The People I Meet

My mom always said to never talk to strangers. I think I broke that rule pretty quickly. I have a random personality that makes me want to be curious about what other people are thinking. Their lives, their obscure thoughts, their ideas. I mean, the woman rushing to cross the street, where is she heading, is she late for work, or heading back to make dinner for her kids? Our lives are so connected- of course most of the times when we do take a glance towards someone, it is quickly broken and back into our own world, our own lives.

Heck, I can talk the this woman sitting across the table from me at the library and ask her about her lifestyle as a vegetarian and make a new friend.

I had the opportunity to indulge in this talking to random people when I was traveling in youth hostels. In Nanjing, I met this guy who was going to make it to Paris overland in 3 weeks via Russia. Since I only knew him for less than a day, we still talked a little bit and exchanged emails since he said he would be in DC in February. So come February, I meet up with him to hear of his adventures and learn about his life.

So here's this guy, on his final semester of grad school, going to Duke. His main goal: to find ways to prolong the inevitable: work. For someone who originated from Texas, found his way to San Fran, lived on an island, now in NC at Duke.

My week has definitely been interesting with amusing people. For dinner entertainment, I talked to his guy about how he truly believed he was "retired" and lived off the money he saved, hopping to the 'burbs of San Francisco. In this retirement stage, he thought "so, what do people do when they are retired?" - Ah yes, build a garden. So, in this room he rented with a backyard, he made a garden. However, little did he know that the 'burbs he lived gathered all the leftover clouds from SF and kept it looming around. The lack of sunshine also produces depression, so in time, not only did his plants die, but his mood slowly got worse. (Now everyone knows why all the retired old people head down to Florida). Therefore, he needed a job. He somehow obtained a job at the National Park...on an island. Just so he could try to live on an island. So all was well living on the island. Along the way he somehow travelled parts of southeast asia.

So I got the opportunity to see some of the photos he took. http://www.handycaddy.com/man/winter_2006/

This one is of the lion is particularly amazing. He was trying to jump up to get the teasing jacket and that was when he was breaking his fall. It turned out the lion actually got the jacket in the end, and now parades it around the ring like a trophy, even sitting on top of it during his non-parading time.