Alles nur geklaut

I vaguely remember a time when people actually wrote in their LJs, and my friends page was never empty.

Guess what was in my mailbox today?

A lizard.

I did two things today that I'd never done before: I got my scooter repaired, and I crashed it. Yes, in that order.

I didn't even go home in between leaving the mechanic and smashing into the back of another scooter. It wasn't exactly my first incident since I started driving it; an SUV sort of scraped against me a bit in February, but this was the first actual impact. I felt pretty bad about it, although if I were in the United States I would definitely say it was the other person's fault for stopping so suddenly in front of me. Traffic works a bit differently here, though, and if I were a more experienced scooter driver I think I might have managed to avoid the whole thing.

In any case, I was fine. The guy I hit seemed pretty angry, and I have the feeling he would have given me hell if he thought I'd understand. His license plate was crunched, but there was no other damage, so he just let it go. I lost a bit of paint off the front of my scooter (and spilled beef noodle soup all over it) but fortunately, I didn't have to head right back to the mechanic. It actually took a few tries to start it after I picked it up off the ground though, so I hope there isn't some other problem that got started.

In unrelated news, I actually managed to fit a few hours of scenic carpentry and painting into my schedule last weekend. Another teacher I know is in a bilingual production of the Vagina Monologues in Taipei, and the (American) director was looking for volunteers to help with sets. Unfortunately, it didn't work with my schedule to put very much time in, but it was nice to have the chance to get a little involved with theatre again.

Actually, theatre is the one dark cloud still hanging over my new-found happiness with life in Taiwan. I don't know how important it still is to me, for one thing. I thought that being away from that world for a little while would give me some clarity on how much it mattered to me, but instead I've left it so far behind that it's hard to even remember that it used to basically be my entire life. I am afraid that each month I choose to stay here makes it a little more impossible that I will ever find my way back to that career path, but maybe that isn't really the way it works, I don't know. Oh well, lots to think about as always.

Pictures from a scooter trip up to Keelung, on the northern coast:

( 基隆 )

In my week off I've spent some time just walking around Luzhou, something I haven't done since shortly after I arrived.  It isn't a very attractive city,  so once I got a feel for the layout of the streets I didn't feel a need to do so much exploring, but this week it's been nice to wander around a bit.  It reminds me how much more settled in I am than I was this fall when I was hiking about trying to get my bearings.  This morning I walked along the top of the dike on the edge of the city, something I'd never done before.  I added some pictures I took today and a few I already had to create this, my Luzhou collection.  They aren't the most stunning or exotic sights in Taiwan, but this is where I live:
( Home Sweet Home 蘆洲 )

Often while riding in a taxi, the cab driver will attempt to strike up a conversation. Sometimes he speaks good English or I manage a full discussion in Chinese, but most of the time it is a mix of both. A while ago I had a quite memorable cab ride. I'll write the conversation in English but really it was a rather garbled and confusing mix of languages, including a few random sentences of German at one point.

The driver started out typically, asking me where I was from and whether I liked the food in Taiwan. I told him that I was American and he started in on a long speech about the war in Iraq. I honestly had no clue what he was saying so I just nodded. Somehow he got the mistaken impression that I was from Chicago and I didn't bother to correct him so we talked about Chicago.

He asked how old I was and I told him.

"You are married," he guessed.

"No," I said.

"Your boyfriend," asked the driver, "Taiwanese or American?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," I told him.

"No?" he asked, quite surprised, "because you are Christian, yes?"

"No... I don't think that's why," I said. He was silent for a moment, and I thought the conversation was finally over. Then he spoke up with these words of wisdom:

"Taiwan girls very beautiful. American girls strong, eat steak."

So that explains it...

Yesterday I got some more deep insight into Taiwan from another cab driver.

"Taiwan is very very good country," he said, "No terrorists."

Sounds good to me.

Happy Year of the Pig!

Don't ask me why I happened to remember this today, but today is the three year anniversary of the creation of this blog. Not anything much to celebrate of course, but I looked back at some old entries and it did get me thinking.

I've changed so much in three years. You can't tell from what I was writing, it was mostly drivel then and still is. You probably can't really even tell if you've known me that whole time. But I can look back at those entries and remember the thoughts I had at the time and how I saw myself and everything else, and I am amazed at how different I was.

I'm not really going anywhere with this... I'm very happy with where I am and who I am now though. Cheers to getting old.

Maybe you've heard about the recent earthquakes here in Taiwan. Well, we (me and my dad and brother, who are visiting me currently) weren't anywhere near where the damage occured, so we're fine, but our hotel room was certainly shaking that night.

Quinn and my dad have been here since last Sunday, and we've done a lot since then.  It's been pretty stressful to work full time and have guests as well, but fortunately I got to take the last few days off so we could take a little trip down to Hualien and Taroko Gorge.

( Here are our past 2 weeks in pictures! )

As of Friday I have been in Taiwan for three months. That's 1/4 of the time I'm committed to, can you believe it?

The biggest change for me recently is that I finally got up the nerve to drive my scooter out of Luzhou. A whole new world has opened up to me! I can zip over the river into Taipei, or head in the other direction to check out that park that was always just out of reach. I have nothing bad to say about the public transportation I had been using up until now, but it's great to be a little more independent. Also, I'm not sure exactly how big my gas tank is, but it only takes about 4 bucks to fill it up!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas around here. Well, maybe not Christmas in Minnesota since the weather here is still in the 60's, but I drove into Taipei to do some Christmas shopping this weekend and bought a little tree and some decorations. We've been decorating the kindergarten like crazy too, as well as preparing the kids for the annual Christmas program.

I'm really looking forward to Christmas, as non-traditional as it will be. My dad and brother are coming over and we'll be heading down to Hualien and Taroko Gorge for a few days. We may not be making snow angels, but how's this for a winter wonderland?