Today I lit sticks of incense at a beautiful and very well-fed Buddhist temple in downtown Taipei. Acid rain ran over my forehead. Our guide, Karen, kept reminding us to be "sincere." I mostly wanted to be dry.
"This is the Buddha of academic things," she said, at the fourth of seven altars, "Place a stick of incense in here for good luck on your studies and your homework."
"Like my thesis?"
"Yes," she said.
I figured it couldn't hurt. Bracing myself for another rush of rain, I stepped forward to slip my stick of incense into the appropriate cauldron.
Of course, I figured wrong: I burned a finger--and dropped my incense onto the damp ground. The rain snuffed it out before I could stoop down to pick it up.
This may not bode so well for my thesis.
The last time I felt so conspicuous--and so uncertain of what to do next--a yamikah had just slipped off my head into a gutter in front of several rabbis.
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