cold

oh my god, all i do in this country is get sick, seriously what’s wrong with this place, now i get why everyone wears the masks

singapore

alright, going to singapore, leavin on the 1st at apparently 1130 pm. so i’ll be getting in a little bit late.  hope cabs aren’t that expensive because i do not plan on walkin around then on my first night with my big suitcase.  might only bring the small suitcase actually, i can cram stuff in there.  anyway, not a lot to write about.  psyched to see jimmy. i think one of the gales mentioned i was going there to him, thanks for making things happen cousins!

ahhhhhhh

i got my dream job ahhhhhh

wow, i might even make over $30,000 a year, who needs engineering anyway.  also, i might be seeing my cousin jimmy in singapore, small world, super excited. today was a pretty darn good day. now I need an apartment. things are lookin up.

recovered

alright let’s get back into this. 

not sick anymore, feelin good, back at like 85% maybe. just in time for my visa to expire. so I’m making a run to singapore for maybe like 12 days, pretty excited. buying a ticket today or tomorrow, probably leaving in 6 days. 

I finished all 3 rounds of interviews for the princeton review, I hear there are 5 people applying for 2 jobs, hope I get one. it would end up paying about 30000 more than I’d dreamed, which would be awesooome. I’ve been waiting to hear back for like 3 days, the suspense is killing me.  I sent a thank you letter to the people I interviewed with and all that stuff, at least I can rest easy knowing I did everything right and as well as I could.

gonna go talk to the immigration office about if I can get my 2 month visa renewed or if I have to leave the country every month until I get a job. I’ll keep the world posted on stuff now, blog recommenced.

siiickkkk 2

warning this one gets pretty personal

okay so the fever's over, but the throat's still murdering me.  of most concern is that being sick has made my immune system into a beast, and it decided to attack my large intestine. (ulcerative colitis flare up)

this is the worst it's been since i was diagnosed, maybe i should have seen this coming with the stress of moving here and new diseases and different foods, all of which might be triggers for a flare.  i've had to go to the bathroom almost a dozen times today, i think i'm gonna call a gastro doctor tomorrow, if this doesn't sort itself out real quick i might have to go back on steroids, which would suck because you swell up like a balloon, get covered in tiny zits like all over your body and just feel like crap all the time.  i looked up this other thing called vsl#3 that i want to try, but i don't think they ship to taiwan hooraaaay

this is just a lot to deal with right now

siiickkkk

see title, i am feverish and in bed, better updates later

semester at sea, part 2

alright so quick recap. people came to taipei and stayed in my room and the room next to me, they came from the us and canada, they live on an ex-cruise ship that now takes kids all overt he world while teaching them college classes. “semester at sea.” costs like $24000 or something but it includes a semester of classes, a four month cruise, stops in at least ten countries in majorish cities, food, all that. and the boats full of college kids. how did i never do this. regrets.

anyway, they’re in my room and the room across the hall, i invite myself along with them to fun things on the first night, karaoke, clubbing, exploring, etc. see last post for pictures.

next day way too early in the morning, everyone wakes up, walks around, eats in an “american style” restaurant, we decide i can go hangliding the next day in keelung, i run and grab stuff from my hostel, we all go to a park, yada yada details later, i’m tired, here are pictures from the next day when we went to keelung.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037428&id=1096890440&saved

you should be able to see them even if you’re not on facebook. if not I’ll put them up here tomorrow.

temporary friends!

okay, so quick on the heels of me asking everyone in taipei to be my friend, a bunch of americans came to the hostel took care of it. we went out to luxy, the first club i ever went to here, and i brought my camera this time. bad news, it was waaaay less crowded than the first time, so pretend it’s so full you couldn’t walk and stuff.
more later, got to go, come back in a bit, there’ll captions and things will be prettier.


























edit – going to keelung don’t know how to spell it, out of contact for a day or two. expect good updates when I get back. this is the most fun i've had in my time here.

time for a change of pace

so i’m still having a lovely time here, but it feels like my life here is starting to stagnate. still doing fun stuff, exploring, going around and looking for jobs and things, but it’s starting to get repetitive, i’m falling into a pattern. so today i have taken dramatic action. i have written a letter to everyone in taipei asking them to be my friend.

here is the text of that letter.

Hello!
I got to Taipei a little while ago and am having an AMAZING time here so far, but unfortunately, most of the exciting things I've been doing have been done alone. I've met fewer people here than I thought I would, and my life is starting to get repetitive.
In addition to this, I'm currently staying in a 6 person dorm in a hostel, and someone has moved in who has very little sense of personal hygiene and manners. Point is, it seems like couchsurfing for a couple days would solve ALL of my problems!
I am very tidy and sociable, and will of course be happy to bring a bottle of wine, case of beer, or treat for a dinner of your choice in exchange for an evening of your time. I'll do my very best not to make it boring =)
I'm currently looking for a job teaching english, so if anyone is currently doing that or has any tips, that would be ideal, but please don't let a lack of that qualification stop you from responding! I would still love to meet you!
Thank you in advance, have a great day!

i posted it to the taipei group on couchsurfing, a super-cool website you can read more about HERE. there are 1820 people in this group, and if not a single one of them wants to be my friend, i am coming home because i am clearly a lost cause who will never be loved. the nice thing is that if it works out, i can spend the money i would have spent on a hotel room buying a nice gift for whoever i stay with!

anyway, i’ll keep the world posted on if i’m staying with people, and don’t worry, people don’t die from staying with complete stranger very often. i don’t know the exact figures, but i’m pretty sure it’s like single digits.

ice

ice is the girl who works at the hostel 16 hours per day. she pretty much lives here. and she’s amazing.

ice has helped me out with so many things it’s not even funny. suggesting restaurants, ordering food from suggested restaurants, speaking chinese, helping me find stuff, recommending cool things to do, blah blah blah. she even moved me into a four person room a couple days ago to let me get away from the pseudo-monk! ice is the best.
her real name is christelle and she speaks like 5 languages and has been all over and is the biggest reason i would recommend this hostel.

great news!

so I’ve been looking for a few days, calling around surfing the net, and i got a job! it pays 80000 ntd per month, which is like 20k more than i had hoped and 30000 more than i had expected! the other great thing is i was looking for apartments while I was doing this, and there was one that I really wanted that was a 5 minute walk from the main mrt station, was near a university (presumably full of kids), and was a studio with 1 bedroom for only 11000 a month (amazing amount of stuff for the price), which was a little outside my price range when i was expecting a worse job, but now that’s chump change.  so basically I’m set.

in other news, happy april fools’ day. 

i AM looking for jobs and apartments, but I haven’t found anything amazing yet. i called a recruiter today and plan on meeting with her tomorrow, so that’s progress. i didn’t find anything great on my own, so this seems like a good way to go. still looking, but we’ll see. the next several entries in here will likely be about the thrill of the hunt.