Blogging is so 2006

Can you tell? I'm kind of tired of blogging.

There hasn't been all that much to write about anyway. Life here has become, I daresay, a little normal. I was driving down the same road I always take to school one morning this week, and thought to myself, "Ugh-- this town is starting to feel too much like home." I don't really want this town to be my home. But, as I've said before, I haven't ruled out another year in Taiwan or elsewhere in Asia. I guess I should be deciding soon.

We officially passed the halfway point of the program last week. Just five and a half months left. More importantly, just two more days of school until Winter Break! I am excited!

The Fulbright Taiwan Mid-year Conference is coming up. It's from Jan. 30 - Feb. 1. We'll take a bus with the other Fulbrighters-- the 20 or so who aren't teaching, but doing research-- from Taipei to Sun Moon Lake. We'll spend most of the first day at the lake. I'm excited about that, because it's supposedly a very magical kind of place, and one of Taiwan's proudest sites. (You can read a poorly written wikipedia blurb on it here.)

That evening, we travel another hour or two to a hotel in Hsi-Tou, a mountain forest area. We'll spend two nights there, socializing with the other Fulbrighters, giving presentations on our work, and listening to reports from the others. I'm looking forward to it.

We get back to Taipei the evening of Feb. 1, and I leave the next evening for Thailand (Feb. 2-Feb. 19). I'm not sure if I'll come back to my apartment before departing, or just stay in Taipei. I found out Ben and I are on the same flight there, so we decided to make arrangements for the first night in Bangkok, because we arrive at about 10:30pm and don't want to roam around looking for lodging. After that, however, I have no plans or itenerary, and I may find other lodging. Many people in Taiwan travel to Thailand, so a lot of them have told me not to worry about it because there are tons of cheap hotels and you don't need reservations. I'll be outside of Taiwan until just after Chinese New Year (Feb. 18), which is good and bad. At this point I don't know what this trip will be like. I need to sit down for a couple of hours with the Lonely Planet guidebooks and pick some highlights. I know I want to spend at least four or five days in Bangkok, but beyond that, I have no plan. I have lots of ideas: traveling down the peninsula to a popular beach spot called Phuket, spending a day or two hopping around some of the coastal islands, or taking a side trip to Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, or any combination of those.

My roommate, Zach, got hit by a car on his way to school yesterday. He's perfectly fine, but his scooter took some damage. The other driver was making an illegal turn as Zach went through a green light. Argh.

Last Friday night I went to bed at 11:30 and woke up at 2:30 am from the sound of screeching tires and the sound of cars crashing. It sounded huge and horrible, and jumped out of bed with my heart pounding in my head. Grabbed my camera and ran to the living room window. Zach came out to look too. It was just below the neighboring building. There was one car with its rear end completely smashed in, which we presumed was parked, and another car on its side, which apparently hit the parked car. The security guard from our building walked over and looked, then walked back. A few passersby stopped and looked in the cars. The whole time Zach and I were nervous and puzzled, and I assumed there had to be somebody seriously hurt inside. I didn't go down, because I'm on the seventh floor, other people were there to handle it, and I don't know how to communicate or first aid or anything anyway. About ten minutes later, and ambulance showed up, then police maybe five minutes after that. The EMTs looked in the vehicles, but didn't even open the doors. Same with the cops. The cops took lots of notes and photos, and finally put a guy in the back seat of their car. I'm not sure what happened, but nobody ever got out of those cars, dead or alive. Our only theory was the guy hauled away jumped out before we saw it, and the cars were both empty. Weird and frightening. Didn't sleep well after that!

I bought an external hard drive for my laptop this weekend, so I have more room for my photos and music. So far it's working well.

We had a meeting this afternoon to meet our new co-teachers for next year. We have something called "co-schools" next semester. This means in addition to our regular schools, we'll be teaching at one more school. For March, we are each scheduled to teach at our main school three days a week and our co-school two days a week. For April, we'll teach entirely at the co-school, and then return to teach entirely at our main school for the remaining two months.

Personally, I think the co-school concept is a bad idea, but it doesn't really matter-- I'll do my job regardless. It's just that when we get spread around so much, we lose the ability to be effective. There's always time lost when adjusting to a new situation or readjusting to an old one. I already feel like I'm spread too thin here, what with changing co-teachers and classes in my school each month in addition to some extracurricular duties such as the educational video we're working on. But like I said, I put in my 40 hours just the same, so if the folks in charge want to waste me, it's not up to me. There are other problems with this, in my opinion. From what I can tell, it takes about two months in a given classroom to really be effective and to have enough time that a reasonable amount of it is spent firing on all cylinders instead of learning the ropes. Given that we're essentially interlopers into another teacher's classroom, I think anything less than two months makes us as much a distraction to the students as a benefit. Que sera...

I've seen a few movies in the past couple months. Hopefully I'll make time to mention them soon.

At school recently, I discovered that someone was googling my name, either looking for my blog or information about me. I'm not sure if I should be concerned, but it was a tiny bit creepy, and I don't know who it was. I have no idea if they found what they were looking for. I don't think I have anything to hide, but even so, it seems like one more reason to stop blogging or lock this down with a password that I share only with my readers back home. Humph!

Here are some recent photos.

It's rained probably 12 of the last 14 days, but one morning, the lighting was really great!

School stuff.

Not school.

With Taiwan's finest. And a funny looking cop thing, too. Officer Barbrady says: Don't enter the gambling area if you are under 18.

This n' That: Chocolate, Snow Ice, Badminton, Massage

The last couple of weeks zipped right by. School has been very busy, and I've had a lot of outside errands to handle, thus the lack of blogging. Winter break is just two weeks away, though. I'll be doing a little traveling, but more on that later!

Here are a couple more photos from the New Year's Eve fireworks. I didn't take them, a friend sent them to me:

Here's a photo from last week. These are kids who won some kind of prize for English Week activities. In the back, you see me, the principal, and Diane.

The weather has been bitterly cold the past couple of weeks. Maybe not so cold as a Midwestern winter, but too cold and rainy for riding a motorcycle every day. These kids in the photos below were taking advantage of a surprisingly warm and dry afternoon this week, which lasted about three hours. Badminton is big here, by the way. Kids play when they get a few spare minutes, adults play at the sports park, the teachers at my school play twice a week after school in the gym. Seems kind of funny for things like badminton and ping pong to be played like legitimate sports, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Meet Chocolate. This kid's English name is Samuel, but Diane prefers to call him "Cho-ke-li" (the Chinese word for chocolate is borrowed from the English). So I call him this, too. The reason-- he's always got chocolate or candy smeared around his mouth. Haha. He's a first grader, and he loves to chase me down between classes. He can be a bit mischievous, but it's hard to get angry at him. He'll sit on my foot and hold my leg so he can go for a ride while I walk around. Or sneak into the teachers' office and pull the lever on my chair to lower it when I'm sitting there, then erupt in laughter.

Snow-ice. Snow-flower... whatever you want to call it, this is one of the best things about Taiwan, in my humble opinion. It's a fluffy, light, sweet, frozen dessert that I've never had anywhere else. The other ETAs said they've never had it before they came here, either. Zach suggests we import this technology, as it's sure to be a hit, and could be marketed as a light alternative to ice cream. I agree. They start by mixing up some sweetened, flavored (vanilla, taro, peanut, strawberry, etc.) milk or water, and putting it in a can to freeze. Then this chunk of ice is locked into a mount on a machine, then spun over some kind of blades and shaved off into a bowl. It sounds a lot like regular shaved ice, but it's much lighter and kind of powdery. My favorite is peanut flavored with chocolate syrup. This whole bowl could probably melt down into a dixie cup.

And here we are at the best snow ice joint in Yilan County, near the Luodong night market. (Zach; April; Gina; Luke's visiting friend, Stacy; and Luke.)

Last Friday, Allen, a teacher and friend at my school, offered to take me to a new massage business in Luodong. I mentioned wanting to go there at my last English Workshop for teachers, and he said he wanted to try it also. It's a Thai Massage place, not that really tells me anything, because I've never had a professional massage and don't know anything about the different styles. I was especially sore last week, though, and it sounded appealing. I knew the place was a legitimate business, not a "ma-sa-ji"/brothel kind of joint. There are lots and lots of those around, by the way. Legal, I suppose, but still scary. They have these odd colored barber poles, and they're blacked inside out except for sleazy neon light leaking out, and there's always a sketchy old man sitting outside on a lawn chair, mumbling something in Chinese at you to pimp his product. When I must walk by one of these places, I keep my head down, avoid eye contact, and scurry on to my bakery, veggie buffet, or wherever I'm going. But I digress...

Allen picked me up at 5 and we headed to the, the what? parlor? ok, the parlor. It was a nice place, very clean and chic with lots of Thai-looking accents. The deal is $1350 for 2 hours, by the way. That's about $40US. Not bad, right?

First they sat us in some big cushy chairs with granite sinks on the floor at the feet. We took off our shoes and rolled up our pants. Two Thai women came over and began to wash our feet in warm water. This was pleasant. The woman I got was about forty years old, five feet tall and "built like a brick shit-house," as my dad would say. Pardon my Japanese. You know that episode where Jerry is dating a woman with "man-hands"? Well, yeah... But the foot part was nice, really. They finished with some kind of icy-hot eucalyptus lotion all over my calves and feet, which felt pretty good.

Then they led us upstairs to a little room and gave us some hospital pants and shirts to change into. There were two beds, er, mattresses on the floor. I laid down, and took off my glasses, so I couldn't see much of it, but kept my eyes mostly closed anyway. I might mention here that I was expecting to lay on a table and get a pleasant little back and shoulders job. Not so. The hour and half that followed was an excruciatingly painful trial of the human spirit. Allen told me before they began that I could tell them if it hurts, but I'd have never shutup if I'd started.

Anyway, the Thai Crusher knelt at my feet and started massaging my right leg. Thai massage is not just a manual practice. It's a full body experience for both massagee and masseuse, filled with acrobatics and grappling techniques I never expected. I lay there grimacing as she kneaded the heck out of my calves and thighs, praying that we could soon move on to something less intense. Then she took my foot in her hands and used her feet to pry and pound my quads into a thin liquid. She stood up over me and did a couple figure-four leglocks.

The last thing I remember before I blacked out was the... just kidding. But really, this stuff hurt.

She put me on my stomach for a while and worked out my back and shoulders, and this part was mostly bearable. The part I really didn't like is where she sat or knelt on my butt, took me by the wrists, palms up, and leaned back sharply, lifting my body up off the mat and then lowering me again. She repeated this about five times, and each time I grunted and cringed, finally making the "I can't speak your language but please stop destroying my body" grunt. Allen was laughing at me for most of that, and I couldn't help but laugh either. My masseuse, bless her twisted heart, thought it was funny, too.

Anyway, the whole experience was about 80% agony, 15% awkwardness, and 5% pleasure. I'm not sure how I made it back down the stairs, really. I felt pretty good the next day. I think it's more about long-term benefits and actual therapy than immediate pleasure. I don't think I'll go back, but that's not to say anyone else shouldn't try it. I bet you wouldn't forget it.

New Year's Festivities

i took a cab with viktor, april and gina to taipei saturday evening. lots of traffic, so the drive was a little slow. from the train station, we took the subway to meet joel and zach for dinner in ximen. they all wanted t.g.i. friday's, but the wait there was two hours, so we went to a nearby place called "coke forest." clearly siphoning off friday's customers, as the place was all decked out in gingham tablecloths, rusty coca-cola signs and other americana, and had a somewhat similar menu. cheesy, but okay.

a little later, i met up with a friend, denny, who lives there and we saw a movie. he let me stay at his place saturday and sunday night, which was nice because there were no hotel rooms to be found in taipei that weekend.

that night, i fell asleep with my contacts in my eyes. i do this a lot, and it's not a problem, in yilan or back home. of course it's not recommended, but i've never had problems. i woke up at about 6 a.m. sunday morning with my eyes burning, so i took my contacts out and went back to sleep for a while. when i woke up again, my eyes still hurt like hell and were red, watery, and extra-sensitive to light. ouch.

i got up and headed out, wearing glasses this time, hoping that my eyes would be okay in an hour or two after adjusting to the light, etc. i went to citizen cain, a lovely restaurant with lots of global foods, for lunch.

i walked around a little, then called denny again. we hung around ximending again for a while. i contacted luke and ben, and who were already near taipei 101 for the countdown and fireworks. denny rode me to the area on his scooter, which was pretty fun, given the crazy holiday traffic. we got there at maybe 7 p.m., so we planned to meet up with ben and luke after having some dinner. we ate in a food court, which was horribly packed, then finally got back out to the big party. the place was filling up quickly. by this time, i couldn't even place a call, so i never managed to meet up with ben and luke. i guess there were so many people packed into one place that the cell network couldn't give me a signal. besides that, the cell carrier that they put us ETAs on is sketchy sometimes. so that was frustrating, but denny and i managed to find a spot to sit down in the crowd of hundreds of thousands. i actually took a catnap waiting for the countdown. it wasn't easy, given the noise of the crowd, and the fact that my eyes still burned like crazy. they hadn't improved all day, which made for a pretty miserable new year's eve.

for some reason, the crowd in my area didn't count down, which was disappointing, because i'd already practiced counting down in chinese in my head. :-) suddenly the crowd started "oooh"-ing and bright lights flashed up consecutive levels of the building, then the tower started exploding in a huge fireworks display. i guess it was pretty cool. only lasted three minutes. i suppose there are only so many fireworks you can pack onto the ledges of a skyscraper, but i dunno, i daresay i found it a little anticlimactic. i'd say thunder over louisville, the derby festival fireworks display, is much more elaborate and spectacular, and lasts much longer.

the ride back to denny's took about eight years, i think. it was insane. yet it must have taken twice that in a car. it was pretty wild on a scooter. i shot some video on my camera, but i'll post that later.

i barely slept that night. my eyes hurt worse when i closed them, making sleep almost impossible. maybe dozed off a couple times, only to wake up in pain shortly after. i finally went to wake denny up at about 7:30 a.m. i was in awful pain, and was starting to get seriously worried about the situation, thinking i might be going blind or something. so, bless his soul, he got up and scootered me around the neighborhood, looking for a clinic that was open. they all opened at nine, so we had breakfast in a little noodle shop, where i sat and waited in the cool and dark for the clinic to open. went to the doctor at 9, got in about 9:30, and the doctor told me my corneas were damaged a little, and i needed to rest my eyes and not wear contacts for at least a week. he prescribed three different kinds of eyedrops (one for pain, one for redness, one to help heal them, i think) and a tube of vaseline-like gel which i actually apply directly to my eyeballs before bed.

i went back to sleep for a while after this. the drops started helping immediately. by the time i left the city that evening, my eyes felt pretty good and my vision was okay. zach and i had the same theory about it-- the air in taipei is super dirty, and when i went to sleep with my contacts in, all the dirt and pollution they had collected was trapped against my eyeballs for several hours, and finally i woke up in pain and the damage was done. anyway, lesson learned... and my eyes are almost completely better today.

this week has been extra busy, but i don't think there's much worth mentioning.

it's late, and i need to sleep, so i'm going to bother with posting photos later. sorry. more to come...

Happy New Year! 2007!

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Much love to everyone for the next year. I'll write more soon but exhausted for now from the long weekend. Cheers!