Arrgh! Ubud sucks!

>I am totally ready to head out of Ubud, I think I'd

like to go back to the Gili islands eventually...my patience

>with the place completely waning... Weird 'cause I

>really didn't feel the same in Kuta which is

>completely touristy... A big part of it was really

>feeling at home though in Kuta with the large group of

>people I met and interacted with... Interesting,

>'cause a theory (ecological theory?) well, one of the

>theories I read about during my health education

>studies spoke about how social support networks

>mitigate the effects of stress... hmmm... and here, I

>really haven't created that social network of cool

>people that I did in both Gili and Kuta for whatever

>reason, a big reason actually being the place (Restu Inn)

I'm staying at consists of one traveler - me. The girl

next door that were there the day I moved in left the next day.

>It's quite a change 'cause as opposed to the other places

I stayed at, hard to find time to myself at all!

At first the place was great

>'cause Gili was a bit too small after two weeks

>if you know what I mean, I loved the peace and

>quiet...

>Really interesting that my current limit for being mostly

>alone is a week (the stress I experienced due to various

communication difficulties didn't help, see next entry)

... And it really is important for me

>to be able to come home to people, even if I don't

>want to talk to them. heh. The people that run Restu

>are great, but not people I can really share my

>thoughts and feelings with...

The day after I arrived (Sat), at tourist information,

I did meet a guy with the same accent as me,

so I had to ask him where he was from... Montreal originally, but

currently living and working in California...

While I was enjoying, for the second time, a delicious tofu, potato, tomato stew made with a some kind of sweet soy sauce, he described to me this event called Burning Man which takes place in the southwest US desert and involves a gathering of people

which must bring all that they need and take all with them when they

leave, and also they must contribute by participating in or providing

for the group, e.g. art ... the cost also involves a 100$ fee to help

rent the land... at the center of the gathering is placed a large model

of a human which is lit ?each night? or at the very end, I forget...

So, I really enjoyed talking with him,

definitely as intelligent and educated as me, as well

as interested in mentally stimulating conversation,

which was a nice change... I'd forgotten how thoroughly

satisfying and inarguably thrilling a robust meeting fo

the minds could be.

We had a really great conversation at this place called the

Jazz Cafe, a place with the funkiest drinks! A guy next to us had

this glass of bear which was about 2-3 feet tall, round and bulbous at

the bottom, thin in the middle, and then widening at the top...

We all (me, Brian and the couple next to us) sat on pillows around tables

placed on an elevated bamboo platform. A sample of the nutty conversation

we had included a crazy thought about how neat it

would be to live completely in the zone unexplained by research...

I phrased it then mentioning the whole p=.05 thing, which describes

how probable the results of a research undertaking are due to chance...

what if a person could live completely in this zone of chance, where nothing was predictable, at least according to the rules dictated by experiments...

oops -now I realize I hadn't really explained it right - what I had meant to say was that there is never any absolutes in experimentation or life... so what if a person could live in that .001% zone(outside the 99.9% chance X will occur),

not the p thing.

Whatever! I need my statistic book to get the phraseology exactly right.

He got the point, and I think actually the whole conversation

was more about just spinning our brains as fast as we could more than

completely being understood, or maybe even completely understanding what we were

thinking ourselves, a general understanding was sufficient, thus enabling

us to leap to the next thought quickly and keep that stream of mental

energy going...

The next night, my company was a bit more, shall we say interested in

her own thoughts and solely her own thoughts? I met her, a pharmacist,

also from California, at Ubud Sari Health resort,

this place I wanted to check out to see what kind of complimentary

medicine was around. It had plenty of styles of massage and energy

therapy, at prices slightly less than the US. Anyway, this girl had been

traveling through many different countries in Asia and thus had a lot of

information, and definite biases!! to impart. Her attitude seemed to

convey a consideration of her company, me, as a wee beginner. But, I was a bit tired anyway, and plus, she had a lot of good info to offer, once i nudged her verbosity in the right direction... One of her favorite topics seemed to be the stresses and pitfalls

of travel, especially through India... goodness! I think she was detoxing through

the mouth (she had just come to Bali to relax after her strenuous travels).

What she demonstrated a failure to see is that perhaps, just perhaps, the WAY she was

traveling - superspeed - had something to do with her negative experiences, more

than or at least as much as the countries themselves...

anyhow... I eventually decided to just get dinner at this place. The salad was EXCELLENT, and just what my body needed. I also got a spinach dish with bechamel (a type

of milk thing), cheese and eggs. delicious!

My chosen company later gave me a guidebook on Thailand which had been passed down through

generations of travelers, which was cool... I was quite ready to leave her

company by the end of the night, nonetheless... I don't understand why

people like her just seem oblivious to the fact that conversation with

fellow human beings is not a race to see who can speak the most

without stopping!!! I've met plenty of people like her,

(how have they survived in our gene pool??????) and as in the past,

I again entertained the thought that it was partially me...

but nope, the only part i played in this was continue to

provide an ear and refrain from holding up a large stop sign to signal a

need for a pause in the her self-conversation...

The next day,(when I was still thinking maybe it was me too), I invited her

to join me and Brian and two other folk I had met on a tour that day.

Just a little quote from Bri (hope you don't mind!) when I asked him if

it was just me, or was she a bit verbose?

'You think? She wouldn't shut up, and little of what she said was

interesting.'

I did think she was interesting, myself, but in relation to the

way she liked to force-feed her captives her bocal culinary delights, as good

as it may have been - Case closed!