it's about four hours before my flight to China and i thought this was blog-worthy. my computer broke.

not the software kind of broke. but snap, crackle, pop-break.

the other night while ichatting with rachel i set my computer down on my soft bed (futon) from a height of about 3"... something i'd done before. then the display shot backwards and i hear CRRRACK! the sounds of titanium snapping. and then my monitor was there disjointed and lifeless. i have to prop it against a wall to use it.

i have no idea how much this is going to cost. i'm wondering if this may be time for a new powerbook. who knows. who knows. well i hope your day is good and full of unbroken things.

i'm going to mao-mao-land. yippee! i wanna t-shirt!

so.. guess what! I'M GOING TO CHINA ON MONDAY! there just so happens to be a little window of time that i can jettison off this island (a much needed jettison). so i'm taking full advantage. i'm going to China!

either way! i'm going to China. got the visa. got the lonely planet. have no plan on where i'm going because - i'm d@ve rupert, procrastination master. so. get excited and expect some crazy chinese antics!

sorry. i was just informed ^that china is in no way a communist country. forgive my error in journalistic integrity. but i still have to go because i bought a plane ticket.

quite the last week or so! i'm pretty sure the world is ending... according to the prophecies....

number of typhoons in the two weeks: 2
number of earthquakes in the three days: 3 (there was an earthquake today. these things are weird)

so yeah. brace yourself! my school looks a lot like a scene from Tattooine. the dirt/sand grounds that the kids play their sports on is being blown about the school and town.

no kids came to school today. but all the teachers did. you see, with the life threatening danger of a typhoon students need not come to school... but yet teachers somehow have to. i still can't get over this. what is it about me having a salary that makes me impenetrable by tree limbs? the answer: nothing.

last night i was riding my bike home from pottery class. recently, my bike has become a real spiritual experience for me. quite a time of reflection and prayer. as i rode past the rice paddies i was reflecting on how they had fallen down under their own weight. and i thought, "how true, we must bend when we're ready to be used. we must bow when we're ready to be consumed. we must bend when we're ready to take for our purpose."

jesus lived in an agrarian society. his messages must have been poignant in those times, as every day people scooped the earth up in their hands, felt the heat of the sun, and lived with the constant smell of the feces of their livestock. you miss some things growing up in the city....

well... i'm a go to bed now. i like the bed. after a year its still weird to me that bed equals sleeping on the floor. i wonder if i'll do this when i come back to america...

The translator of the computer is the ogre. Doing the fact that the
composition is checked from last week concerning the summer vacation
of the pupil it increases. There are 400 pieces. Writing in Japanese, as
for the pupil who translates the composition in the Kazuhide
translator of the inter- network it is many. It is varying English.
Just a little serious. With that, as for you in order to try to be
understood as for me writing this post in Japanese, you translated my
experience with the network. Serious! It was understood? You can read?
Please expect that this kind of post makes 400 times.

Just a little it rusts recently, forcing. It is life of celibacy.
Weight went down. Now they are 90 kilos, you did! So, fasting, having
the heart which we would like to eat excessively, the side it does.
is to be, you try stoutness probably to do.

So, everyone is the "to be, stoutness?" with you have heard, it is.
Good friend. Thank you, the God way. Temporarily, your own feeling
excessively you are from the. Serious.

you have written on infrequent Japanese. So, you think as my
thought extent. With that, it became easy, but in addition it is
unskillful Japanese.

We would like to end with that, it is. My 1 case was introduced
considerably. Thank you! In addition, well!

editor's note: though explained, this post was written in japanese and then put through a translator on the internet. this is what my kids are doing with their essay's about summer vacation... i'm in the middle of grading 400 essays like the one above... just to give you some context on why i'm losing my mind.