Sleepless

Encoding a hand-written blog entry.

It's 6:55 in the morning and I haven't slept a wink. I finally decided to just go out of my room and see what's outside.

It is noticeably cold. Cold for someone who came from a country where you couldn't step out of your door without breaking a sweat.

Oh yes it's cold. And the wind is blowing.

I realize that even China, with its billion people, falls quiet during the morning. It's weirdly unsettling, this silence.

I had thought about running again this morning, but I had run only a few hours ago. Eleven hours to be exact. Running again would be suicide for my sleepless body and restless mind.

I plug my iPod into my ears and hit shuffle. The first song: With A Smile. Maybe the world is telling me something.

I see some people doing Tai-chi.

My stomach grumbles. But I'm not in the mood for a breakfast of dumplings and mini-siopao (official name: baozi). No, thanks.

I've spent a lot of time in my room the past few days. Three out of five times, I had told the cleaning ladies to come back the next day (official statement: ming tian). They wanted to clean but I was in the room. They wanted to clean but I was in the way. Too bad.

Oddly, I don't feel sad. It's ok that I'm here. Not discounting the fact, of course, that it would be better if I were home. But yeah, I'm ok with not being home. Scratch that. It's more of... being resigned to reconciled with the situation.

That being said, isn't it just... sad? Sad and ironic? I believe that there really is no place like home. So how can anyone expect another to feel when they're not... you know... home?

I have no answers to that.

Classes will resume tomorrow. Yep, sunday. What a glorious day.

I should go to sleep.

It's 9:15am and I'm still up.

I don't think I've ever stayed up for more than 24 hours since my college days when all-nighters were normal.

I really should go to sleep.

And I will, after the cleaning ladies arrive. They're down the hall already. Hehehe...