It's been said before, but I have to say it again.

John McCain: classic white-haired West Coast republican, experienced in foreign policy but sometimes doubted by the conservatives of his party

Arnold Vinick: classic white-haired West Coast republican, experienced in foreign policy but sometimes doubted by the conservatives of his party

Barack Obama: young, energetic, handsome, idealistic black candidate from Chicago who gives a good speech but who lacks foreign policy experience and who many believe can't win the election

Matt Santos: young, energetic, handsome, idealistic Hispanic candidate from Houston who gives a good speech but who lacks foreign policy experience and who many believe can't win the election

Rahm Emanuel: young, energetic, handsome, Jewish political mastermind who used to be a ballerina when he was a child and is fond of practical jokes.  Driving force in recruiting candidates for Democratic party and in behind-the-scenes congressional politics.  Highly partisan; Chief of Staff for President-elect Obama

Josh Lyman: young, energetic, handsome, Jewish political mastermind whose character is based upon Rahm Emanuel.  Driving force in recruiting candidates for Democratic party and in behind-the-scences congressional politics.  Highly partisan; Chief of Staff for President-elect Santos

Hillary Clinton: original frontrunner and star of Democratic party.  Seen as safer bet; more centrist and a "political insider."  Current Senator; First Lady for former Democratic administration.  Ugly, drawn-out Democratic primary leads to upset in which the dark horse candidate wins

Bob Russell: original frontrunner and star of Democratic party.  Seen as safer bet; more centrist and a "political insider."  Former Senator; Vice-President for current Democratic administration.  Ugly, drawn-out Democratic primary leads to upset in which the dark horse candidate wins

Joe Biden: older, politically-astute Washington insider with foreign policy credentials, picked for Vice-President due to experience and to add confidence to ticket instead of to pick up a swing state

Leo McGarry: older, politically-astute Washington insider with foreign policy credentials, picked for Vice-President due to experience and to add confidence to ticket instead of to pick up a swing state

Sarah Palin: ridiculous, out-of-touch Governor from an irrelevent red state (Alaska) who is picked as Vice-Presidential candidate to appeal to the conservative wing of the party

Ray Sullivan: ridiculous, out-of-touch Governor from an irrelevent red state (West Virginia) who is picked as Vice-Presidential candidate to appeal to the conservative wing of the party

Secretary of State:  once elected, Santos puts aside past differences and offers post of Secretary of State to former rival Arnold Vinick, whom most people originally thought would be the next president of the United States.  Obama offer post to former primary challenger Hillary Clinton, whom most people originally thought would be the next president of the United States.

the only difference is that Joe Biden's not dead.

I love this town. I love this place. I could never set foot in Kunming or any other Chinese city again and be fantastic. The cobblestone streets are hilly and filled with yaks and dogs, and gossip travels fast. The last I saw of Dakpa, I was walking with Tenzin and his family and we see two men outside of Arro Khampa, rummaging through a big cardboard box. Dakpa turns around, a bottle of french wine in each hand, and bellows, "Hello! Come and have a drink!"

Tenzin is a good man and a good host father. He, along with Dakpa, knows and is known by everybody. I even learned about him in the book I was reading, on the Tea Horse Caravan that linked Yunnan to Llasa. He had a nomad wife who died soon after they married, and has a peculiar passion for Nescafe, which I witnessed the first morning when he handed me two mugs, one filled with coffee and one with butter tea.

Whenever the family isn't looking, I give my butter tea to the dogs. I spilled some on my shoes, and they followed me around the house, trying to lick it up.

Yesterday I left the house at the lethargic hour of three in the afternoon, and the sky was gray and angry and a thin dusting of snow covered the path. I have a ritual meeting with Sam and Ashley every afternoon, where we sit in the Raven, warm from the stove, and drink tall mugs of hot chocolate.

Last night Tenzin invited Sam and Ashley over for dinner. I wish I could remember our conversation over Tibetan stew forever. I love how Tenzin laughs, he cracks up at his own jokes and starts hyperventilating. He had two other friends over as well, fellow Tibetans who had also spent time as monks in India. It was almost like a yuppie dinner conversation in the Northeast; Tibet, Buddhism, travel, and laughter.

I've made a lot of empy promises to people I've met here return. I've lied and said that I love China. But Tibet is different. Tibetans are tall and proud, and their country is beautiful. How could I not come back?

I made the mistake of opening an urn-type thing on the kitchen table. There were some strange white slabs inside. 'What's this?" I asked. "Dried yak cheese," Tenzin replied. "For the tea. This morning, I think your tea was not so good. Tomorrow you can put the yak cheese in it, and it will be delicious."

I think my host family is trying to set me up with their nephew Tsultrim. He came over last night for dinner and made momos, Tibetan dumplings filled with potato (or yak meat). "He's a very good cook," my host mother said encouragingly. "And handsome."

It was hard to follow the rest of the dinner conversation though, because it was in Tibetan. So far I know two words, "foreign girl" and "yak."

I've moved in with my Tibetan homestay family. I'm back in Shangri-La for the third time (I just can't stay away!). Tenzin, my host father, is one of the most successful men in town, I'm discovering. A few weeks ago I haggled a bit more aggressively than I should have for a scarf, only to find out that it was my host father's store and I would be eating breakfast every day with the girl I had tried to take down. Tenzin also co-owns my favorite restaurant in town, has a travel agency, and is working with an American client to have Citigroup invest in a hotel project in Deqin. He grew up as a nomad in the Tibetan part of Sichuan province, lived in India, and speaks Tibetan, Chinese, English, Hindi, and Nepali. I even googled him.

This is all very different since my last homestay father was a bean farmer.

His house is absolutely beautiful, a traditional Tibetan lodge with textiles and dark wood, with a huge living room where everyone hangs out. Last night we watched a Tibetan documentary in which a man drowned in quicksand. The best part is Tenzin's little white Tibetan puppy Dunba, who likes to lie on his back and wave his little paws at me.

I had yak butter tea for breakfast, per Tibetan tradition. I love yaks, but I wish they would stay out of my morning beverage.

Last night I met up with Sam and Ashley, who have been living at the Tanka Center for the past few weeks. They have to teach English every night to the Tibetan students at the center. I watched Sam with his white board, drawing pictures of every fruit he could think of while his student achingly repeated, "honeydew...lemon?" Ashley was very cute in her Tibetan uniform, frolicking with her new friends. She apparently spends six hours a day learning to draw from the head monk of the center.

last night we went to the "disco" in the town square, where all the villagers get together every night and dance to Tibetan music in a big circle. I tried to follow the moves of a man in a mustache and fedora.

Yaks are kind of funny. They just stand in one place for hours, and they don't even blink. Today I was trying to get to the bathroom but a yak stood dumbfounded at the entrance, blocking the way. You'll be walking around and see a yak standing outside a house, and when you make your way back forty-five minutes later, the farthest the yak has gone is a few steps to the left. They wear Tibetan bells around their necks, and at night the fields sound like Christmas.

I am completely fixated by yaks.

I also can't remember the last time I've seen a flush toilet. Or stall doors. Most Chinese bathrooms are little huts built over a stream-type thing, with a couple of little partitions (in the best of situations) so that three people can go at once. Pulling my pants down in front of other people hardly phases me anymore. I've seen so many Chinese butts. I hate it when they come into the stall with you though, and wait for you to finish peeing. Chinese people are so impatient.

This is what the trek was like: we hiked down from Feilaisi, a town on the ridge, and found our way through the yaks and desert shrubbery to the Mekong river canyon, where the only way down was a path along a crumbling ledge. We crossed the river via footbridge and asked farmer after farmer where the town of Xidang was, where we spent the night. The next day was a grueling hike up a mountain and down the other side into the perfectly secluded village of Yubeng. I've never seen anything like it. These wooden Tibetan houses are clustered around terraces, surrounded on all sides by snow-capped mountains. The only way to get there is on foot or by mule. It almost looks like somewhere the Trapp family would live, only with Tibetans instead of Austrians (or Vermonters).

Nature! Naaaaaature!

I was never really into Tibet at home, even though everybody talked about it. I was never really into hiking or the outdoors either. But being here has changed my life. I'm definitely investing in a good pair of hiking boots. What is it about Tibet that draws so many people in?

I'm in Deqin in November, exactly what my professor told us not to do.  But I've got some altitute meds and some mittens, and tomorrow set out to hike to Kawagebo, one of the holiest mountains in Tibetan Buddhism.  It has never been summitted, just like the rest of the Beautiful Snow Mountains, which form an intimidating ridge against the Tibetan Plateau .

It's beautiful here.

the road from Lijiang to Shangri-La takes you up into the mountainous highlands, where the cows turn into yaks and the landscape goes from cute to terrifying as your bus makes death-defying passes on roads clinging perilously to the rock face.  But that's nothing compared with the road from Shangri-La to Deqin.  When you're not stopping for a yak crossing or for one of the million photo/bathroom breaks demanded by Chinese tourists, you're wondering how it is that you've reached the edge of the world.  It's desolate.  The cliffs are a straight drop.  The earth is brown and red and purple, until there is only rock and snow.

one man picked himself a snack of a twig with some berries that he brought onto the bus.  I glanced back at him a few hours later to see him filling a surgical mask with the peel of his orange, which he strapped to his face.  I will never understand Chinese people.

I've been on Lugu Lake for the past however many days.  I've lost track of everything to do with the real world.  Can it be that I have found the last unspoiled piece of China?   The only boats on the lake are the long wooden canoes of the Mosuo people.  I asked a woman today where her husband was.  "On the Sichuan side," she said, pointing across the lake.  "He has his own family and I have mine."

I came here to study and to write my research paper, but I can't speak Mosuo and my computer currently has a broken hard drive.  Instead I play with puppies and kitties in this animal kingdom where pigs, ducks, and ponies roam the streets, and turkeys wander in and out of restaurants.

since China is 13 hours ahead of the East Coast, the polls didn't close until 10 am on November 5th. Last night we all went to bed excited after attending a Naxi music concert conducted by an eccentric Chinese millionaire, who had given us a lecture that morning at his home. When he was talking about some incomprehensible aspect of modern Chinese culture, he mentioned "gaibian," the Chinese word for "change." He paused, as if he wasn't sure if we quite understood, then said, ""Obama?" punching his fist into the air. Then he pointed to Justin and said, "like you!" Justin never gets a break from being the only black man in China. Chinese people really have no concept of race. The conductor said, "my mother was Tibetan and my father was a Turk, so I was better than the stupid Naxi." We laughed uncomfortably and looked at our watches.

We asked for lecture today to be postponed so we could all watch election results. In the morning we went to some temple to get blessed by another living Buddha, then booked it to a cafe to sit anxiously with our laptops and repeatedly refresh MSNBC. At about 11:30 am Pennsylvania and Ohio were called for Obama, and after that it was just madness. I'm so happy for Jack Murtha, Eric Massa, Dan Maffei. North Carolina, Jesus Christ. Right now we're in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Lijiang, filled with Chinese tourists who barely even know about the election, and who would favor McCain if they did. Everyone in the cafe was bewildered, but we kept yelling results to each other at the different tables and hugging each other and trying to stream McCain's concession speech. One Australian turned to his friend and remarked, "Obama has won the election...so I hear."

There are thirteen kids on this trip, including one Bermudean and one Swiss. Not a single person voted for McCain. I literally feel like singing the star-spangled banner right now. I wonder what the madness is like in the States; I spent the last presidential election waving signs on a rainy street corner in Pittsford Plaza, watching the results in county headquarters in wet socks with my dad, everyone ready to cry into their champagne. Now I'm in China, wishing I were storming the quad with the rest of the students at Tufts. If people are half as excited as they were about the World Series, that is.

after this weekend, I don't think anything else in China is worth mentioning. Shangri-La is amazing. I want to live there, and I'm the last person on earth who should live in China.

we drove up into the foothills of the Himalayas, to the border of Tibet where that beautiful place exists. It's beautifully desolate, cold and the color of dead grass. Yaks graze everywhere and big racks for drying wheat surround traditional Tibetan wooden houses.

our point person in Shangri-La, or Zhongdian in Mandarin, was a gregarious Tibetan man named Dakpa. He used to be a monk when he was younger and exiled to India, and runs a Tibetan culture NGO (and a really good Indian restaurant... he's pretty much Mr. Zhongdian) and knows everybody and everything worth knowing. He also looks like a Tibetan Viggo Mortensen, case in point that Tibetans are pretty much the most attractive race on this planet.

Tibet is also an extremely musical culture, as it turns out. Beside Dakpa's songs of welcome, we spent our first dinner in Zhongdian exchanging songs with the table next to us, a boisterous group of Tibetan reporters. Then Dakpa took us to a bar and we sang traditional Tibetan songs until we were invited by another Tibetan man to celebrate at his restaurant with more songs and dance. Alison and I sang a very shoddy rendition of Hava Nagila. The night ended with a drunk, belligerent Tibetan man, who believed he had been promised the next song, climbing onstage and ripping the microphone out of Joe's hand, then throwing a full bottle of Dali at Dakpa's head.

we had been warned that when Tibetans get mad, they don't like to use their words.

the next when Courtney and I found ourselves in an African drum circle with Japanese hippies and a Belgian innkeeper. The night after that, by chance we ended up with the same hippies at a different cafe, drinking yak butter tea and dancing with Tibetan locals. Everyone here is so friendly and warm. It's hard to even bargain with a shopkeeper without ending up with an invitation to dinner that night with their family.

we visited a lamasery and received blessings from the living Buddha. We visited an orphanage and played duck duck goose with Tibetan children (one child was confused and instead played goose goose duck). We went to a tiny temple in the countryside, where our companions were a friendly goat and some roosters. We went to a mountain and bathed in hot springs in our underwear.

I was never really into Tibet at home, but now I'm enthralled. I'm thinking of coming back here in a couple of weeks, Dakpa has already introduced me to a family I could live with. Hiking in the daytime, Tibetan music at night.