So much to say, where to begin?

I'm writing this at 35000 feet, which despite my personal vow to use metric units, I have little bearing on how many kilometers that is. And despite the 50 hour travel time (don't ask), I never tire of airplanes. It's so therapeutic to be completely disconnected for such a long period of time. It's like how it was in North Korea, although I understand tourists can buy a SIM card there now. What's the fun in that?

Regardless Future Weg, after Singapore you went back to the US for about one and a half months to... well just because I suppose. Not to say it was a bad experience. I got to see two newborn babies, as well as my nephew who's two months away. I guess I didn't really see him, but you get the idea. It's baby season, and while I'm happy for the new moms and dads, it's amazing how much our lives went in completely different directions.

So while I was back in the States, I kept pretty busy. Of course the previous blog was about my trip to New York. It was fun, and pretty much the only city so far in the US that made me think "I could live here without going insane." I really hate cars and suburbs. I need to be surrounded by crowds, which I think has been a big reason why I've liked Asia so much. Also everything is 1/5th the price. That helps too. But part of me thinks, if I got a job in New York after college, I'd still probably be there.

Speaking of suburb hate, my friend from Taiwan, Tiffany came to visit. I swear this is relevant. We stayed at my sister's place, a very nice new house in a new suburb with a yard, deck, etc. One morning I drove up to the grocery store, got some corn and goetta, grilled them up, and we sat on the deck and talked. I thought "God, this feels like I'm married."

"God, I hate this."

And not to say Tiffany is bad of course, she's great. And I'm glad it works for some people. But it just further confirms it's not for me.

So Tiffany took a bus in from middle-of-nowhere Kansas to Indianapolis. I drove up to get her, as well as to spend a few days being tourists in Indy. It's a nice enough city, though a little small for my tastes. Yes I know it's bigger than Cincinnati. Still too small. We rode go karts, ate at a chocolate cafe, saw a museum of miniatures, and just chilled out.

Back in Cincinnati, we spent a few days doing the typical sights. Kings Island (love the new Banshee, wow!) was a highlight for me, and we went on the last day of school. So a lot of lines were super short. Score! Later in the evening we had a bunch of schoolgirls ask what language Tiffany and I were speaking. We said Chinese, and they were eager to show off their skills after studying it for one semester. Perhaps excited from just getting out of school for the summer, they came on pretty strong. I wish I could have had the camera ready to capture Tiffany's face when 4 teenagers descended upon her simultaneously saying "Hello my name is blank, I am blank years old, and I have blank brothers and sisters." I also remember them asking how to say some absurdly specific sentence like "No mushrooms on my pizza please." Jeez, baby steps. But I'm going to attempt it, please correct me Chinese friends :

请别给我蘑菇在我的比萨

We also saw other local sights like the zoo and aquarium, hung out in OTR, you know the drill. Tiffany commented on her last day how much there was to do in Cincinnati, but in the back of my mind I was thinking "Jeez if we spent another day here I'd have no idea what to do." But yeah, for a city of its size Cincinnati's not bad.

Anyway after saying goodbye to Tiffany and Cincinnati friends, my mind is on getting back to Thailand and seeing my other friends again. And after that of course, onto Vietnam. I'm still preparing my Thailand retrospective blog, I'd like to finish it after giving Thailand another fresh look. But I'm also thinking about personal improvement goals for Vietnam. I've always heard the theory that if you want to do something, you should tell a friend because they can hold you to it, or at least make fun of you for messing up. But then I also just heard on a podcast I listen to (called Hello Internet), saying you're going to do something makes you less likely to, because by saying you're going to, your brain releases dopamine like you did, discouraging you from following through. Then again, writing about nothing is boring. So for Vietnam, I want to work on my confidence. Specifically I mean social confidence. My personal confidence is pretty solid - why yes, I can probably go caving despite never doing it before. Yes, I can eat this indescribable mass of "food" and not become ill. But no, I mean the kind of confidence that has my brain saying "Ah don't say that, it's stupid." I'm sure we've all felt that way before. I've heard the expression faking confidence is the same as having it, and that sounds pretty good to me. So, hoping the first theory of wanting to do something is correct, I'm counting on friends to hold me to that. Actually that sounds like it would be untrustworthy. Maybe I'll have Past Weg hold Future Weg to it.

But, Past Weg cannot be trusted. It seems we have a conundrum on our hands.