Graduation

I didn't blog last week. This whole wind up process I'm finding to be really overwhelming. Packing up our room felt so good. Brandi and I are more or less ready to leave. We did a preliminary pack today, and I think all is going well. I'm trying not to think about all the things I'm going to have waiting for me when I get home. It's hard though.. I'm excited about all the new things I get to experience, but I'm also feeling a lot of anxiety about trying to get back into a normal lifestyle. I mean normal by my standards anyways. So I'm not sleeping great, and I'm pretty exhausted. Thankfully, all of my classmates and I are sort of dealing with this at the same time, so everyone's been really supportive of one another. The funniest thing about it is, that as far as a class goes, we're pretty much done. Many of my classmates haven't been going to training for almost two weeks, and sometimes I don't even see them for days. But emotionally, we're all so much more in tune than we've ever been before. Strange how we couldn't seem to manage that over the years... Anyways, I'm going to share a quote that I've been repeating to myself pretty frequently the last couple of weeks.

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”  ― Dalai Lama XIV

Gansu

Well, I went on a totally awesome holiday. I haven't blogged in ages due to lack of VPN, but now I'm back!

Went to a province in China called Gansu which ethnically is very interesting. There's a lot of minority groups including Tibetans and Muslims and so everywhere we went was very culturally diverse. We stopped first at a town with Tibetan grottoes and I hiked my butt off. After our first day My calves were literally too shaky to hold me up if I straightened my legs. It was so beautiful, but very freezing at night time. I also managed to get a sunburn at the same time. High altitude is funny like that...

Next went to the rainbow mountains. Fantastic, although there were an incredible amount of tourists there. Some of the viewing platforms were so crowded you couldn't even move. Reminded me of taking the metro. Watched the sunset there and it was truly awe inspiring.


After this went to a town called Dunhuang which is located in the Gobi Desert. I've never seen the desert before so this kinda blew my mind. We spent the first night sleeping in the desert with a small tour group. I haven't seen the stars like that in I don't know how long. There was no moon also so I could see the milky way really clearly. Hiking up sand mountains though.. hard.  I was sweating, but since it was so dry it was like I was just pushing salt out through my pores. Also riding a camel.. not comfortable. After the desert we went to some Buddhist caves built on the ancient silk road and the art there was pretty incredible. Went to a desert oasis and watched the sunset. It was an amazing experience.

The best thing about the trip though was the reminder that Chinese people are really interesting and that there's so many fascinating places in China that I've never seen. There's so much history here and different landscapes to explore. You can go from desert to jungle, to mountainous to ocean side. It's really an amazing country but it can be easy to forget when you feel like you're training in a zoo (due to the numerous photographers/spectators at the temple), and when you feel trapped in the place you're living. Sometimes a change of scenery can really change your perspective.