May 22

Eating stolen Weet-Bix straight out of the box, slowly adapting a deep numbness to world chaos. I don't have CNN and have only sketchy resources, but I heard that the death toll in China since the earthquake has reached 30,000, and that because of poor construction, most schools collapsed, causing an unusual high number of deaths in children. Sad. My friends from Myanmar (Burma) wanted to return home to visit in July, but over muffled phone lines, their families told them they better not. They also told them that all of the Adventists were safe, but I met a Burmese ADRA worker last week who had opposite reports.

Had my first real taste of fresh durian today. Had sort of written it off after having bad paste and weird ice cream. Plus the smell and the scary, spiky exterior that literally pops car tires and could do you some serious damage if you fell on one wrong. But my roommate Ann and her friend Mark decided I couldn't go home without having the real stuff. So they bought some for me the other night and we had it with dinner. It was amazing. And when I was eating it I couldn't smell it at all. And it was creamy and smooth like custard and mildly sweet, and I finally understood all the hype.

I talked to a friend the other day, expressing the year's list of beautiful letdowns. And he almost started to laugh, saying he always thought I was a bit idealistic, admirable in a way, a warm and silly foolishness, naivety in the way I always want to assume the best in others. But when the words came out of his mouth, the sense it made only felt relieving. Jesus upset the tables in the temple, Jesus taught us that while we should love the sinner, we should hate the sin. It's okay to feel desperation and rage and disappointment. The world is unjust, messed up, so maddening. But I still have hope. Change is still possible. Maybe that's idealistic of me again, but I still believe I can be a small part of this change.