My Times and Time Differences

Lumbini was.. peaceful. There is no other way to properly describe it. Maybe if you added sun and took out the piles of garbage and perpetual construction, it could be beautiful. Maybe if town had more than one restaurant and three meters of main street, it could be exciting.
But the way that it is now, the huge expansive lake, mysterious birds lazily flapping their wings, spread out monasteries with vague labels, it was very peaceful.
I can't say I would wish for a sunnier Lumbini experience, because the fog gave it a mythical air that hinted at something ancient, poorly understood, and somewhat removed from the everyday sphere of the typical tourist's experience.

What I CAN say is that I would never wish for a Lumbini experience without Judith. When you arrive somewhere at 4 starving and are finished dinner by 5, there is absolutely nowhere to go, it is freezing, empty, and getting dark, what can you possibly do except get drunk off Chai and whiskey, consume ridiculous amounts of desserts, do Sudoku and  Dutch word searches, and get in "ha ha moods" to tell jokes?
And how quickly can a peaceful isolated bike ride around a sleepy lake turn into a creepy empty journey if you are not with a friend?

Anyway, I can't complain about my Lumbini experience. I met up with an older couple from Oregon there, and we ended up splurging $33 each to take a private cab, not a public bus, back to Pokhara. The seven hour drive was much more pleasant without people trying to put crates of eggs in your lap, without fear of being puked on, and with unlimited stops for photo ops and bathroom breaks (and you know what an expert I am on road trip bathroom breaks.) So that was a fabulous Christmas present!

My transportation options for heading back to Kathmandu is a 20 dollar or 400 rupee tourist bus. Apparently both are nicer than the 600 rupee tourist bus we took to Lumbini (by "tourist" read: free cultural experience thrown in), but I am slightly skeptical. In any case, I am not flying.

This morning I got up at 4:40 to call a professor about potential for grad school research. Oh, excuse me, I got up at 4:40 yesterday morning and was staring at his number at 5:15 with the phone in my hand, JUST about to dial the digits, when I had a funny feeling. So I called my mother instead and asked her what day it was. YEAH, fun fact for you - when it's 5:15 AM on Thursday in Nepal, it is 4:30 PM on WEDNESDAY in Colorado in America. If you're still unclear about the definition of a time difference, waking up at 4:40 AM two days in a row will really help you understand it.

You know me and my masochistic love for mornings, so I am only a tiny bit better. How many hours there are in the day to read, stretch, meditate, and go for a walk while everyone else is asleep, the stars are bright, and the sky is fresh!

But now that is done and knock on air, wood, and your helmet, it went well. I briefly considered doing the Annapurna 50K on New Year's Day (yes, that K stands for kilometer.) The thing that will stop me is paying 150 Euros to do a run in shitty shoes without my Camelbak backpack and favorite technical clothes. If I am going to break the bank to do something miserable, at least I want to be well prepared in terms of gear etc. for it. And maybe train? A little? A tiny bit?
So.. next year? New Year's in Nepal with me anyway? The street festival and parades are really quite lovely!
I am even trying to get my mom to come out here for Christmas. As usual, there is something about leaving here that will break my heart, so I have to come back. And since I am never spending another Christmas without my family, my mother has to come. Just wait until I show her the photos of the handmade Tibetan rugs, and I think it's a done deal.
Happy 8AM here on Friday morning, enjoy your Thursday, silly time-different West people!

My Climbing Firsts

Oh yeah, in between cutting grass and poking at rocks with sticks this week I sort of had a first ascent? Harry had gone up the line using jumars earlier, but I was the first to lead this freshly bolted climb. Woo hoo!

Then today, I got to glue in a screw and attach a bolt to it after Harry had drilled the holes. Yes, at some point I will get a picture up here of myself pointing to the bolt I installed in the rock (with lots of instruction and hand-holding, of course) with some kind of touristy grin.

Tonight Laura and I are eating with Harry since he is leaving on Friday, and tomorrow I am off to Lumbini (Boombini? Bamboo? Lumbuni?!) with Judith, Harry's niece. Lumbini is where Buddha was born - look it up!

There is a chance this did not make much sense to anybody whose name I explicitly mentioned, but I've been told that I have a habit of using names out of context, so this is not out of character for me.

SUPARATRI!

Pokhara

I spent a good part of today and yesterday (welcome to Nepal, home of the 6 day volunteer work week) cutting grass and poking at sand and loose plants in the rock with a stick. I'm sure this is exactly what my father intended when he helped me pay for my Ivy League education.

Do you sense a hint of bitterness? Nooooo, I'm having a grand time being in the outdoors. In between helping Harry and Laura this afternoon, I had a good two hours hanging out at the top of a climb, watching the sun set over the lake, observing how much easier it is becoming for me to clear my mind after a whole 19 days of more-or-less pathetic attempts to meditate for 15 minutes every morning. And you know what? It's paying off a whole lot.

I could feel it in yoga class, when for once I could focus on my breathing at least briefly before my mind was somewhere else. I can feel it when it becomes so much more natural for my brain to enter the focused, relaxed, detached stage when I am looking at a gorgeous view. Watching the sunset today, I tried to think about it, but I had no words (thoughts), so I just <i>observed</i>. And I COULD just observe!

Matthiessen struggles with relinquishing the "I" throughout The Snow Leopard.  I cannot say that I felt like there was no I, but the ever-present I felt much more at peace and happy just.. observing, being somewhere, revolving in a world of beauty and sounds and trees and sunsets, than I am used to experiencing.

So there, I am learning a lot. And this* is all part of the learning. If you want to know the side note on the asterisk, you'll just have to email me.

Suparatri!

ABC

So Greg and I had made plans to do the Ghorepani-Gandruk loop which takes about 5 days and gives you STUNNING views of Annapurna, Maccapuchare (yikes I am butchering these spellings) and lots more peaks on the ridge. Imagine moving your chair around at lunch so you can have the optimal view of the television show, except you're moving your chair to gawk at ANNAPURNA while drooling and spilling your soup in your lap instead of following something-or-other's love escapades in NYC. Yes, swoon.

Anyway, at one point (Gandruk or Chumrung, as if ANYBODY is going to google that) you can split off and head up to Annapurna Base Camp (~4200 feet) for another 5-6 day adventure or head down. Greg was itching to go to base camp because well, duh, when else are you going to be so close? and almost convinced me to come, but the whole time I had this nagging feeling like I had to be next to a computer or telephone to receive some kind of news. I was worried that it was bad news, maybe something from home. But a phone call to my  mother (while staring at Annapurna out the window, that's right) turned up that I would pretty much miss the climbing training that Harry was giving if I went up, which would make me entirely useless as a climbing instructor volunteer.

Note on climbing instruction: not everybody in the rest of the world has access to an unlimited supply of ATC's and ATC guides if you need a self-braking device, etc. Sounds logical, right? Somehow in my vain planning this simple concept completely eluded me. Here I thought I would be teaching people to belay left and right, and I am still struggling to master the art of belaying with a munter hitch. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the munter is now a half sailor knot and clove hitch is a full sailor knot. So am I doing more learning than teaching? You bet, but I plan on taking a toothbrush or weeder and going to town on cleaning up parts of the rock where weeds are getting in the way of climbing. So yes, usefulness after all!

Anyway, Greg is somewhere in the mountains, with his birthday, my water pump, and a 200 rupee map of the area. My intuition tells me he is just fine, and I'm psyched for the pictures.

I've been having a great time hanging out with the girls and Laura and Harry. All the climbers are so incredibly badass and it's great to continue being part of this great climbing culture that transcends continents. Laura is a volunteer from Germany staying here for a year. The German government is fronting the $$ for her to live here, that is after finding the organization and housing for her, because they want students to take a gap year to volunteer in between high school and college. Does the American government do this?? Where was I when this was going on ?!

The sporadic power outages which sort of follow a schedule but also occur on their own are keeping things interesting. Reading by headlamp is nothing I'm not used to; it's mainly the water situation since Greg has my pump - there is a water filter in the dining hall but it is out when the power is out. Yay more boiled water!

I am skipping my 20 minute jog around the lake this morning to catch up on some correspondence and hopefully have time to stretch. I was supposed to join Laura for a 8 AM yoga class, but woke up about 20 minutes too late to eat, get ready, and then head up. Who knew I had to set an alarm for a 8 AM yoga class when I was in bed falling asleep by 8:50 PM? Blame the jet lag. The 15 minute time difference between India and Nepal is really killing me.

Until next time!

Annapurna is my TV...

...or the story of how I ALMOST went to basecamp.

Now that you have something to look forward to, let me say that I am settled in at the 3 Sisters Lodge for the next month, starting to teach climbing with Harry tomorrow, and have a perfect opportunity to have a phone date with anybody who wants to. So get at me!

Hope everyone is happy, healthy, and well!

Backlog!

Yikes, wrote this up yesterday then the power went out so I saved it on the desktop. Luckily the place opened on time so I can update real quick before we have to leave for our flight in an hour!

I am quite a bit behind so I will try to summarize. Liz, Jessie, and I parted ways in Delhi and I began my travels with Greg. On the 4 AM taxi ride to the IGI Airport, the taxi driver asked me if I "have marriage" or a girlfriend, then told me I was very handsome.

Our taxi driver in Calcutta, on the other hand, got lost at least 17 times on the way to the center of the touristy section of town, demanded a tip, and wouldn't take our 20 rupee bill because it had a small rip in the edge. (We did not figure out until two days later that people in Calcutta don't fancy taking ripped money bills from you.)


The Sudder Street area of Calcutta perhaps involved even more people hassling you to buy something or visit their shop than Pahar Ganj. Nobody told me I had nice hair, though.

The highlight of the area was a small shack with a green tarp roof where an old man and a young boy worked diligently preparing food all day. After my pathetic attempts to order food in Hindi (when the main language of the region is actually Bengali) they served up a delicious plate of food for only 10 rupees - how sweet of them not even to try to rip me off. They could have quadrupled the price and I would have thought it was reasonable.



The five day quest to try all the exotic looking street food (sodas, fruit salads, weird ass protein milkshake) surprisingly did not harm my stomach, and it was not until pristine Ramnagar when I got what I termed dysentery. (In reality, it was simply a 24-hour lack of any kind of digestion, coupled with a lack of any kind of pain.) A course of ciphro cleared it right up but I do feel bad for anyone who happened to ask me how I was feeling those three days.

Yes, I did jinx myself, saying that I know I can trek with a stomach virus - I definitely had some eventful rest stops on the first day of our small trek through beautiful Kumaon.

December 1st saw the start of my Month of Meditation (to be followed by other months of meditation.) It's been 6 days now of trying to clear my brain for 15 minutes every morning. I can't say I've become any more focused, but I have been much less frustrated at the moderate lack of focus that I encounter.

Seeing old friends in Ramnagar and making new friends was.. nurturing, spiritual, incredible, beginning of a beautiful lifelong thing!

Now we are in Kathmandu, leaving for Pokhara tomorrow. The process of obtaining my Thai visa will cut into a week of my teaching time in Pokhara, since I will have to go back to KTM. Darn processing times.

A celebration beer is waiting for me due to the fact that I GOT MY FIRST GRAD SCHOOL ACCEPTANCE so more on Nepal later.

Pearl of wisdom for anybody who's made it this far:

You see others as you are, not as they are, more than you think. So set the intention to be at your very best and you will be surprised how good people are to you.

Good night!

Back to Delhi

Had a relatively stress-free journey to Pahar Ganj and settled into a reasonably priced hotel with a clean bathroom, helpful desk staff, and cheap airport taxi service. (What's the catch? Hoping there is none..)

Please note that in order to fit all our bags and all 3 of us into one rickshaw, I was lucky enough to get to ride shotty with the driver, basically half hanging out of the car to avoid being elbowed in the boob every time he made a turn and having the ultimate front-row view of the ridiculousness that is Delhi roads. No, I am not being sarcastic when I say lucky. I freaking love sitting shotty.

Went to a cafe with Liz and Jessie to get my morning cappuchino fix, then we split up while Jessie went to get passport photos and Liz went to use the phone. I just wanted to go to the passport photo place and grab the key from Jessie so I could go back to the room and stretch.....

I get to the passport photo place. Jessie is not there. "Passport photos are 100 rupees, ma'm." "I'm just looking for my friend." "She already left." So I leave the photo place and start walking back to the hotel. Some guy is following me and I am trying to semi nicely explain that I am just looking for my friend while he is trying to show me another place to get passport photos. Then I say no thanks and get asked if I want to do shopping. I say I want nothing, thanks.

Get to the hotel, nobody is there. Attempt to walk around.
"Taxi, ma'm?"
"Do you want to do shopping, ma'm?"
"What do you want?"

I say nothing, thanks.

I duck into a side alley which ends up being a loooong street full of fruit and vegetable stands. Here the vibe is completely different - I do not get offered to buy one thing, it is unusually quiet, peaceful, and orderly for India.

**Keep in mind that quiet, peaceful, and orderly for India still involves dogs on top of banana peels making narrow escapes from rickshaw drivers who are trying to make their own narrow escapes from motorcycle drivers while people with bags of fruit are ducking this way and that and bike riders are backing up into a semi parking spot next to a pile of trash.

But anyway, orderly, peaceful, everyone buying fruit and doing their own thing and I don't even really feel like I'm getting that many stares.

Back on the main drag, making some left turns to get back to the hotel. I stop to look at bags and find one that I really like. Of course the shop owner coughs all over everything in the world when he gets it down but honestly, that barely even phases me at this point. Then someone runs over from across the street and says "ma'm, I have much more bags in my shop, it's just across the street." And the owner of this shop is also like yeah, let's go look at the bags across the street so I think fine, I'll look at more bags. Note that at this point I am in an open spot on the main drag, completely visible and safe. But then...

THE STORE OWNER HAS THE NERVE TO OPEN A DOOR TO A PRIVATE STAIRCASE AND BECKON ME UP THE STAIRS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do I really look like I have ONE TOTAL BRAIN CELL and I am going to follow you up a sketchy staircase to "look at bags?"

At this point I keep walking down the street, lividly fantasizing of punching coughing creeper man in the teeth.

And the comments continue.. hello how are you? where are you from? I like your hair! Do you want a rickshaw? Do you want an ATM? Come to my shop!

By the time I made my third loop around the block looking for my friends, though, I think I was emanating enough "I-will-punch-you-in-the-teeth-right-now" vibes that the constant nagging somewhat died down.

Yeah India!!!!!

Manali is...

I am really having issues producing semi-coherent sentences right now, perhaps due to the Kingfisher Strong I was downing while waiting for dinner. We did a gorgeous waterfall hike today, had lunch in someone's apple orchard, saw ridiculous looking vintage ski clothing, and now I am more or less procrastinating leaving this Internet cafe to begin the walk back to the hotel in the brutal cold.  But once we are home, there will be fire and friends and beer. And more untangling of the yarn. Good night!

Songs from a Distance

Is a poetry book by Bhuchung D. Sonam, a Tibetan writer living in Dharamshala, that I happened to pick up and flip through at the Commonground Cafe while Liz and I were waiting for our meal at the same time as he was having dinner and doing a book signing with an Australian tour group one table over. The book was meant to find its way to me - half of it is what I feel about life and the other half is what I should learn about life. And yes, I got a free signed copy.

Check out www.tibetwrites.org or http://www.rangzen.net/author/bhuchungdsonam/ to learn more!

Now we are in Manali, back in the mountains, staying in a rest house with a sun deck from paradise. The nights are chilly and the views and stars rival those of the Dharma valley - of course, it is more built up though, complete with road. The leaves are changing and it's crisp, very satisfying.

I have been nursing a slight sleeping-on-a-bus hangover for most of the day, been relatively sluggish and spent a lot of it stretching and untangling my yarn. Apparently, Liz and mine's sleeping pill and motion sickness medicine induced state of unconsciousness on the bus led to some ridiculous looking cuddling positions. I can't really tell you much about the bus ride except a delicious plate of rice and dal at 9 pm, waking up to duct tape a window shut that kept sliding open, then suddenly being ushered into a hotel in dark Manali at 3 AM.

Anyway, today is sluggishness and hanging out with the couples staying at our hotel, promising them that we will party tonight and questioning if I can hold out.  A lady at a guesthouse was wonderful to let me borrow an Agatha Christie novel for the night, even though the policy is usually no removing books from that guesthouse's library (it's a different hotel from the one where we are staying.) So tonight will most likely consists of cuddling with my book along with all the warm clothing I own. Yeah late-fall high elevation. Good night!

Independent Travel

Most vivid memory:

Hearing the Muslim call to prayer in the middle of a country club in Delhi near the bus station, that we may or may not have snuck into through a gap in the fence, sitting on the grass with a very special recreational apple near a more or less abandoned mysterious temple. The music was coming through so clear and surreal amidst the grass in this completely surreal place, an oasis in the middle of the bustling city where the city noise was almost completely blocked off by the barrier of the trees. Trash was virtually non-existent which is practically impossible in Delhi, trust me. Instead there was a clean lawn to relax on, birds and trees, old buildings to explore, and eucre to be played.

Other impressions? In Mukteshwar we flew. Went paragliding. I felt like I could see the whole world. Bought two sweaters at the same shop where I found my gem of a sweater last year. Saw dear old friends. Had my first one-on-one encounter with a threatening dog that involved scrambling to find and throw three rocks while getting out of the territory that dog was protecting. Collapsed into a giggling fit with Manoj's friends while attempting to wring my towel out over the fire. Took a nine hour bus to Delhi. Haggled with rickshaw drivers and hotel owners at midnight. Got on a "VOLVO" tourist bus to go to McLeod Ganj after being very sketchily driven there from the main bus station and tricked into taking the (SWELTERING) AC bus for an extra 100 rupees. Took sleeping pill on said bus at 7:30 PM and spent the good portion of the rest of the ride passed out. Arrived in an awesome town at 5 AM, two cups of espresso and five hours later we have found a hotel, found our friends, explored, and my graduate school applications are one small step closer to being completely done.

Namaste!

Svecha gorela na stole

After finishing up the trek, we are briefly in Almora before ending up the program in Syat. Even though we were in a lodge in Munsiari just a few days ago, the technology and buildings here feel so much more foreign. Is it because the trek is over and I know I won't be back in the woods tomorrow for an undetermined period of time? Is it because the program is coming to an end? Because I've been to Almora before, so this is a familiar place with technology and not another new exciting destination? Who knows?

I woke up at 5 of my own volition and decided that it was a great time to get up and get on the Internet, much to the shock of my roommate who insists that it is unnatural to get up before it is light out. Well, I have had a fabulous hour taking care of business, googling Russian poems I have been craving, and watching the sun peek out from beyond the haze over the hills.

I won't have Internet that much but it shouldn't cost you anything extra to text me, so I would love a "hello" or an update!

Chedabagar

I am channeling my blog through my father because as I had warned, has been spotty at best (read: five minutes per month IF your day in town happens to coincide with a day that the power is on). Anyway, when you’re in Himalayas, who needs facebook? All my worries about a sense of permanence and being distracted from the now were swept away by a very strong physical sense of the great distance the airplane covered before it dropped us at New Delhi. Eight thousand miles is comprehensive! The landscape here is so vast and the mountains so much greater than you that together they act as a vacuum cleaner and sponge, sweeping away your worries and absorbing them into their mass. Last year I felt I was learning so much about the humanity and the tiny role I played in it, but this year the dominant discovery has been how much I have yet to learn.

Instead of thinking about how this experience will let me take knowledge and awareness back to my “other” life, I realizes THIS is becoming my life, and I can work instead on constantly being the person I’m out here because that IS who I am, not some alter abroad ego. Life is so rich with meaning, the air is thick with it. I think that if you really find meaning once, it becomes easier to rediscover it in the seemingly mundane things you do.

That meaning is personal and highly individual, but you are lucky if you can recall a time when you felt inspired, in awe, and full of purpose – wouldn’t we all be much better members of society if we could approach everything we do with complete reckless commitment? Anyway, dusk is descending and with it the hum of cicadas above the Ramganga river, trees glowing eerily perched above the hilltop, and fireworks going off in the distance to celebrate Deepwali in a smooth transition from the daytime blasts of dynamite that would jolt us out of our haze every so often. I am off to enjoy this in-between stage before night sets in.

On Transience, more on Journeying

The danger with seeking permanence in a state of change is that you tend to get attached to everything that comes into the lens of your transition stage.

A transition stage is a kind of journey, after all - and if I am to lump the next six months of my life into an entity I term "journey," there is no reason why a transition stage cannot also be important enough to receive that term. It is literally the movement from one stage into another stage.

And Buddha had it all right, it seems - seeking too much permanence in a stage of constant flux can lead you to cling to those things. I had my first mini crying sesh over leaving the country today. Was it because I am realizing how many things (and by things I clearly mean people - yes, lack of avocados will be traumatizing, but nothing to cry about) I will miss, or is it unrelated to any tangible experiences in my life and just my way of over-attaching to things in this temporary state?

So maybe the answer to how do you create permanence when change is the constant is - accept and embrace the fact that you will not have any permanence. THANKS BUDDHA I KNEW THAT, now how do I make myself actually believe it? It's one thing to have a fact written inside your head and an entirely different animal to believe that fact, live and breathe it with your every cell.

But that is part of the journey that is this week (it's really satisfying how that sentence makes no sense, in the context of grad school applications where sentences aren't allowed to be rambly and imperfect) ANYWAY, the part of the journey that is this week is preparing myself for the next six months. The tangible is all but done, it is the mental I am still struggling to figure out. See above with permanence, belonging, etc.

The other part of mental preparation is figuring out what to pack into my virtual duffel bag. I didn't realize this until week 5 or so of last year's trip, and when I did, it was a powerful realization. But while we are all the sum of our experiences, that doesn't mean that we have to carry all our experiences everywhere we go. Think of it as a duffel bag, storage unit, two small planets, what have you, of stuff - but abstract, mental, memory stuff that adds up to all your experiences that define you as a person. You would never carry around everything you own all the time. Your back would break - to prolong the metaphor, you would get incredibly overwhelmed and feel a little nutty. So you can pick memories, experiences, people that you will put into your wallet, day pack, overnight pack, or leave behind in some deep dark storage corner of your mind.

As another example, just because you were going through a really rough patch a few years back and couldn't handle spending time with anyone to whom you couldn't constantly whine doesn't mean that today, every new acquaintance and potential friend has to pass the whineability test.  Even if something was a part of your life at some point and significantly contributed to who you are as an individual, you don't have to share that something with everyone you meet for the rest of your life and have it be a dominant feature of your personality and key topic of discussion on a day-to-day basis.

So this week is supposed to be about figuring out what people, experiences, and character traits make it into my trip pack, day pack, close-to-my-heart toolish touristy money belt.

Then there are those experiences which are very current, but the circumstances of being lots of miles away (yeah geography) and sans consistent technological access (Skype is a freakishly artificial construct anyway) require them to be put on hold.

And I've figured that out to about the same degree as I have finished all of my grad school applications.

A Journey of Many Kinds - 1

My plane departs next Friday morning, but I feel like my journey has already started, in many ways.

The most pressing way is for me to use this week to learn how to breed stability and permanence in a constantly changing context. Why? I've found that I am less happy when something feels like a transition stage - so logically, it follows that I may be happier if I am able to put down roots.

However, I don't think that is necessarily so. Traveling and seeing new places is incredibly exciting, and I can't say that either concept of stability or permanence is all that attractive. I also love the nomadic backpacking/trekking lifestyle, where you wake up and pack up your tent and belongings and don't even have to think about what's important because all you've got on your plate is breakfast and walking.

Is it a sense of belonging, perhaps? Yet I can be in a transition stage and still have an incredible sense of belonging as a member of a global community. What I do know, though, is that there is something difficult about a day to day existence that does not allow you to get settled in, and I need to figure out what it is and find a way to bypass it.

On Freaking Out

This Friday morning I am embarking on a 6 month long trip to India, Nepal, Thailand, and Malaysia, never spending more than a month at one spot and more than six weeks doing any one thing. In the next five days and especially in the last 48 hours I will: pack six months of things I need into one backpack that weighs less than 50 pounds, pack up and move out of my apartment, prepare things to be sent over to myself with friends at one or two points throughout my trip, ship my car cross country, finish applying to graduate school, and tie up loose ends at 3 jobs. As I made this list on Friday afternoon and reflected on the fact that I am not freaking out yet, I decided that I must have serious mental issues or some powerful drug has been inadvertently mixed into my coffee in the morning.

Then I started freaking out.

Anyway, now that I am not nervous about leaving the country for 6 months I am beginning to wonder if I again have serious mental issues or if the true meaning of that statement has yet to hit me.

But what is there to freak out about, really? When I land in the Delhi airport on Saturday evening I will be meeting old dear friends and making new ones, living in a beautiful place that I believe I have the tools from last year to enjoy to an even greater degree. And the rest of the trip will continue to be filled with beautiful places, precious people, and exciting experiences. So when I begin to freak out - IF I begin to freak out, I'll let you know.