Bye Bye Bitter

If you've practiced enough, you can spot a CMU student from 50 feet. You just look for the bitter cloud hanging around them. As a rule, we tend to get really fed up with things that waste our time, and when we put time and effort into something, we expect big payouts. This leads to a lot of disappointment, and subsequently, an attitude problem worthy of Joe Pesci on steroids (remember the SNL skits? the really old ones? good.).

So the CMU types among you can imagine my surprise when we drove an hour to the hot springs to stay 20 minutes, and then an hour to Kataragama today to stay for about 20 in the temple, and another 30 minutes kicking around town. And the weirdest thing was, no one seemed to mind. Nobody thought this was a waste of time, or a morning ill-spent, or anything like that. I thought they'd all gone mad.

And then I got really jealous. Because they've got the time to travel 2 hours just for 20 minutes of amusement. Life is just that relaxed here. And I noticed today that I'm a lot less irritable and bitter than I was when I left CMU. It's just not worth it. I might get aggravated for an hour or two, but that's the end of it. Before I left, one of my friends predicted: "You will be so chill when you come back." I think I owe him 10 bucks now.

So Kataragama. Kataragama is town with a very noteworthy temple. And to get there, we travelled an hour each way with D. (the cook/housekeeper at the center) and her son. D. doesn't speak much English, but she's a lot of fun to be around, and she and Meg have really bonded.

I haven't been to too many temples here, but Kataragama is definitely in a class by itself. The site isn't a temple so much as a very benevolent compound. Visitors go in a gate at the entrance and are immediately surrounded by plants and statues of elephants and lions. There are various religious buildings with Hindu and Buddhist figures in them, and lots of plants. It's almost like a park, or a greenhouse exhibit.

We walked around for a bit (not long) and then wandered back into the town, stopping first at a small shop for a snack. I'm really liking the heat now. Walking was a little tough in the sun, but really it wasn't bad.

We caught the bus home, and that was pretty much the end of the trip. And it was a great trip. I had a lot of fun and though I wouldn't have minded spending more time at the temple, it was very satisfying.

Tomorrow is our true last day at the center. We're going in for half a day and then leaving at noon for Weligama. I learned of our plans this afternoon, and immediately hit the Packing Funk.

The Packing Funk

I don't like packing. I'm not convinced that anyone really does, but for me, it's like torture by tedium. And so whenever I have to pack for anything, I hit a sort of Zeno's paradox along the way. I'll get half way done and then I'll be suitably irritated that I'll take a break. I'll return and get half of the remaining task done, and then a good song will come on and I'll have to stop and air guitar for a while. Or the cat will come in and knock over my piles. Or I'll decide that now, right now is really the best time to sort my [collection of over 10,000] Magic cards. Maybe my ex from 5 years ago really didn't get what he deserved and his day of reckoning has come. Who knows. The point is, packing takes forever, and the whole time I am absolutely miserable.

So right now, for example, the packing is about 3/4 done, and I'm here typing my blog. And when I go back home, I'll draw some portraits for Thushari and her family as a good bye present. And then I'll probably think about packing the rest and decide it can be done tomorrow, before work. Fortunately, I don't have too much to pack.

This post really lacks in the comic relief department, so I'm going to talk about Zeno's Paradox some more, because it holds sentimental value to me.

Back when I was about 10, maybe 4th grade or so, my dad told me about this guy Zeno, and his little theory that you can't walk across a room (because first you'll have to walk half way, and then half of the remaining distance, and then half of that, etc...). This is quite a piece of knowledge for a 10 year old. It took me a little while to get my head around the idea of paradox. Longer, unfortunately, than it did for me to run into class the next day and excitedly tell my teacher that I couldn't get across the room. And then, I couldn't remember why. I couldn't remember what the paradox was. And my teacher had apparently never heard of it. I have never quite forgiven the educational system for hiring a 4th grade teacher who has no knowledge of arcane, useless bits of incorrect mathematical and philosophical theory. I mean, really.

I've since had time to reflect upon the whole incident. I feel like I had a really powerful weapon there, just for a little while, and I wish I'd known how to use it. So clearly, I must find a suitable 10 year old through which I can live vicariously. I'll teach him all the random junk I know and turn him into a philosophical terror.
"Clean your room."
"I can't get there."
...and so on. His crippling, yet innocent intellect will wreak havoc on all who dare stand in his path. He will rule legions of playground armies. And then I will never babysit for this child.

I really miss Pinky and the Brain. Because now I have to come up with these schemes on my own, just to amuse myself.