TALK: The Green Mountain College Blog

Shopping was accomplished yesterday in a three and a half hour solitary sojourn in perhaps the hottest and most humid day of the summer yet. Needless to say, my car's air conditioning doesn't work, and of course I was stuck in traffic for a period of time. Yeah. I was stinky and disgusting, but I got my shopping done.

Speaking of cars, I think I failed to mention that mine broke down last Saturday. My friends and I had a campout to celebrate our friend Jess's graduation, the summer solstice, and the fact that it was the last time I'd be able to hang out with the majority of them in... for the next month. So we called just about everyone on all of our number lists and had a fairly large shindig. It was quite fun to see everyone, as I hadn't seen some of them in over two years! Well, Toby realized he couldn't find his keys in the morning, so I gave him a ride over to his house to find them. So we drove all the way there and searched around his house, only to find nothing. So we decided to return to the campsite. Not only did my car fail to start, but we also found his keys on the floor of my car! (Don't ask me how they got there... we still have no idea). We eventually hitched a ride back to Toby's car from his brother, leaving my car to either rust or... rust some more in Toby's driveway.

So I thought I'd be carless for the next few weeks, which was fine with me, as I wasn't going to be around for the majority of the time. That same day, however, I got a phone call from Toby asking if he could borrow my keys so his father could poke around under the hood and see what was wrong with it. Toby's father ended up hitting this small starter relay several times with a hammer, which somehow got my car running so he could bring it back to my house. Hurrah! Unfortunately, it was only a quick fix, and though it started a couple times after that, it eventually died again. So my father did his own poking around and thought he found the reason behind my car's death wishes. So him and I spent the majority of Monday running around trying to find a cheap replacement part at a bunch of different junkyards, only to find out that the piece we did end up finding wasn't actually the problem. It wasn't the part that was the issue, it was the wiring to the part that was the issue. Well guess what? My dad rewires things for a living. So we sat down and fiddled with the millions of wires until we found the one that was having issues, he rewired it, and now my car works better than it did before it broke down. I was wondering why it wasn't turning over on the first try...

All that aside, I've gotten the majority of my shopping done (I'm going to finish it on Saturday, I think) and now all I have to do is finish this last book, and I'm golden! Or mostly golden. I received a phone call from my prof last night to discuss my plans for getting to the JFK airport (we all have to figure that transportation stuff on our own... the trip cost covers the international flight from JFK to Beijing, all the stuff in between, and then the trip back to JFK. We need to get ourselves to JFK and back). I told him that I was taking a bus from Boston around 7am and I'd be in NYC around 11:30. We're all supposed to meet in the JFK around 1pm, so that'd give me an hour and a half to get my luggage and catch the bus that goes from Port Authority to the JFK airport. Now, depending on the traffic, this bus can take up to an hour to get to the JFK! So, he said I was pushing it, considering that the majority of the other students said they'd meet him between 12:30 and 1 at JFK. Consequently, I'm extremely worried that traffic isn't going to work out or that I'm not going to be able to find my luggage or that something, anything, will go wrong and I'll be late. Part of me isn't as concerned as I could be, however, considering he is telling us to be there by 1, when we technically don't have to be there until 1:30 for an international flight, but still. I'm just jumpy about it. I really hope everything works out, as there are no buses that leave Boston any earlier, unless I want to leave at midnight and hang out in either the Port Authority or JFK for seven hours alone. Which seems sketchy to me to begin with.

Anyways, I'm trying to remain calm about it, even though I know I'll be late. Since I have his cell phone number, however, it might not be so bad-- I can just call him and tell him when to be expecting me. I really think that the whole: be at the airport three hours before an international flight-thing is a little weird. Isn't the majority of it just spent standing around anyways?

So. I can't do anything about my bus situation. So, to end on a bright note, here are a few more online pics I nabbed which can showcase the adventure I will be taking.

Here's a picture of a pure gold Buddha statue from the Jokhang Temple. The statue was a gift from Chinese Princess Wen Cheng in 641 AD. Can you imagine that? It's OLD. And I'm going to get to see it, as well as chant with the Jokhang monks that evening in perhaps one of the holiest temples in Tibet!

Once again, here's the link

As I was reading that book I mentioned earlier-- Art of Tibet-- I came across a reference to Palden Lhamo, one of the most revered Tibetan goddesses. Now, according to the Gelupga order of Tibetan Buddhists, she's the protector of the Dalai Lama. The book, though brimming with pictures, failed to have a picture of her, so I had to look her up. This is the picture I came across. The information following is also referenced from the website I site below.

Isn't she pretty frightening? The concept of the Tibetan protector deities are exactly that-- that they are absolutely frightening. What's very different, however, about the typical frightening deities/gods from the Western Cultures is that these protector deities are mainly concerned about enlightenment. Whereas many of the angry gods and goddesses from the Western Culture need to be appeased so they don't get angry at you, these angry gods get angry at you if you are not a peaceful person.

The concept behind Palden Lhamo is that she will stop at nothing to achieve peace-- the stories about her state that she was once married to a bloodthirsty king who kept on murdering and murdering their people. She told him that if he didn't stop, she'd kill their son. He didn't stop, and she carried out her threat. Needless to say, he was a peaceful king after that.

click here for a lot more info

So I think that's about it for now. A little long winded, but there's a lot going on right now. I'll probably do a quick update before I leave for Tibet, perhaps at 2am on the 3rd, which is when I'm planning on getting up to get to Boston in time (I'm taking my friends out to breakfast because they're willing to take me to Boston at 4am in the morning). Perhaps there will be a cute little picture of the sleepy-eyed and scared Nicole, to boot. Who knows.