more miscellaneous - and also final - bits

6. my unit is still trying to call me back for mob manning, even after umpteen telephone calls telling them to PISS OFF. i mean, dear god, why?

7. altogether, my luggage weighs close to 80 kilograms. it is almost certain that i have bitten off more than i can chew, but i will rely, as i often do, on providence and the kindness of strangers.

8. i was reading through old journal entries, and have concluded that i was more terrified the last time i left, but less sad. i told yen (and a few other people as well), that it is different this go-around. when i went to duke, i was in step with everyone; i was entering a new era together with friends, so that although we were geographically distant, we were still in the same phase of our lives. of course, as the mother pointed out, this is kind of an illusion -- the dephasing will happen ineluctably anyway, it's just that i'm the first one to get out of line (to be precise i guess the credit for that has to go to people like von and john p. and billy and minz, but this is my day to be a cynosure, so leave me alone). knowing it is an illusion, though, is still very little comfort.

9. to su-lin: thank you -- again -- for everything, and stay well, and never change.

10. and to everyone else who reads this damn litany of crap: thanks for sticking on, and keep in touch. i'll be online, and blogging, and keeping the dream alive for as damn long as i possibly can. love you all.

#20: you. all of you.