I woke up last night and realized that I have a three day weekend this coming Friday, and so, on a rare whim, I figured that I should use it to head back to America to visit my family and see some friends. The flight is pretty long - nearly thirteen hours, and so most of you are probably wondering why I would even consider blowing such a short weekend on a trip home when I would only actually be able to be there for something like 40 hours or so, but all I have to say is those kind of details don't usually matter when it comes to the subconscious; logic is set aside and the only thing that matters is the end rather than the means. For me, in my 5th recurring dream of this sort, the end happens to be some good old American food. Initially, one might think that if I were in want of food, then I would naturally find myself at restaurant scarfing down meal after meal or maybe at a super market about to purchase half of the candy section, a third or so of the deli, and one hundred percent of the bakery, but no. Why go to the super market when everything you need is shelved nicely downstairs in your parents basement? I am only slightly ashamed to admit that of all of the things that I miss: my family, my roommates, my social life, BYU basketball games, even an English class or two, food seems to have topped the list. It's not that China doesn't have good food - it's great - even fantastic, but there's something that just gets you in the gut when you're craving an old staple that was once so readily available to you and is now out of reach. For me, it started with bread (the largest staple of all my staple foods), but since then it has moved on to milk, cheese, cereal, waffles, easy mac, applesauce, tortilla chips, salsa etc etc. After I curbed most of those bingey desires I realized something was seriously wrong because rather than coveting Chipotle, Cafe Rio, Sonic, or Papa John's, my tastes had moved on to something a little more basic - just the regular old stuff in the food storage - mustard, brownie mix, flour, powdered sugar, vanilla, almond extract, chocolate chips, raisins. I wasn't just wanting to eat something good. I wanted to make something good too. Thus begins the dreams of food storage scavenging. In the most recent dream, I spent the largest portion of the time trying to determine the most efficient way to pack as much powdered sugar and flour into one carry-on as possible. In the end, I found a suitable solution, and took the Sunday morning flight back to China; however, upon arrival and subsequent awakening I realized that all my efforts were in vain. Alas, I am still here in my small apartment without access to the necessary ingredients to make a decent batch of cookie dough. Life is tough. I know.
I think the dreams may have been triggered by some sort of missionary-like state of disconnected homesickness. See, my computer has been broken and therefore I haven't had much contact with the old life recently. In conjunction with a sporadic burst of package receiving by my six comrades, I believe I may have been sent into a mini food depression. One friend received a large box of snickers and protein bars; another got a bunch of gum and water flavor packets, and last but definitely the most enviable, the guy upstairs had his parents send him a full box of Baby Bell cheese. Jealousy set in. Thankfully, my dear buddy Sparky has been aiding me in my recovery and helped me fix my computer, so at least that is back to normal. As far as the food goes, I'm working on that too. Today I had the second best tuna sandwich I've ever eaten, and tomorrow I head to Shanghai where I plan to eat my weight in dearly missed foods. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be able to find some powdered sugar there!
Beyond the food, life has been wonderful as usual. This Tuesday/Wednesday we celebrated the national holiday "Womens' Day" by watching Three Idiots - a strangely roller coaster Indian film that is nearly three hours long. The rest of the time has pretty much been spent making bulletin board decorations for the school. My theme is Cowboys and Indians, but so far I think I've done more to offend than to educate. First I got in trouble for the toothpicks sticking out of my desert cactus, and then I was informed that the principle wasn't too keen on my fully armed Cowboy. Sadly, we had to chop off his guns and make them into pretty pathetic excuses for fists holding a lasso; now Heath McGreggor will never have a chance at beating Mochimo - at least he was able to keep his bow and arrow. I suppose it's all for the best. I'm just hoping they don't make me scrap the cow skull I put up today too. Eh, maybe I should be kicked off the decorating team. :)
I hope all is well at home. Sweet dreams of yummy things.
-Courtney
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