mongolian beef and shrimp fried rice for breakfast this morning, leftover remnants from last night's conference. I ate all the beefy parts and left all the mongolian. Stringy, oily, sweet onions, and limp green vegetables that may have at one point been something close to spinach, or lettuce. I can't wait to go to New York. Chinatown should be excellent. I'm scared that I'll stray too far though, and get mugged or something, or worse. I don't know. I'll stick by mum. I miss Sei-chan. She'll be back the eighth, she's on a cruise. She promised to take pictures of the ocean for me. I miss the ocean. I miss the way it roars at you when it's angry and smashes things and the wind screams and you feel like you want to just run away but the fierceness of it just makes you stare and stare and stare. We got our pictures back from the trip, and there's a very peculiar one which I didn't even know mom had taken, because I had slipped out of the house very early. You can tell it's taken from a balcony, because it's kind of arial. In it the sky's black and midnight whisper, angry and torrential, mirroring the sea, and I'm standing alone on the beach with my oh so blue windbreaker. I have a sketchpad under my arm, and the paper is clean and white and unblemished. You cannot see me clearly, but my eyes are far away and distant and my mouth is open slightly. I remember that moment. I was singing to the ocean in russian, softly. And I was crying. I miss it.