what does "processing" look like anyway?

I am currently reading River Town-Two years on the Yangtze, a New York Times best seller by Peter Hessler. Hessler served in the peace corp back in '96, just the third group of English teachers to be sent with peace corp to China. I am only 100 pages, about a third, into the book and I don't really wish to critique it or anything, but more or less get out some thoughts I have been having as I read through the book. It has been interesting reading Hessler's account of his time in China. He is a great writer and its neat to see the articulation of many of my experiences and things that I haven't really been able to articulate. I do not view myself as a writer, if for no other reason as if I felt it necessary to classify myself as such I would then need to critique myself and expect things from myself and I am just not that passionate about sitting at a computer. Plus I don't know how to not type a run-on sentence. All that said, it has been good to read the book and interesting because it is referred to as "hilarious," "mesmerizing," and "fascinating" by reviewers, yet it really isn't really any of those things to me. Having experienced a lot of the same things it is kind of just well done articulation. Of course being an outsider to such events would warrant such descriptions, but having spent the time I did there I find myself nodding my head rather than finding amusement and awe. None of this is bad, but it makes me think of where I am now. Staying with Ric in New Hampshire is obviously a completely different experience, one that I am most definitely cherishing and somehow having lofty expectations for and at the same time, no expectations at all for. The people I have met have been very nice. Anytime I am introduced to somehow who has a little time to talk I inevitably find myself talking about the past year in China. Post introduction the conversation goes a bit like this "how long you here for?" "oh, i think i will stay through the month" "that's a good amount of time" feeling the need to explain myself i respond, "i spent some time overseas and have kind of been floating since my return and i thought it would be great to come see ric and study for the gre's and what not" "oh ya, where overseas" "i taught english in china for a year" "oh that's great, how was it" ...now, i am just meeting this person, but they have asked me the most loaded question i could receive at this stage of my life next to, what does the future look like for you. but for some reason, i am unphased. i just respond, "it was good. i learned a lot. a ton about living in another culture and china and about faith (faith line sometimes included sometimes not depending on what i think the persons interest in that-i actually got a follow up question for the head pastor) it was a great experience." bam. usually right around 20-25 words. and its without hesitation. i know anyone who has had a "big" experience like this knows what i am talking about and has dealt with a lot of the same, but its tough for me because as easy as it is to rattle off that response, its equally as difficult to articulate it beyond that point. the complexity of a true, in-depth answer simply overwhelms even me-the one who had the experiences and saw it all go down. i don't feel i cheated them of anything though, because i think there is still complexity in my answer. particularly in the way i communicate the word "good" in my description. it might just be me and those close around me, but often when we say something was "good" with a certain tone and body language (that i incorporate into my previously noted description) it basically means-there were tough times, frustrating times, fun and joyfilled times, and just plain crazy times and there are a lot of people who probably could have had the same experiences and hated it and wondered what on earth they were doing, but i enjoy the challenge so i describe it to you with a truly loaded, good. that might not make sense, but for some reason i makes so much sense to me. but what else could i say? i mean, not only did i have the general "cross cultural observations," but the teaching of english, the learning of chinese, the missional living and what i saw as my purpose in that place, the developed relationships-chinese and foreigner, the solitude, and the lessons learned from those direct experiences all added another dynamic that brings a profound complexity. But I can't stop there because all of that was placed in the middle of my freshly-out-of-university-22-year-old-life that already kept my mind busy enough with thoughts on relationships, purpose, future, discipleship, and the like. I didn't just cut that part out, I continued to read and study and gain fresh perspective of those things alongside the overstimulation that was china. and being post large overseas experience creates these thoughts inside me that kind of follow this line of thought- "wow, that's a lot. i don't know if i will ever really be able to process it. wait, do i need to process it? haven't i already processed it? what am i supposed to do with that? if i don't dig through it am i apathetic or irresponsible to my experience? is there really more i can learn from "working through" and "processing" all those experiences? hmmm...i'll deal with that later." and so here i am now. just typing away. provoke by my book to scratch the surface of some of those thoughts and sharing it with you, my few faithful blog followers whose curiosity can't help them from at least scanning to find out what i am up to. you are great by the way, confident that none really made it thus far to read the token disclaimer/apology about the post length and ramblyness. but don't worry about me, i truly am well. thanks for processing with me. maybe we can do it again sometime?