have cake, will travel.

I can't do it all. I had to take the morning off today - I've been at school for fourteen or fifteen hours per day, all week, due to a pernicious combination of extra classes (covering for BB, who has gallivanted off to Thailand), sorting out the print studio (in the process poisoning myself with various substances, including but not limited to ferric chloride, benzene, ammonia, and turpentine), and rehearsals for the school play (in which I am improvising vague bass lines to prompts like, "A minor. Badger noises. Shifting to tango.") Last night, after pulling another etching plate out of the acid bath, I was overcome by exhaustion and queasiness and went to bed, knowing that I'd be up in the night to void myself in some way. Sure enough, some hours later I woke up, felt the sickening thin saliva flooding my mouth, and dashed to the bathroom. Three or four violent heaves and all of my dinner plus a late-night hot chocolate were mixing in the toilet bowl instead of in my unhappy stomach, and after rinsing out my mouth and blearily looking in the mirror, I went back to sleep.

I wasn't good for much this morning, but I probably would have gone into the elementary school to teach anyhow, if my sensible roommate hadn't told me that I should skip it and sleep instead. So I taught my bass lesson in the morning, and then went back home to sleep for a bit before heading back to the middle school to teach BB's classes. I'm doing a print-making unit with them, which has involved excitement (back in the print studio! Etchings! Hurrah!) but a TON OF WORK. Setting up the acid bath, calibrating the press, getting the copper cut, figuring out how to melt a waxy block of hard ground, finding an appropriate heating surface, locating files and steel wool and some creative substitute for proper etching needles (the solution? A sewing needle pushed into a length of sawn-off and then machete-narrowed bamboo, secured with some epoxy putty.) Anyhow, point is, after this week of play rehearsals and figuring out the print-making stuff, and then being sick last night, I just couldn't handle the ES classes. So I slept.

I need to apply this revolutionary concept - not being able to do it all - to some other areas of my life. Most notably, "where shall I travel in India?" At the moment I still half-believe that I can go everywhere and see everyone. There MUST be a way! To frantically zig-zag between Delhi, Bombay and the Andaman Islands. To see friends living in Delhi, friends visiting from Victoria and from Vietnam, friends I've made here, friends of my roommate's. To at the same time see Ajanta and Ellora, Varanasi, Darjeeling, the Taj Mahal, and more. To hit the major historical and religious sites, yet to have a relaxed journey where I see the "real" India, take time to make friends along the road, forget about the destination and just watch the land roll by.

Of course, I can't do it all.

But the longer I stay here, the more I understand the (hideously inefficient!) way things work, the more I can do. So I suppose I'll keep trying to do more and more, and eventually perhaps conquer it ALL! It's satisfying to get to know a place, and even more satisfying to have a place get to know you, if you catch my meaning. Within the community of the school, I both know how to get around, and am known by the community. If I want something done, I know who to ask, and if someone needs something that I could do, they know to ask me. Everyone needs community - we all wander around in our grand metropolises trying desperately to create small towns, even as we disparage the rednecks and the hicks. Why do some people miss high school? Because everyone knew their name. The biggest predictor of whether you will be friends with someone is simply their geographical proximity. We tend to form communities, ties, friendships, families, with the people around us, because human beings - in general - need that companionship. We are social animals. And so, regardless of the fact that I find the middle school boy who greeted me this morning to be morally reprehensible, hopelessly immature, vulgar and lazy and selfish and underachieving, disrespectful and sloppy... Despite all that, I filled with a downright embarrassing sense of affection and grateful happiness when he reluctantly waved good-morning. He knows who I am, I know who he is, and I don't care that he only waved because his dorm parent was watching. He waved! I waved back! I know, I am known, and I have drawn a new community around me like a comfortable blanket.

I will now seal off this meandering entry with - er, with what would have been a picture, but blogger is having troubles, so it will be sealed with a kiss: x

Goodnight.