Mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake mistake

I can now type that word without looking!
  ¶ 02:33 0 Comments

  Student Discount Flights is stupid. The big student discount is only $60, but then you have to get a student card, which costs $25. Stupid. It's a farce, I tell you! It's all a big farce!

No class, no work today thanks to the typhoon. Same with my housemates. We ventured out to the 7-11 and I bought eggs and teabags and sugar and cheese and ham and had a big Western rainy-day feast... having a soft-boiled egg was a spinout because I haven't had one here and I finally made a cup of tea just the way I like it oooh yeah. And a ham and cheese toasted sandwich. And I got a loaf of bread to eat with all my Vegemite and honey that have been sitting in my little cabinet in the dorms for the past seven months. Mmmm yeah. Hmmm, soft boiled egg and cable. And that, my friends, is What I Ate Today.

I was reading about the typhoons on smh and it's nice to learn where Taiwan actually is:
"Taiwan, an island of 23 million people off the south-eastern coast of China, is often hit by typhoons."
Everyone put your hand up if you didn't know where Taiwan was.....


.....Oh shit. Most of you! Taiwan is a lovely place apart from the selfish pollution. Of course not all countries governed by gangsters for so long are going to be beautiful, wholesome places but the people here are real.

  ¶ 17:33 0 Comments

  And breathe out! I finished moving today, all in the two hours and twenty minutes between Chinese and work. I arrived a sweaty mess just on time with not a minute to spare which is so not my style but it was worth it. Work was great today, it's Review week so I did non-stop songs and games. Teaching kids the actions to a song is just like giving them labotomies, they turn into robots.
I went to the theatre group again and it was fun, no dancing this time, just dialogue (in Chinese, hilarious! I had to reply to things I didn't understand so as part of the act I pretended I wasn't listening haha) and making faces and being silly. I'm going home on Saturday morning. Don't really know what I'm doing yet but I know I'm definitely going to Gosford. I'd like to publicly apologise in advance to my family for being such a nuicance :-) Is that how you spell nuicance? I have no idea anymore. Is anymore one word or two? My English is pidgeon-style, just like my Chinese now.
It's great not to have a curfew and have to count down the hours every night. I am loving cable.
I saw The Bourne Supremacy the other night, they did a shaky-camera thing the whole time and the action was so full on I spaced out again like I normally do. But Matt Damon is cool. Half the movie was his facial expression each time he had just escaped death. I hope I can see the Tom Hanks one where he lives in the airport before next weekend, it may give me some ideas for what to do at HCM airport for 10 hours (its 10 hours now, not 8.)
  ¶ 21:32 0 Comments

  I've secured a place to live, very happy, it's a friend of a friend and I've been there before and it's near a grocery store, and has a kitchen! no more 7-11 for me, no siree, it's home-cooked all the way now. and there's cable tv, hmmmmm tv, and it's near work. excellentay.
  ¶ 03:01 0 Comments

  sung to the tune of happy little vegemites

we're nosy little roommates
as judgemental as can be
we all enjoy reading her diary
for breakfast, lunch and oolong tea

our mother says we should put her under
constant scrutiny
because we love to snoop around
we all enjoy snooping around
it puts the Wai in Wai-guo-ren!

Waiguoren = foreigner
wai= outside
  ¶ 13:07 0 Comments

  The magical agent lady in Taipei rang and asked me to work on Friday morning for three hours and I'm like No I have to be in Taichung to teach at two but then she said It's not a commercial, it's a Taiwanese drama. So I'm like hell yeah but the thing is she knows how to get people to agree by exaggerating just how humongously famous her talents are going to become after each job so I just don't know what to believe. I'll be taking a sickie on Friday then but I really do not want to do this because of the whole at the mercy of the boss situation but today, with regards to the fears about getting fired, the owner finally came and spoke to me today and said that the guy before me was exactly the same when he first started so don't worry.

But yeah the honeymoon is over at the little school and I am confronted with the question that I thought I could just ignore as long as I followed the teacher's manual: No wait, several questions: How are three-year-olds supposed to learn English; do three-year-olds even know what English is or where England is; how does someone hold the attention of 20 three-year-olds for 30 minutes speaking a language that is totally meaningless in every way to them. Hmmm will sleep on it.


  ¶ 21:15 0 Comments

  The inner workings of an anxiety attack.
Ready
Set
Go!

OK where do I start. OK found out today my plane ticket does not go further than the end of this month so I'm going home for a visit. Already have three weeks vacation from the language centre but cannot spend the whole time in Sydney coz of my job, so would like to spend two weeks there but do not want to push my boss and give them an excuse to fire me because I think I'm going to be fired anyway (anxiety attack). So yes must talk to her tomorrow see how she feels and hopefully I can get two weeks there. Once I sort that out, must book flight back to Taipei then go to the language centre office to ask for another certificate of study to give to the dorm ladies so I can continue my stay there until the Autumn semester starts again so that I have somewhere to leave all my things instead of running around asking people if I can leave all my junk at their place and it also saves moving because when I come back I will be finding somewhere to live. Then in the case of not having my job when I come back: will I skimp it off a couple of private students and one salad per day or will I just stuff the place and go to Thailand and read on the beach for six months....

Bless you, online diary!

I will also be spending 8 hours at HCM airport, yay. I would like to reread Great Expectations so this might be my big chance.



  ¶ 22:44 0 Comments

  Today our teacher asked us where our birthplaces were and if there was anything we missed about them. I said I missed TV, coz it's true, I haven't watched a good stretch of TV in a year.

I also miss chunky steak pies microwaved for between three and three and a half minutes. I also miss cats, (domestic, I mean) especially Bonnie.

So here's a list:
family and friends
meat pies and that mustard/tomato sauce mixed through oh god
Terrigal
fish and chips
Bonnie
TV
driving in a car
swimming pools (clean and less than $10 a pop!)

And disturbingly enough, that's it.
Oh wait I also miss school. I wish I was back at Gossy high aceing French, wagging the most important classes right before the HSC and going to Somersby Falls instead, wishing I was 18, Jordan and I staying at each other's houses every weekend, watching Big Brother, stealing the car, getting own video store membership (oh yay what a milestone) and watching Chinese movies, fighting with John, getting KFC every Sunday for Big Brother eviction mmmm KFC and Big Brother. Shopping at Coles. Oh wait, was I a loser? L.O.L>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>




  ¶ 20:25 0 Comments

  The lady who took advantage of my good mood at the bookshop last week turned out to be a member of Amway.

It all started when I bumped into her in the line at the Nobel bookstore. She took my number (...the good mood) then rang me and said she has some Chinese language books she would like to give me. So I happily went to meet her before realising that taking the books would render me obliged. Obliged to do what? I told her I was interested in a language exchange and she made it quite clear that since she was generous enough to give me a stack of flash cards, two of her son's Chinese books from elementary school, and a story book with an accompanying CD, the only language that was going to be exchanged between us was English. She had the impression I was the only foreigner in Taiwan who had been living in a cave until last week. So tonight I turned up as planned and straight away told her I was leaving in 30 minutes. She said it was fine and quickly pulled out her Amway book and explored the concepts of freedom and hope and achievement. (I asked her what all that had to do with the products and she was stunned. I certainly gave her a run for her brainwashing.) I said to her, "So I just have to sit and listen to your presentation? That's easy then!" And she laughed and said "Yeah, you can be my English teacher" and laughed as if it was in fact not obvious that she was convinced she had stumbled across free English lessons. She runs a buxiban, and knows exactly what the Go is. I did not like her approach at all. What made me uncomfortable was the difference between her smile and her words.

When she asked me to correct her pronounciation I just smiled and said she was right. She asked me what the word for dandruff was and I told her it was lice. When she told me that with Amway frying pans I can cook a meal for all my friends, she looked like she was about to cry. I looked at my watch.

I just wanted her to know that I was not stupid. So at the end I told her I would teach her one phrase. I wrote down the words 'economic rationalism' in big letters and told her about how my father was a lawyer who calculates the value of the time it takes to lift up the phone or call out to his secretary, and in even bigger writing I introduced her to the infamous time=money equation, and told her I was also an economic rationalist. I think she is too, but she also thought I was a bimbo. So that's the end of my Give Them a Chance Revival.
  ¶ 23:13 0 Comments

  Like I said, my hands started shaking after a week and I got a headache on my little no-carb diet. So I looked up Atkins diet on the internet and well first there's the "Atkins Nutrional Approach" which is covered in trademarks and yukky excessive commercialism. Then there's the Atkins Alert page backed by supporters of vegetarianism which tells you about a sixteen year old girl who suddenly collapsed and died from a heart arythmia on the Atkins Nutrional Approach; then there's a cute little cartoon which bags it all out. http://www.illwillpress.com/fatkins.html

And for more crap to write down during my relaxing/empty Saturday after my first really tough 13-hour working week, I am reading Great Expectations at the mo and man I don't know if it's because I'm trying to sound smart appreciating a classic or because really think so, but I really think this book rocks. I totally knew it wasn't Miss Havisham who did it.

Other attempts at being intellectual include reading the more boring aticles on SMH and thinking about them in the bigger scheme of things. Like, they're trying to say that moving out of the cities and repopulating Australia's country towns is the next big thing i.e. it's now cool to live in the country SO DO IT!
  ¶ 16:29 0 Comments

  Xiao Pi taught me how to type using bopo mofo, then I forgot, but then I just remembered!
��單�∪尿
雿����憟�, 隞�憭拇�拐�����銝�隤脖誑敺�撠勗�餃��憌�.���撟曉予��芣�����瘝����... ���������暻潛�∟��
������ ...

  ¶ 23:56 0 Comments

  I've been at the kindy for nearly a week now. Man it's weird to actually have to be somewhere other than the language centre every day. My grandchildren will ask me what I did at the age of 19 and I will tell them that I was an absolute bum courtesy of the Taiwan Ministry of Education for a total of 11 months.

And those pre-shift shudders that I had totally forgotten about from the fish-and-chips days are creeping back although I don't have that much to worry about except that the whole world knows how inexperienced I am, even the kids. That's cool - the secret to kindy teaching, my friend, is to play games, games and more games blah blah blaaaah. So anyway I did a bit of a Be the First to find the Correct Flashcard game with them and well it didn't end up being as fun as I thought it would be and half the kids didn't know what was going on but it was better than nothing.

Oh and in the littlies' class these boys started pushing this girl for no reason and they didn't even get in trouble even though the teacher saw it, but she spent the rest of the lesson howling her lungs out and it was awful.
  ¶ 21:40 0 Comments

  Lily leaves today! Last night we got bad DVDs and some beer and watched them and drank and then had one long final triumphant bitch about Taiwan. We watched Crossroads, the Brittney Spears piece of shit, and Glitter, Mariah Carey's. If I had to choose the lesser of two pieces of shit I would probably say Mariah's had a little more style to it. Then I wondered if Evita had produced her own movie, what would it be like? If Evita had produced her own movie I think her character would have remained an innocent virgin till she had already been the first lady for at least a year or so, or at least until AFTER she got her big break. I say girls, if you can sleep your way to the top, then do it! Don't be ashamed! Us women are the ones with the advantage here, you know. Don't be ashamed of the resources that god gave you!
  ¶ 22:37 0 Comments

  Yesteray I saw Collateral which was OK. Tom Cruise's grey hair was weird but I fully forgot it was Tom Cruise so I think he was good in it.

My friend Peggy brought her friend from Taipei along and I had warned them that thanks to being insulted about my Chinese for the last time by this woman who harrassed me (i.e. approached me with all smiles and the usual let's establish an empty face relationship because you're a foreigner but go away lady don't you ever think that perhaps this happens everyday?) in a bookshop, that I was going to only use Chinese with them so don't expect a chance to practise his English with me. Patience wearing thin.

Anyway so I spoke only Chinese and kicked ass and the next time someone says Oh your Chinese isn't very good for two years of study I will say Well maybe I'm not a frickin showoff like most of the people here and maybe I do think that I'd rather speak accurately and understand what people are saying than spew out a bunch of crappy Chinese ranting but have no idea what is being said to me and say I can speak Chinese just because I enjoy the sound of my own frickin voice and I'm just speaking for the sake of speaking. And besides, as an official "Introvert", I am prone to not saying anything at all! It's not that I can't speak Chinese, it's that I have nothing to god damn say. So fuck off.

Ahhh that felt good.

Now what was my point. Oh yeah anyway lunch with Peggy and her friend was great fun and I fully convinced him I was fluent in Chinese and then I decided that he was hot and started sending the smiles and eyelash flutters his way. And he's really sweet and seems to be of the genuine nice guy variety. In a few weeks we might be going up to Taipei to do a little sightseeing in the north and ooooh I can't wait!
  ¶ 14:47 0 Comments

  Yesterday I went to the seaside with Claire and her friends. Us foreigners were expecting to finally go to the beach again. We arrived, and our Chinese friends are like, So here's the beach, and we're like Dude your English is amazing but the definition of beach does not include swampy marshes with some food stands and the option of walking barefoot throught the ankle-deep water. It was lovely though, we had a little picnic and watched the sun set. Later there was a party at E-Power which was quiet then Carolyn and Gyan and I had a couple of drinks then searched for this club called the Coconut Forest that is probably already closed by now. Then we popped into the Pig Pen for a while and I must say it was as good as the old days but I didn't feel like dancing and this dick from New Zealand told me to stop looking so sad and smile. I bet he used to work at a Club Med. It was a sh.t-house night all up. I miss all the usual language centre-ers. So I left the Pig Pen at 4am and let Gyan work on a couple of Chinese ladies dancing on him and decided that I would find something to do for two hours and go straight back into the Lockdown when the doors opened.

It was still a little drunk and I thought hey why don't I drive into the mountains to appreciate the mountain view during the early morning. I didn't know exactly where to drive but I remember someone telling me that in Taichung all you have to do to find mountains is drive 20 minutes in any direction and you'll get there. So I zoom down LiMing road and just keep driving and driving, like Forrest Gump when he starts running across the US except that if he did that in Taiwan he would get asthma. I was sure 20 minutes had passed but I kept going, decided I didn't really care where I ended up because it was about time I did some travelling and made use of my 125cc scooter whether it be at 5 o'clock on a Sunday morning drunk or an actual organised road trip.

This highway took me through a town and I decided I'd better start making an effort to drive in the direction of the mountains so I veered off and drove through a bunch of rice fields and the air became cooler and I hoped there'd be something worth looking at when I got there. The road ended at this little car park at the bottom of a steep hiking trail where there was karaoke set up and some fruit stands and lots of old people. Once again I left my keys in my scooter and once again it wasn't stolen. I checked the time and discovered I had driven for two hours hehe. So I walked up going Dude what am I doing? I was sobering up. When I got to the top there's this uneven clearing where a bunch of oldies are doing their Sunday morning tai chi to cute music from the martial law era and there was all this stretching equipment like the stuff you see in parks. The people were ultra friendly. Then I walked back down again all the time dreading having to ask for directions back to Taichung. I asked this man how to get there and he said I should catch a bus, and I'm like Too Right! But I made it back without wasting any time but I think I've done something nasty to my scooter because now it accelerates by itself, as soon as I start the engine, and at the lights I have to hold on to the breaks otherwise it just starts cruising by itself. I figured maybe if I let it go uphill it would run out of steam and go back to normal but no it happily drives itself uphill at about 50 without my doing anything. I think the Ghost of Accelerations Past is haunting my scooter and it's actually quite eery the way it tries to drive off ahead without me at the red lights.

So I slept then my roommate had a fight with her Mum over the phone then I woke up and went to the drama rehearsal where they have decided not to take me seriously which sucks but who cares. Elizabeth just rang and she wants to go out... tonight! Crazy girl. Then my phone died mid-call and now I have to run home and charge it and call her. And that's it for today!

  ¶ 21:43 0 Comments

  I'm giving the starvation diet a miss coz my hands started trembling and I had a headache.
Last night I went to the expressive dancy thing with Claire. Oh shit I just heaved coz the girl next to me has amazing bo. That's strange for Taiwan where noone leaves the house in less than perfect shape. So anyway Claire and the other girl performed their prepared dances to their chosen songs and I'm like wow this is what I used to do in the loungeroom when noone was home.

Then they're like 'So now it's your turn' and I'm freaking out thinking Um I don't think so but then they suddenly got that disappointed/you're not worthy look on their faces so I decided hey you only live once... and to get up there and be weird for a few minutes in front of people will be better than being a pussy and not being invited back. So yeah I got up there and pretended there was noone else in the room and did all this weird shit to a cover of Nothing Compares. Then I sat down again and they had a serious discussion about my peformance, LOL (laugh out loud). Hahahaha. If they don't want me back I'm going to be peeved!

Tomorrow we have to talk about who we consider are hen qiang de nu ren, like, powerful women and why. I might mention the matriarchal society at Lugu Lake in SW China. At night the men come and knock on the door of a woman they want to sleep with and it's up to the woman whether she wants to let him in or not. Then he goes home and forgets about it and no child knows who their mother actually slept with i.e. there are no fathers. Go girls! Or maybe Madonna or a woman from a Bond movie. Oh that reminds me Eric Bana (Poiter!) is going to be the next Bond. I think this is wrong.

I taught Ken yesterday (the guy with the cold). He's not bad. But let me tell you, never ever be stupid enough to leave a banana lying at the bottom of your bag and then forget it's there unless you want a couple of nice juicy banana-licious once-new texbooks that you bought on behalf of your student.

a;ergjkhawo;ghawoghaweriofnsdm,

vfnawo;tih230rjqel'fjsdl;ghawro

wefinwd,vfnwef

  ¶ 13:35 0 Comments

  On Friday I saw a Japanese horror movie at this cinema near the station that shows old movies. On Saturday Lily and I got massages at a medical clinic by saying we had back pain. The doctor cracked my back, and I screamed, and he got scared and ran and crouched in the corner of the room. Lily sat there laughing and flirting. Then I went to dinner at Smooth which was nice and then off to the Londoner and oh no the Pig Pen. We spent most of the time beforehand promising not to go there but all you need is one person to say Let's just go to the Pig Pen and then everyone starts agreeing and saying Yeah might as well and then we spend 20 minutes fighting a lost battle before heading off. It was $400 for Taiwanese and $200 for foreigners. The average wage for a Taiwanese person is about $100 (five bucks) and for foreigners its between $400 and $800 (twenty to forty Aussie) an hour. Sigh. Then you get these girls who come up to you and tell you they only go there for the dancing not the sleaze, and then you kind of go Why are you telling me this. Then on Sunday I had dinner with Claire who is taking me to this expressive dancing drama thing on Wednesday which should be a hoot. Also, I have a new student. He's fifteen and I went the other day to check out his level and he spent the whole half hour ignoring me and blowing his nose. "How old are you?" would be followed by silence and a new glob of snot dangling out of his nose and him reaching over to clean it up and then more silence. My first impression was that he was a retard with a bad attitude. If his parents want to pay me for watching snot come out of his nose for one hour that is fine with me.


  ¶ 17:06 0 Comments