Pathologically complicated, just the way I like it.

Leaving leaving leaving leaving. My going away parties outnumber my birthdays. This is nothing new, it's a pattern I have followed as religiously as is possible for an atheist since I was 15, but ... Why?

I've come to the conclusion that it has nothing to do with running away. I'm good at life, and reasonably good at reality. There is nothing to run from, but everything to run to. This is the problem: the opportunity cost of being somewhere, when you could be somewhere else. To all you business students, I'm givin' it to you econ style – I can only be in one place at any given time, and the overwhelming cost of not being in a multitude of other places is bloody bankrupting me. I'm geographically impoverished. I am (slowly) expiring while forfeiting the opportunities that come with being in a place that I am currently not. I am not referring specifically to my current destination, Hong Kong is just one place on an impossibly long list.

That is why, in the heat of the increasingly cold moment, I decided to pretend away the Montreal winter yet again and spend the semester in China. This time I have no pretensions of staying; I learned my lesson well enough before – there ain't no education system like a Western education system. Nevertheless, the pull of the East is reprehensible in yet another hasty departure. But I digress – the point is that once again, within a predictable six month cycle, I'm going through the practised motions of upheaval. I'm doing it to be everywhere else. Life's requisite hurdles between one place and everywhere else can be overcome with a dose of resourcefulness and an affinity for multitasking. So have cake + eat cake I will.

In typical fashion, however, impulsively laid plans are rife with complications. So for anyone who knows how I roll with travel plans, I present to you an all-time eye-roller of an itinerary:

Overnight bus from Montreal to New York on the day of my last exam. Burn nine hours in New York. With luggage. Fly from New York to Moscow. Nine hour layover. Fly from Moscow to Hong Kong and arrive during business hours (welcome wagon unavailable). Loiter in Hong Kong mall for eight hours. With luggage. After receiving working visa through re-re-routed mail, ferry to Macau. Ferry back to Hong Kong in order to re-enter with working visa. Wonder why this seemed like a good idea in the first place.

Convoluted? I wouldn't want it any other way. If it was simple I wouldn't have anything interesting to write about.