taiwanese people are CRAZY about lines

seriously. they see a line and just herd behavior into it. waaay more than in america. I guess it’s nice, like being part of the group? but it gets ridiculous. there’ll be no one in line for a street stall, but if it ever gets above 4 people in line, oh man, it’s gonna be 10 people long in less than a minute.

here’s an example. they just opened this store called uniqlo across from my gym.  aparently it’s like the gap of japan. they opened yesterday. this is one of the two lines out in front of the store. one of two. there’s another one.

 

people are craaazy

taiwanese healthcare

so now that the three day weekend/holiday is over, i was finally able to get to a hospital.  (they close all but the emergency room on sundays and holidays.)

i show up, find internal medicine, hunt down gastro, and tryto figure out what to do next. this super great old nurse grabs me and literally holds my hand to the registration desk. then she makes some joke and everyone laughs except me? "please do something for this poor hopeless foreigner." and everyone does! seriously, how nice is everyone here. so helpful to the dumb american.

so i meet the doctor and he’s fairly helpful, there are a couple mistranslations but his english is probably better than my spanish.  anyway, he gives me some meds for my stomach. slightly different but he recommends it. time to go pay.

edit for parents: the drug is called salazopyrine, it's got a slightly different active ingredient. they use the same mechanism but one has a sulfate group on it, it doesn't get recommended as much because some people are allergic to it. it's the same thing as in aspirin that people are allergic too, so i should be fine. also, some people apparently react suuuper well to it compared to mesalamine. so i figure this might be nice thing to try for a while what with me being in a flare right now. one rare side effect is extreme depression in young men, so if the blog gets really weepy over the next month for no reason, we'll know why lol

i get up to the payment counter and i bust out my taiwanese health insurance card that everyone working in this country gets. she rings me up: 350 nt aka less than 12 dollars. for seeing a doctor and a month of pills. in the usa, the pills alone cost 35 a month, a meeting with a doctor is like at least 30, and all of that’s with insurance that has to get paid for back home! I love this country!

here’s hoping obamacare is this good when it gets all the kinks ironed out. no complaints here.

breaking news: friend?

I made a friend today. her name is madelaine and she is from switzerland and she is here for school and we met because asian kids in a grocery store wanted to take pictures of us.

then we talked about buying cereal and yogurt. maybe we will continue to be friends? time will tell…

anyway this is my life now. I should hire people to take pictures of me with other people so they’ll be my friends. this is the lesson I learned today.

taiwanese animals

all the dogs here are waaaay better behaved than the ones in america.  the vast majority walk slightly behind their owner, whether they’re on a leash or not, and I’ve never seen two dogs out for a walk get in a fight. I don’t know if it’s because we spoil dogs back home or what, but the dogs here are great.

which makes it less terrible when they’re sitting in the kitchens at restaurants or on top of unused tables. there’s no taboo on dogs here, they can hang pretty much wherever they want. lots of stores have like, a spokesdog. maybe the owner doesn’t want to leave it at home, I dunno. but they just hang out by the register and don’t bother anyone. 

wild dogs are a pretty common thing, and cats are allll over the place.  I see like 8 cats a day when I spend a decent amount of time outside. they’re very shy, but the dogs totally just want to be your friend. I always want to pet them, but I also don’t want fleas.

so moral of the story, nobody eats dog here? taiwanese people all say that’s the koreans giving asia a bad name, but the people who visited korea say nobody did it there either. lots of finger pointing and no one eats dog?

trains

okay so people probably know that I live right next to the mrt, taipei’s subway system.  I want to have an article about trains, because I’m just still so excited about them. every day, whenever I get on a train, I just think, “wow, I’m gonna get on a train!”

I guess I was train-deprived as a child, I’m just way too into it now. standing with other people, or even better, all by yourself in an empty station, little red lights on the ground near the tracks start flashing in time with each other. there’s a rumbling noise that gets louder and higher as the train comes down the tunnel, and a huge wind just rips through the tunnel. it smells fresh, I don’t know why, I can’t imagine them putting air-fresheners in the tunnels, but it’s usually really hot, and it’s just this big refreshing relief, and then you get to ride on a train! sometimes they’re even pink and covered with cats! advertisers pay to cover the trains in cute things, how great it this country.

seriously, it’s like one of the highlights of my day every single day. 

okay that’s it for trains. I’m gonna miss trains when I leave here.

saaad day

so now everyone’s gone.  90% of the princeton review teachers, nicole, the friends I met through nicole, everyone, all in one sad weekend. admittedly, it was kind of an awesome weekend, but now that’s over and I’m left with crumbs. well not crumbs, I have jenny, thekla, jack, and angelica, but I never really hang out with jack or angelica and jenny and thekla have their own people.  we’ll probably still hang out outside of work, but probably less because there won’t be a really fun big crowd.

solution: gonna go find this group that plays ultimate frisbee, make them be my friends, and then have lots of fun with them. added bonus: I get to play ultimate again. so rolling with the punches over here. 

still don’t know about the tpr full time job, might find out by friday, but I don’t know how soon it would start.

solution: go traveling around taiwan with my savings for the couple weeks until that job starts, and if I don’t get it, call around to find something else.  odds seem somewhat in my favor right now though.

other than that, been reading a book or two and sleeping late.  nothing huge going on.

more job chaos

so I’ve been talking to a recruiter over the last few days. a recruiter is a nice lady who will put me in touch with places that are hiring for teachers in exchange for about 200 usd. I interviewed with a school today, but it turns out everyone’s hiring people to start on monday, which conflicts with my tpr job and the end of my contract. also, right after I called the recruiter a couple days ago, I got an email from tpr’s hr guy saying oh hey now we are hiring for at least one full time position, you should apply!  he sent it to me and about 6 other people, 4 of whom I know, 2 who are new to me and just show up as email addresses. 

so now I don’t know what I should be doing, because tpr is the better job, but holding out for it may put me in a position where I am less able to get a worse job if I don’t get the tpr thing. which entirely depends on who applies, I know that one of the guys who got the email was a teacher in the us and I pretty much modeled my teaching personality after his, he’s great. so if I were tpr, I’d hire him before me. but this guy also just opened up a restaurant and is doing part-time law work for some us firm, so I would be pretty shocked if he applied. basically, I think I’m the best candidate who will apply, outside of people who I don’t know. 

so it’s a gambling game, go for broke with the nice job or settle for less but safe work. I think I’m gonna hold out for tpr at this point, because I’m just that guy (sorry mom, don’t freak, it’ll be fiiiine).  I was reassured by the recruiter that pretty much anywhere I apply will want me immediately because I give a good first impression and am pretty (her words), which makes me a little more confident in finding a job later. I should know by tuesday definitely, so it shouldn’t be too late to find something.

dragon boating

so this weekend I went dragon boating, which is like a big canoe I guess? there are lots of people in the boat, (people didn’t show up so we only had 5) you get one paddle, and you just keep on rowing.  I went out with connie and albert, two of my friends here, and we were invited in the first place by lynn, who programs the computers or something at tpr.  nice guy. there were also two japanese people who didn’t speak english, but I guess they were nice?

anyway, it was cool to try something new and now I’m sore all over my body and horribly sunburned. so I made a couple mistakes.

more business

okay so now i have classes, false alarm.  it's actually not classes, it's private tutoring, which pays better than teaching. 2-2.5 hours per day, 5 days a week. almost the same pay as a three hour class, so that's nice.  also, as of now they're offering several hours per week all on weekends, which is not ideal for travelling purposes and would still entail finding another job, which would basically have me working every day of the week.  but at least i'm in a better situation than yesterday =)

also, i played rugby today with connie, another tpr girl, and a whole bunch of europeans connie met to  play rugby with.  had no idea what i was doing, just kinda hoping the extra effort i put into it counted for something. it was fun, probably gonna play again on thursday. we'll see if i like it enough to turn it into a regular thing. either way, it's something new and that's always good.

summary: still gonna look for another job but i am no longer in a monetary crisis. yaaay.

exciting weekend post and house pictures to come.

*edit*
here's a link to a waaaay better blog than mine, written by tessa, a new friend who did pretty much all the same things as me this weekend! she's nicole's friend from pingtung and the tusa program, which means they're all here learning taiwanese culture and mandarin.  word of warning: once you start reading her blog it will be painful to come back to mine. you should probably just follow her instead. you'll see what i mean.

http://tessa-rose.tumblr.com/

teaching round two

okay so this is a logistics/challenge post, exciting post about my great weekend and pictures of the apartment to come today, tomorrow at latest.

there have been problems with hours going around at tpr, last round i got two classes, other people got none.  one guy still didn't get hours this round.  this just seems unconscionable, to have someone pay for a flight over here and then give them no means whatsoever to support themselves.  i understand that they want to make sure they have enough teachers to cover a high workload, but this was a horrible judgement on someone's part.  anyway, bottom line is i have no classes for the next three weeks.  the savings from my tons of hours is enough to tide me over, but this is the last round of "busy" summer classes, and after this i'll maybe get hired for more hours or not.  they've been vague about it, and given their track record with employee honesty, i'm inclined to err on the side of caution.

i'm planning on calling a recruiter in the next day or two to scope out other teaching opportunities, in the event that tpr doesn't work out as a long term opportunity.  the teaching season starts in early september, so the silver lining of not getting classes is that now i'm on the lookout for new opportunities at what is likely the best possible time.  also, tpr invested a lot of training in me and i now have what i can call "months" of teaching experience.  this has been a really good experience and a gentle introduction to teaching, which is nice. also, i have an alien resident card now, so i don't have to leave the country and they can't kick me out for a year. downside is that to get the tpr job i had to sign a non-competition agreement, so i can't work for any other sat teaching institution. probably gonna end up working with kids, which might be great, i dunno, it'll at least be a fun new change of pace. and this really is the best time to find a job, so at least the timing is great.

this may all be a moot point, if tpr offers me full time emplyment (which i now believe is highly unlikely) i'll stay with them simply because they pay 30% more than other jobs.  we'll see what happens and i'll keep you posted as developments warrant.

in other sad news, gill left. back to canada. gill was my first friend in taiwan who wasn't paid to hang out with me.  he did give me his winter coat (which i always loved), so at least i have something to remember him by. *sniff*

so new challenges await, at least life isn't boring =) i also had an AMAZING weekend with some of my favorite travelers yet, i'll write about it soon.