I just polished off the last of the Goldfish crackers. It is the only bag of Goldfish crackers I have had since leaving the U.S. on July 1, 2002. It was sent to us by a dear man named 'Bud', whom we met this summer. I made it last four days.

We are making our arrangements to go to Thailand and Laos in about two weeks before we head back to the U.S. for two months. I thought I would make an offer to anyone who reads my diary: if you would like for me to mail you a postcard from one or both countries, write me an e-mail with your address. It would be better to do so this week, so that I could compile the list in advance. I might ask you to send me a postcard from your town in return. You see, I have a friend who collects postcards, and I always thought that it would be a fun hobby. But the problem is, I am the only one I know who ever goes anywhere. I'm not going to send postcards to myself, but my friend sure has a nice collection going. I have been sending them to her since I was about 13.

Last evening I went outside and played badmitton with some of the girls. We hadn't been out there long when I noticed that ALL of the foreign teachers were on the lawn playing. It was like the New Jerusalem or something. Some people were playing frisbee, and one of the Austrailian men, Guido (I always thought of that as a South American name before I met Austrailian Guido), had a boomerang that he was hurling about. The boomerang caused me a great deal of fear and anxiety, because I had no idea where the confounded thing was going to fly, or who it might clock in the cranium. When he would get ready to throw it, I would cower behind a flag pole and hold my feeble badmitton racket over my head for protection. I thought of a great movie concept about a man and his boomerang. Of course I would call it Lord of the 'Rang.

That got me thinking about film making and such. That was my original goal when I entered university. To study film. I settled for a mass communications degree, which is a hodge-podge of radio, TV, and journalism knowledge. A part of me would still like to have just one shot at making an independant/art house film. I used to always get these mailings and catalogs from a summer training program in New York. It was an intensive film making workshop where you would attend lectures and also have pratical, hands-on experiences for about 8 hours a day for twelve weeks. Of course it costs an arm and a leg, and cost of film was on top of that. I don't see myself ever having the time or money to pursue it.

But, then again, I am only twenty three. Some people my age still haven't finished their undergraduate degrees. It might be too early to chalk it up as a pipe dream yet. It was unforseen that I would be a vertible globe-trotter in my early twenties. Who knows what other surprises will turn up in my life.

"Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been...'"

ckb

Saturday, May. 31, 2003 at 1:54 PM