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Little Buddha's Stone Grotto

A blog by LittleBuddhaTW in Member

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About this blog

The ramblings of an itinerant gay Buddhist, writer of young adult gay fiction, living in the mountains and jungles of South America with my dog, Pony.

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The Bitch Is Back! =)

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm back in the States, safe and sound. My wireless connection isn't working yet, but my parents' friend is coming by on Saturday morning to check it out, and hopefully it'll be ok by then. In the meantime, I'm using my parents' computer. I just would rather use mine, because it has all of the Chinese software and stuff I need for my "work," as well as the WS_FTP software I use for updates and all of my files and stuff. Anyway, hopeufully it will be resolved

July 8, 2006

15

Say Goodbye

It is sooo friggin' HOT here today ... UGH! Anyway, I'm leaving in less than two days, so this will be my last blog entry until I get back to the States. I knew Taiwan wouldn't let me go without a fight, and today was like the Battle Royale. So, I went to school to pick up my last installment of scholarship money ... I get to the cashier's office, and they didn't have any cash!!! Hello?!?! Grrr ... fortunately, I bitched at them long enough and told them I wasn't leaving until they gave m

July 5, 2006

9

One week and counting!

One week from right now, I'll be on a big ass plane, flying over a big ass ocean ... I just hope I don't have a stomach bug on the plane like I did when I flew back to the States from mainland China back in '98 ... that was a horrible experience, and one that I shall not go into details about! Anyway, today had to be one of the most tiring days of my life, plus it is FRIGGIN' HOT here in Taiwan right now. Today was my last day of work, and after work, all of the staff in our division went

June 30, 2006

4

Madman Across the Water

I can see very well There's a boat on the reef with a broken back And I can see it very well There's a joke And I know it very well It's one of those that I told you long ago Take my word, I'm a madman, don't you know ... Fabulous song! *wipes sweat away from forehead* Whew! I had a busy morning! I had a doctor's appointment at 9 AM, dentist at 11 AM, my final trip to the post office, and I had to stop by the vet to get the date changed on my forms for the cats. So, anyway, when I w

June 26, 2006

2

Young Man's Blues

I pitched a bunch of stuff last night, and my apartment is looking emptier and emptier. I also made what was probably my last trip to the supermarket here ... I can safely say that that is one thing I won't miss about Taiwan. But there are a lot of things that I will miss. Despite my seemingly constant bitching and complaining, this place has been my home for over five years, and it's what is familiar to me. So much has changed in America since I've been gone, it's going to take some time to adj

June 21, 2006

27

The end of a chapter ...

A little over two weeks to go before I head back to the States. It's kind of hard to believe that I've been here for over five years ... it really doesn't seem like it's been that long. I've still got a bunch of stuff to get done to prepare for my departure, some people I need to say goodbye to, and stuff like that. Fortunately, I got an early start on shipping boxes home (which my parents have told me have already started arriving) and getting stuff taken care of for my cats. I still have a bun

June 19, 2006

2

Love's a Hard Game to Play

Chapter 19 of SOOTB is posted, in case any of y'all are interested in reading it or anything ... So, anyway, I was chatting with Kitty the other night, and we got on the topic of one of my ex-boyfriends here in Taiwan. Of the several guys I've had serious relationships with here, this is the only one where we broke up not because of any problem between us, but because his family was totally insane and totally freaked out that he was gay, not to mention dating a foreigner! *gasp* But that's a

June 10, 2006

4

Hit & Run Drivers Should Be Castrated

I suppose I should feel lucky that I've managed to survive five years in Taiwan without being involved in a single traffic accident (although I've seen my share of dead bodies lying in the street), considering how Taiwanese DRIVE LIKE FRIGGIN' INSANE MANIACS WITH NO CONCERN FOR ANYONE ... and that may sound like a broad generalization or stereotype or whatever, but it's not ... every single Taiwanese person who operates a motor vehicle drives like a reckless lunatic with no regard for safety, th

June 8, 2006

9

Just another manic Monday

Well, I expected today (Monday morning here in Taiwan) to be yet another day from hell, but it actually wasn't. I got everything I needed to do completed in only two hours (including commute time), which included picking up my scholarship money, stopping by the Chinese department office to make sure my thesis wasn't missing anything before I took it to the printer, then off to the Computing & Networking Center to get my account # and password so I can upload my thesis onto the school library

June 5, 2006

3

I survived the day from hell! =)

I'd been totally lazy for the past few days, but that all changed today. This morning, I had to go to the hospital to get a refill on my sleeping medication prescription (they don't have normal pharmacies here like in the States, so you have to go to the hospital or clinic where you see your doctor to get any medications, which is kind of inconvenient), then I stopped by work to have one of my co-workers convert the .doc file of my M.A. thesis into .pdf format, and it WORKED! Woo-hoo! It looks r

June 1, 2006

7

I met Ma Ying-jeou!

Okay ... so now you're probably asking, "Who in the hell is Ma Ying-jeou?" Well, he is the current mayor of Taipei city, the chairman of the Nationalist Party (KMT), and is expected by most people to win the presidency in Taiwan in 2008. He's a very charismatic and down-to-earth guy, and you just can't help but like him. He's also Harvard-educated (Ph.D. in law), was a professor for a number of years before going into politics. He was the justice minister during the latter years of the KMT's

May 26, 2006

4

Tell Me When the Whistle Blows

I can't really remember the last time I've had so much to do ... I've gotten so used to being bored, but now that my big move is looming closer and closer, I've got tons to get done. This week is going to be a killer, and I'm not off to a good start, since I got ZERO hours of sleep last night. I have the worst case of insomnia, and even the sleeping pills my doctor gave me don't do a damn thing except make me feel woozy and a little groggy ... but not enough to put me to sleep. Anyway, I hav

May 21, 2006

3

Well ... that was fun

So, I got to the Chinese department office about a half hour early and chatted with one of the secretaries for a while, and she gave me all of the information I need to get through the gazillions of procedures I have to follow once the final draft of my thesis is completed, which includes converting my MS Word document into PDF format (which I have no clue how to do), get three hardcover and one softcover copies of my thesis made, upload the PDF file of my thesis to the library's electronic thes

May 19, 2006

8

Typhoons & Landladies

There's a big ass typhoon that's hitting Hong Kong and southern China now, and we're getting hit by the outer bands of rain. It's nothing serious, but it's raining hard enough to keep me from going clothes shopping ... not that I wouldn't have found another excuse not to get off my lazy butt ... but I've definitely got to go tomorrow, because I have to have something nice to wear (that fits!) for my exam on Friday. Good news on the landlord front! I just spent two hours helping her to file h

May 17, 2006

9

Too Low For Zero

It's Sunday night here as I write this, and I got absolutely nothing done this weekend, either packing or writing ... I just slept ... a lot. Very unproductive. I'm going to try to convince myself to go to Sogo (an upscale Japanese department store) on Monday afternoon to buy some new summer clothes, and also get something nice to wear for my exam on Friday. Maybe I should be nervous about my exam ... I tend to worry excessively about things like that ... but it's been the furthest thing from my

May 14, 2006

1

No rest for the wicked

This has been an interesting few days. I've been procrastinating about shipping the next box of stuff ... I should probably get it packed up tonight and shipped tomorrow, but I've been procrastinating about that. Instead, I've been doing some cleaning, pitched an old bookcase, took Simba for his booster shot yesterday, and am gonna pitch another bag of stuff later on today. I really am a pack rat ... I shouldn't have this much crap that I need to get rid of ... *sigh* Oh, and I get to take Simb

May 10, 2006

4

Subtropical Heat & Broken Showerheads

It is hot in Taiwan right now ... although that is what you come to expect from a subtropical island. But I still don't have to like it, and I don't. And the humidity is so high that you feel like you're practically drowning if you go outside. I could handle it when I lived in Florida, because they have this wonderful thing called "central air-conditioning" in the United States. They have it here, but only in the nice, new office buildings. Most apartments only have the window unit kind, and the

May 6, 2006

3

Rainy Tuesday Morning

I haven't been able to get any writing done over the past few days, because I've been working on a rush translation job for a company. It only pays US$130, but that'll at least pay for about two boxes to be shipped back home. I'm almost finished, and once I'm done, I need to try to get a little further ahead in the chapters for SOOTB. Chapter 16 is taking forever to finish, and I don't know why, because I know exactly how I want it to go, but I can't seem to sit at the computer and type more tha

May 2, 2006

2

Last Day of April

I posted Chapter 13 of SOOTB on Saturday morning. I'm still working (slowly) on Chapter 16, but I at least have the whole thing mapped out, as well as most of the rest of the chapters, unless something comes to me in the middle of the night and I decide to make some kind of major change. I'm estimating that it will end up being about 23-24 chapters, plus an epilogue. I've also started working on a new short story that I will probably submit for the Summer Anthology. I've only written the first p

April 30, 2006

6

I'd rather be sleeping

I so did not feel like coming to work this morning. I haven't been sleeping well lately ... lots of weird dreams and stuff. Anyway, I've pretty much accomplished everything I set out to do this week. There's still one more box to ship, and I'll do that this afternoon when I get off work. I also got a haircut yesterday which was long overdue. My trip to the post office yesterday was painless, fortunately. The printer also did a good job with my thesis, and it ended up being a lot cheaper than I h

April 28, 2006

3

This blog has no title

The past few days have been really blah, so I don't really have anything to report, since I didn't do anything other than manage to finish up Ch. 15 of SOOTB and get started on Ch. 16. Right now, I'm sitting at work, bored out of my mind. For those of you that don't know, I work part-time for a research group here in Taiwan. The government is on this little "internationalization" kick, so I'm the "token foreigner" in the office. My main job responsibility is to sit here and "look white" ... occa

April 25, 2006

7

The Taiwanese postal service is evil

So, I've already shipped two big boxes of books back home, and I never thought sending them by surface mail would be so friggin' expensive. I had a third box to mail today, which was considerably heavier than the previous two (I have some massive dictionaries and reference books). It was a miracle that I even managed to get it to the post office without throwing out my back. And so I get there, and they tell me it's overweight (maximum weight is 30kg), and to go home and re-pack it into two sepa

April 21, 2006

5

Thesis editing and itchy legs

What a combo, eh? So my graduate advisor gave back my thesis yesterday, and thankfully there weren't that many corrections to make, mostly just puncutation (English and Chinese use of commas is VERY different) and some word choice. She also didn't think I should leave an extra space between paragraphs. That was about it, though, and she said, "You shouldn't have any problem graduating." We spent about 30 minutes going through the corrections at McDonald's to make sure I could read all of her cor

April 18, 2006

8

Saturday night ramblings

The preparations for my move are coming along pretty well. I've managed to pitch some more junk and trash (since I'm such a pack rat), done some cleaning, and tomorrow I'll box up some books to take to the post office on Monday. I'll be sending them via sea, since it's a lot cheaper, and if I send them, they might even be waiting for me when I get home in July. Less than three months left to go now ... The mosquitoes are still invading full-force, as vicious as ever. I swear, they must be sp

April 15, 2006

4

Mosquitoes suck

The mosquitoes are now out in full force, and they have invaded my apartment. I hate having to burn that awful-smelling mosquito repellant incense, but it's the only thing that seems to keep most of them at bay (somewhat). Those little plug-in kinds don't work ... at least not on Taiwanese mosquitoes, which I'm starting to think are some kind of super, genetically-altered mosquitoes. So anyway, my legs are like totally bitten up and itch like hell. Not fun. Yesterday, I bought my one-way air

April 12, 2006

6

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