Random Stuff

First of all, for all you who may be interested, I am now employed.  I will be working for the Kang Chiao International School.  I'll be teaching English.  Mostly I'll be teaching TOEIC and TOEFL stuff, but the school offers a lot of English literature classes as well as social studies classes which I may also get the opportunity to teach. I'm thinking this is going to turn out to be a really good job.  The only thing I'm not thrilled with is that I'll have a two hour commute each way which will make for a long day.  That said, I'm actually really excited to get started.  I'll begin July 25th.  In the interim I'm going to have to find some things to do to keep me from going cock-eyed with boredom.  I figure taking a Chinese class will be part of it, but I don't know what else yet.

The other thing that happened to me is that I discovered my sciatic nerve. Now those of you who have had experience with this wonder of the human anatomy know very well that it is literally a pain in the ass. Anyway, Rebecca sent me off to the National Taiwan University Hospital to get myself checked out.  This was an adventure in and of itself.  Following the signs that supposedly lead you to the Family Health Care clinic, I walked through a door which led me too a hallway that had a ceiling only an inch over my head.  Not only that, but as I'm walking around I'm noticing that there's not much in the way of hospital type stuff going on, but that it's mostly small restaurants and convenience stores. So here I am, crouched over because I can't stand up straight due to the ceiling height, staring at people slurping up nodles and wondering what in the Hell have I got myself into.  I finally find another sign that has an arrow pointing up some stairs and says Family Health Care.  I follow and wind up in what seems to be the oncology lab.  The first person who looked like they worked there that I talked to sort of looked at me and ran.  So I did the next logical thing and called Rebecca, so that she could talk to someone and get me headed in the right direction.  I finally get sent to the hospital lobby.  Now when I got to the lobby, I was immediate reminded of a really crowded night market.  There were five different sets of windows all labeled cashier and five million people milling around in what has to be some sort of organized fashion but at first glance was simply chaos.  I stood in the middle of this, staring around in all directions and just laughing to myself thinking, "What the fuck do I do now?"  Finally, Rebecca sent me a text with what I was looking for written in Chinese, and nice little helper woman got me pointed in the right direction.  I got to the doctor, she told me I was suffering from a pinch sciatic nerve and prescribed some mild painkillers.   This led to my next adventure.

The painkillers weren't doing much good, so Rebecca suggested that I should try acupuncture. I've never tried it before but had always heard positive things. Given that my hip was bothering me in a big way, I said, "What the Hell."  I got to the clinic this morning and in short order was talking to the doctor who spoke excellent English and explained the process to me.  It was all very civilized.  The only kink in the works came when I had a fit of giggles thinking of the picture I must have presented laying there on my side with needles sticking out of my butt. Laughing makes your body move. Moving makes you able to feel the needles, which is a tad uncomfortable.  So far, the pain is gone, but we'll see how long it lasts.  The Doc said to go back Monday if the pain persists, so I will do that.

That is all for now...

Vacation Photos

Here they are:

Rebecca and I getting married for the second time.

The Del Norte County Clerk reading the wedding service.

The deed is done! Everyone...laugh?

In front of the Flynn Administration Center where we got married.

Rebecca, my sister Shelle, and I on the road to Sonoma.

Rebecca's Latte bowl!

The Marina District and Fort Mason, SF.

Heading out on a Bay Cruise. The weather was nice when we left the dock.

Saw some sea lions.

Then it started to rain.

Got some good photos and had a good time despite the rain that, of course, stopped the minute we got back to the dock.

Being tourists in Chinatown.

You have to take the cable cars!

Taiwanese (?) tea franchise in SF.

Fisherman's Wharf

Thus tells the tale of our time in California for what amounted to the most expensive visa run in history.  had a great time with my family and my fabulous wife!

Post Post Vacation Post Post

The other thing you do when you go home is shop.  When you live in Asia and are a man of my...ahem...stature, a trip back to the land of the large every couple of years is necessary. That and the fact that I have big-ass feet means that I can't find shoes that fit in Asia. So, I got to California and hit all the hot spots: Walmart, Target, Sears and stocked up on enough of the necessities to last me until my next adventure to, as my buddy Ian calls it, "The Land of the Great PX." It really is shocking to shop in America.  I'm in awe every time I go back to visit a supermarket, wandering down the cereal aisle or staring, mouth agape and drooling, at the ridiculous number of choices in the cheese section. I simply can't imagine how someone from a country not known for its abundance feels when they first step into these hallowed halls of excess.  It must be mind boggling.

Now, personally, I don't like to shop.  I go shopping, especially for clothes, out of necessity and try to get it over with as quickly as possible.  Rebecca, on the other hand, LOVES to shop.  During our stay I think we hit just about every mall between San Francisco and Oregon border. Fortunately for me, Rebecca understands my aversion to shopping and, rather than listen to me sigh heavily every time she wants to try something on or wants to venture into just one more store, usually parks me and a book in a nearby coffee shop or pub while she peruses the merchandise. Our greatest adventure was in the search for everything Coach.  Coach products seem to be very popular among Rebecca's circle of friends but are much more expensive in Taiwan than they are in the States. Thus, Rebecca and I hit every Macy's, Coach store and outlet we could find looking for deals on bags and wallets requested by friends and family.  I somehow came out of this the proud owner of a Macy's card which I will probably never use again. I'm not sure how many bags we came back with, but it was a lot.

All in all, it was a great trip.  I got to spend some quality time with my mom, and with my sister, I ate a ton of great food - I made my pilgrimage to Los Hermanos; the home of the world's best burrito, and got a lot of new clothes.  Good times!

Photos to follow.

Post Vacation Post

There are two truths that are undeniable about traveling to the US. One, the only thing that loses weight is your wallet, and, two, your sleep cycle is going to hell.  I went to bed at midnight last night after 18-19 hours of traveling only to wake up at 5:00 am this morning.  Only it wasn't 5:00. It was 4:00 because I forgot to set my watch to Taiwan time after our layover in Tokyo.  It was even worse when Rebecca and I got to California at the beginning of the trip.  I think it took almost a week before we started sleeping less than about 14 hours a day.

As far as the diet is concerned, you pretty much know that you are going to put on an extra 10-15 lbs when you are greeted at your mother's house by a 22 lb turkey with all the trimmings and only four people to eat it. There is also the thing about portion size.  I am always amazed how much food you get when you go to a restaurant.  I wonder if I thought the portions at restaurants were unusually big before I went to Korea or if they felt normal?  Now I go home, and I'm thinking, "Holy crap!  How the hell am I supposed to eat all that?"  I usually manage to find a way to shovel all that food in because you know... you don't want to waste anything...starving children in Africa and all that. Anyway, I got to eat a ton - maybe literally - of great food while I was home, and it was awesome!

To be continued...

First World Problems: The No Sound Blues

Sound.  Think about it for a minute.  Sound. Then...No sound.

Computers are fabulous things.  You can do so many things with them, from sending emails to looking for work to doing research.  However, computers lose a great deal of their intrinsic entertainment value when the sound quits. Think about how absolutely you take for granted the sound that emanates from your computer every time you use it.  Be it a squork or a bleep or the ever-so-comforting-until-it's-gone Windows start-up sound. When it's gone, desolation follows.

If you are like me, you have whittled your entire entertainment world into a storage space the size of a paperback book because it's easier and much cheaper than hauling 50 boxes of books, cds, DVDs, and lps around the world.  Your family may be willing to store them in an attic or garage, but may start to look askance when you come to visit every couple of years but never seem to leave with any of the boxes.  Then, of course, you start to pray that your chosen sibling or parent has become so entrenched in your storage space that they will never have to actually move your crap for you.  Maybe they'll forget about it altogether. Ultimately, you simply have to downsize.

The problem with having all of your entertainment packed into hard drives is that you need a computer to access it.  That computer also needs to have sound. Playing a music or movie file on a computer with a malfunctioning sound card is an effort in futility only akin trying to eating a bag of Cheetos without turning yourself and your immediate surroundings day-glo orange.

Needless to say, my inability to fix this problem is working my already frayed nerves. Fortunately, I have my iPod, which is stuffed with enough musical goodness to get me through this oh-so-trying time.

Captain's Log: Star Date 2014/03/07 - The Island of Formosa

Here I sit, in a strange new land, in a strange new life, on what may become a typical Friday night: the wife and her sisters playing mahjong in the living room, and me sipping on a beer, listening to music and banging away on the keyboard. This blog has been neglected far too long. - Ooops!  Forgot the beer! Yikes!

It's an odd thing, starting a new life.  Moving away from the familiar into uncharted waters.  Why did I stay in Korea so long? The answer is pretty simple.  Staying was easier than going. Despite all the crap that I complained about, for most of the time I was there, the options - or lack of options - elsewhere, made Korea the best choice.  To a certain extent, it was the only choice.  While I'm not uncomfortable with change, I am a man that likes a certain amount of routine.  Sometimes my routine led to stagnation.  The last four years in Korea are proof of that.  Yet when you hit that comfort zone, it can be a hard thing to break out of, and I accept that I'm the only one who can break that cycle. The cycle has been broken, and it is good.

There are things I will miss about Korea. I made some really great friends in the years I was there (you know who you are). There's part of me that will always be waiting for Ian's call on a Saturday afternoon to decide which animal was going to be killed, grilled, and eaten and whether we were going to take the bus or cab it to Gung-dong.  I'll miss Mr. Ho saying, " I LOVE / HATE Jaegermeister!" depending on whether he beat me at pool or not. Hell, there's even a part of me that will miss arguing with the KAIST students over their horrid music tastes.  Over all, the fourteen years I spent in Korea was a great experience.  Sometimes when you're stuck in the middle of it, it doesn't feel that way, but hindsight is always 20/20, and I'll remember my time in Korea fondly.

There will be routine here in Taiwan as well, and I'm liking the way this routine is starting. Waking up in the arms of someone you love deeply is a wonderful thing. It's almost as if Rebecca and I are starting a new relationship in spite of the fact that we've actually known each other for almost ten years and have been married for a year and a half. It makes me realize that I've been alone for a long time. I'm happy.

White Noise

The internet is a wonderful thing.  However, there is part of me that gets nostalgic for the "quieter" times before the 24 hour news cycle; before the information overload that comes with literally everyone talking, or, as the case may be, screaming at once.  A case in point is the demise of the "Letter to the Editor."  Well, the letter to the editor hasn't really died, it has been replaced by the online "comments" section.  What has truly died is people taking the time to inform themselves on a subject and then organizing their thoughts into a rational statement or argument before committing them to print.

Writing a letter to a newspaper used to be a commitment.  It took time. It took thought. You also had to put your name on it. Sure the paper controlled whose letters got posted, and you had better chance of seeing your letter in print if your views coincided with those of the paper's, but the paper's editors would usually publish just enough from the opposing viewpoint to maintain the appearance of objectivity.  The best part was that the editor's were allowed, if only because of a limited number of column inches, to weed out the cranks, racists, lunatics and everyday morons who wrote to them and choose from the letters that actually might merit reading.  That, unfortunately, is lost to the ages.

These days, every major newspaper has an online version. There is a comments section for every article or story in every section of the paper. While the moderators do weed out the most offensive posts, their standards are at best arbitrary.  Free speech may be the backbone of American ideals of democracy and freedom, but it would seems that the thought that is supposed to go along with that right is in perilously short supply.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that there are a lot of folks out there who are simply...well...idiots.  You get some readers who take the time to digest an article, inform themselves on the subject and write rational, thought out responses to the issue at hand.  Unfortunately, you have to wade through 500 posts of the most inane drivel in order to find them.  It's mind-numbing.

I stopped watching television news because it has devolved into a cacophony of voices talking over one another without even the pretense of listening to what is being said.  I've stopped reading the comments sections of the newspapers for the same reason.  It's just white noise.