Rockin' out in Bali

Surfing, motorcycles, surfing in a storm, temples, whitewater rafting, bicycling through the countryside, 3 bicycle accidents in one day (no serious injuries, one car door involved), sunburns, local liquors, lack of hangovers.

A vacation isn't a vacation that doesn't leave you some nice new scars and bruises. I have more than my fair share this time, that's all.

So far, Bali can be summed up in one compound word, boys and girls: AWESOME.

Outward bound

Off to Bali tomorrow. Christmas show was tonight. Pictures will probably crop up on the kids' picture site in the next week or so. Dunno how much computer access I'll have in Bali, but there will be a post and pictures when I get back for those who choose to live vicariously through such a sporadically and sparsely updated log.

Much holiday love to you all!

Tipsily (post-Christmas show party...),
Ben

Eager

Last weekend I went to Wulai with Martin and Katherine, and it was lovely. There was hiking, there were waterfalls, there was mountain pig, there were butterflies. And there was a giant spider, chilling out seemingly in mid-air. I got to dip my feet in some lovely, cold spring water, and I got a good dose of fresh air. Pictures are up on flickr.

In other news, I turned in my resignation letter on Monday. The idea right now is to stick out the semester at the school which is my current employer, and then switch to a half-time job at another school. I really like teaching kindergarten, I've decided, except that teaching it full time is utterly exhausting, and doesn't leave me enough personal time for the things I want to do right now. So what makes the most sense is to switch to half-time and stick around here in Taiwan.

Plus, I really like Taiwan so far. The people are friendly, attractive, outdoorsy. The culture is shallow, but still engaging. The markets are amazing. It's really cheap. The countryside is freakin' amazing. There's a lot here for me right now (with the glaring exception being the friends I miss so dearly).

I'm gonna get out again on Saturday, I hope. Tomorrow I'll page through my guidebook again and see which destination makes the most sense. Then I'll take a train there Friday afternoon and explore on Saturday before returning Saturday night. Should be fun!

Decision time

Well, work has been hell the past couple of weeks, and I'm really beginning to look seriously for alternative methods of living in this country for a while longer. I'm not yet ready to leave, but I'm certainly not willing to spend another 8 months working here. I'm going to look into the paperwork necessary for quitting my job this evening, with the intent to give my notice next week. I'll stick out the semester, and then move along.

Other options right now: find a half-time job for the spring semester working at another school (or even this school, if they are interested in keeping me on for half-time work); find a way to get scholarship money to attend ShiDa University next semester to work on my Chinese; live off savings and the generosity of my parents, who have set aside some money for me if I choose to take it; go home (or to Hawaii, or Portland).

I need to sit down and think all these options through to their thrilling conclusions, and decide which one makes the most sense.

Oot and aboot

I made it out of Taipei on Saturday, finally. I didn't get as far afield as I might have liked, but I did make it all the way to the coast, and got to dip my feet in the seawater, which is always appreciated.

I wound up taking a train from Taipei to Keelung, a 40 minute trip that cost a little over one US dollar each way. I walked around a bit through Keelung, checking out a big temple complex that's only open during the Ghost Month, and another, smaller temple complex that boasted a 22 meter high Buddha (according to the signs, though I suspect it was closer to 22 feet). Lots of pretty statues and the whatnot, and a bizarre, carnival-like atmosphere, complete with games and go-karts.

I wandered down from the hill that the Buddha stood atop and took a bus across a small bridge to Heping Island, just off the coast from the entrance to Keelung's harbor complex. The north side of Keelung Island faces the open Pacific, and wind, rain, and seawater have carved the sedimentary rocks there into strange and funky-looking shapes. I dipped my feet in freshly-filled tide pools, and got my share of spray from some of the bigger waves. It was lovely.

Sunday featured Indian lunch, Thai dinner, and a wonderfully sunny afternoon in the park in between. Then there was Scotch, a puzzle, and cartoons in the evening.

All in all, a very successful weekend. Pictures are up on flickr!

The not-so-ongoing travels...

Bah! Bah!, I say. There has been a distinct lack of traveling. I blame flu, inertia, timidity, and general lameness on my part. This weekend was especially bad, due to the FANTASTIC combination of an acute sinus infection and a migraine.

Therefore I have made a promise to myself that next weekend will see me outside the boundaries of this city, either with friends I've made here, or by myself. I just need to see more! I'm gonna look at various places I can go over the course of the week, and then make arrangements to just book it on out of here as soon as is reasonable after work on Friday.

There! A resolution has been made!

Flip flopping like a lib'ral

So I was thinking about it today, and I realized that if I leave my job at the semester to go and do other things, it will be because I want to go and do those other things. The thing is, the person who wants to go and do those other things is the same person I was when I walked off the plane into the airport. And the point of coming here was to force myself to change again.

I have changed a little, already. I saw it today, at work: I'm stronger, I stand taller. It's not physical (being sick has weakened me, in fact), but it's there all the same. I want to grow into it more, earn my "veteran" teacher status. It's a challenge, and I don't really want to back down from it.

At the same time, I don't want to change so much that I change my mind about wanting to go to Hawaii, or travel with friends, or about what's important to me. Maybe that's what's so exciting about my new point of view: if I stay here for another 9 months, I will forced not only to change, but to control that change, and integrate the things I want to be without losing track of who I already am.

Musings aside, I'm getting by at the moment. My birthday weekend was not as exciting or "fun" as last year's, but I did have a good time, and I'm really, really glad that I got to see my Dad again. I'm still sick, but I finally have decent drugs on hand, so at least I can get some symptom relief. All in all, things are all right, and I'm doing well. Just gotta figure out the answers to a few more questions is all. I figure it'll always be that way.

Travel is as travel does

I do like Taipei. It's a beautiful city full of largely nice and helpful people. The weather is decent (it's 70 degrees outside, and that feels chilly now) and there's theoretically lots to do. It's just kinda lonely, compared to Portland. Most of my friends are still in the Pacific Northwest, and it really is tempting to move there next. Maybe I'll see if there are any research jobs in the area that I could apply to for next academic year. Grad school applications are still a ways off.

Life continues on pretty much as usual here. Weekdays are consumed by work, and weeknights are spent watching a movie or a downloaded TV show on the couch, and maybe writing a letter or two. Weekend days I try to get out, though I've been sick enough or migraine-ridden enough lately that getting out in a big way hasn't really happened. Still, I will be heading back over to Taroko in a couple of weeks when my dad is in town, and I'm excited about that. And Ali has mentioned that she'd like to do some more exploring when her mother heads back to Britain. I may try to convince Martin and Katherine to come check out the North Coast area with me next weekend.

I'm not really saving money, and I'm not really getting much of an opportunity to explore and "see the world". I may have to re-evaluate whether this is the way I want to spend my year off. Advice?

Halloween 07

Halloween came and went. The kids were super hyper before and after, but not during our trick and treating. For the 45 minutes we walked around they decided to be moody and cranky. Awesome.

Anyway, there are about a million pictures up on the page now conveniently linked on the right side of the blog. Most of them are cute little Taiwanese kids, but somehow they snuck this big, ugly, white guy into a few. It's like Where's Waldo but in reverse.

Whoops

It's three in the morning. What the hell am I doing? I was up late, yeah, 'til one, but then I went to bed. I took a two hour nap, and then woke up ~10 minutes ago, very much awake. I guess taking a four hour nap to get rid of a migraine was not the best way to tell my body that it should sleep normally tonight. It's not like I have a lot to do tomorrow, either.

Way to blow it, body. Excellent job screwing things up, body. I'm gonna have to write a few emails to pass some time, and then try again, body. Thanks.

Crammed

I remain out of touch with the people I'd really like to stay in touch with. Writing just seems to take a lot of energy that I simply don't have these days.

I left work early today feeling crappy, and turns out it's a migraine. On the plus side, this explains my wooziness, general stupidity, and intense moodiness this weekend. I'm no longer concerned about that. Now it's chiefly a matter of making the pain in my head go away. :-p

Portland sounds so good right now.

1. I feel very creative.
2. I feel like returning to Portland.
3. Both of these might be because of the rum.

Play a word game, donate rice!

This site apparently donates ten grains of rice to the UN for every word you can correctly define. It's fun, and an easy way to make a small (but noticeable!) impact. http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Sleeping in

I've forgotten how to sleep in. Staying up late and waking up early are my norms now. Even if I'm up until 2 or 3 in the morning on a weekend night, my body is programmed to wake up not later than 8:30 at the very latest. It's funny how a couple of panicked mornings can set such a tough rule to override.

I spent my Saturday running a quick errand or two, watching a movie, and napping for a couple of hours. Then I went to a night market in the evening and learned that my ass is too big for Taiwanese fashion to handle. My pants size here is XXL or XXXL, depending on the cut. That said, I did wind up finding some awesome, cheap clothing that does fit. Pride: damaged. Bank account: intact. Two pair of shorts for 100 NT each (about 3 USD) is something to be happy about.

Weekends have changed from "Go out exploring!" times to "Recover from the work week!" times.

Exciting news for the coming week: I'm going on a field trip with the school to a theme park, and at one point I will be paid to spend 45 minutes doing bumper cars with the little rugrats. I will bring my camera. Superb.

Spotted in Taipei

Spotted on a waitress at a bar near my apartment. She speaks little English, and insists that it's "just a t-shirt", and that she has no idea where Reed is. I am amused. I apologize for the quality, it's a cell phone pic.

Why my job is a sitcom

Bear with me here, because this is going to be a long post. I'm going to run through what I do at work, and why my job is a tragically hilarious joke. I think it's pretty funny/interesting, but y'all may find it boring. If that's the case here are two ways to skip the boring stuff: first, all the dirt is down at the bottom. Second, I'll repost the link to the pictures of the little kids. Look: little kids! Aren't they cute?!

Still reading? Wonderful! So here's what a day looks like for me: wake up at 6:45 and hit the snooze. Wake up again at 6:53 and actually get out of bed. Check my email for about 20 minutes while Martin (my housemate) showers, etc. From about 7:15 to 7:45 I do my morning routine. Around 7:45 I make breakfast (PB and J!), grab my stuff, and eat on my way to work.

The walk to work is about 20 minutes through a commercial/residential area (apartment buildings with shops on the ground floor). Arrive at work no later than 8:30 on a day where I miss my alarm. I prep for class for half an hour (photocopies, going over teaching materials, getting last-minute details worked out, and so on), and then I do half an hour of aerobics with the kids to wake them (and me) up.  After a snack, we launch into the first lesson.

After an hour of phonics and reading there's a fifteen minute break, and then 40 minutes of either math or phonics and grammar, depending on the day. Then they read alone for 20 minutes to practice good reading habits. This is one of my favorite parts of the day, because I get to read my novel so that I can "demonstrate good reading habits." In the month and change I've been teaching I've made it through maybe 120 pages. I typically read up to 100 pages an hour, if it's an engaging book. 

After DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read), the kids have 20 minutes to eat lunch (some of you are probably aware that kids can take FOR FUCKING EVER to eat a tiny portion of food). It can be frustrating, but I've got the oldest group of kids in the school, so at least I don't have to feed any of them by hand. After lunch the kids settle down for a two-hour nap that I envy intensely. I spend the two hours getting some food myself and chatting up the other teachers. I also do all my preparation for the afternoon block of classes, which is usually when we do our artwork. 

After naptime is Music and Movement, which I loathe with a fiery passion. For my class, Music and Movement typically involves 15 minutes spent learning 1 new song each week (The Ants Go Marching; I Knew An Old Woman; You Are My Sunshine; etc.), and then 15 minutes of musical chairs to wake them up a bit. The hardest part for me is finding a new kid-appropriate song each week that is easy enough for them to learn but still interesting enough for me to want to teach them.

After everyone is (in theory) awake and alert, we have an hour of class time (reading, writing, phonics, whatever), followed by another snack, and then another 15 minute break. Our last class of the day is typically an art class where we make some thematic art piece and write a couple of sentences about it just to stay on top of our linguistic learning modality. This month is Halloween, which bores the crap out of me, but at least we make pretty things.

The last 20 minutes of the day are story time, where I read a story to the kids, which can be hell if they are restless, and heaven if they are attentive.

Fun things: Tuesday and Thursday we have Park Time for the first hour-long block of the day. On dry days we take the kids to the nearby DaAn forest park, which is huge, wooded, and beautiful. The kids run around and have unrestricted playtime, and it's a joy to watch, and now I know why my brother Chris was a day camp counselor for so long. I'm considering it myself, now that I see how awesome it is. An unrelated fun thing is putting on my mix CD while the kids do artwork: wordless trip-hop and inoffensive rock like The Beatles and The Red Hot Chili Peppers makes art class infinitely more fun. One final fun thing: getting the kids to memorize new songs a cappella is great: singing without music is really fun.

THE DIRT!

Okay, so the two main "dirt" categories are the teaching curriculum and the management.

The curriculum: simply put, I'm teaching 1st grade materials at American school speeds to a bunch of kindergarteners who work at an ESL level. A lot of the work is not only difficult and challenging, but rather straightforwardly over their heads. I do my best to make it accessible, but some days it's clear that the kids are bored because they simply have no idea what's going on. This can, however, lead to hilarious answers to questions. I asked one kid, "What's the opposite of 'happy'"? He replies, "House!" I have no idea why, but he was really excited to have discovered that house and happy are diametrically opposed.

The management: my manager is the least competent person I have ever encountered. She leaves kids alone in rooms while they are eating. She spoon feeds children mouthfuls of food that simply will not fit inside their mouths. She hires Chinese-speaking TAs who conveniently do not speak English. She fires Chinese-speaking TAs who speak fantastic English because they embarrass her by doing her job better than she does. She is terrified of parents (her job is to liaise with the parents and recruit new students). Finally, she is somewhat dumb. It's become clear that it's not just that she's often flustered by being both in over her head and unable to admit it. Two questions she has asked this week: "How do these crayons work?" (They had lids.) "How many legs does a spider have? Eight? Nine? I just don't know!" (8, for those keeping track at home.) She has trouble with child-locked cabinets.

I realize this is a long paragraph of negativity. I want to stress that when I arrived, I found my boss to be innocuously likable: kind of a non-personality that seemed pleasant enough. After 6 weeks of teaching, I know more about children than she does (no, really, I do!), and she has two kids at home. She endangers the kids, she makes terrible decisions that make my job harder, and she flatters everyone incessantly without ever providing constructive criticism (and I know I need it, because I'm still terribly unfamiliar with my job, even after 6 weeks).

So that's the gist of why my job is tragically hilarious. That, and the fact that I don't have any support from a TA (my TA is really, really competent, but that means she has to fill in for the manager whenever the manager runs into something she can't handle). So I'm alone in a room with 8 kids who have varying grasps of English and who aren't allowed to speak Chinese at all at school. Ah well. At least it's all really quite funny!

And I do love the kids. The decision point for me will come when my manager makes my job so difficult that I can no longer enjoy the time I get with my students. As long as I'm enjoying my classroom time, I'll stay. It does make it worthwhile. That's what I've come to realize.

I went up on the roof a few minutes ago to check things out. We've got about an inch and a half of water, but the drainage seems to be doing all right. It's gusty up there, and there's lots of rain coming down. Visibility is maybe 1 km, at the most (on a clear day it's around 15 km I'd guess). It's pretty epic up there. 

Standing on the roof of an apartment building in the middle of a typhoon is pretty invigorating, really.

Incoming!

Big ol' typhoon comin' in, late in the season. Set to maybe actually rough up our fair city a bit, unlike the last one came through.

If'n y'all don't hear from me for a few days, it's likely due to internet failures, rather than life failures. As Katherine said, "ain't no storm gonna keel haul me!" It takes more than a hurricane to get my dander up.

So far away

I don't miss places as much as people, I'm finding. Except that I really miss Hawaii. I got some photos in an email today from a professional photographer who was hanging out where we went cliff jumping. He had an underwater camera, and got some awesome pictures.

Also, my family email list has been buzzing with news about my Grandmother's 80th birthday, and one of my uncles sent along this gem: "Are we sure she's 80? It seems like Gillie [my great aunt, as I recall] tried to pull this one on us once. She doesn't look like she's 80. We should get the ping pong table going too." I miss my family!

Testing!

Here are some pictures of me with the little rugrats!

Steppin along

I used the last of my putative food money for the month on new running shoes yesterday. My exercise regimen had essentially disintegrated, and I was feeling crappy physically and emotionally, so I went and spent money. What a good little consumer!

I went for a run through DaAn park tonight, though, and realized that even though I am pretty out of shape (could only go for 15 minutes before I had to walk a bit), it won't take too long to get it back, if I'm consistent. Plus, the park is really pretty, and there are tons of people doing Tai Chi and Qi Gong, which are both lovely to run past. Very cinematic.

Work kinda sucks, to be honest. I've already come to the conclusion that unless something changes at work I'll be leaving in February, either to teach middle schoolers in the afternoon, or to quit teaching entirely in favor of traveling and living off whatever I can save between now and then. The thing is, though, I don't even know if I can make it to February. I'm going to try my best, though.

I really like Taipei. It's an amazing city full of interesting people and beautiful sights. I wish I had a marketable skill here besides my English abilities. I'd love to live here working in some other capacity.

PTA

Tonight we had our PTA at school. This means that parents come in and sit in their children's seats, and I give a half hour presentation on who I am, why I'm in Taiwan, what my teaching goals and philosophy are, and what our daily curriculum is composed of. So, no pressure right? Right...

Despite my fears, though, and the monumental pressure my boss put on me, it turned out all right. I think the parents saw that I was a bit nervous speaking in front of them, and did their best to be a pleasant audience. In turn, they seemed very nervous to have to speak English to a native speaker who is (apparently) qualified to teach it to their children. Everyone was nervous, and so everyone wound up relaxing a little bit. Especially after I said a few phrases in what was pretty passable Chinese, which was a hell of a crowd pleaser.

So, all in all, it went well. I had good talks with each set of parents, and received a whole bunch of new ideas for working with their children. I'm not to the point yet where I really want to stay past the semester, but I am to the point where I'm feeling a little better about making it to February at all.

It's late now, though, and I should sleep before I get up to do it all again. Ah well, ah well.

Giant Robots and Wandering Thoughts

The four day weekend is just about over, and it's been lovely. There was booze, a birthday celebration, the building of giant robots (see photo), Resident Evils 1 and 2 (3 to follow sooner or later), and I'll shortly be going out for grub with Kaitlin.

I like Taipei, and I like Taiwan, but I'm really starting to wonder about my job. Or perhaps the Wanderlust is returning. I suppose I'll have to think some things through for a couple of weeks.

Yee haw

Tonight is the Friday night before a four-day weekend, and I must confess that I've had a few drinks. To be fair, I went and filled myself with delicious Indian food first. Still, I'm rather tipsy, and I'm finding myself enjoying the hell out of just listening to the rain pound against the windows. Earlier I sat up on the roof with Martin and Katherine and a beer or two or three, and we watched the clouds hide, reveal, and hide again the Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building in the world, some two or three kilometers away.

The weather here is wonderful: hot and humid during the day, punctuated with thunderstorms and intermittent rain. The water in the air makes breathing like drinking, and I feel so wealthy, so blessed to live in such an opulent atmosphere. This city is huge and sprawling, with a metropolitan population of nearly 7 million. There are many large buildings, and a good few taller than 20 stories, but this place is wider than it is tall, with the obvious exception. Not flat, by any means, not jagged either.

My apartment is the fourth floor of an older building with no elevator, and the stairs keep my legs in shape. Above us is only our roof, half-covered, half-open. Both halves have nice views, though one is distinctly drier and one is better for sword practice. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader, etc. Sitting on the roof in one of our folding chairs, drinking a beer, I feel as close to my paradise as can be reached.

This is not a port city, per se, but the breezes that blow across our rooftop are sea breezes at heart, and I can feel the traces of balmy salt in their caresses.

Come visit me and see.

Healthy, [not] wealthy, and wise

Judith is flying out tomorrow (wave goodbye, Judith!), and Typhoon Wipha is flying in. Hopefully it won't get too messy here, but I'm considering battening down the hatches just in case. My flu is gone, and this weekend saw me driving a scooter with Judith to Taroko Gorge. The pictures are up on Facebook, and will hopefully be added to my flickr page at some point. It is astoundingly beautiful there, and scooters are awesome. The end. Oh, also, I'm still waiting to get some money from work so I can stop completely destroying my bank account. Eek.

Edit: It's tomorrow now, and it's my very first paid typhoon day. So cool! Snow days can go melt themselves!

Auspiciously titled

Right after my "still alive" post I came down with some awful, 3-day long SuperFlu that knocked me right on my ass and made me miss a whole day of work. No fun at all. On the day I took off, though, I discovered the wonders of the nationalized healthcare system here. Being uninsured, I was a little worried that the costs would be preventative. Not so. For half an hour of my time and 670 NT (~20 bucks US) I received registration info, a visit to a hospital doctor, my diagnosis, my prescription, and all my drugs. My drug regimen finishes tomorrow, and I already feel a million times better. Awesome.

Still Alive!

An earthquake, a week and a day of teaching, a weekend spent exploring, and I'm still kickin', though with little free time. Things will settle into a routine soon, I hope, and then I'll be able to do the things I want to do: write letters to the people I miss, take photos of new things, and explore north south east west of my little big city.

In other news, I keep my room at 80 degrees fahrenheit (27 C for those sciency folk out there), and that's begun to feel deliciously cool. It's hot here. I like it.

...

Yesterday really wasn't too bad, for a first day. Today was pretty rough, though, so I guess the two days even out to one mediocre day.

I'm exhausted after two days. I hope this gets easier (but I know it'll probably get even harder first).

Day 1: Diving In

Today was my first day of teaching. The other teachers recommended that I just try to make it through the day, that the first day was a good day to get to know your students, and that not too much was expected. My students, by and large, are amazingly cute little buggers, and very smart. Two or three of them are reasonably hyperactive, and don't like to sit still at all. Can't really blame them, personally: they're five-year-olds, and there are so many more exciting things to do than just sitting listening to some 20-something guy blather on. Getting them to sit still (which frequently requires stern talking and threats 0f time-outs is frustrating both because it's difficult, and also because I feel bad for stifling their energy. It's so much fun being that young, and being made to sit still can really suck the joy out of it.

Ah well, I'm kinda stuck in the system this (and most) society subscribes to, so I'll make 'em sit down and shut up. Plus, I can't really teach the rest of them if two are three are jumping around and carrying on.

Anyway, the first day wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I made it all the way through, never really entertained even the fantasy of quitting, and did better than the British guy who was at training with me on Friday, who stopped by the school in the morning, left "for a few minutes", and never came back. Whoops! Quitting before even meeting the kids is pretty hardcore.

I'm gonna head to bed soon, to do it all again tomorrow, hopefully a little more smoothly than today. Today wasn't horrible, but it wasn't much better than adequate, and I know I can beat that!

A picture (more on flickr)

Left is our bar, complete with the wine glasses that were the prior occupants of our apartment, along with two empty (but awesome) bottles, and the then-small collection of Booze Cats (we now have four). Katherine's computer joins our two AC remotes (!) in lounging about.

The apartment remains Spartan, but tomorrow is a day to get a couch, some chairs, possibly an additional table, and likely some more cushions for butts. 

In non-accommodation related news, I had my teacher orientation today. It was calming and helpful, and I came away with many good ideas, and an even greater appreciation for how disorganized my particular school is at this moment. I hope to maintain a well-organized class, because otherwise I will be overwhelmed as all hell.

Today was the first rain storm while I was here, as well, but I was stuck inside for it, regrettably. My weather widget calls for thunderstorms on Monday, though, which is as exciting as it gets. I shall have to purchase an umbrella this weekend. In this town, jackets are for the mad and the natives. It's 10:45 in the evening, and still 80 degrees and just a shade short of rain. So humid your clothing wilts. I love it. Aircon makes it sleeping weather, though. Without my insulated bubble of modernity, I would probably be sleepless.

I need to do many things in the coming days, but the two biggest are do some more creative writing (it's been some time, now), and take more photos. I'd love to have some decent street photos to display, and the graffiti here is something else, when you can find it. Rare, but oh-so-worth it.

Yours,

-b

Oof

Setting up house is proving to be expensive. Very expensive. I'm worried about money, and that's frustrating. I'll be all right, I have plenty set aside, but I'd like to be able to leave here with more than I came with, if possible. Things should get easier (read: cheaper) once we have a kettle to boil water, some furniture, a TV, and monthly internet (instead of paid daily internet on one computer that's really difficult to set up). Things should also get easier when I start getting monthly paychecks.

Our apartment is glorious, if still rather spartan. We're getting a couch on Saturday, though, and we've been on the lookout for floor cushions and a table. At least we have awesome wood floors.

The apartment's name: CATS Booze Club, after a set of vending machine toys we saw outside a 7-11. Six inebriated cats, sitting around on sofas and chairs. We have three of them so far, and are working on completing the set before the machine runs out.

Pictures will have to remain forthcoming until I have internet that I can use on my computer (as opposed to Katherine's).

Apartment!

Apartment obtained! Pictures to follow when convenient. The place is 1) gorgeous; 2) HUGE; 3) possessed of an excellent location; and 4) really damn cheap. I mean, damn, what a find!

Impacts leave impressions

Last night I was scared of this place, 'cause it was big and different. After a day of walking around with Martin, Katherine, and Dora, it feels less foreign, more accessible. My Chinese has atrophied quite a bit, but I find I understand more than I expected to, and my halting speech has the feel of a skill that will improve quickly with practice.

I'm still a bit scared of teaching kids (What the hell am I doing? I don't know the first thing about teaching a classroom full of kids?!), but I'm looking forward to it too, somewhat perversely. I have the feeling it will be the sort of situation in which I am used to panicking and relinquishing control (like when I tried to lead a tour of 24 people earlier this summer), only I won't have the option this time. If it's hard, I can't let someone else take over for me, I have to stick to it until I get it right.

I relish the opportunity to develop that kind of strength.

Impact!

So now I'm in Taipei. Haven't seen much yet, just what I could see through the night-haze on the drive from the airport to the hotel. I'm distressingly awake after no sleep (and it's late here). There's thunder in the distance, and the sirens here are different.

I have to admit that I feel a little bit overwhelmed, but I'm gonna go out and explore tomorrow and see if I can't make this place feel a little smaller!