Classes are going well. After the initial feeling of being overwhelmed, I feel that I’m starting to get my bearings. The good memory I inherited from my parents is helping a lot, as it has throughout my academic career. Also knowing a bit of Chinese, even as illiterate as I am, has helped tremendously with understanding many of the terms.

This stuff awes me. I haven’t started the pulse diagnosis at all yet, but we started learning about face diagnosis in our medical assessment class. The concept that tremendous amounts of valuable information can be found in minute microsystems is not new to me (there’s a Hermetic axiom: “As above, so below; as below, so above.”); but actually beginning to learn about these microsystems is very exciting. And learning that obvious facial features have meaning — and that it works — is, well, freaky.

Concurrently, I’m getting free treatments in the student clinic. My primary complaint is chronic low-grade fatigue, which I’ve had for years; it’s not debilitating but is enough to make me feel fragile in the presence of aggressive energy or activities. That process, too, is interesting and educational, particularly since I can start to correlate the diagnoses they’re making with what I’m learning in my classes. They’ve been trying out different herbs on me to see what works; I guess it’s not an entirely straightforward process. Right now I’ve just started taking a simple decoction of astragalus and angelica (I forget the Chinese name). We’ll see how that goes.

It’s good to be finally learning things in school that add, rather than stand opposed, to my true self.

In the social realm I still feel shaky. A couple of times I have encountered situations in which people judged me. Yesterday one of the other students got really judgmental of me over something very trivial. It took me a little while to step back from it and realize that since she doesn’t really know me, if she’s taking it that personally, then she must be reacting to something in her own personal history. Still, I don’t trust people who are so quick to judge, so for now I’ve decided to steer clear of her.

I can be very emotionally sensitive though, and it’s actually shown up in my Chinese diagnosis — heart yin deficiency, or something like that.

Actually, I’ve been a very angry and very hurt person, and what has gotten me to the point where I can even begin to let go of insults like that has been a lot of practice in my relationship with Abigail, a lot of practice in mindfulness and concentration, and the practice of opening to the goodness in the world, i.e. thankfulness.

In general, I see a strong difference between the network of social relationships here and what I experienced at Teaching Drum. One strength of being in a community like that was that I lived, worked, and sat around the hearth with a group of people from whom I couldn’t escape; and so we all (or most of us, at least) worked hard to clear the air when something came up. Moreover we committed to truthspeaking, to being honest even when it hurt — the anti-codependency. In some instance it led to some really rough times, which is why I think full honesty is not enough; but overall it was an excellent way to be in relation. Everyone is real.

The people at school here are nice enough, but the only social periods are in the few minutes before and after classes and during breaks. Everyone has their own lives, and people are only starting to mix. For an introvert like me it is sometimes lonely, and incidents like the one yesterday are disheartening.

So my life feels a little bit fragmented. I’m glad it’s the weekend; I need a few days to put myself back together.