Don't know what I have gotten myself into.

Well, I am at a loss of what I have gotten myself into, but I just did a job interview with an evening school COMPLETELY in Chinese... cool, huh? So, this should give me Monday to Friday from 4:30-8:30PM and should bump my Monthly total salary to over $115,000 a month (Taiwanese)!!! And, NO WEEKENDS!!! Yaaay!

Who knows, he wants a demo tomorrow. Yes, I think his English is ok, but it just seemed to go better once we started speaking Chinese (after the first minute of English).

It's Candy's birthday tomorrow, and she got a gift from my mom, some cool Chinese Canadian stamps for New Years. By the way, Mom, you owe me an apology, your cards had tons of English writing on them... guess who had to spend 30 minutes interpreting Hallmark "fuzzies". Grandma had the grace to send me a SHORT and sweet card for Candy.

Anyways, it was sweet, and the pop-out card was pretty cool, Candy loved it.

Off to bed... today was a 13.5 hour work day. Not planned that way, but winter vacation changed my afternoon "day care" into a long day (usually my day off), morning school had a New Years play practice, adding an extra hour and a half onto my morning, then evening class and then tutoring... good thing I drive my bike a foot off the ground.

Oh, I've been doing magic tricks with my kids. The coin into the elbow, behind the ear, and a few more... but today... I took the cake. My kids were unimpressed.

They begged me for a new trick, and we were bored at the New Years recital, so I took them outside for "THE ULTIMATE TRICK!!!" LEVITATION!!! My students thought this was an awesome concept and were convinced that, not even I, could do it.

So, i started with a short run and behold!!! I had levitated almost 20 unsuspecting subjects! Before, they were just eating their dinner, minding their own business, and then bang, levitated, higher and higher, round and round... I set them back down, on the roof of a 4 story building. Kids just don't get excited about pigeons anymore.

"Someone once said a million monkeys using a million keyboards could reproduce the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Thanks to MySpace, we now know that to be entirely false."

- Brandon W.


Well, I'm famous. Yep...
I spent Saturday afternoon sitting next to Love River cheering on some bikers for a commercial for E. Sun bank. Yep, I was the token white guy, actually there were a few of us. One of my friends, Bill, (people I barely know, but do know) asked me to come for this and bring some friends, so I brought my cousin, a co-worker and another friend. About $100CAN ($2500TWD) for a couple hours in the park beside the river ain't bad.

Bill took me to meet the producer and then Bill left. The producer liked my size, beard and energy (Yes, Sheri, my BEARD!!! See, it's cool.) and wants me to come to Taipei to do some more work, but more involved than being an extra. He'll buy me a plane ticket, car service, hotel (or his place if I prefer) and get me a lot more money than I made today... more importantly, I'll get on TV. He's got some commercial coming up for some insurance company where I'm supposed to defend a big house on the beach from a bunch of Chinese guys coming from the surf... whatever, it might be cool, and they'll pay me. He's going to send a copy of the bank commercial to me, so I'll try to get it home. I took some pictures on the set and I look good, they had this huge lighting system set up and even though it was raining, it felt sunny on set.

Yep, they had guys sweeping the gutters to keep the rainwater from flowing onto the set, everyone had jackets, then 30 seconds before shoot, the director would yell, "WaiTow!!! (Jackets)" and we'd all toss our jackets and think warm thoughts. I think it went well, some guy's going to have some time erasing the raindrops and dulling the glare from my head.

It was good.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday? I went to Candy's mom's place and listened to them speak Taiwanese, which I don't speak. I asked Candy if we could all just speak Chinese, but I guess my Chinese is much better than theirs... just not gonna last for more than 5 mins, so we didn't ask. We went to the hot springs close to Candy's mom's home, it was good.


The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.

-John Stuart Mill

Testing my shocks.

Well, we had another Earthquake today. I was driving my scooter form the hospital as one of my 4 year old students has something in his neck or something... I went to see him. I was driving home, late, as my student had to show me how one of his new toys worked before I left, and so I was driving fast and well... the ground was shakin' but I'm not even sure my tires were touching the ground. Either that, or my shocks are fantastic. It was only a 2 (Richter scale) in Kaohsiung, so it's enough for you to feel a little light headed and maybe swish some water in your cup, but not enough to bring the roof down. Anyways, I'm ok and so is everyone else.

Paddling about in the kitchen.

So, I haven't been able to update my blog because the undersea internet cables were broken in the earthquake. Things seemed fine, but I guess the ships were fixing the cables the last few days which caused the disruptions.
So, the one floor in my house that I haven't really gotten down and scrubbed the crap out of, is my kitchen floor. It's clean, but could use some bleaching. Anyways, Candy decided to clean it on Monday, so she moved the storage racks out, got the hose from the front balcony, hooked it up to the washing machine pipe and fed it through the kitchen window. Well, this is how things are washed in Taiwan as all the floors are tiled, the walls are tiled and every room has a floor drain. So, she puts some soap on the floor, floods the floor with about an inch and a half of water and scrubs with a scrubby mop thingy. the door jamb between the kitchen and the rest of the apartment is about 2 inches high, so no problems. She then comes to ask me, "Colin, where is the kitchen floor drain?"
Well, there's no floor drain in the kitchen, as why I haven't done what she did. So, we bailed the kitchen out into the laundry room where it drained through the floor drain, not so bad. The kitchen used to have a floor drain before it had a sink, someone used it as a sink drain and puttied around it so it wouldn't stink.

"Candied" tomatoes.

Well, yesterday, Candy and I slept till 2pm, then she fried some eggs in the kitchen for some sandwiches. Sleeping in was so nice, then we went to the night market (day market of second hand things) and then to Love River to go for a walk. It was alright, then we went for some Lasagna at a pasta restaurant, that was good. Then my buddy, Jaco, and his girlfriend came over, he was going to call first and wasn't sure if he was coming. Anyways, I was on the phone and the doorbell rang. I've made it quie clear to my security, that night time and mornings are MY time, and that any questions can be made in the afternoon. So, I figured it was security and threw the door open as I stood in my undies... for Jaco and his girlfriend to see (it was meant to deter my security guards). Anyways, Jaco said he was hungry and was thinking of going somewhere to buy food, so I just fried up some steaks, spaghetti sauce and spaghetti, yummy, yummy! Jaco's "just for a sec before we go" led to a beer run downstairs and lots of great talk. The girls watched endless TV shows of stupid but somewhat funny stuff awhile Jaco and I talked. We tried to listen to the show, but they talked so quickly and we can't read the subtitles, so it was so much effort and not much fruit.

This morning, I woke Candy up at noon and we loaded up my iPod with some Chinese songs as I wanted to get out of the city, I didn't care where. We wound up going to MeiNong, the umbrella factory place. They had some fields of tomatoes for the picking and we picked 2kg's of Cherry tomatoes, I hope they're good, they were good on the vine. We hit the traditional market for some mushrooms and chicken breasts (the chickens were sitting in cages behind the woman selling the chicken). BBQ and mashed potatoes (thank's Mom!) along with cattleboyz sauce. We have spent the rest of the evening relaxing infront of the tv and watched a dvd, not bad. Money's still tight, but I am seeing the light, I have $20 for tomorrow and then I get some money on Tuesday so I can pay my bills. Luckily, I will get some owed cash on the 5th along with my paycheck which should cinch the deal. If not, I can always sell one of my scooters, but Candy's scooter isn't worth fixing (it drives, but barely has brakes, doesn't have shocks, no starter, lights are toast and it doesn't run all that well) so she's driving the scooter I bought for Greg's visit, I need to figure out what to do with my other scooter I have lent out as the Plum rains are coming and I don't want to have to drive a motorbike in the rain or typhoons, I did that a little bit at the end of season last year and it sucked, the front wheel just splashed the crap out of you and you slip around more. Anyways, I'll figure something out... I always do.

The hunt is on.

Well, this last month has lead to many changes in my life.

First, my working life, my Monday evening class has been canceled due to my advanced students being pressured to do well in their final year of high school... English is not part of the University entrance test. My Thursday night job has seemed to fall into the same trap, yep, my DaShu small town job where even the police don't wear helmets. Yes, I am the ONLY foreigner who works or lives in this town, talk about staring... my favorite job.

Last month, my evening boss asked me to work at his branch school close to my house, 20 hours a week in the evening and maybe some in the afternoon. He's a cool boss, I ask him if I can "just not come in today" and if he's free, he'll simply teach my class for me. So, I always have good notes on what I have been teaching in this class and where I intend to go with it. I work for him at his "way in the hell on the other side of the city" school and like everything but the 30 minute drive each way. This other branch is about a 90 second drive. This would take almost all of the driving out of my life and provide me with one job, one boss, and one problem. I would still have my morning drive to another city for my Kindergarten, but I'm usually not awake enough to mind the drive or even realize that I am actually doing something.

However, I do like having many smaller jobs. Time off is easy, they only have to cancel/sub one class. If it's a full time job, they have more pull than you do.
I think it's worth a shot, might mess up my afternoon job a bit, but that job's been passively kept since it started, I think I can work around it with my boss, she's worked around things in the past, she knows I like teaching, she loves my teaching and she knows that I really try to accommodate everywhere I work, including her. When she's only giving me 5 hours a week, at an hour a day, she understands that somethings have to give. She simply can't give me any more time.

Luckily, I seem to have more options than problems. My morning job is enough to keep me going by itself, but, I have higher goals.

Also, Candy's been fantastic, she's pretty much moved in with me. She has really made my life a wonderful place to be. She tries so hard to make my life what it is, and I like to think I return the favor. She left her job so that I could spend more time with her, and things have worked out better than what is possible. She likes what I do, and she cares.

Money has been tighter than ever, and she heads out the the traditional market every day to buy some chicken and corn or something so that I can barbecue it for dinner. She goes running in the park every morning when I'm at work. She let's me cook and watches me when she can and she cleans up when I'm done.

Yep, I'm cooking now. Now that I have someone to cook for, I have REALLY got into cooking. I've been trying tons of new things. The BBQ ran out of gas and so I threw the chicken breast on the stove, in some virgin oil, added some garlic salt, chilli powder, fresh tomatoes, green peppers, some fresh herbs and I added some spaghetti sauce, wow! Made some spaghetti and as the bbq was out, I made a small oven out of tinfoil over the gas stove to bake the garlic bread. By the way, if you add some whiskey to your chicken breast before you finish cooking it , it adds a nice sweet flavor to it, be careful on a gas stove, I managed not to light it up. Then I stewed the chicken in a tomato pasta sauce and served over spaghetti with some cobs of corn on the side. Mmmmmm......

This weekend, Candy wants to do some painting with me in my new studio. I have moved almost all the stuff out of Reg's old room and now I have a clean spacious painting studio. Now, if only I knew how to paint. I guess we'll learn together. For Christmas, I bought her a super nice camera, a Canon Ixus 900Ti ,it's 10 Mega Pixels, 3x optical, 2.5" screen, 3200iso (almost no noise!) and a really cool tracking box that locks onto any moving object or anything that looks like a face and tracks it like a jet fighter targeting system, the box will move with the subject all over the screen. It also has some super macro system which is really fantastic if you ever need it (rare) and it has image stabilization for those shaky hands, yep, it works. Anyways, she has a little tripod for it, but usually steals my big one, she really seems into this photography thing... yeah...

We even wrestle and she makes me do push ups with her laying on my back, she's only 100lbs. She likes to take flying leaps onto my back when I'm not expecting it and one day, she'll probably crash and burn and take me with her, but we'll have fun until that fateful day.

On a sadder note, my motorcycle is parked. Yep, I noticed some duct tape stuck to my back wheel today, just a little bit. Not duct tape, but the threads that make up my tire. I've had flat tires on scooters and bikes So, I took my scooter to work this evening. My tire has been on order for 5 weeks now, it's in tomorrow.

What else? I dunno... but it's almost Friday, that's nice. I'll post on Greg and Nicole's trip soon.

P.S. That poem about the dog's life, was just something I copied off the net, none of it is mine.

Huh, I got the picture to work.

Well, my uncle and cousin have come to spend Christmas with me. I have not posted as I had been going all out on them, trying to soak up the family.

I was going to bed at 2AM, getting up at 7:30, leaving for work (in another city) at 8:00 and working form 8:30-12:00, then coming home, putting in an hour or two in the afternoon, then coming home, then putting 2 to 4 hours in the evening, then coming home, eating dinner, doing something fun, then going to bed. Yep, flametorching the candle at both ends, I loved it. Luckily, I have some very understanding bosses that granted me some flexibility in my work.

Now, they're gone and I got to spend Christmas under the ocean watching sea turtles swim past with my family and girlfriend... does it get any better? Yes, more time, more family, and... ummm... nope.

So, we spent Christmas on the beach, took the world's fastest train, to the world's fastest elevator, to the top of the world's tallest building, with the world's most handsome tour guide (me). Then we stood in a cave, that was under an underground river with the water pouring through the walls and ceiling... imagine a pipe that has sprung a thousand leaks, then reverse it so that the water is spraying INTO the pipe, that was the cave.

More updates to come, here's a photo of the cave. Nope, the internet hates me, cave picture later.

If You Can..

If you can start the day without caffeine;
If you can get going without pep pills;
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains;
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles;
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it;
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time;
If you can forgive a friend's lack of consideration;
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when,
  through no fault of your own, something goes wrong;
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment;
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him;
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend;
If you can face the world without lies and deceit;
If you can conquer tension without medical help;
If you can relax without liquor;
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs;
If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice
  against creed or color, religion or politics; then, my friend, you are
  almost as good as your dog.