To the moon... and beyond!!!

Well, I went to the moon today with Audrey from Taipei. After walking on the moon, I climbed to the top of an active and erupting volcano!

We started by going north, towards the Fo Guang Shan Bhuddist temple, then we got lost a little and the locals gave us opposite directions. But, we found this cool place called "Moon World", it actually looks more like Drumheller dinosaur park.

After that, we drove another 20 minutes to the famous mud volcano. It was very depressing, we got there and someone had dug a small hole in the ground, the size of a kitchen sink, and there was a pool of mud with little tiny bubbles coming up. I took a small video. But then, I heard this big bubbling noise and there were two mounds of mud, one was 20 feet high and the other maybe only 12 feet. The high one was mudded shit, but the smaller one had a huge cauldron of muddy water and huge bubbles would blast out of the surface spraying mud down the sides sometimes.

Did I climb it? Yes.
Were there warning signs? Yes.
Was it considered an active volcano? Yes.
Am I a foreigner in Taiwan? Yes.
Does this give me a license to be stupid? Most locals would argue that it's beyond our control.

So, I climbed to the "summit" of the volcano, up a slippery slope of mud that feels like soap. I wonder if it was a good thing to do, because when the big bubbles came up, I could feel a rumble under my feet first. On the good side, I felt the sides and they were warm, but not hot, and the bubbles had no smell and so I stuck my hand into the bubbling mud. It was nice and warm and when the bubbles came, it felt really weird. Ummm... I will not try to defend my actions, but if I'm going to die, dying in a volcano is pretty damn cool, or hot, I should say.

It was nice to get out of the city, into some fresh air, we left after sunset though the bugs like to come out then and into my face. Next time, Ii will wear my visored helmet.

Down in "Moon World", it was mostly fruit orchards and the poured cement roads were not so great and some had huge chunks missing and large canyons beneath, I was careful where I drove.



P.S. In Chinese, Mountain is "shan". Hill is "Small mountain", volcano is "fire mountain", tunnel is "mountain hole".

Passport is still valid.

Well, last night I was cruisin to get some grub and it was late and the streets were dead... almost.

As I'm flying down my street, I am speeding and I cross into the oncoming lane for 2 blocks so I can make the corner. As I am speeding through the red light in the oncoming lane making my left turn into the next oncoming lane, this police officer on the corner has the nerve to pull me over... it's not like I was doing anything wrong? Anyways, he sees my face and I can see the moment of panic and the gears turning, his face regains composure and then tells me, "You cannot do, ok?" and waved me off. I dared not ask him which part of what I did that he was reffering to and slowly drove off. But, I did have a helmet on.

Anyways, I am trying to be more careful.

The weekend has been planned.

Well, the weekend has been planned.

I git a text message on my phone today that Audrey from Taipei was in town at the Nanzih train station. So, I finished work at nine fifteen and picked her up. I invited her to stay here tonight in the spare. So, I guess I have a guest tonight and someone to go for a drive with tomorrow... oh crap, it's 11:00pm and she's getting ready for bed... I guess waking up at noon has also been knocked from my agenda. She's going to show me a canyon, 30 minutes north of the city here. It's supposed to be a nice place she tells me and since the mountain top decided to move into my old waterfall hangout, I need to find a new place or haul a mountains worth of boulders and dirt.

Today I gave a spelling test to my students... I had to look at the book in order to properly correct it, I would have had the second worst mark in the class... "Those who can't do... ummm," I can't remember, but I think I'm doing it.

I also brought a couple little remote controlled cars to school today, breaktime was a BIG hit, especially with ramps from notebooks and falling towers and tunnels from massive amounts of Jenga blocks. I think all construction projects should involve romote controlled cars, I could have had them build a city in two minutes flat with those rc cars waiting.

Bye.

P.S. It's a good thing I had TWO cars, or the students wouldn't have been able to play with them at all.

I am so touched...

A mosquito gave his life today, for one drop of my blood. I was so touched, but not as touched as he was. Wham!

Anyways, on another note, my boss watched me do some phonics today, he'll tell me tomorrow how I did, I hope it's ok because he was in a sarcastic mood... stupid head.

I sorted out my ticket today, I had to go one day later because finding a sub turned out to be a hassle from all sides, management was the easiest part, finding a sub was the impossible part and my boss had already called all the people I was going to check with (on my behalf, so that was nice) but also, the whole parents incident visiting time off thing got disturbed again, geesh...

Umm, teaching is feeling nicer, seems after making my kids miserable, they don't want "Angry teacher" anymore. Breaks have been shorter and fun and stuff is fewer and far between... free speech is a memory and injustice rules. I like being a dictator and my afternoon class seems to respond quite well to an unpredictible, moody, schitzophrenic, and unjust dictator... I mean teacher.

It's been going for a week and today, they didn't ask to play a game when one student was being silly, they freaked at the student... on an even stranger note, they got a not saying there would be no school for 2 weeks at Christmas and they were dissapointed... What the heck is wrong with these kids? I take away break time and games and keep them after class writing lines and they want more? Damn, soon I will have to force them to color as punishment. Kids are .... actually, I don't know what to type, so fill in the blanks please.

If Keith would dissolve back into the abyss again, I think I would actually really get into teaching again, I have been in an apathetic lull for a while and I'm starting to really enjoy going to work again. I have always liked working, but not actually GOING to work, I don't want to go, but once I'm there, it's ok. Now, I actually don't mind going again.

My cousin made it back to Vancouver and soon, I will also be in the country I like to call, "Cleanada," yes, I made that up right now... but you can breathe the air and drink the water, and except for in my hometown, you might not die! Some of the locals even speak fluent English, a rare treat for me.

Throwing myself out the window.

I guess the stress of life is making me do weird things. On Tuesday, I threw myself out the second story classroom window... no I wasn't dreaming.

We had the fire department come to our school to show us how to save our kids or to relieve some stress. It was just the teachers and two firefighters. No, English is definitely NOT a requirement to become a firefighter. Not a cultural experience, a complete explosion.

All the teachers sat in little desks as this firefighter explained the rules of fire safety to us. He spoke quickly in Chinese while trying to demonstrate the safety procedures. He spoke quickly and used complicated words... hence, I and any of the other teachers who spoke Chinese were not really getting anything. May, our secretary, was there to assist us. The firefighter would talk for a couple minutes and then may would say, "Put the thing around here" and point to her waist. All the teachers were cracking up. The firefighters were so excited to be teaching foreigners and were snapping pictures left and right and we couldn't stop laughing at this massacre of cultural bridging. The firefighters were nice and our secretary got to learn words like, winch, harness, lower, resistance, tighten, strap, rappel, carribiner(sp?), and spool. See why I didn't understand a single word the man from the red truck said? We learned how to set up the hoist, clip the winch on with the carribiner and drop the spool out the window so we can descend on our harnesses while trying to rappel. We learned that the sign for our school is a pain in the ass and is a problem to rappel over, this was discovered when my boss went out and banged his infected foot, cut and bruised his arm and cut his chin on the bloody sign. The rest of us made it down unscathed. I know May took some pictures, hopefully there is one of me.

On another note, it appears that I cannot get out of my Friday class, but not for lack of trying, so I think I will move my flight to Saturday. I will leave at 8:25 Saturday night, and arrive in Edmonton at 1AM Saturday night/Sun morning... 5 hours to transverse the globe ain't bad is it? (No, I don't want to know why this doesn't make sense, just thinking about it makes me bored and sore)

My kids are disappointed that there's no English class for two weeks... well, some of them. I would be happy, but they still have to go to Chinese school for Christmas, so it's not a big deal either way.

Oh yeah, as for my cognitive functioning, I met with two other teachers in the "7-11" below our school and none of us knew what day it was, not even the day of the week... well, it's not something to brag about, but at least I'm not alone.

Here's another picture of the Kenting sky from the weekend.

Bunslingers from above.

Well Paul and I decided to play some Star Wars on Xbox tonight. It was fierce, Jam wanted to come use my computer, and due to the stale buns in my fridge, we decided to toss 20 buns down upon her from the 10th floor balcony. Our mission failed axs none of our formerly fluffy tools made their mark, and our not so fluffy goodness was bestowed upon the future avaian friends sure to wake me up in the morning.

Upon Paul's leaving, the bunn droppings were repeated, although, stale bread had to be used. Unfortunately, stale bread drifts much more than stale buns and the accuracy is diminished but the area of coverage is greatly improved. The security guard saw this "bunnage" upon his rounds and scratched his head for a minute, we watched in silence from 10 floors above, shrouded in the blackness of night.

Anyways, I might just move my trip to Saturday, to save on problems with work. Whatever, one day less at home, too bad. I just want it to be settled, Sheri won't be ready in time anyways. So, she can have some more time in Edmonton and maybe I can have a go at Randy River... maybe I'll wait for boxing day sales... I don't know.

A Haikou for you.

I am in Haikou
It is raining, I see the sign,
So, I take picture.

P.S.
Yes, I know Haikou is spelled "Haiku", but I wasn't in "Haiku", I was in Haikou... maybe they just spelled the sign wrong.

I spelled my Haiku,
But used 6 letters, not five
THEY spelled it not right.

Kenting "and" bust.

Well, it happened, by George!

I went to Kenting with anyone who wanted to go... Jam. Theresa was running around trying to tie all her loose ends 'cause she leaves tonight and Paul had "dates", yes, with an "s". Jam and I drove to Kenting on my bike and it was a great drive. I wore my mask until we hit the halfway point and then bang! The air was fresh! Made me realize just how bad the air is in our clouded city.

We booked into a sweet hotel, it was $30 for a basic but nice room, or $40 for a sweet mini palace. Our little palace had two king beds TV, fridge, beautiful hardwood floors and a huge patio overlooking the ocean, right on the beach. It was nice, so I set my camera up and took some pictures of the beautiful sunset. I did some time exposures and I wanted to be in them so I turned the flash on, but it was too bright. Hmmm.... an assistants finger covering half the flash works quite well as I can't adjust my flash.

We then went for Thai food and it was pretty good, the curry beef was a little fatty, but the basil chicken and the seafood fried rice was great, cheesecake for dessert that was frozen, but after thawing, it was great... but I don't think it was cheesecake...

The hotel was nice, everything was clean and the air was fresh. I didn't wake up with a cough, which was really nice, because I now know I am not chronicaly sick, just temporarily dirty. However, I did sleep for 12 hours... but I feel great. I got up and went to another Thai restaurant for lunch and had some coconut milk chicken and rice, it was good.

It started to rain and so I changed from my Thai cotton shirt and shorts, into my jeans, warm T-shirt and jacket, in the middle of the street. We drove home and missed stopping in DongGang town for a huge celebration. One of the temples was having a huge celebration for 4 days, it only happens ever 300 years. This was my first "drive-by" cultural experience. I was freezing form a 100km/hour motorcycle ride for an hour with no raincoat and my shoes were FULL of water.

On a side note, I have found the warmest place to be in the rain... behind a truck, the spray from the tires is warm for some reason... yuck! Oh, I didn't have a visor on my helmet, just a pair of sunglasses and keeping my mouth closed.

It was a great trip and as I passed through Haikou, I made a Haikou about being in Haikou, next post.

Living in Hypertime.

Welcome to Taiwan, the country trapped in fast forward. The one thing I will never get used to, no matter how long I live here, is the speed at which time travels. In Canada, we have helpful little reminders, like seasons, to help remind us that 3 months have passed. In Taiwan, the temperature ranges from +18C in winter, to +33C in summer. Being in a tropical climate, the leaves don't fall off the trees and things are green all year round. I don't get it, I'm coming up on two years and it feels like 4 or 5 months. I have done some super cool stuff like go to Korea, China and Thailand but it's all just one fantastic blur.

Jenn came to teach for a week... or was it a whole year?!?!?! Theresa is coming to teach for four months, wait, she's going back to Canada on Sunday. Wow, I guess I'm stuck here forever, which might feel like next Friday.

Mondays come too fast, but by Monday evening, it's already Friday night, where did the week go? I think I will be going home for Christmas sometime tomorrow afternoon, or so it seems. I just can't wrap myself around this tear in space.

Anyways, my last 2 weekends have been a bust, so this weekend, I'm going to Kenting with whoever'll come with me... I think it's just me and that sounds ok. I think I'm going to try leaving this cloud of smog that some people like to call Kaohsiung a little more often. I think that it's a perfect city, aside from the smog and the increasing presence of foreigners... wait, maybe the smog helps fight off the pesky foreigners... maybe it IS the perfect city! nah.

Off to bed I go, I wanna get up in the morning and cruise on my pseudo "chopper" to Kenting.

I hate planning and making decisions.

Ok, so I have a near perfect flight plan to get home for Christmas, but for some reason all the flights to Vancouver for December 31st are booked from Saskatoon and Edmonton... and, it's very expensive, almost double from doing it not at Christmas. Anyways, I really want to come home. So, I have 2 travel agents working on it... we'll see.

Grrr.... I hate choosing.

On a good not, my boss talked to me about my class yesterday and nothing was bad. There were about 15 sections of poor, fair or good and I got mostly fair and some goods, but no poor. Whatever, he probably doesn't want to turn the heat off completely. He's got bigger problems now, so I think I will be left alone for another 16 months...

My bike's working well, and people are interested in me. So, after Theresa leaves, I think I'm going to do some weekend getaways to Taipei and Peng Hu islands just to get away. I want to go hit the beaches and stuff. I also want to see the Museum of Chinese History in Taipei. These trips should be cheap as I have places to stay so I can save money for my Chinese New Year trip. Airfare to Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Phillipines, Korea Cambodia, Malaysia or Vietnam is $300-$400Can, to fly home to Canada will cost about $1700. Who knows, but I should get on it.

I'm trying really hard not to go back to Thailand. I was warned before I went that it is poisonous, once you go, you will never go anywhere else. But, I want to try really hard to see other places, I had such a great time in Thailand.

I'm off to bed. I hate being up late, but I got up at 9am to do my travel stuff this morning.

Inconsitentently inconsistent.

Well, today was my lucky day, I made some extra cash and I think I am out of the phonics hole.

Apparently, I am not the only one with trouble in phonics, I was the first visible smoke and after everyone getting similar ratings (but not as tragic), Keith has decided to watch EVERY teacher this week. He watched me today and he was in a good mood. He said things were better and that he was happy... but, I think it was good so maybe it's not his rollercoaster consistency.

Next, Nick wanted to go home 'cause he was feeling sick, so I subbed his 7:00- 9:00 class and got an extra $65CAN onto my paycheck. Not bad for a little work. Then I went to my hairdresser and my mechanic, who are side by side, and got my hair cut and my oil changed. Wow, I will miss head massages when I go home.

I'm excited about coming home, I think I will leave my earphones in my ears just so people don't talk to me. Having some trouble with flights, but I'll manage. I like looking stupid at people like I don't understand and then they don't talk to me. Somehow, I think people in Canada will just think I'm stupid if I do that.

This weekend was a bust, Theresa and I had plans for Kenting on Sat and to do some stuff in town on Sunday. We were leaving on Saturday and she needed an extra 10 minutes so I checked the weather, it said rain in the afternoon and so I checked the precipitation for the last 8 hours and around Kenting, the colors moved from green, to blue and then to red (was that a run-on sentence or just a really long one?). I phoned a hotel in Kenting and asked if it was raining and they said a little bit... sitting on the beach with beer and a book kind of sucks nomatter how little it is raining... probably not as bad as sitting in 2 feet of snow at minus 8, sorry, I had to.

Next weekend, we will try somethng again if she has time. If not, I will help her pack as she leaves this fair clouded city of smoggily goodness on Monday night, only to return to minumum wage and the life of a frozen student-pop. Depending on the condition of our snow machines, I have some insane pictures to take for the people back here. Some don't believe that snow can be deeper than 1/2 an inch. Ii have this great idea of skiing behind the skidoo in boxers and a scarf, what a picture for the locals. Maybe I'll put on some pants so I can show my kids.

My goal for this Christmas is to catch pneumonia and skirt the line of breakage upon my limbs by doing something stupid. I forsee bale jumping, skiing behind the skidoo, boxershort snowmen, and diving headfirst into a wall of snow or something.

One plan of getting home is by landing in Edmonton and driving with Sheri home. This is a disasterous plan for Sheri because I haven't been in a car for a long time and I taxi's are about it since last Christmas. I am used to driving a motorbike at 120km/hour and resting my knee on the door of the taxi cab driving beside me... well, the knee thing is a bit far, but I could probably reach out to both sides and touch a car on my left and a scooter on my right at all times. Also, being a foreigher grants us special driving priveleges such as running lights, driving on the wrong side of the road if it suits us and doing anything we like... well, it used to, I think it still works 90% of the time. Poor Sheri, having to drive with her brother screaming, "Faster! You have at least 3 inches! Use the ditch! Why are you stopping, no one's coming, faster damn it! Ahhhhh! What's wrong with these people?!?!", the whole way. She would be even more freaked out if she actually let me drive as she screams, "Slower! You are touching his bumper! Stay on the highway! Red light, stop! Slow down, damn it! What's wrong with you?!?!" all the way. But, she offered, so it's her demise, let's hope I'm dead tired and jet lagged... for her sake.

Anyways, goodnight, going to bed early so I might have time to hit the beach before work tomorrow and get some sun.

World caving in on itself.

Well, we have mad cows, birds with a case of deadly flu and our salmon are weighing in a little heavier due to lead toxins. The only staple meat left is pork, who are awaiting a swine pandemic. Vegetarianism can't even help us now, "the future" seems to have it's dirty fingers poking into every orafice of our lives and we have no concept of what these buttons we are pushing are connected to. Vegetables aren't far behind our deadly meats with all these GMO's that cause peanut allergies when you eat a bloody carrot (or something), go figure. Whatever happened to E.Coli? Oh yeah, we sprayed it with chemicals to now make it resistant. Even the mosquitos and bees are trying to kill us, the ones we should run from, are ourselves.

France is rioting form political unjustice from financial stratification and Le Minister Prime is too scared to do anything about it. I think they should have less riot police and more snipers. Taiwan has it good, they arrest big drug dealers by crashing through the front wall of the drug house in a tank, followed by body armored marines toating AK-47 assault rifles. Last time I saw a traffic checkpoint in Kaohsiung, I had my picture taken with the police officer carrying the M16 assault rifle, that's how you protect those who are enforcing public safety. I think police should be able to carry any weapon they wish, shy of leveling a 7-11.

Somehow the U.S. is losing 2 wars that they had won 3 years ago, how can you be still losing if you've already won? Saddam just lost his second lawyer, I think Bush should volunteer to be his next head defense lawyer, then we could get two birds if you know what I mean, Bush shot and due to having a too incompetent to stand trial lawyer, Saddam will get hanged also.

When the hell are they going to make me president? I have a lot of stuff to do.

I've been coming up with various rants to post somewhere, but this doesn't seem to be the right place, maybe I will dust off my web page or something and use it for rants and this for my journal. Some things I wish to rant about:
Things about Children
About Life
About language barriers.
About taiwanese thinking... yes, it is COMPLETELY different, not just ways of thinking, but they see things from a completely different perspective.
About teaching
Confidence can get you halfway into anything, and 25% out again
How well we bounce, physically and mentally
How the things that matter, don't... and visa-versa

Skirting the atmosphere.

Well, I feel like the MIR space station in it's last few weeks. I'm skirting along the outer atmosphere at the risk of burn up. Well, my parents came for a couple weeks, and due to some communication errors, etc. some tensions arose that soon evaporated.

For my 7 working days off, I had to have my boss sub my classes and when you let anyone do something of yours that they have been doing for 17 years as compared to my 2 years, they'll find something. No worries, except that my kids can read a book but they don't know the difference between short and long "a". Not a good thing, but as they still know how to read, it's not a terminal problem. I have been working at this school for 18 months and we are supposed to have the boss in to observe us every 6 weeks or so... he hasn't been into my class for 15 months. I feel bad that I wasn't doing my phonics right (phonics is a small part of teaching with big importance) but I wish I had found out sooner.

After this, they started looking at other aspects of my perfect teaching, my scheduling of my classes is back on track, my parents like me, my students love me but my communication with the parents on their children's problems could be better and I could book more students in if they are having minor problems. Also, my writing class is using a book that is next to impossible but I dumb it down for them and they are all learning well.

My cousin is leaving and I miss home.

Just alot of things happening and I don't really know. I feel secure in my job still, maybe buck up a little bit, but I don't feel like I'm in any danger... even if we weren't losing 2 teachers in the next couple months.

On the good side, I found the right spot to hit my air conditioner when the thermostat sticks. I have also found a similar spot on my tv when the picture goes black once a week. Still looking for the special spot on my scooter for when it runs out of gas.

My apartment seems to be fairly cheap, barely more than my last place, but this place is all mine, all three bedrooms. And my money seems to be collecting again, I don't feel like I have changed many habits, but I have not been traveling and even though I didn't work for 2 weeks and I sent home $1200CAN with my parents, I seem to have some, which is about some more than I thought I'd have... I figured I'd be broke, and I almost was. I can see the upswing now, only to be dampened by Canada's rising dollar and Taiwan's soon to be "yen". Two years ago it was $23NT = $1CAN, now it's 29/1.

I went to Tainan today on my bike, it was fun and I found a good Italian place ($2.50 Can per plate) that had good food. Why did I go to Tainan? I haven't the faintest, I decided to do something this weekend and by sheer default, Tainan won.

I haven't posted for a week and no one's left me a comment. Are Theresa, my parents and occasionally Jenn the only ones reading this? Am I wasting my broadband?
Please drop a comment, just so I know who's on here. You don't need an account, you can post under anonymous. Please leave one so I know whose on here, or please tell someone else.

Colin.

Funniest thing, all this stuff and I am not worried. I have money and I can have a new job within a week. I could also sell my stuff and go home, all these sound like fine options to me. Ii just wish that my life was a little clearer so I know what to do. Ii things things will just simmer down and I will be a better teacher because of it as well.
I know I have learned many things from my time in Taiwan, like always have a safety net and don't be afraid to make a leap.