So I managed to go one daylight day fasting for Fast-A-Thon here at SMU. It turns out the money raised (total of $3500) for Islamic Relief goes to the victims of the earthquake in Pakistan, which I know next to nothing about. But I was gone when it happened...yeah, I celebrated my birthday on the bus, as part of a 32-hour trip to reach Gainesville, FL. Most of the ride was spent hanging out with Hondurian immigrants who spoke no English and had been traveling for 35 days to reach their relatives or friends in the States, where they can work temporarily. It was definitely an eye-opening experience: the guys were all in their high school age, and one asked me to read his phone card, who was in Spanish indeed: he just didn't know how to read! Others did not know how to dial their relatives'phone numbers although they did have a phone card with instructions in Spanish...I lent my mp3 player to one of them, who was fascinated about the discman: go figure!

It was nice to be back in Gainesville, the only place I can call home on this continent. Most things were still the same, although Gainesville is always fun! It was hard to get to spend time with everyone, or at least to spend as much quality time with everyone as I was hoping to!

The ride back was "only" 26 hours, but it was worse: all bus rides were full and I never had both seats to myself. Also, I had to go through Alabama and Mississippi, so a lot of the passengers were white (trash) Southerners in camouflage gear: hunting and God is a combination that seems strange, but not down (t)here. I can recall a tattoo on a tough guy reading "Only God knows"...but the best of all was one lady's t-shirt, all colorful and in "Who wants to be a millionaire?"-style, reading "My definite answer?" and then in the middle, in big characters:"Jesus!". Nice, huh?

I had a good time talking to a Chinese man who was a "chef" at a Chinese buffet restaurant somewhere in Mississippi: he's been in the States for 4 years now, but his English wasn't very good. He was telling me how he used to live in Biloxi, MS and when Katrina came his house was flooded up to his chest; he said he swam all the way to the highway where he sought help and walked for 30 minutes to a firestation, where he got new clothes and food...

This older man next across the isle was reading crazy books that seemed to come out of some sort of white, Christian, spiritual "sect": this one book he spent the most time on (taking the time to underline things...) was called "Animals are Soul too" and for what I could glance at was made up of little silly (madeup) anecdotes about how all these animals were really carrying "God's message" or something scary like that...the best was the language used: a kid in elementary school would find it too simple!

I was glad to finally be back in Dallas and be able to ride the Dart home. Campus feels such an educated environment compared to the bus stations!

On another note, it is interesting to notice how Katrina was all over the news for at least a week, with catastrophic words all over the place. Final dead toll? Barely 1'000 people. The earthquake in Pakistan has so far allegedly killed about 30'000 people at least, yet it is not nearly as important as the new (video) iPod...the tsunami in SE Asia did receive adequate coverage in the news, but I suspect it was mainly because of Phuket and the touristy destinations for us Westerners. What would we know about it if it had only hit Banda Aceh, the Nicobar and the Andaman Islands?

Oh, I also started getting to a decent amount of shows, and I have been posting pictures from my Labor Day weekend trip to El Paso, TX and Juarez, Mexico. They're all here, along with some more random shots: http://photos.yahoo.com/xdambox

Well, I better go now...Russian is calling me! But the pictures from El Paso and Juarez talk for themselves: it was definitely an amusing experience to wade through the sewage waters that were rising by the minute after a 30-minute storm. Being able to bargain for stuff in Spanish and eating 5 "paletas" in one day were the other highlights, as well as being in the city At The Drive-In and The Mars Volta are from. And, as a certain commercial would say, being addressed in English by Mexican vendors wanting to show you the Rolexes they sell is priceless! Do they know that I have been living in an unfurnished apartment and sleeping on an air mattress for the past 2-3 months? Probably not!