so does everyone remember the april fools’ day post where i lied about finding a super great job and an apartment that cost maybe a little more than I wanted to spend but it was amazing and I was super glad I got it?
well all that actually happened so just ignore that whole joke thing.
I’m a week into my job, and it’s exactly what I wanted, it’s structured, challenging, it demands everyone’s focus and best effort, and it pays really well. also I’m good at it. apparently I’m a fun and engaging teacher, and I just need to make sure I prep my boardwork and express the main points of the page clearly, which is an easy fix. the fundamentals are all there, or so I’m told. I recorded myself and thought it looked pretty good, and the feedback from other teachers and the instructors is positive.
and bonus, i buckled down when the job started and looked at apartments farther away than I originally wanted (at ice’s suggestion), and found that if you looked in a certain area (ice’s suggestion), everything was 5000 NT a month (almost $200) less than they would where I had been looking before!
bad things: 1) it’s about 12000 nt ($400) per month, which was close to the upper end of what I wanted to spend, but really, assuming i actually get enough hours and then get full time employment at the end of the summer, it’s well within my means. it’ll hopefully be about a sixth of my salary every month, which should give me a lot of savings. maybe enough to make a quick tour of southeast asia at the end of my trip, and even live the dream and do the kung-fu-school-in-the-mountains-of-china thing. 2) it’s not really the clean, sleek, western looking place I originally wanted. you can tell it’s been lived in. little things, like baby mickey mouse stickers all over the bathroom walls. things like that. I assume I can get those down. 3) it’s like 7 mrt stops away from my job, which means it’s about an 18 minute train ride to work. original goal was walking distance.
good things: 1) it’s huge. when you first walk in, you see just a huge room with couches and a nice little tv, a fridge, some tables, and a mini kitchen. that huge room is 12 ping, a ping is a measure that’s the size of 2 tatami mats, or 6’x6’. most of the other places I looked at were like 7 ping which leads to 2) there’s a second floor! there’s a whole separate bedroom in my loft. 3) it’s getting painted whatever color I want! I’m trying to come up with a nice color scheme now, but it’s tricky because I don’t know what color the new furniture they’re giving me is going to be. 4) when I walk out my door, I see the mrt station. it is literally 20 yards away and there’s no street light between me and it. I’m 30 seconds away from a train at any time. 5) it’s near lots of really really cheap food places. admittedly they’re all traditional chinese places, but hey that’ll just get me used to the cuisine I came here for.
so anyway, here's my new place (it better be my new place, we’re supposed to be signing papers on sunday).