on my teaching

Sometimes teaching can be really frustrating.

I stayed to mark tonight. Over half of one class failed a big level test (although 4/5 of the ones who did fail, I had kind of expected it) - a fail being less than 85%. Another class, which I had given two weeks for a particularly difficult unit quiz, had 5/11 fail, most of them quite badly, including two of the brightest students. I've got another student in another class who was slow to begin with (although it's mostly because she never practices or studies or does her homework at home) who missed two MONTHS of class this summer, and she wants back in my class. If I don't take her, I'm in danger of losing that class, which is both my favourite (being the youngest) and my main money-maker (being 4 days a week for 3 hours a day - such one downside of for-profit education).

Sometimes I wonder if I sink too much of myself into my work here. It really bothers me when the kids really don't do well, or they seem to not get something, especially when it's not just one or two students. It may be a hard concept, but it's my job to unlock that comprehension within them. That's what I'm getting paid for, and what I must be able to do if I want to be able to say that I can actually do this.

It continually amazes me that there are so many people in the world who can do this with few problems. I love it, but I find it a continual challenge, even though I've got 3/4 of a year's worth of experience under my belt.

Don't worry, I'm not bitching, I'm not sad, I'm just observing. I think I may need to invest some more time in my teaching over the next little while, because I don't think I'm cuttin' it right now. Although, in fairness, the upper level classes are really hard, because you have the deadly combination of apathy (though once the kids warm up to you, they're pretty good) and killer amounts of homework from Chinese school to compete with.

Nothing beats the feeling, though, like one I had today. One student that was no longer in my afternoon class (she had started Grade 3 and therefore was in a different class) came to my class first because she didn't know where to go, and she was afraid to go in, holding my hand as I escorted her over to a desk by a couple of her old classmates who had also been in my class. She adjusted OK, no problems (like sometimes, when kids first start), but for those couple of minutes, I felt like a safety blanket being grasped tightly and held onto for dear life, and my spirit soared. Another kid gave me a drawing of 'Teacher' and 'Teacher's girlfriend' getting married (he had the priest and pulpit!), and he even labelled the bottle on the table as 'wine'. Cause Lord knows, a wedding just isn't a wedding unless you have wine. Some things never change, even across oceans.

I do still love it, and all my kids, and will redouble my efforts to make sure they're getting their money's worth and more, as my time is running out with them.

the making of a hippie

If it hadn't already begun, it has now.

Checklist:

• Growing hair long? check. And there's nothing you can do to stop me, Mom. Now you'll have two long-haired, scrubby-looking kids!
  
• Likes tofu? I do! Stinky, deep fried, with that delicious sweet sauce - all kinds. Bring it on.
  
• Yoga? I start on Wednesday. Thanks for the idea, Chad.
  
• Drama? I started theatre sports tonight and LOVED it.
  
• Singing? Been doing it for years.
  
• Left wing? Digging in deeper and deeper.
  
• Socially conscious? I cry for kittens, orphans, and the trees every night. Heh. Well, maybe not that much.
  
• Liberal arts diploma? Erm, no, but maybe in the future.
  
• Stinky? Sometimes. I mean, I live in a high-humidity environment!
  
• Incense? Candles? Talking about feelings? Checkity-checkeroo.
  

All I need is a guitar and a Greenpeace boat, and I get my badge! Fight the power!

UPDATE: Forgot two. Devil sticks and tribal drumming. Check.

scum and prejudices

As a general rule, foreigner guys in Taiwan are pretty scummy.

There are guys who aren't - the guys I'm friends with are not these guys (well, for the most part*), and I'm quite sure there are more. However, I do also have more female friends than male friends (although this has always been, except in Engineering, which was a giant weiner party) here for a reason.

If you have known a male coming over to SE Asia/China to teach English, the odds are fairly decent you've heard them mention the words 'tail' and 'getting some' or something similar in close proximity, possibly accompanied by some hand-rubbing and/or a grin or wink. I know I've heard it. Why? Because it's true. As rich people have their trophy partners (hey, it's an equal-opportunity world now), a girl lands some prestige if she has a foreigner boyfriend. Foreigners make serious coin over here, and, of course, they're different. Put the two together, and some girls are attracted. Especially in a society that views face as such an important idea that they wouldn't go to the doctor if they had SARS for fear of what the neighbours would think (true story).

I also know a few foreigner-Taiwanese relationships that are highly successful - some have been married for years. (Most of them are male foreigner, female not.) However, none of those guys are the ones I first spoke of. Those guys are the ones who come here, find out that some girls will sometimes do anything they can to keep a boy, especially if they really love the guy**, and take advantage of that. It's mean, cruel, disgusting, and it happens again and again. And the guys realize they do it, and it's nothing to them. They know where to go at the end of the night if they're feeling lonely and they know they can get some action there.

Some do it because they feel empowered: in the Western world, girls hold the power in that scene. It's the guys approaching the girls, and the girls making the decision. Here, a guy may have a few girls approach him in an evening, depending on his personality, where he is, and, to a degree, how good looking he is (although just being a foreigner gets him special bonus foreigner points).

And the foreigner girls, understandably, hate it. (As do guys who get tarred with the same brush, may I say.) Not so much because they don't have the 'power' (although I'm sure there are some who feel that way), but because this just brings out the worst in the guys, and because said guys often, with a svelte young Taiwanese girl on their arm or in their eye, totally call down the foreign women, usually with comments on size, weight, and ass-largess. Because every foreigner guy has a female friend whom he 'confides' these things to, because, hey, she's just a friend. As a (male) friend said the other night, he's always surprised to meet a girl who's been here more than two years, and even more surprised if she's not bitter, at least in regards to men.

Conversation overheard by a friend at a bar:
Guy #1: Man, this'll be a great night. I can't wait to get in a find a girl to fuck.
Guy #2: A girl? Man, I'm gonna fuck 'em all!

No laughs. No jokes. Total seriousness.

My roommate had the honour, being head teacher, of showing a few new guys around town. You know, the usual - where to get this, the good restaurants, taking them out for a night on the town. She came back spouting praise about them, how decent they had been, offering her a bed to sleep on while one of them took the couch after they finished off a particularly hardcore night, even though she had to get up earlier than any of them. Two weeks later (I kid you not), she came back and said, "Remember all those things I said about those guys? Forget them. They're no different - just looking for the next big drunk and the next great piece of tail."

Now, like I said, I know that that's a wide brush. I've met many fantastic guys out here that are not like that. But I (amongst many others) have seen the stereotype reinforced enough that it sticks, and it begins affecting relationships. Hell, it begins affecting first impressions - I know girls who avoid talking to guys because they assume that they'll be that stereotype, and everyone already knows enough of that stereotype. It sucks, believe me, and there's not much I can do about it except be myself and show that there are reasons to give people a chance. Even though I often suffer from the prejudices myself.

How do you stop something like this?

* Although one guy who I do enjoy spending time with uttered a quote that was both so guyish and revolting and yet so hiliariously funny that all I could do was admit I was a bad person for laughing at it. When a friend told him that he found a great foreigner girl, he offered, "Dude, you don't order a hamburger in a Chinese restaurant." Of course, he then turned around to resume making out with some foreign girl. Seemed he was a hamburger man himself.

** I've been told many Taiwanese get really attached in relationships, even friendships, and have a hard time letting go sometimes. To be honest, I haven't experienced it myself, but I've heard plenty of stories.

taichung in a nutshell

A really odd, funny-tasting nutshell.

Monkey anal play: a harmless search for pleasure, or a knife at the throat of evolution? Only at the Taichung Science Museum!

You know, I may forgot a lot of things about Taiwan, but I'll never forget the elevator toilets. Viva la elevator toilets!

plethora

I, like so many others, have some gmail invites sitting and being all bum-like. Can you put them to work? Leave a comment if you can.

ke chi*

Here's just a small difference in the way I am treated here. There could be a variety of reasons: I'm a foreigner, I'm a foreigner who's open and trying to speak Chinese, and/or that's just the way people are. I think that it's a mix. But any way it comes, it's nice.

1. Today I made a full McDonald's order in Chinese. V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W Chinese, but Chinese, none-the-less. The woman behind the counter took it all (even helped with apple pie - I knew apple, but didn't know pie, which, funny enough, has the exact same pronounciation in Chinese. OK, not really funny, but you get my drift), apologized for it taking six minutes, complimented my Chinese, and gave me a free very small soda while I waited. Mmm, ji kwai (chicken nuggets).

2. While looking at the Body Exhibit at the Science and Technology Museum, I found out that you can't take pictures. Twice. Did they kick me out? No! This is Taiwan! I had someone watching me for most of my time in the exhibit, and when she caught me looking up at her a few times (not because I planned on taking any more pictures, but because I found it so entertaining that they had someone following me), she came over, made some small talk, and then practically begged me, "No photos, please? Please? OK?" In many other countries, I would've gotten an, "OK buddy, that's it, you're outta here." I just know it.

3. A guy offered me his seat on the train coming home, as he was getting off at the next stop ten minutes down the road and I had told him I had a long haul ahead. This despite the fact that there were half a dozen other people standing around (who all got off earlier than me. And I made sure there were no elderly citizens around before I got all in that seat. My parents raised me properly.)

4. A friend, driving around aimlessly, found herself in a pineapple grove. The owner approached her, and instead of harrassing her to leave, he handed her a pineapple and a grin.

Life's like that here.

*"Ke chi" basically means polite in Chinese. It's also used as the Chinese way to say, "You're welcome," as in, I guess, "Just being polite".

the best way to keep from snacking

Current food that is mine in my apartment:

2 (two) cans Campbell's Hot and Sour Soup*
2 (two) packages of decent instant curry
2 (two) packages of unknown quality curry mix (things other than curry, ie. meat or vegetables not included)
2 (two) bottles of Cranberry Cocktail (One regular, one Cran-Grape, which is less a perfect marriage and more an ugly custody battle for my tongue)
1 (one) big-ass bag of rice
1/2 (one-half) small container of PB, smooth (they don't have crunchy here. THE PAIN, THE PAIN OF IT ALL)
various (various) spices
1 (one) bottle olive oil
1 (one) bottle balsamic vinegrette (that shit's expensive here)
1 (one) can whole tomatoes
1 (one) can tomato paste
1 (one) jar whole jalapenos
1 (one) bag red beans (to make red bean soup, which I Am Going To Do, Really ®)

Because I never cook - it's too hard, too expensive (unless you're cooking Chinese - see #1), and my schedule sucks for cooking. Add in the fact that the food here is delicious, cheap, and available pretty much any time I want (24 hour teppanyaki, people), and you can see why I don't have any 'necessary' items for eating at home.

See why people lose weight when they live in Asia?**

*This makes me so damn happy to have. I couldn't believe it when I saw it, and did a little dance when I came across it in the store. And it's more than decent.

**Guys, anyway. Girls tend to bloat up like mad. Must be all the rice. There's a lot of rice here. I'm pro-rice.

"lasers"

So, I've decided to get laser eye surgery. That's right. "Laser." Combined with the spam I got this week for "Plexus - the male enlarger", you can soon expect to see me making my bid for world domination as a laser-beam-shooting giant.

(A REALLY long explanation of my reasons, what happens, and what has happened to me so far follows. A really good explanation (with jokes!) of laser eye surgery can be found here.)

This decision didn't come lightly. I did a report a few years ago (well, I guess it was about six now. Six? Wha..?) on eyes or eye surgery or some other eye-related topic that was of interest to me and few others, and did a section on corrective surgery. Being the late 90s, laser eye surgery was generally unavailable, mostly due to cost - it was still relatively new and very pricey. Well, at least, LASIK was. LASIK is the most common method used today - it's quick, painless, and quick to heal. The much more common method of the time was RK (radial keratectomy) and PRK (photoreflective RK). Essentially, these two reshape the top layer of cornea using radial cuts and, in the case of PRK, a laser (LASIK reshapes the underlying layer).

OK, enough exciting science. Anyway, I found stories that talked about dry eyes, vision damage - the whole gamut. Enough that I resolved that it wasn't worth it. After all, I didn't mind blurriness - as a friend's grandmother once said, "Everyone's more beautiful when I don't have my glasses on." I can't drive or see far without my glasses, but I can still navigate around my house, even go out for a walk to the store if I want.

However, I found that glasses restrict me in two ways that will come up again and again in my future: travel and photography. I don't like having to always be concerned about my glasses when I go to sleep, and glasses make photography...more difficult. There's nothing more annoying to me in photography than trying to make sure you're getting the shot you want and having your glasses bump into the viewfinder. Contacts? Yeah, I had them, but they're even more of a hassle, and living in a city with so much shit in the air, they get REALLY irritating REALLY fast.

As with everything, there is a balance: it's generally common knowledge that the biggest complaint is reduced night vision, ranging from starring of lights to halos to almost being blind at night. A small percentage experience permanent damage. No one knows the real long-term effects or the effects of old age, as the surgery has only been available in the US for less than ten years. Complaints are up, though I think that's for other reasons: more people using it means more complaints, and many people have unrealistic expectations of the surgery, taking it as a cure-all, 100% guaranteed. These issues are present, believe me. I don't think my expectations are unrealistic - I've done my research, talked with those who've had it, and formed my own opinions.

Part of this will be a log so that others can know what to expect. I've talked to a few people out here, but had a bunch of questions that they couldn't answer. You'd think people would ask everything about their eyes. Anyway, a number of friends are hinging their choice on my experience, so I wanted to document it, though it's pretty easy these days.

First of all, there are two kinds of surgery you can get. There's the basic whatever-whatever surgery, which'll get you to 20/20 vision, or close enough that you don't need glasses - the 'basic' package. They do also have an, um, 'extended' package (I guess), in which they use a different machine to not only perfect your vision, but also to perfect your whole cornea. From what I understood, our eyes are not perfect for light refraction, you can get them topped up so that not only will you be able to see things without glasses, but you will see them with absolutely perfect clarity. Possibly even better than people with naturally good vision. It, of course, comes at a cost - about 70% more than the cost of the original surgery (about $700CDN). This cost, upon consideration, was not worth it for me. It would be nice, but I've made it 25 years with half-decent eyeballs, I'm sure they'll continue to serve me in a decent manner.

You start out with an exhaustive, and exhausting, two-hour check-up of your eyes. Forget all your trips to the eye doctor, they do everything here. The balloon, the Japanese mountain - I saw all the pictures. Twenty-five minutes of "Which is more clear - left or right?" (luckily, they speak decent English there, though, funny enough, I had recently studied the words in Chinese for "clear" , "not clear", and "a little bit more/less"). Tear duct tests. A cornea thickness test where they actually touch each eyeball multiple times with some device. If you're one of those people who hates seeing eyes touched, you'll hate this part. Then they dilated my pupils and did most of the tests again. Dilated pupils really mess up your vision - you only get one focus. Glasses on: far. Glasses off: close. No mixing allowed.* It really was exhausting, and I get to do it all again before the surgery.

There were a few issues that one must remember, too. No swimming for a month - with the possibility of an infection in my eye, I'll be staying clear. No washing your face for the same reason, at least, not in a splishy-splashy kind of way. Wipe downs only. Flying is allowed right after for LASIK, but not for a bit with PRK, as PRK is changing the shape of the eyeball, and the pressure change can undo some of the work. Sunglasses are required when you go outside for one month until your eye has adjusted to the change in light.

And that's that. The surgery itself takes about 15 minutes, preceded by the two hour exam. I'll even be enjoying the day I get it and the next day off, as it were, which'll be nice. Oh, and one last thing, mostly so I remember and others know: they're burning you with a laser. Many people report a headache after they're finished, and it's because they're dehydrated - your eyes are working overtime to try and fix themselves and keep themselves wet, so drinking a lot of water is a very good idea.

I'm excited. I'll let you know how it goes. Keep your eyes on the news.

*Which made me look like an old man, counting my change at the end of my outstretched arm and peering at students' books over my glasses. I tell ya...

if it wasn't for poor taste, i'd have no taste at all

My Chinese is still rusty, but from what I can read, it says, "In honour of the victims of 9/11 - Free Chicken Wings!"

Actually, there's been nothing here on 9/11 - this really was the most I saw of anything yesterday.

And if you thing that's in bad taste, how about these guys, who are profiting from selling 9/11 crap? Deuce of Clubs gives a hard slap to these crapjacks.

in the bar

1. It's nearly impossible to coordinate more than one other person to do anything in a time frame of less than 3x the number of people, even if it is a fun, pleasurable activity.
2. Two things which will always raise a girl's interest/ire*: "Gangbang!" and "OK, nice that's a nice one. OK, now kiss."
3. Food at the bar is either the best idea ever, or the worst idea ever. Depends on the time of night.
4. Before the boozing really starts, bar can really appear like a high school dance sometimes, except that the boys are girls are actually talking to each other. Still, no one wants to be the first on the dance floor, at least until you have enough booze in you to forget about your shyness. If high schools allowed, nay, mandated a couple of drinks before the dance, there would be no one standing on those walls.

*Oh man, the IRE.

honest questions

Listening to a Canadian friend (who's heading back to Canada as I type) talk to a Taiwanese friend last night.

1: You know, I'm going to miss the 7-11s here the most.
2: Why? I thought they had 7-11s in Vancouver and Victoria.
1: Oh, they do, but you can't buy beer at them?
2: WHAT?! That's crazy! Why don't they let you?
1: That's what I'll be questioning every single day that I'm back there...
2: But don't they check ID?
1: Yeah. Could you see some 16-year-old checking the ID of another 16-year-old? 'Looks OK to me...[peering]...Tontor.'
2: Oh. I guess not.

seven weeks, five cities

Five cities in seven weeks, you say! I do! Of course, one is my residence, but I explored it, so it counts. Taiwan is a relatively small country, and transportation (ie. bus or train) is dirt cheap, so life here easily lends itself to exploration if you've got the taste for it, and I'm always hungry!

(The latest in my general updates of activites.)

My first excursion, barely three weeks after returning from Australia was my first trip up to Taipei (outside of the airport, anyway). Taipei (literally, north Taiwan), with a population (including outlying suburbs) of ten million, is my biggest city visited yet, and it's huge. With a population density of 9600 people/km2, it's packed (though Kaohsiung has it beat by nearly 200 people/km2). To give you an idea of what a breath of fresh air Canada is, Montreal takes the cake at a whopping 850 ppl/km2, Toronto weighs in at just under 800 ppl/km2, Vancouver at a bit under 700, Ottawa and Calgary have tonnes of space at about 200 ppl/km2 each, and Regina is a virtual wasteland at 57 people/km2.

Anyway, my Taipei excursion was fun, seeing the original, lavish conditions that the first Chinese 'ruler' of Taiwan after the Communist uprising of 1949, a fantastic jazz club (which are all too rare out here), the tallest building in the world (Taipei 101, which is an empty skeleton), and the fantastic MRT. I went just to see it for the first time and get a feel for it, and to enjoy a quiet, fun weekend with a friend whom, though I love her a bunch, is neither a big partier (in general) nor a big explorer. Also, almost all of my pictures were destroyed in the great hard drive crash of naught-four. Oops. Oh well, I'll be back. I saved a couple.

The next stop on my intra-island tour was Tainan (literally, south Taiwan). A quiet little burb of 750,000 people, Tainan is a great way to get a breath of fresh air and experience something different, while spending a pittance in money and travel time. Tainan was the venue this weekend to check out a friend's band and enjoy a good party with friends. I can only offer up a few pictures, as the results of part of this fun trip remain...classified. Suffice to say, there was music, booze, new friends, more music, more booze, pool, and Turkish food the next day. A good time was had by all.

Chiayi was next up, another 'small' town. 250,000 people have an artists' fair in their fair city once a month, and I had been burning to attend it for some months. A day trip was enough, I thought, and set off early one morning, alone, as usual. To help demonstrate the size of some of the cities here, I walked across most of the city in about 90 minutes to get where I was going. It was small, but the environment was fantastic. Part flea market, part artist's haven, I wandered around, looking at old pictures, clothing, artwork, pottery, and the like for a while, before settling down and chatting with a local artist. Evin was actually a Taiwanese Aboriginal (there were 11 tribes of Aboriginals here long before the Chinese came over) from another city who made jewelry. We sat and talked for a bit while I snapped pictures. I ended up settling next door for the rest of the afternoon, chatting with some other Aboriginals from another tribe, drinking beer, drumming, and chatting as the rain fell softly around us. It was an incredibly inspirational time for me, enough for me to resolve to come back every month and help out and camp out to enjoy the party the night before with these amazing people.

My last trip was just last last weekend to Taichung/Taizhong/however you want to spell it (welcome to the fun world of Romanizing Chinese! This one means middle of Taiwan - seeing a trend?). Again, alone, I went up with the main purpose of checking out an art store for a potential gift for a friend and got the added bonus of wandering around in a new city, meeting new people, and enjoying possibly the only gelato shop in Taiwan. I checked out the local museum of science, where I established that dinosaurs are the new black (it was all I could talk about to my kids for the week, and I even found out the Chinese word for dinosaur, after much hilarious pantomime), a 31-metre tall Buddha statue, and a mind-clearing visit to the local Confucius temple. One comment, after seeing so much dinosaur stuff in North America, it was interesting to see a display here, which definitely had an Asian influence (for obvious reasons) and it's focus. For instance, did you know that the Velociraptor, made so famous by Mr. Crichton, was actually an Asian dinosaur? If you said yes, you are a liar.

But that's four, you are quick to point out. Well, sit on your hands. Of course staying home isn't much of a trip, but in a city like Kaohsiung, there's plenty to see if you just drag your ass out of the rut. Two more trips to the science museum here have it almost explored for me (4 floors! I've just got two more exhibits to view), along with the fantastic Body Exhibit, a display of various aspects of the human body, with real, um, human items to demonstrate. It takes a strong stomach, but it's pretty amazing to see what's going on inside you. The museum also had an Egyptian exhibit on loan from the Louvre, with some of the pieces on their first trip outside of France. It was pretty awesome (in the actual sense of the word) to be standing in the presence of objects up to 200 times older than me. Now I want to see things of the same age, but in a completely different locale (Chinese artifacts, National Palace Museum, Taipei. Next time.)

Add in to that a birthday party involving water and cake fights, a going-away party, organizing a school-wide mini-Olympics, starting yoga and improv, and a visit to the (incredibly sad) Kaohsiung Zoo with my class (especially after seeing how good the Australia Zoo treats its animals), and I can say without exaggeration that it's been a busy time. The future offers treats, but not much respite: a trip to Hong Kong, an improv performance, the annual Sun Moon Lake swim (3.2 km across the whole lake), laser eye surgery, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. And that's all before the end of the month!

And so, here we part again, at least for a little while. I'm sure I'll have more to report from the other side soon, but I need my beauty sleep. Of course, there's always more to these stories, but you have to at least reply, if not call to find those out. In the meantime, make sure you tell those you love that you do, enjoy what you have, and see what you can while you can. Every day is an adventure if you believe it is.

taking requests

I'm going to Hong Kong, that mecca of rip-offs and pirates. I hope to score an eye-patch. Any special requests? Leave a comment, and I'll see what I can do.

doubled over

J: "Oh, I know, you're the head of a cult!"
D: "Hm. Well, yes, you ARE technically right. Just don't tell the majority of North America. OK, here's a hint." [strikes a praying pose] "My father and I are very happy with how things have gone..."
J: "Oh! Oh! You're George W. Bush!"

And thusly, the room did dissolve into chaos and laughter.

-------------

The setting: Improv practice tonight.

The game: Party. If you've seen Who's Line is it Anyway, you'll have an easy time understanding. One person is sent out of the room, and everyone else gets given a trait or a personality. For example, you're The Beatles. All of them. Or you're slowly melting. Or you're afflicted with interpretive dance. The person returns, and one by one, the party-goers come to the party. It's up to the host to figure out what's wrong with them.

The discourse above? The girl was supposed to be Jesus at the Second Coming.

It was a, here I go, don't stop me, one-two-threeeee, holy mess.

tag team, back again

I've returned from Hong Kong, with the #1 lesson learned being:

I don't necessarily know the best way to prepare for a night out drinking, but I do know how not to do it: spend the night before drinking, get three hours of sleep, then board the earliest plane out of the country.

However, that being said, Hong Kong was great. The population density is officially less than Kaohsiung, but I've never felt so crowded. Fine by my, I don't mind crowds, but it really gets to some people, believe me.

Fraud is the new black. I held off on the Ronex's, though.

It was, as my former roommate succinctly stated when she returned from her trip, the most international city I've ever been in, and that does include Toronto. There were a couple of times when I would pass ten people and there would be at least four discernable race/ethnic groups, and probably just as many languages. I probably heard about 12 different languages in 30 hours, and those are just the ones I could actually tell were different.

But man, is Hong Kong expensive. Especially compared to not-expensive rest-of-Asia. If you ever want to explore, bring lots of the green. Also, in further money-commentary, the banks issue the money, not the country, a fun fact for me, as that's the way Canadian money (and possibly American money? I don't know) used to work, back in the day. At various points, Canada had $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, and $7 bills.

And, to top off the bouncing around (I'm really quite sick and can't concentrate worth a damn), I share with you criminal, poignant, and practical. [first two via Emily, last one via Joey]

jokes and half truths, lite

Posting will be light until the beginning of next week. I'm sick, tired, and involved.

I got a part in MacBeth without even auditioning (I'm a lord!), I finally found some guys to sing with out here (I'm a bass!), I'm still doing yoga (I'm often sore!), and other stuff (I'm a masochist!).

But there's more coming! I promise! Pictures, writing, stories, um, naked pictures*, whatever it takes to get you to keep coming back!

*Not necessarily my ass.

shakespeare was a dirty, dirty old man

MacBeth. Act IV, Scene III.

"...the Queen, that bore thee, Oft'ner upon her knees than on her feet..."

I'm just saying.

i.e. not quick

In some ways, I've always been a little slow. Slow heartbeat, sometimes a little slow on the uptake, slow to anger, slow to get the hang of things - it has its good and its bad points. There's the fast ones too - fast adopter,

Today, I was on the slow side. You see, I participated in the largest swimming event in the world - the annual Sun Moon Lake swim (don't you love the term Mass Swimming Propoganda?). Here are some great pictures, too. Sun Moon Lake, being a somewhat religious place, is closed for 364 days every year for swimming purposes. Also, for drinking purposes - it's a drinking water supply. Also, we swam in it the day before the official day. Twice. Also, it was fun.

But for one day a year, it's open season. This year, 18,000 people came out for the festivities. 18,000 people is a lot of people on a lakefront at 7 A.M., let me tell you. To give you an idea of how many people that is, we registered pretty early, and were still only team #130. I know there were at least 450, as I saw team #451 at one point. There were enough teams, as a matter of fact, for us to get under way at our position of team #130, cross the lake (3.3 km), check out on the other side, catch the ferry back across the lake, and still watch people leaving the starting dock. That's a lot of people.

My teammates were all fish, finishing in just over an hour - 64 minutes, 67, 69. Me? A nice, round 90. The key is consistency - consistently slow. My problem is that my mind wanders, and I forget to kick. The bubbles are hypnotic - one of the reasons I like swimming. Just you, water, bubbles. And a lack of kicking.

And, of course, the night before was filled with fun, cards, swimming, and, COMING SOON TO A LAKE NEAR YOU, Naked Foreigner Party Boat. This fall on HBO.

Pictures shortly.

i've had the operation, and i'm pleased with the results

before

after

Oops, my mistake. That's the next operation.

before

after

Thus begins my conquest of Taiwan as a laser-shooting superbeing.

I'll update sporadically. Alternatively, watch the news.

big boom

Happy Moon Festival! Or Mid-Autumn Festival, whatever you want to call it.

The Moon Festival is the second-most celebrated occasion in the Chinese Lunar calendar, after New Year. It's always the 15th day of the eighth month, which means it's a different day each year (lunar calendar). There's some stuff that goes on, and some stories, but mostly, everyone just gets drunk, eats mooncakes, has a barbeque, and shoots fireworks. And when I say shoots fireworks, I don't mean no pussy Canada Day or Fourth of July or fireworks festival or Symphony of Fire. This is the bender of fireworks. It started around sundown yesterday, and it hasn't stopped since then, twenty hours later. There were also fireworks on the weekend. Granted, the fireworks at eight AM weren't as plentiful as they are now, but they were there, every now and then.

So, tonight, I decided to try my hand at setting said hand on fire, and damn if it wasn't a blast. I've got three videos for you, because that's the best way to convey it. All require QT.

• Da bao (big boom). (1.6 MB) This was our big one. There were bigger present, though. And we haggled the guy down to about $8-9CDN for this.
• Shooting. (9.0 MB) This is one of my favourites to use, as you launch them wherever you want. Our friend Cosmo next to me almost fried his crotch, however - you have to make sure you're pointing it the right way.
• One minute. (9.2 MB) This was just one minute on the beach during the busiest time. Multiply it by 360, and you have what I saw tonight. Exploding, temporary, beautiful sky flowers.

UPDATE: My kids informed me that it was not da bao, but da pao. Then a later class informed me that I was WRONG, WRONG, I DON'T CARE WHAT THE PERSON SELLING YOU SAID, YOU'RE WRONG, and that da pao referred to a missle (described to me with many more words). Probably the brand name, I said, but was lost in all the WRONG WRONG WRONGS. Damn noisy kids.