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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Well, I posted my first short story, "Seeking Nirvana," and so far, the feedback has been kind of mixed. I didn't expect that many people would get the "deeper" philosophical meaning I was getting at, and since it's a subject not too many people are familiar with, I can't say I'm surprised that the number of responses hasn't come close to SOOTB.
At any rate, two of the important things I was trying to get across were: 1) at all the points where Nicky thought he wasn't "getting it," he actual
Today, I took Simba (my youngest cat) to get the first of his preventative vaccines. He can be really sweet when he wants to, and also really evil. This afternoon, he decided to be evil, and clawed a chunk of skin out of my hand when I went to pick him up to go to the vet -- he must have sensed that he was going to get a shot. Anyway, that was the first step to going back to the States. I have so many silly hoops to jump through to take my cats back to the States that it's not even funny.
Fi
I've finally made my decision, with a little help from my parents (I still look for their approval ... can't help it! lol) So ... anyway ... I'm moving back to the States, probably in early July. I've decided not to take the Ph.D. entrance exam. I've been here for five years now, and the past year and a half has made me realize that I would be better off back home. I want to get a real job, settle down, and begin the rest of my life.
The whole moving thing is gonna be a major pain in the but
I don't think I've ever written two blog entries in as many days ... but it probably has to due with the fact that I'm procrastinating for a few more minutes before I get back to my translation project ... ugh!!!
I was up at 4 a.m. this morning, after getting to sleep at around 1:30 a.m., and it's now 5:00 a.m. as I'm writing this ... while listening to the "Brokeback Mountain" soundtrack which I bought yesterday (along with Billy Joel's "Millenium Concert" and the latest Eurythmics greatest
I have had the weirdest sleeping habits lately. I get to bed at a normal time, usually between midnight and 1 a.m., but then only sleep for a couple hours. Then I'm up for the day, then go to sleep again in the late afternoon and sleep until around 8 or 9 p.m., then repeat the cycle. I've tried forcing myself to stay awake to reset my internal clock, as well as sleeping medication from my doctor, but it doesn't work. One benefit of this, though, is that I do my best work in the early hours of th
I don't remember the last sunny day we had here in Taipei. It's been raining pretty much non-stop for a while now, and while it's good (we've had water shortages the past couple of summers), it's not helpful to my mood.
I'm leaning more and more towards moving back to the States this summer. The benefits seem to far outweigh staying here in Taiwan, even if I were to get into the Ph.D. program. For example, foreign professors here don't qualify for pensions, foreigners can't get loans for ca
