Notes of a Desolate Libra

I am not a super superstitious person. I admit, there are certain things that I am more uptight about and prefer to follow. There is a saying in Chinese: rather believe it to be true than not 寧願信其有,不可信其無. That's the general thinking regarding things that may bring bad luck.

Well, my luck with flying has been hilarious. There's ALWAYS a certain incident before I fly. It's happened so often that I have come to expect it. For example, my most recent flights:

1) JP/TW trip (10/2008): right before I left for the airport, the strap to my bookbag broke (MAJOR bad juju). My mom stared blank-faced and then rushed to say: "well wasn't it good that it happened before the trip?" Mind you, at the time I was going insane because of all the bad stuff that had happened so far in 2008 and I was already envisioning my plane engulfed by flames and plummeting into the Pacific... now this...

2) Puerto Rico trip (12/2008): my travel partner Lan, right before we were to board, got very sick and spent a lot of time in the bathroom. We didn't run onto the plane until after their final call. Then while she was on the plane, she locked herself in the bathroom and we almost got "escorted" off the plane because we were causing the plane to be grounded and the crew was skeptical as to whether or not we were (physically) fit to fly. Needless to say, I was endlessly grateful when Lan was able to make it out of the bathroom somewhat recovered and the plane finally took off. The crew was so afraid we'd come down with something that they were super nice to us the entire trip.

3) Hong Kong trip (5/2009): this time I got sick right before the flight and I thought I was developing a fever. Now, normally this wouldn't be a huge issue, but remember this was at the height of the swine flu fever and if I exhibited any symptom at all (esp. a fever) I probably would had ended up quarantined. Fortunately, by the time I got on the plane I was feeling fine again (took some fever meds) and the rest of the flight proved uneventful.

4) San Francisco flight (6/2009): I, being the insanely distracted person I was, forgot that my ride to the airport (provided by my dear friend Jeremy) was supposed to show up at 4 and thought it was supposed to be 3... and of course, by 3:30 when he didn't show up (and of course by my luck he had fatefully forgotten his cell phone on this day, my entire family started panicking. Somehow though, I thought it was extremely funny, because I knew this - SOMETHING - was going to happen. And it did.

Now... it's not like I enjoy these little incidents. Actually every time there was potential that something bad could've happen... but I guess it didn't... and looking back, they *are* kind of funny.

Another thing about traveling alone though, I started chatting with the elderly gentleman who sat  next to me on my flight to SF (he had a mask on the whole flight so we didn't actually talk until the end of the flight). Mr. Liu had guessed I was Chinese from the Tarot book I was reading and I ended up giving him my business card and asked him to let me know if he ever needed help with any translations. Fun, eh? :)