I was told that I needed to post again so here I goooo.

If you were not informed through the usual channels, I am coming back to Canada on May 22nd! I hope to see everybody as soon as possible, etc., etc.

So I think that this will be one of the last posts I make to this journal. I feel like this has been a bit of a failed project. I didn't do a terribly good job of chronicling my time here. The pictures and that have been alright, but I don't think I will be able to look back on this and get that "Taiwan" feeling. I've unlocked it so you don't need a password to get on anymore; no reason for it really. I will keep this journal thing on the server for sure, it will just no longer be the primary focus of the site.

See you soon!

P.S. GIVE ME MONEY PLZ

Had a little adventure last night. A couple days ago I was sure I saw something skitter across the floor in the kitchen and under the bed when I turned the lights on (the bed is there, but it's not used for anything more than a place to put dirty clothes and whatever I happen to be carrying when I walk into the apartment). I thought it was probably a cockroach, and while disgusting, I wasn't about to go looking for it.

Last night Fanny saw it and came into the living room to tell me about it. Turns out it wasn't a cockroach, but a huge spider. I am not about to have a spider lay 1000 eggs in the apartment so we took apart the bed and chased it for a good twenty minutes yesterday. There's a movie of before we started here, one of the spider loose here, and one after we caught it here. There's some more pictures in the Fengyuan gallery too.



I also put up a couple more movies, you can find them here and here, or on the Videos page.

Hey, I know it's been a really, really long time (over a month already??) but I am ready to rock. This might be a long one.

So probably a lot of you have heard by now I didn't get accepted to U of T for teacher's college. My previous 5-year plan kind of started with going to U of T (and sadly, was supposed to end the current 5-year plan), so I am at an impasse in regards to my old designs. I am number 10 on the waiting list for Ottawa, but I don't know about it even if I do get in. I don't want to do something new and exciting, I don't want to explore and meet new people, after being in Taiwan for two years I want something familiar. At the same time, do I want to just push on and keep going with my life goals?

So the planning begins. Rewriting your goals over the next little while doesn't come as easily as overnight, but it's forming. For the next year I think I am going to just find a job. Not a life-changing, future-goal job, but a job where I can relax, make some money to pay my way through, and just take it easy. Yeah, I know that's what I'm apparently doing now, but it's a lot more stressful than you might think. And I want to buy a car! Nuts to this "I can't work there because it's too far" or "I need to find a ride from someone or I can't go". I am well beyond the university stage of my life and that requires a vehicle!

In any case, that's where I am. I will probably come back sooner than later now, but I am just starting to realize how much is involved in coming home. If anyone knows a good place to stay or a job position opening somewhere, please feel free to stand up and let me know about it!

Here's what has happened over the past month:

• Went to some mountain day resort thing where you can hike, lay in hammocks, have a drink, etc., etc. It was comfortable and a good time, but I wouldn't fly back from Canada to go again.


• Heard about a park in Fengyuan that people apparently take their dogs to and set off by foot with directions. After a good hour and a half we still weren't there and we... I mean the dog, was getting tired so we gave up and came home - a three hour plus trip. It was fun though and we got to see a lot of different things (new pictures in the Fengyuan gallery). We took the scooter up the next day and found if we would have only walked another 10-15 minutes we would have found the road that led to the park (which would be another 15-20 minutes to walk to). We take her on a regular basis now, but are yet to see another dog (or person).


• Went to a different part of Miaoli with Regine and her new boyfriend. It was a really small town on top of a mountain a popular street market. There are a lot of pictures in the new Miaoli gallery. I ate a lot of good food like squid and fried milk. I don't really know what else to say about this place other than it was fun and really like any other traditional village (much like Lukang in Changhua).


• Went to Taipei and visited the National Palace Museum. It was interestingenough, but for some reason I couldn't get too into it. I would have loved it a lot more if I had gone near the start of my trip here or during university or something. I felt bad because here were the very things I studied right in front of my eyes, but I just wasn't feeling it. We also went to an underground mall which was decent, but also fairly uneventful. I think we're going back to Taipei soon to visit the zoo. People here can't say the word 'zoo'. It always comes out as 'roo' or 'jhoo'.

The time in between I have been eating all kinds of different food, walking up to the mountain, taking the dog out, going into Taichung for my tooth which I hope will be done soon, just taking it easy I guess. It's been fun, but I can feel it ending, you know?

I look forward to coming back! I am really getting excited!

So I was watching the news that started at 7:00, and at 7:12 a report comes on about a hair someone found in a hamburger or something. They are making a big deal about it and the people who got it are screaming at the manager of this place. Yeah, finding a hair in your food is gross, but to be such a big deal?

ESPECIALLY in a country where I regularly find worms in my broccoli from restaurants? From a country where I have seen a cockroach in someone's meal on more than one occasion??

Sometimes this place makes me angry for stupid reasons. At the start I thought this kind of thing was funny and interesting, but sometimes now I feel it grinding on me.

This is something completely not to get worked up over, but last night I went to two different video stores with the intention of renting three movies: The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction and The Godfather 2. The first store had none of the movies (she had never even heard of any of them) and the second had Godfather (rented out) and Shawshank (which she had never heard of and was tucked away where no one could see it) but she had never heard of Pulp Fiction either.

Now the part that frustrated me is that these are three of the best movies ever made (#1, #3 and #8), and no one has seen or heard of any of them, while garbage like Slap Her... She's French and Killer Snake are proud and prominently displayed front-and-center.

The Shawshank Redemption was just as amazing as ever though and made up for it.

The past couple weeks have been uneventful but fulfilling; the kind of time you can use to just sit, relax, and be happy. I feel refreshed and comfortable with everything right now. People keep asking me about getting a job: "have you found one yet?" "are you looking hard?", and to that I have a story for you and some personal reflection to follow (pull up a seat).

I know a few of you have already heard this story, but here goes. I left my last school knowing full well I am planning on coming back to Canada in June/July regardless of whether I get into teacher's college or not, and I know that any job I find now is going to be a) a part-time/under-the-table job, or b) a real job with a year-long contract I am going to have to break in a few months. I have been looking around but not really sure on what was going to happen yet.

I had an interview at a high school last week. They were interviewing and demoing all week and I thought I only did a mediocre job of it, so I wrote it off as a miss and carried on. It was high school anyway, and I don't know how I feel about it. I've never taught high school, and while I'm sure I could do it, I don't know if I could do it well. It was also 8:00-5:00 weekdays plus test writing and marking, so I wouldn't have much time to do anything else, and the reason I had decided to leave my other school was so I could experience "Taiwan" instead of "a city like Toronto only with less English".

So at the end of last week they called me and offered me a job. I was a little surprised so I asked if I could have a day to think it over but he said he needed to know then because they had others on the list. I turned them down. The key reason being I'd have to break the contract. He seemed like a really great guy and they were going to go above what many, many schools are willing to do here, and I just couldn't walk into it knowing I would be leaving halfway through.

I felt good with myself that I made the ethical choice for about ten minutes then I regretted it hard. For the rest of the night I felt like a complete idiot but a good talk with my mom brought me back to my original goal: enjoying the rest of my time in Taiwan.

I figure I have worked hard over the past year and a half, and have had many pretty heavy stresses in my life for even longer. Call it a copout to avoid responsibility, but I think I will look for some privates to tutor and just take it easy. I have been exceptionally happy since leaving JacksonFive and moving to Fengyuan, and I really wouldn't mind keeping it more or less this way until I come home.

I have been riding around on the scooter, taking the train to different cities I have not yet visited, exercising, eating better, and overall just doing much better. I really am happy right now, and I can't wait to get back to Canada. I have been feeling the need/desire to go back the past couple months, but I am not quite done here yet. I really look forward to seeing everyone!

Fanny and I went to Sinshe and Dongshih near the start of the month; I added some pictures from that to the Fengyuan gallery. I went to Miaoli this past Tuesday but it was pretty uneventful (I didn't even take any photos).