On the road (but totally not like jack Kerouac)

I thought I was done too, okay?

I thought that imma' come home, put my things in a wardrobe, enjoy my family, and the few friends I have left in my official city of residence, make some more friends, eventually move into a flat somewhere cute, have a window farm, drive my scooter around London looking small and cute.
But no.
I just didn't have it in me.
I couldn't hack it.
I'm just not cool enough for London.
And it spat me out like left overs on the footpath from a fish supper on a Saturday night.

Okay, obviously  I'm cool enough.
You don't have to be so cool in London.
But facing the cold grey mornings with a 'yay I'm in London' wasn't in me.

I didn't want to live in a city where before I even have a moment to dread the day of work ahead I had to dread the commute to work?
True, the commute would have been shortened by a move out of the soul-less (some might even say pointless, but not I!) suburb I was in, but that would have required selling my soul, and perhaps even my body to fund it.

And work!
Damn it, work in London made me sweaty in the cold, made me skinny because I didn't have time to eat, made my skin dry from the 40minute scoot each way (and yes, that bothered me) and most of all, it made me tired and unsociable in a city that has too much to offer after dark.

Being in London made me think about going back to Taiwan.

So I went to Antwerp.

I have a job that I'm loving, a flat that borders on the most fashionable part of town (the other border is the Turkish part -- yum) and a less than twenty minute commute to work. I also have three friends, I'm  working on that bit, or not so much working as hoping all of a sudden a rush of high brow star trek fans swarm my way.
Life is good again.
Waking up in the morning is fun and coming home is an adventure in this less than well planned city.

So here I am, travelling again.

Settling's for pussies. obviously.

Come visit me. It's fun and quaint and if the promise of seeing my tiny little face, and hearing my tiny little voice talking about commdities isn't enough, there are festivals and some legendary fake beach that pops out before the summer and cheap cheese and wine, who doesn't love cheap cheese and wine? who?

crappy scenery picture. 

is thinking about it the same as doing it?

Well, apparently the answer to that is no.

I've been thinking a lot about what to do when my contracts up in mid August.
I feel that the situation calls for a little bit of SWOT  analysis, I mean, what good are business theories if you can't apply them to completely irrelevant subjects right?

Strengths-- After working as an English teacher I've discovered a new skill that I would have never attributed to myself. I'm patient. Yes, patient. Not as patient as some other teachers and I certainly wouldn't say I'm as patient as a saint, but definitely more patient than I would have previously thought.
Apart from that I suppose I have a passable intelligence and some inter-personal skills.
Oh oh, I can also fit into small spaces and fly with nearly no discomfort on even the most budgeted of budget airlines.

Weaknesses-- I cannot reach the top shelf of anything. Ever. I'm also obnoxious when I think the other party in a discussion doesn't know what they're talking about (I'm pretty sure I have an involuntary eyebrow twitch) not an attractive trait to be sure. I consistently fail at pretending that I care what those people are saying. It's been worse lately, I'm irritable due to lack of prospects.

Opportunities-- When I first wrote this I couldn't think of many/any. To be fair to my own self, I'm pretty sure they're there and I'm just leaving them painfully unexplored due to some mysterious and sudden lack of confidence in my own abilities. On the other hand, I could have been right the first time and they might not be there at all.

Threats-- Procrastination. It's far too easy to only think about what I should be doing as opposed to actually doing it. Realizing that I can't do what I want to do right now sends me away from writing applications and looking for jobs to reading the news and eating spicy peas.

In short, as this does for many businesses my SWOT analysis has taught me not very much but the very superficial things that are problems and not necessarily any clear leads to a solution. Meh, it only took me half an hour and a netbook.

As my time in Taiwan draws to a close it seems very clear to me that I have two things left to do here.
1. Spend time with some of the lovely people I've been lucky enough to meet and see some of the awesome things that Taiwan's kept hidden while I've been grading homework (Taiwan touch my heart)
2. At the end of these three months I need to know where I'm going next, I mean, apart from the physical need to buy a plane ticket due to lack of visa, I actually need to have some sort of plan of action.

Red Button Moment
Semi serious suggestions of opening a youtube channel, taking acting classes, living of the fat of the land, being supported by wealthy men, knitting, making art and the like are appreciated, really. Semi patronizing as they are I really know that they're coming from a good place. They can stop now though, I need all the advice and support I can get, let's keep it clean though guys okay?
Done.

And here, because I'm actually hoping no one reads any of this and y'all just skip to the pictures are some pictures/video. You'll have to excuse the terrible picture quality, I can assure you the Fuji Instax pictures are excellent, but the Nokia pictures not so much (although the Nokia is sa-weeeet)

I haven't uploaded this due to sheer vanity, but hell, this toilet needs to be shown. My friend's mum came to visit, I took he to Taipei and we stayed in a facy hotel, with an eerily manly toilet.

Before

Approximately two minutes and three people after.

Homework. All due tomorrow. Fun much? 

Even the pictures are terrible!

Here's one more video of nothing really, but it was one of the best meals I've had in Taiwan, that's good enough right?

Dx

N.B
Lack of updates is due to fun being had.

Corrective experiences, diagnosed clinically stupid.

My last post was terrible.
I know. I know.
I felt a sort of self imposed pressure to blog about having been away. I shouldn't have, the post below is testimony to that.

I've been on my tip toes since I've been back.
Contrary to the popular belief that I spend half my life on tip toes because of my height, I actually don't.
My meetings with heels are fleeting these days and living in Asia has meant that shelves are so much more accessible than they were in Europe.
Truth is, I'm excited.

Yes, excited.

Red Button

So of course being excited is this uber good thing right? Makes you feel good, makes your head full of nice things and all that Vaseline covered lens goodness that I have already covered in a previous post. You know what I also covered in that post? Sentimentality, and how I was disposing of it.

The dreaded bastard repeats on me in a constant stream of unimaginable indigestion like burps. The ones that come up your throat just long enough for you to be able to taste the acid before swallowing it back down and brushing your teeth. Yuck right? Well, that's just how I feel about it.

Damn excitement, the sentimental derp, and the immovable feeling that disappointment will shortly follow. Damn them all to hell.

Done.


Taichung's been kicking my ass with fried food since I got back.
How can a city, kick ass, and do it with food you ask? I'm asking the same question.
Actually, I've been asking a bunch of questions.
How can a gravy boat be full of gin?
How has time passed so quickly? This time last year I was pulling 12hour shifts at the library writing my dissertation.
Why is it that I cannot make any decisions?
Why do I need to make any decisions?
Why are my nail beds so short?
Why does Opel poop twice only when I forget to take two poop bags? Actually, why does he have to poop at all?!
How can I consistently write such banal blog posts that have absolutely no point? 

This is just a peek into the stupid questions that are haunting me this week, there are so many more, that I am so much more embarrassed to ask publicly.


S and I decided that I should be diagnosed clinically stupid, I mean, it was a self diagnosis and I took S's silence as agreement.

Here are some pictures, and pictures of pictures.

Ha!

A monk on a scooter. And E's huge shoulders in the mirror? How do people even grow that big?

And I'll end with that gravy boat. Bam.

Holidays are for losers.

Holiday.

The word rolls off the tongue in a somewhat odd accent conjuring up images of overweight English people in Spain eating greasy food while their open pores scream dehydration and sunburn.

I haven't been on holiday in a long time. I've been travelling or visiting friends abroad. How utterly pretentious of me.

I took a holiday this time. Ten days where I intended to do nothing but think about my next meal and talk to people about all things that have nothing to do with teaching.
It worked. I done it!
I was terrified of going away and realising that not only had my favourite places in said holidaying country had changed but that the short time I was going to spend there would mean that I wouldn't just be flying and sleeping alone but that I would spend all of my time in a single-girl-travelling bubble that involved no one but the Turkish author who's book I'm reading.

I was wrong. I know, me wrong. That nearly never happens.

I went here for six days.

My ugly feet...

I met people there, a French guy that lives there for four months a year and walks up and down the beach finding shells without even really looking, a French Canadian couple that kicked ass at answering trivia questions. An Israeli couple so kind it made me nearly close to uncomfortable..

I headed to the city, I won't lie, I was not happy to leave my hammock.  

I got to Bangkok in a haze of beach thoughts, and slightly scaly from the sunburn endured. A rush of communication and miscommunication ensued and I arrived at the building that my cousin's friend lives in. 

The building. 

Not the flat, just the building. 

Half an hour later and I've talked my way in (G-d knows how). The small blonde girl turns out to be about 5'10 and my small sandy feet collapse as I see the luxury of a Bangkok volunteer's flat. They had a bar, a bar!

Before I knew what happened there were scandalous earlobe jokes and a pink plastic French bulldog and squishy plastic poo and a watch that doesn't just tell you it's party time, but actually makes the party and vodka with lime and a cab driver who thinks the prime minister is "handsome, smart, polite, and nice" and a dance festival and a lot of dancing, a lot.

The night ended with a repeat of earlobe jokes, and a hijacking of someone else's bed, and Slash quotes(?!) (apparently everything that's in the book is stuff that he thinks is true.) That was fun, a little too much fun. Who the hell wants to go home after that?

So that's the problem with holidaying. It's just not as long as travelling.

I am never going on holiday again.

D

Varoots and squishing!

I've spent the last few weeks in a haze of sobriety amongst those under a hail of alcohol.
No, not as school. Although the thought of my colleagues all drunk during working hours is not an unappealing one, oh the fun we would have, the creative games we would play!
"Can you sing the ABC song? No? Well, neither can Teacher!"
"Let's play the who-can-make-the-room-stop-spinning game, winner gets five stars!"

It was only after last night's adventure that I remembered that for the best part of the last five years people were drunk and I was sober while serving them. Now, it seems silly that all of a sudden I had forgotten just what drunk folk are like.
At the end of last night, upon announcing my leaving, there seemed to be a jeer of defiance from my (albeit rather small in number) audience. They proceeded to sandwich me, not necessarily a terrible thing, but it turned into this sort of frenzied squishing thing where I was the thing being squished. I got away once only for the process to be repeated a second time as if I was an orange and there was a wee bit of juice still left in.

So my friends had squished me and I got away only to be stopped en route to the exit by a man that I had been speaking to during the evening. He was nice. He was also huge. Big huge man. I had said goodbye and as I left he must have decided that it wasn't quite enough of a goodbye and proceeded to manhandle me into the front facing position he wished me to be in. Needless to say he came across some resistance. 

As opposed to the last squish performed by my friends, this stranger just.wasn't.funny. 

When I told him that I didn't appreciate being manhandled by him he said something like "Did you note the fact that I could though?" Infuriating. 

Now, the thing is, I'm a small person. I don't hide it, I wear flats nearly all the time and I feel that it's not necessarily a disadvantageous position. Sure, my world is full of tits and armpits, but hell, most of the time that's a little better than face but there's a couple of problems here:
1. People feel, just as they do with the younger small stuffs, that they can poke, hug, pick-up and generally impose on my personal space in a way which wouldn't really be acceptable if I was a person of somewhat more substantial stature.
2. Being small comes with the obvious physical restraints. Essentially, I just don't have the same load baring capabilities that a 5'5 girl would. In other words, it hurts and if it doesn't hurt, it's very uncomfortable.

The whole thing brought me back to working in crowded clubs and being stopped and hit on while holding 20 pint glasses and walking across a dance floor.
It also reminded me why it's better to drink when everyone else is doing it.
Drink to forget.

Oh, and just in case you guys at home forgot just how infantile I am, I saw this at the park and couldn't help myself.

Vagina tree root. I call it Varoot!

Dx

Rabbits, gambling and overstimulated taste buds.

I haven't written in a while.

I'm busy, a lot busy. Which is awesome.

Fun things like day trips, weekend trips, leisurely lunches and shopping have taken up a significant amount of time, procrastination and work have taken up the rest. Oh sleep, how I missed thee.

Pig Dana and Spider nose monster Willie. When kids make things like this out of a blank circle with eye holes it makes you feel good, BUT....

Red Button moment

What is up with kids falling asleep in class?

Personally, I blame the parents. I run around like some sort of children's TV programme presenter dying for a pee playing games and throwing my arms around like an Italian on speed and they're still falling asleep? I guess an 8am-4pm day at school + two hours of Buxiban in the evening kinda kills them.

Anyway, 'J' fell asleep and drooled on his test...

Makes you doubt your teaching skills eh?

Red Button done

It's my third new year in Taiwan (Jewish, Western and now Chinese) and it seems that they're getting better.

I feel like every one has brought along a little piece of something good into my life.

Mostly in the form of people. I'm in a good spot right now.

A very new and lovely colleague of mine went to dinner at our bosses house for CNY last night;

This is just one side of the table, to say that there was enough food for an army is a gross understatement.

That's a traditional fish hotpot there in the middle, I don't even know how to explain how nom these noms were.

Think of this card game as 21 but 10.5 with royalty being considered 0.5

Needless to say I got my ass whooped out of 300NT

It was too much fun, and tomorrow brings another family party courtesy of another co-worker's family. This time they're gonna teach me how to play mah-jong (I hope) and I will hopefully walk away feeling a little less deflated than this time. First time gambler=big time loser...

Caramel Macchiato a la Robot Cafe

So a part of my new busy has been eating lunch/having drinks with friends at new places. I love Taichung sometimes, every nook cranny and alley seems to be hiding a hipster bar with cute bar staff.

I should apologise for the crap quality of the pictures I publish I'm mostly taking pictures with this guy;

Hot eh? my wall is slowly being covered in credit card sized polaroids. yum.

I may have mentioned before that I live in a bit of a Ghetto here in Taichung, from the gigolo around the corner, the gambling holes next to the fruit shop, the KTV across the road

,transvestites loitering around and the flash flash cars parked around my area...

Just to remind you that you're in Asia. This car also has black lights under it, so when it drives around at night it looks like a spaceship.

On the 18th of this month I'm going to Thailand for just under ten days. The joy of the thought of lying on a beach for a week followed by an intensive weekend with my cousin in Bangkok is too good to describe, and at the same time going back to a place I visited seven years ago brings about two realities: 1. I'm old and 2. Things are never quite the same the second time around.

I suspect that's not an entirely bad thing, but I'm still scared! Any advice on what's remained untouched during those years would be helpful.

Is it normal that I actually have a tiny trace of fear in me about going away for ten days on my own? considering the fact I'm here alone(ish) for a year?

Happy New (Rabbit) year, Happy New February and hurrah to life being exciting again!

Dx

An Open Letter

No, don't worry, no political chat here...

Instead I'm writing an open letter to a beast called Sentiment and it's backwards looking, neck curling, reality twisting and rose tinting limbs.

Sentiment, I hate you.

I loath you not for those beautiful moments you've allowed me to remember in petroleum jelly covered lens softness, I don't hate you for those old feelings of warm and fuzzy that you've let me keep and relive at random intervals throughout any day, when thoughts of friends, family or a loved one creep into my head, those things are the reasons I adore you and have kept you around for so long.

Sentiment, I use to love you.

Unfortunately, you've crossed the line.

You're keepin' me down man. You gotta go.

I won't say it'll be fun, and it probably won't be quick, but you're out.

One of my oldest friends use to tell me I was able to cut myself out of any situation with surgical precision, the same friend, accused me of being sentimental not three weeks ago!

So I'm done, and instead taking another wonderful friend's advice and writing a list of superpowers that I would like to have. They may not be useful, they may be a little odd, but they're mine, here is a small selection:

• I would like to be able to see into people's shoes -- I hate feet. Those of you that know me well know that I can hardly touch my own, so I'd like to know what other people's feet look like before I allow them into my house and see their feet (this is Asia, where the shoes stay at the door yo.)
• I'd like to be able to cure mild headaches and colds -- Just because this would essentially make me the most popular person in the world, although, it may lead to a Midas touch type situation whereby I would be surrounded by only mildly sick people.
• I'd like to be able to relieve poverty by drilling good economic sense into the corrupt governments of poverty stricken countries.
• Leading on from the last one I would also like to have all corrupt world leaders murdered with no emotional or other negative consequences.
• I would like to have the strength to turn down baked goods, or not finish a slice of cake -- those of you that know me well know that this is the most ambitious.
• Being able to transport myself from one place to another in an instance. For obvious reasons this would be awesome.

As yet, this list contains no real ambitions, I mean, they are really things I want, they're just completely unachievable. I'm working on it though.

Christmas and New Year were awesome thanks to some grade A hospitality. I got a Fuji instax, and some perfume. More than I deserved. This does mean that I've been polaroiding away and have very few digital pictures though. These wee gems were found on my phone....

Double G had some horns lying around. Really.

My language exchange, more an eat and bitch. How cute is that though?

Friggin' cute eh?

Still cute, adulthood looming... dum dum duuuuum...

That's all I have, it isn't much, I know. I have a bunch of unedited entries which I need to get around to posting considering they're far more interesting and insightful. meh.

Dx