in Phuket. Bit worried about them. Orphans are tres cute, and disparaging. Elephants rock! Thailand is super king kong mega mega cheap...you should come...a lot. I think Dre is going to grow to hate me. I'm tired. I need a vacation from my vacation.

Es todo, pienso. I'm off for Koh Samui and Koh Pang Yang on Tuesday, so continue to send me love. Or, be cheap, and just comment. I like that the conversation continues despite my absence.

P.S. My dad finally realized I'm in Thailand instead of Taiwan...in case you still wondered.

Take care.

Adieu

So this is me: saying goodbye, wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, biting my lip in that awkwardly stupid way, donning my black polish and sprained wrist, staring off into the distance, looking like a deer caught in headlights, apologizing for lack of Christmas cards this year, wondering why I still haven't packed, contemplating the discernible differences between Zen and nihilism, wearing pink (who knew,) negating the practicality of zazen, awaiting a six hour flight to Bangkok, attempting to contrive an adequate means to tell you how much I'll miss you. This is me...failing. I seem to be good at that.

I don't want to leave you with nothing, or, with the above, for two plus weeks, so I'll leave you with this...it requires your participation as well. Feel free to ignore, to scrap and post your own story about drunken mishaps with Asian midgets and squirrels inadvertently set on fire, to answer at random, to tell me how much you miss me, or to leave suggestions for next time I play 'Never have I ever' (I always suck at that.)

1. Tell me a story. I'll tell you a story. One time...in Cadiz...I got plastered on the steps of a cathedral and "allegedly" bought illegal substances from some guy I shall never remember because I was long since incoherent. I then proceeded to steal someone's hat, make a complete fool of myself in an alley, attempt inebriated Spanish (and suceed) and outsmart transportation officials by sneaking onto a train. Oh, and I may or may not have puked on the person sitting next to me. So they left. And someone else came and took their seat, and Brandon puked on them. And then I was hungover for 72 hours and my senora slapped me for being a "Marta." I curse the day Captain Morgan was born!

2. Leave me a Family Guy quote. I've got one for you.
Lois Griffin: What's going on?
Stewie Griffin: We're playing house.
Lois Griffin: The boy is all tied up.
Stewie Griffin: Roman Polanski's house.
(Okay, so not fantastic...but Polanski jokes are always in good taste.)

3. Tell me why they call it the Civil War? Is that not a tad degrading to the word civil?

4. Tell me your nickname(s). Mine's obvious...Hoagie. Or Laurenzo, though pretty much just Scheid calls me that.

5. Have you ever been convicted of a crime? I've been handcuffed, in the back of a cop car, but for reasons I'm not sure I should be explaining. I was almost arrested once, for tampering with a dorm fire alarm...but it wasn't intentional...I was attempting to cook. And that never works.

6. True or False. 7UP is the illegitimate offspring of Sprite and a whole lotta carbonation.

7. What are you listening to...right now? I'm listening to my Japanese language cds...I really hope yours tops mine.

8. Leave me something to write about, some bit of inspiration, some topic, some motivation. Anything to cure my writers-block-for-those-who-are-not-technically-writers-but-make-a-pitiful-attempt-anyhow.

I'm spent. Take care one and all. I'll be back sometime in January. Don't forget about me.

A basket of fruit goes sour

The game that started it all. A violent rendition of "fruit basket." If you don't know how to play, just run around the room and beat little kids...I think that's the objective.

The sprain that ended it all. The most painful part was surving a trip to the doctor. By the time my translator got out "does this hurt?" I was flinching beneath his tormenting twists of my wrist.

Fotografia

"it is strangely validating to my peculiar predilection...that of broken and rusting. i find it a bit obtuse to find so much beauty floating and molding and decaying away all around and so few seem to appreciate it. there is a japanese word I once learned from my roommate [Makito] but no longer remember. he said it meant the flaw of a thing that makes it unique, of value, living in some way. at least that is the way i've remembered it for so long. something in me loves the object with history or something "real". i'm sometimes repulsed by plastic for its redundant perfection, it seems a fake thing, a replacement for something real, like wood or clay or glass or brass, something no longer created. isn't is strange what catches our "eye" and feel compelled to shoot?"

I'm hoping he won't mind that I've pasted part of his oh-so-perfectly-and-eloquently-worded email. You see, it's exactly that quality, makito, which I too find so fascinating. Some guy criticized one of my photos the other day. I realize in offering yourself up to the good you allow the negative to seep into the cracks...and I'm okay with that. In fact, it helps sometimes. But he was under the impression that all photography exists for some artistic purpose. To aspire to adorn the institutional walls of galleries and museums. I'm not of the same mind. I don't simply take pictures of the natural "art" of the world. Art is relative. Rather, I snap photo, upon photo, upon photo, ad nauseum, of that which catches my eye. Of a moment worth remembering in print form. There is some truth to a "Kodak moment." The best aspect of photography - fifty people may look at the same shot and not realize what it means to me, as the person who experienced an emotional reaction so strong to one seemingly abstract, inconsequential, nanosecond of life, that aiming my lens wasn't an option. I don't care if you love them, they're not for you. Fantastic if you find something which resonates within yourself, but I don't dabble in the professionalism of photograhy. I don't hire subjects, adjust the lighting, wait for the moment...I'm out there capturing the moments that almost plea to be immortalized in megapixels. So let it be known...criticism does not effect me. For it is all mere personal interpretation. I'm not about to do it for you.

Really, I've been teaching them Cimbrian all along

I was wondering how long it would take for my supervisor to discover I don't actually speak English, and similarly, have no credentials, knowledge or experience when it comes to teaching the language I don't speak...at least not grammaticaly correct. And, now I can say, it has taken almost five months. Wow, I thought I was oblivious. She was clued into my ignorace after asking the much dreaded, and always anticipated, who/whom question. I've got no fucking clue. That's terrible to say. I think with one you can reorder the sentence structure and it'll still make a sentence and the other just exists to stare at the other in jealousy, or to confuse the hell out of me. Honestly, I learned this minute English grammar eight years ago, and have long since forgotten. Or maybe I never really understood at all. Some self-imposed ignorance, a learning barrier, like the refusal to learn math, or how to read a map, or even how to remember the order of planets based on that anagram which escapes me now. Something about a mother and pine needles...maybe.

Do you ever just sit and wonder?

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well." - Thoreau

He's right you know. At times I feel overwhelmingly self-serving, one-tracked, unwillingly and unknowingly committed to writing about myself on a daily basis. Maybe it's some vain, futile attempt to explain to the world who I am, where my passions lie, almost redeeming my existence in a world destined to deter me with ignorance to my being. Occasionally I fall victim to tangents, mental deviations from the subject at hand, lapsing into politics, the religion/spirituality debate, embarrassing family stories, but for the most part, my writing revolves around me. And I'm not going to apologize. I know of nothing, or no one, to any greater extent than myself, yet at times, even that knowledge is slightly overwhelming.

"People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering." -- St. Augustine

I wonder. I wonder where in the hell I came from. Where I'll end up. How I've managed so far being completely ignorant on a domestic basis. Why I avert my eyes when I catch someone looking at me. When I'll become undeniably comfortable with who I am. How many versions of myself there may be before I settle into permanence. Where I put my cell phone. Why I have an empty journal by my bed. How many more people I shall befriend before my social skills retire to Florida. If I, indeed, existed in a former life. Why I get so emotional when others are seemingly callous. Why I'm not doing more with me life.

Lauren attempts holiday cheer

Disclaimer: The following was a brief stint at holiday cheer gone horribly awry. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the hatred, maybe it was the fact that I resented wasting past holidays in horrendous situations simply out of obligation. Or, no. It was the alcohol. I don't think it quite expresses that incapturable Christmas spirit, but that's open to interpretation I suppose.

Dear Marcy and Dick,

Greetings from rural Japan! I know you both had qualms about my accepting a teaching position miles from anything or one familiar, but you have no cause to worry. The town is fantastic, the people accommodating, the daily situations awkward enough to make me smile (mostly out of embarrassment.) I hear from my parents that you’re off on yet another cruise for the holidays. I send with you my cheer and wishes for a very Merry Christmas…despite the fact that Christmas is hard to fathom here. I haven’t celebrated a traditional Christmas in quite some time. Surely you remember last Christmas, as I was donning a tan in the Virgin Islands, soaking up your ingratiating hospitality and daily doses of insults, and the Christmas before, spent questioning my sanity and pacifist ideals in Hell-frozen-over, or, my bad, I think they changed the name to Michigan. What? You don’t remember? How could you forget? The last night you threw a cocktail party for all of your nouveau-riche friends and neighbors. I was forced to attend at gunpoint, or close enough, familial obligation, and wore all black…I was mourning the loss of fun I suppose. You, Marcy, claimed I was dressed like hired help, and as such, should get in the kitchen and help my mother. My mother! My own mother was in the kitchen preparing for your party, surely you recall, for that goes above and beyond sisterly love.

Personally, I wouldn’t domesticate myself for anyone, especially not you and your sycophantic, pedophile, thinks-he’s-god’s-gift-to-women, perv of a husband. I trailed my mother though, in hopes that my pitiful pout would reveal to her some need for sympathy. She wore the same face. Neither of us liked the situation, but it was preferable to hide in the kitchen than to mingle with the socialites. I began to open a bottle of champagne, mainly in hopes to guzzle it down without anyone being the wiser, and because it was the only task I was qualified to do at the time. Dick, remember this…you noticed and told me to leave it for my brother, who was underage, and oblivious to the miracle of alcohol in such situations. Instead, I was to cut radishes. I pleaded ignorance. You tried to show me the “proper” way to cut a radish. I cut my finger. You called me a disaster. I resisted the urge to left hook your grizzly face, to turn your head so quickly you’d question the source, to force you to realize the internal wrath you are capable of producing in people, turning their insides into pits of flaming hatred and disgust. I wanted to run upstairs and hide in the guest room, question the practicality of pacifism in a world full of haughty rich, hide from the inebriated, maddening crowd below. Yet Marcy you saw right through my ploy and dragged me down the stairs, introduced me to the tall son of your Greek neighbors, a twenty-nine year old lighting technician currently residing outside of Hollywood. I don’t know if you were trying to play matchmaker, or if you just wanted to brag about me…which I find terribly irritating considering you degrade me at every possible chance, surely you have your reasons. I had to chat with this guy for an hour. Now, I know an hour seems fairly short, though had you stuck around to really get to know him, you’d realize just how interminable sixty minutes can truly be. I ended up getting rather sloshed that Christmas, sneaking outside the house into the accruing snow, with nothing but an increasing BAC to keep me warm. I was sick for a week after, hung over on the plane ride home, pissed off for the next few days. I bet you never knew.

So, I guess what I’m getting at is, I sincerely hope your holiday season is filled with as much cheer and fun the past few have been for me. Thanks for all of your hospitality over the years. Merry Christmas!

Oh, and a Happy New Year.

While you're at it, piss off for denying me a graduation present simply because you didn’t agree with my decision to move to Japan. For harassing Ted Kennedy after Christmas service to chat with me about my experience…as if the man didn’t have enough people asking for handouts and favors. For annually plopping steak on my plate, knowing damn well I’m a vegetarian, simply because, I think, you like to see that look of utter repulsion and nausea sweep over my face. For claiming three majors will amount to nothing but indecisiveness.

Keep in touch!

Love,
Lauren

p.s. Miss you.

Just because...

...you don't get enough pictures of my students.


First graders

Chishikiyoku

So, I'm really serious this time.....really! I've picked out what I want, or rather, it found me, and it fits, perfectly. I couldn't have created anything better myself. It's not particularly artistic, or impressive...but I like it. So here's the tattoo:

知識欲

Chishikiyoku, which roughly translates into an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Quel perfection!
Think they can print kanji in the states?

"Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will."--Frank L. Wright

I bite my thumbnail when I’m nervous. I’ve had three speeding tickets in the span of seven years. The concept of lunch meat freaks me out. I desperately want to name someone, or something, Holden. I have a reason to smile everyday. My brother and I once named our pet turtle Michelangelo, after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle of the same name. I sleep with a teddy bear named Beethoven. I almost prefer stories without resolutions, that leave you hanging at the most pivotal of moments, searching the following pages for some hidden ending. I don’t hold pencils correctly, or type correctly, or do just about anything correctly. I accidentally met four of the five members of N’sync and inadvertently belittled them. I love Sharpees. I think Rusted Root is fucking trippy. I used to have a crush on my religion professor. I know all the words to the unabridged version of Rapper’s Delight. I’ve seen Rent at least five times. I tutored Kurt Vonnegut’s granddaughter for three months, and now I can’t even remember her name. I read my first novel aloud to my dad at age seven. I wish I were a Tenenbaum. I probably couldn’t carry a tune with the use of a bucket. I can still buy kids shoes. I watched the 2003 World Soccer Cup Championship game with a fuckload of Scottish crazies. My favorite alcoholic drinks don’t exist in the states. I don’t know a single constellation. I don’t want to be alone. Sometimes I fear I wear too much black. I am prone to accidents, fires and sexual deviants. I accidentally took Ritalin without knowing once and didn’t speak for hours. In my free time I test my mental acuity with MENSA flashcards. A professor once asked me to marry him…I hope he was joking. I hate sleeping in socks, but make exceptions for argyle. I prefer sunrises to sunsets. I take twice the recommended dosage of Advil for headaches. I could use a permanent caretaker. I’m beginning to think I should use this as my personal statement…seems much more…personal. Canary diamonds are the only diamonds I can stand. I intend to one day purchase a baby grand piano, and then relearn all the classical music I’ve long since forgotten. I don’t miss my parents…does that make me a terrible person? Finally, and most importantly, I’m getting a tattoo…I just haven’t figured out where yet…suggestions?

Wednesday night

Usually Wednesday night implies Retro Rewind at Vogue, but in Japan, or at least, Lauren's warped version of Japan, Wednesday night implies...

An impromptu party with my Tanushimaru elementary first and second graders after school. They gave me presents, amounting somewhere in the range of four thousand paper cranes, and a few Christmas cards and drawings.

Clearly I need to review the concept of Christmas and Halloween as separate entities. Santa does not particularly fare well in prison stripes.

This however, is sheer genius:

Fucking insane! They can fold tiny slabs of paper into the most ornate objects, they could probably fold you a new kitchen sink, complete with running water and pvc pipes, but they can't say "I'm fine, thank you. And you?"

And then the night just goes from entertaining to fuck all impressive. I decided to listen to some Bossa Nova, don't ask, and...cut my hair. The remnants:

Don't worry...I cleaned it up. And now I'll have no one to blame but myself when the town continues to reek of burnt hair on Friday mornings.
And the end result:

It may not be even, it may not resemble a natural hair color, and it may be clogging the drain for the rest of my lifetime...but I'm pretty damn impressed with my nonexistent cosmotology skills. And hey, it's in color!!!

I think it's time you were introduced to the 1960 Moscow Dinamo vintage tee...my savior in this cold, cold weather. World, USSR vintage soccer jersey, Cold War remnant jersey, a handful of people that remain loyal to my inane posts. Confucious bless them.

Obscure recommendations rock!

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (Kentucky,) Eian recommended a book. A book he claimed I might enjoy, a book entitled The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera. Being of the absorbent nature I am I quickly rushed out to buy, and read within mere days, this phenomenal piece of literature. Months later, as the creased, battered, over used book gathered dust on my shelf, he once again brought the work to my attention, asking if I’d liked it, and if so, if I felt he should read it. This struck me as odd, even betraying, him not having read a book he previously suggested and even encouraged I read. It makes no difference to me now, and in fact, I thank him for it. I’m sure I would have one day stumbled into the puzzling and rewarding world of Kundera without his praise, however, he simply accelerated the process. It’s funny though…I wonder if he’s picked up a copy yet.

I take recommendations from friends very seriously. Hell, I take recommendations from anyone seriously. Prof. Carney noticed me reading Calvino before class one day and dropped Thomas Pynchon into my list of must reads. A girl in my Modern Thought and Culture class opened my eyes to Clem Snide, and I’m sure, to this day, she has no idea how far her extol traveled. Kristen forced me into Jacqueline du Pre, “Camp Counselor” Brooke (actually my intern coordinator, not, a counselor at all) turned me on to Bill Bryson, Mary forced me to analyze the photography of Braco Demitrivec and an unknown bookstore clerk indirectly enlightened me on the nature of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things through, at most, two sentences of abstract critique strategically placed within the recent publication sections of Politics and Prose. I wonder if all people are so greatly effected by the praise of others. If all people rush out to research, purchase, download, works others of merit, friendship or even anonymity, drop as nonchalantly as obscure references in academic jargon.

Anyway, that’s me. I’m that girl. The girl who rushes out to waste her money on virtual unknowns in hopes that I’ll appreciate them as much as the next guy, or at least, as much as the person responsible for forcing me to open my limitations of all that is artistic. That being said…any recommendations from my adoring fans?

I bet you're beginning to wonder...

…how Lauren survives on the weekends sans internet access. Well, I’ll tell you…I don’t really. A typical weekend involves, in no particular order:

“What kind of talk is that? It’s un-American. Did George W. Bush quit even after losing the popular vote? No. Did he quit after losing millions of dollars of his father’s friends money in failed oil companies? No. De he quit after knocking that girl up? No. Did he quit after he got that DUI? No. Did he quit after getting arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at a football game? No. Did he quit…”

Lots and lots of Family Guy.


Stupidly and spontaneously playing in the rain, all by my lonesome. Oh yeah, and smoking while doing it. Ha! Hear that Dr. Pinkstaff? Although, admittedly, it wasn’t the smartest idea, considering the rain picked up midway through my walk, when I was the farthest from home, without a coat or umbrella, and coming down with a cold. (Intelligence factor: ZERO)


Three hours wasted attempting my personal statement, to little avail. Though I did master writing my name in Katakana. Rock on!


And…more cemeteries. Honestly, how is a weekend complete without at least one trip to visit the dead? I don’t know, there’s just something oddly attractive and simultaneously disturbing about Japanese graveyards…I have a slight (aka full-blown) obsession. More pics of my sordid necropolis adventures on Buzznet. You know you’re tempted.


Dostoyevsky.

Finally, trying to sort out my top three Zeppelin songs. I think I’ve narrowed them down to:
1) D’Yer Mak’er
2) What is and What Should Never Be
3) A Foggy Day in Vietnam
Not their most popular, but my favorites nonetheless. If I had to add a fourth, it’d be Houses of the Holy just to appease Prof. Clark, or, maybe The Ocean, just for Willie Ho.

Oh, and somewhere in there I found a new song of the moment.

My mother was a Chinese trapeze artist
In pre-war Paris
Smuggling bombs for the underground.
And she met my father
At a fete in Aix-en-Provence.
He was disguised as a Russian cadet in the employ of the Axis.
And there in the half-light
Of the provincial midnight
To a lone concertina
They drank in cantinas
And toasted to Edith Piaf
And the fall of the Reich.

My sister was born in a hovel in Burgundy
And left for the cattle
But later was found by a communist
Who'd deserted his ranks
To follow his dream
To start up a punk rock band in South Carolina.
I get letters sometimes.
They bought a plantation
She weeds the tobacco
He offends the nation
And they write, "Don't be a stranger, y'hear."
"Sincerely, your sister."

So my parents had me
To the disgust of the prostitutes
On a bed in a brothel.
Surprisingly raised with tender care
'Til the money got tight
And they bet me away
To a blind brigadier in a game
Of high stakes canasta.
But he made me a sailor
On his brigadier ship fleet.
I know every yardarm
From main mast to jib sheet.
But sometimes I long to be landlocked
And to work in a bakery.
--The Decemberists

So there you have it…you’ve been enlightened.

Literary praise makes my day

I’d planned to just leave a comment on that last post, in the hope that the shadowy Jac would return, but then I really began to think about it. It’s quite the compliment, especially given my sick obsession for all that is literary. I have countless favorite authors…writers that really know how to pull you in whether you’re ready or not, that present such imaginative, striking portrayals, that create innovative art from a seemingly antiquated, mundane world. I could never emulate their style of writing or their visions, and I wouldn’t want to. Kundera would never have been so great were there twenty Czech expatriates spouting philosophy, existentialism and raw tales of amor intertwined so fluently so as to blur the ever-diminishing lines between what is and what should never be. Plath’s poetry wouldn’t have sparked the interest of critics had her novel not shed some light on the truth behind the vague, simple, easily understandable flip from sane to neurotic and suicidal. Anything avant-garde, in mass, depletes the creativity, the vision of inimitability.

So, in a roundabout way, what I’m attempting to say is, honestly, no, I've never considered writing as a profession. I wouldn’t want to add my clichéd tales and descriptions to publishers, only to fill bookstores or magazines with repetitive, literary works that could be purchased cheaper from a five and dime. If I ever decide to write it will only be because I feel I finally have something so unprocessed, so emotionally evocative and true, too unique to keep to myself any longer than necessary. As is, I've only recently realized what a cathartic process writing can be, though I’m not sure mine makes sense or strikes others the way it does me on some emotionally warped scale. I am flattered you find my writing to be what I could only hope it to be…it’s rather reassuring, stabilizing. Accolade I never have imagined possible. So thank you, and if I ever do decide to write, I'll credit you on my jacket copy.

Have I got an image for you...

I opted for an alternate path home last night, for the sake of variety, and god bless spontaneity. I ran into yet another cemetery, largely secluded, more open than the others near my house. I stepped in, as is my obsession, and peeked around, quietly, so as to not disturb those at rest. I peered around a mausoleum to my left and noticed a rather striking, unexpected figure, asleep upon a freshly planted plot. A girl, no more than thirty I imagine-though I should add everyone in Japan appears twenty years younger than reality allows them to be-was laid out across a mound of dirt, one hand outstretched towards the tombstone, as if fallen hopelessly after futile attempts to unearth her loss. She was positioned at such an awkward angle I imagine she hadn’t been there long, and I feared she would soon awake in agonizing pain, though, certainly, not nearly as painful as that which led her to sleep, one last time, quietly, aside her lover/friend/relative. It was a terribly romantic image, one which I wish you could have seen, or I could have presented in more focused vocabulary. The cemetery was deserted, save the two of us, one unbeknownst to the other, one deep in slumber, one disheveled and smudged, peaceful despite a broken nature, I’d imagine, one with a camera. And here I should add that there are no concrete visuals to go with this post, other than those your creativity allows you to paint based upon my account, for it was a sublimely private moment, between a girl and the grave which symbolized her loss. I could have asserted some rights of onlookers, pulled out my camera and scored a few points on the emotional scale, but I refrained. Plus, it was after five, and the lighting was shit. I wouldn’t want to capitalize on something so personal, so full of misery and anguish, so stolen, it wasn’t my image to capture.

I'm just going to come out and say it...

...Marvin Gaye is, by all possible definitions, a god. I don't think I ever envisioned myself saying that.

The definition of irony: Standing in the middle of deserted train tracks, nothing in sight but a never ending parallel ladder of rust and the luminous glow of a red cross suspended above the town hospital, sirens blaring through my music, chain smoking, blood crawling down my arm, shaking from, quite possibly, a quasi-hypothermic state, nothing in my system for the past two days but weak coffee and curls of smoke. Teaching the fundamentals of the English language to children while I end my sentences with prepositions. Staring strangers in the eyes while simultaneously unable to look at my closest friends for more than a few seconds. Spending my days and nights in virtual silence, devoid of human contact, craving conversation, yet failing miserably at late night phone calls.

You can probably guess, or at least assume, that hiking through the Shamanist hillside in Korea was one of those moments I'll never forget...thankfully, because I talk about it ad nauseum...and you're probably ready to strangle me. I was reviewing the past few years, chronologically, in my head (that's the only place I go as of late) and realized that there are more unforgettable moments in my memory than simply hiking with monks and falling on my ass. Some even parallel...I know, crazy. I'll give you one:

My twenty-first birthday Emiliah, Sarah, Cassie and I made the short trip from Sevilla to Cordoba with the express purpose of visiting La Mezquita. Now, living in Europe is expensive, depending on the city, especially when you have a slight obsession with museums and traveling...therefore funds were depleted, all around, and Em wasn't quite sure it'd be in her best interest to pay yet another entrance fee. But how could you not? So we forced her, and when we stepped through the waiting area to the tiled temple floor, saw the endless red and white arcs, marble statues, inconsistencies in design from century to century as presented in the varying architectural layouts, she admitted to wanting to cry. Those were my sentiments exactly. You realize how small you are, how long history has existed without you, built itself upon a world you'll never explore, yet here you are, absorbing centuries of life indirectly through echoing footsteps in a winding Muslim world.