and would it have been worth it, after all,
would it have been worth while,
after the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
after the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor -
and this, and so much more? -
it is impossible to say just what i mean!
but as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
would it have been worth while
if one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
aturning toward the window, should say:
'that is not it at all,
that is not what i meant, at all.'
-ts eliot, the one and only
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
many things.
i hate that everything i write lately is a "oh i'm so pitiful because i can't make up my mind blah blah" but that's how i feel, so that's what i write. and i'm feeling a lot of it now, so this is going to be a long one.
i have spent 7 1/2 months living in taiwan. i came here completely alone, scared out of my mind, more excited than i have ever been about anything, confused, and feeling the most extreme happiness and sadness i have ever felt. i was still trying to comprehend the fact that i had graduated university and that "life" was now starting; i wasn't allowed to run around screaming or wear pajamas in public or go to steak and shake at 3am anymore because i was now considered an adult. best way to circumnavigate these circumstances? move to taiwan, of course. i can now, looking back, admit that it was a slap decision to make, that i didn't at all think it through or completely realise what it was i was doing. maybe if i can even be adult enough to admit it to myself and everyone else, i came for the wrong reasons. those reasons don't matter anymore of course, they stopped mattering long ago~ i remember sitting on the plane from nyc to seoul and literally pinching myself to see if it was really me who was sitting on that plane, if it was really me who had made the decision, if it was really all happening. i remember my hands shaking so badly out of fear that i couldn't even write in my journal. i also remember turning on my ipod, looking out the window at the most beautiful sunrise i have ever seen and having a feeling of peace come over me unlike anything i've ever felt.
regardless of the reasons why i chose to leave america at all or to come to taiwan specifically, i am here now. admittedly, these past seven months have contained some of the worst times in my life. it isn't easy for me to admit when life isn't good for me. i don't know why, but i've always been this way. i don't like to tell people when things aren't 100% wonderful. there were times in my first few months here when i just sat in my house and cried because i was so confused, and homesick, and lonely and i felt so out of place here. i was constantly reminded (everytime i stepped out the door!) of how different i was from everyone here and how i couldn't speak chinese and everyone else could and how i was going to starve to death because i couldn't use chopsticks and i was going to die because it was 150 degrees, etc etc. then time kept bringing me so many horrible things: the death of my uncle, my dad getting sick, two deaths in the i-family, another death of a childhood friend...all these things are hard to deal with at any time and for any reason, but they are debilitatingly hard to deal with when you are a million miles away and feel so helpless and alone. i remember getting the news of my dad and heading up the steps in my apartment, opening up my closet, and beginning to pack my clothes to go home. i can't say exactly what it was that stopped me from actually pushing the "buy" button on the expedia page when i was looking at plane tickets home that night, but i eventually unpacked my bags took a deep breath. i was reminded of the first week i was here, when i met up with some friends from uncg in taipei and went to a night market one night. sitting on the steps of a temple with a friend, i remember my eyes filling up with tears as he told me that the best advice he could give me was just to "keep going, no matter what you're feeling." i felt that sense of calm again, and i knew that everything would turn out. i have felt some of the saddest sadnesses of my life in taiwan.
however! the past seven and a half months have been filled with some of the most incredible happinesses, some amounts of happiness that i wasn't even aware existed. when i look back at the girl who came here in july, she isn't the same one who is writing these things now. i have come so far. i have accomplished so much! i have met so many wonderful people here, and i will never be able to forget or repay the kindness i have been shown by everyone i have met. i am always amazed at the innerworkings of the world when i am in taiwan: i can wake up feeling like a giant sack of garbage, then walk outside to the sight of beautiful mountains and on my way to work, pass the park full of laughing children and happy mothers who are watching them play. i can be standing in the middle of the train station, completely lost with not a clue where i'm going or how to get there, and then someone will strike up a conversation with me, and lo and behold, we are heading for the same place. i have learned so much about myself in this time: the things that are important to me, the things that aren't. i have seen some of the most beautiful natural scenes of my life, walked through amazing cities, learned to eat...interesting...foods, learned another language (still trying to, anyway), met friends i wasn't sure i'd ever see again, and even seen van fan in concert! i have fallen in love with taiwan and its people, its cultures and customs, its food, its mountains and beaches...the sunshine, the rain. i love this place, i love my life here, i love my job and my coworkers and my friends and my apartment~
i love that everything here is an adventure. i love that i often have no idea where i will end up when i get on the train. i love not always being sure what i'm going to be eating for dinner when i order it. i love being foreign. i love translating for tourists. (i love mocking tourists). i love that i am always exploring new places. i love that people are interested in my culture and language. i love hearing the phrase "what's your chinese name?" i love that in taiwan i only have to answer to myself. i love night markets. i love the shock on people's faces if i speak to them in chinese. i love depending only on myself while simultaneoulsy having to depend only on the kindess of strangers. i love that everything is fun. i love drinking zhen zhu nai cha (bubble tea) until i'm sick. i love that i appreciate things more when i'm here. i don't like constantly being stared at. i don't like being treated like i'm stupid because i'm foreign. i don't like having to be translated for. i don't like not knowing what i'm eating sometimes. i don't like frightening children because i'm white. i don't like not living within driving distance of my family. i don't like having to plan visits with my american friends. i don't like not being able to go salsa dancing every weekend! i hate having people ask me "do you want me to buy your train ticket for you" or "how can you do x or y thing" as if i am incapable of anything i try to do, as if being foreign somehow takes away any sense i used to have or may still have if i was in my home country. i hate being handed forks in restaurants because i'm white (everyone knows white people can't use chopsticks, right?)
i was kind of expecting to come to taiwan for the year i had signed up for and then go home and be done with it. actually i'm not sure what i was expecting to do, or what i was expecting to happen...but i don't think i ever expected to be losing sleep over the decision that i have to make now. when i think of going home in july, i get very excited. seeing my family and friends again, working in a high school, feeling "permanent," being able to be fully understood and understand fully when communicating, not being stared at (hopefully :), being able to eat the food i miss so much!, having my car back, and then of course banal little things like shopping at bath and body works, not getting disapproving stares when wearing flip flops in public, diversity, going to artistika with the usual crowd :), and just the feeling of "being home." however, when i think of staying in taiwan another year, i also get very excited. getting to learn even more chinese (hey, maybe i can even become literate ;), getting to travel more both within taiwan and outside, staying in my job, maybe buying a motorcycle (the only way anyone who's anyone travels here ;), learning more about this culture, seeing jay chou and boc in concert, perhaps?, meeting new people, etc.
i am literally standing at the proverbial fork in the road, and i am afraid of making the proverbial wrong decision. what if i leave taiwan and miss out on something amazing here? what if i decide to go home and i don't get a job? what exactly would it be that i was going home to, anyway? i have no idea how to be an adult in america! ah! i realised last week that taiwan is no longer a foreign country to me anymore. what does this mean? what's going to happen to me if i try to pop back up in america in july? what if i stay in taiwan and i miss out on something important in america? i feel like i am missing out on so many important things there. i feel so out of touch with my culture and kind of out of touch with myself. i mean, i of course have to be a different person when i'm in taiwan. i catch myself being quiet on trains, wearing a lot of khaki, and i don't sing or laugh nearly as much as i used to. this really bothers me. actually this bothers me a great deal. of course when rachel came here, we got carried away laughing at something which i'm sure was ridiculous and didn't deserve that amount of racous laughter, but, as i was wiping the tears out of my eyes and fighting back nausea because we had laughed so much, i realised that was the first time i had laughed until i cried, like rolling-on-my-floor-trying-not-to-puke laugh until i cry. for me, this is sad. its not because nothing funny ever happens here, because lord knows it does, but...its just a part of me that doesn't get to be shown here. actually its the part of myself that i like the most, its the part i depend on the most...it bothers me that i don't see it here. maybe that's my own fault...i'm not sure.
i know that coming to taiwan was the right decision, and i'm so glad i did it. i wouldn't change or trade a second of the time i've had here and can't wait to see what the next five months have in store. however, i wonder if i can keep going through life making slap decisions and just crossing my fingers that they turn out well. i figure that my luck will eventually run out, so its time i started trying to act like an adult and think things out and try to make an actual decision, with reasoning and stuff, instead of just choosing what sounds good at the time.
i think i already know the choice i'm going to make and the reasons why, but for some reason, i'm waiting for something to tell me to do the opposite. what does that mean? eh...
i have spent 7 1/2 months living in taiwan. i came here completely alone, scared out of my mind, more excited than i have ever been about anything, confused, and feeling the most extreme happiness and sadness i have ever felt. i was still trying to comprehend the fact that i had graduated university and that "life" was now starting; i wasn't allowed to run around screaming or wear pajamas in public or go to steak and shake at 3am anymore because i was now considered an adult. best way to circumnavigate these circumstances? move to taiwan, of course. i can now, looking back, admit that it was a slap decision to make, that i didn't at all think it through or completely realise what it was i was doing. maybe if i can even be adult enough to admit it to myself and everyone else, i came for the wrong reasons. those reasons don't matter anymore of course, they stopped mattering long ago~ i remember sitting on the plane from nyc to seoul and literally pinching myself to see if it was really me who was sitting on that plane, if it was really me who had made the decision, if it was really all happening. i remember my hands shaking so badly out of fear that i couldn't even write in my journal. i also remember turning on my ipod, looking out the window at the most beautiful sunrise i have ever seen and having a feeling of peace come over me unlike anything i've ever felt.
regardless of the reasons why i chose to leave america at all or to come to taiwan specifically, i am here now. admittedly, these past seven months have contained some of the worst times in my life. it isn't easy for me to admit when life isn't good for me. i don't know why, but i've always been this way. i don't like to tell people when things aren't 100% wonderful. there were times in my first few months here when i just sat in my house and cried because i was so confused, and homesick, and lonely and i felt so out of place here. i was constantly reminded (everytime i stepped out the door!) of how different i was from everyone here and how i couldn't speak chinese and everyone else could and how i was going to starve to death because i couldn't use chopsticks and i was going to die because it was 150 degrees, etc etc. then time kept bringing me so many horrible things: the death of my uncle, my dad getting sick, two deaths in the i-family, another death of a childhood friend...all these things are hard to deal with at any time and for any reason, but they are debilitatingly hard to deal with when you are a million miles away and feel so helpless and alone. i remember getting the news of my dad and heading up the steps in my apartment, opening up my closet, and beginning to pack my clothes to go home. i can't say exactly what it was that stopped me from actually pushing the "buy" button on the expedia page when i was looking at plane tickets home that night, but i eventually unpacked my bags took a deep breath. i was reminded of the first week i was here, when i met up with some friends from uncg in taipei and went to a night market one night. sitting on the steps of a temple with a friend, i remember my eyes filling up with tears as he told me that the best advice he could give me was just to "keep going, no matter what you're feeling." i felt that sense of calm again, and i knew that everything would turn out. i have felt some of the saddest sadnesses of my life in taiwan.
however! the past seven and a half months have been filled with some of the most incredible happinesses, some amounts of happiness that i wasn't even aware existed. when i look back at the girl who came here in july, she isn't the same one who is writing these things now. i have come so far. i have accomplished so much! i have met so many wonderful people here, and i will never be able to forget or repay the kindness i have been shown by everyone i have met. i am always amazed at the innerworkings of the world when i am in taiwan: i can wake up feeling like a giant sack of garbage, then walk outside to the sight of beautiful mountains and on my way to work, pass the park full of laughing children and happy mothers who are watching them play. i can be standing in the middle of the train station, completely lost with not a clue where i'm going or how to get there, and then someone will strike up a conversation with me, and lo and behold, we are heading for the same place. i have learned so much about myself in this time: the things that are important to me, the things that aren't. i have seen some of the most beautiful natural scenes of my life, walked through amazing cities, learned to eat...interesting...foods, learned another language (still trying to, anyway), met friends i wasn't sure i'd ever see again, and even seen van fan in concert! i have fallen in love with taiwan and its people, its cultures and customs, its food, its mountains and beaches...the sunshine, the rain. i love this place, i love my life here, i love my job and my coworkers and my friends and my apartment~
i love that everything here is an adventure. i love that i often have no idea where i will end up when i get on the train. i love not always being sure what i'm going to be eating for dinner when i order it. i love being foreign. i love translating for tourists. (i love mocking tourists). i love that i am always exploring new places. i love that people are interested in my culture and language. i love hearing the phrase "what's your chinese name?" i love that in taiwan i only have to answer to myself. i love night markets. i love the shock on people's faces if i speak to them in chinese. i love depending only on myself while simultaneoulsy having to depend only on the kindess of strangers. i love that everything is fun. i love drinking zhen zhu nai cha (bubble tea) until i'm sick. i love that i appreciate things more when i'm here. i don't like constantly being stared at. i don't like being treated like i'm stupid because i'm foreign. i don't like having to be translated for. i don't like not knowing what i'm eating sometimes. i don't like frightening children because i'm white. i don't like not living within driving distance of my family. i don't like having to plan visits with my american friends. i don't like not being able to go salsa dancing every weekend! i hate having people ask me "do you want me to buy your train ticket for you" or "how can you do x or y thing" as if i am incapable of anything i try to do, as if being foreign somehow takes away any sense i used to have or may still have if i was in my home country. i hate being handed forks in restaurants because i'm white (everyone knows white people can't use chopsticks, right?)
i was kind of expecting to come to taiwan for the year i had signed up for and then go home and be done with it. actually i'm not sure what i was expecting to do, or what i was expecting to happen...but i don't think i ever expected to be losing sleep over the decision that i have to make now. when i think of going home in july, i get very excited. seeing my family and friends again, working in a high school, feeling "permanent," being able to be fully understood and understand fully when communicating, not being stared at (hopefully :), being able to eat the food i miss so much!, having my car back, and then of course banal little things like shopping at bath and body works, not getting disapproving stares when wearing flip flops in public, diversity, going to artistika with the usual crowd :), and just the feeling of "being home." however, when i think of staying in taiwan another year, i also get very excited. getting to learn even more chinese (hey, maybe i can even become literate ;), getting to travel more both within taiwan and outside, staying in my job, maybe buying a motorcycle (the only way anyone who's anyone travels here ;), learning more about this culture, seeing jay chou and boc in concert, perhaps?, meeting new people, etc.
i am literally standing at the proverbial fork in the road, and i am afraid of making the proverbial wrong decision. what if i leave taiwan and miss out on something amazing here? what if i decide to go home and i don't get a job? what exactly would it be that i was going home to, anyway? i have no idea how to be an adult in america! ah! i realised last week that taiwan is no longer a foreign country to me anymore. what does this mean? what's going to happen to me if i try to pop back up in america in july? what if i stay in taiwan and i miss out on something important in america? i feel like i am missing out on so many important things there. i feel so out of touch with my culture and kind of out of touch with myself. i mean, i of course have to be a different person when i'm in taiwan. i catch myself being quiet on trains, wearing a lot of khaki, and i don't sing or laugh nearly as much as i used to. this really bothers me. actually this bothers me a great deal. of course when rachel came here, we got carried away laughing at something which i'm sure was ridiculous and didn't deserve that amount of racous laughter, but, as i was wiping the tears out of my eyes and fighting back nausea because we had laughed so much, i realised that was the first time i had laughed until i cried, like rolling-on-my-floor-trying-not-to-puke laugh until i cry. for me, this is sad. its not because nothing funny ever happens here, because lord knows it does, but...its just a part of me that doesn't get to be shown here. actually its the part of myself that i like the most, its the part i depend on the most...it bothers me that i don't see it here. maybe that's my own fault...i'm not sure.
i know that coming to taiwan was the right decision, and i'm so glad i did it. i wouldn't change or trade a second of the time i've had here and can't wait to see what the next five months have in store. however, i wonder if i can keep going through life making slap decisions and just crossing my fingers that they turn out well. i figure that my luck will eventually run out, so its time i started trying to act like an adult and think things out and try to make an actual decision, with reasoning and stuff, instead of just choosing what sounds good at the time.
i think i already know the choice i'm going to make and the reasons why, but for some reason, i'm waiting for something to tell me to do the opposite. what does that mean? eh...
Sunday, February 21, 2010
i am writing now from a very strange place. not a physical location of course, i am still sitting in my couch in my apartment...but emotionally.
the past week was amazing! it was chinese new year and rachel was here to visit! much madness ensued of course...a bunch of americans trapsing around taiwan together always causes madness ;) especially when they have the sense of humour of 12 year old boys and love to speak in ridiculous british accents, quoting eddie izzard as loudly as possible on the train. i won't even attempt to explain the whole trip, but suffice it to say that walking around sun moon lake like mary and joseph looking for a place to stay, almost getting flung out of a bus, speaking very hilarious chinese, chasing trains, and swimming everywhere because it was so rainy are only the tips of the iceberg. IT WAS INSANE :) in a very good way! pics to follow very soon :)
however, i cannot even put into words what i feel now its over. first of all, i still cannot believe that we are old enough to fly across the world, to each other's own houses that we are paying for with our own money by ourselves. i remember the days of having to beg my parent's to drive me to boiling springs on friday nights so i could go to the huge posse sleepovers we used to have at rachel's house, and then her parents taking us to eat somewhere, having to be quiet, etc. now i am the one making the rules and calling the shots...so that was very weird. also, it was very weird to meet a friend from america in taiwan. i haven't eaten that much american food or spoken that kind of english since i've been here. today, when i took her back to the airport, i realised that i do in fact live here. i was sending her back to america. that was about the most surreal feeling i have ever felt. sending someone "home" to america and i am still here. in my home, taiwan. WHAT. after she left i just literally stood there for a few minutes, trying to figure out what was going on~ if all that had really just happened and where was i and wait, how was i going to get home? etc.
living in taiwan on my own has really taught me a lot- i have to rely on myself to do anything, and i have also really learned to depend on and trust the kindness of others. to be honest, half the time i have no idea what the heck i'm doing- i am just pretending to. that works suprisingly well most of the time. but there are times- like today when i was standing in the middle of the airport like a huge moron trying to figure out what the heck to do- when i wonder how i ever accomplish anything. spending this week with rachel has also revealed to me how much i have adapted to and fallen in love with life in taiwan. it was very bizarre to be the tour guide/translator, and to proudly show off the food, and landmarks, and tell the backstory to everything. i felt so happy when explaining this and that about hsinchu city, and so proud when explaining about taipei 101. things are so easy for me now here...and i have come to really love the life and the people and the culture and the food and hey, sometimes even the weather.
however, march 19 is coming faster and faster...i have to decide on that date about my contract for next year: to stay or go. this is the hardest decision i have ever been faced with, and i am literally split right down the middle and losing sleep over it. i am so so afraid of making the wrong decision. i am so afraid that life is going to get boring and that i'm going to have to be a boring grown-up who just goes to work and comes home everyday. i am horrified of this. in taiwan everything, even something as mundane and banal as going to buy the week's provisions, is an adventure. i am completely on my own here, completely self-sufficient. i can come and go as i please. i am the only one i have to answer to. i call my own shots. i love travelling to new places and meeting new people and living life in a way that i'm not used to...but that also goes both ways. sometimes its so frustrating to not be fully understood no matter what language you are speaking, sometimes i just want a fork and some tea with sugar in it, i want to turn on the tv and be able to understand all of it (or watch tv land!), i want to see my family and friends, I WANT TO GO SALSA DANCING SO BAD I CAN'T STAND IT...i mean for every reason i can think to stay, i can think of one to go. i have no idea where my life is headed and this is also scary.
bah, i hate being "grown up." maybe i don't know where i'm going because i don't know where i want to go: "when a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind." ~seneca
the past week was amazing! it was chinese new year and rachel was here to visit! much madness ensued of course...a bunch of americans trapsing around taiwan together always causes madness ;) especially when they have the sense of humour of 12 year old boys and love to speak in ridiculous british accents, quoting eddie izzard as loudly as possible on the train. i won't even attempt to explain the whole trip, but suffice it to say that walking around sun moon lake like mary and joseph looking for a place to stay, almost getting flung out of a bus, speaking very hilarious chinese, chasing trains, and swimming everywhere because it was so rainy are only the tips of the iceberg. IT WAS INSANE :) in a very good way! pics to follow very soon :)
however, i cannot even put into words what i feel now its over. first of all, i still cannot believe that we are old enough to fly across the world, to each other's own houses that we are paying for with our own money by ourselves. i remember the days of having to beg my parent's to drive me to boiling springs on friday nights so i could go to the huge posse sleepovers we used to have at rachel's house, and then her parents taking us to eat somewhere, having to be quiet, etc. now i am the one making the rules and calling the shots...so that was very weird. also, it was very weird to meet a friend from america in taiwan. i haven't eaten that much american food or spoken that kind of english since i've been here. today, when i took her back to the airport, i realised that i do in fact live here. i was sending her back to america. that was about the most surreal feeling i have ever felt. sending someone "home" to america and i am still here. in my home, taiwan. WHAT. after she left i just literally stood there for a few minutes, trying to figure out what was going on~ if all that had really just happened and where was i and wait, how was i going to get home? etc.
living in taiwan on my own has really taught me a lot- i have to rely on myself to do anything, and i have also really learned to depend on and trust the kindness of others. to be honest, half the time i have no idea what the heck i'm doing- i am just pretending to. that works suprisingly well most of the time. but there are times- like today when i was standing in the middle of the airport like a huge moron trying to figure out what the heck to do- when i wonder how i ever accomplish anything. spending this week with rachel has also revealed to me how much i have adapted to and fallen in love with life in taiwan. it was very bizarre to be the tour guide/translator, and to proudly show off the food, and landmarks, and tell the backstory to everything. i felt so happy when explaining this and that about hsinchu city, and so proud when explaining about taipei 101. things are so easy for me now here...and i have come to really love the life and the people and the culture and the food and hey, sometimes even the weather.
however, march 19 is coming faster and faster...i have to decide on that date about my contract for next year: to stay or go. this is the hardest decision i have ever been faced with, and i am literally split right down the middle and losing sleep over it. i am so so afraid of making the wrong decision. i am so afraid that life is going to get boring and that i'm going to have to be a boring grown-up who just goes to work and comes home everyday. i am horrified of this. in taiwan everything, even something as mundane and banal as going to buy the week's provisions, is an adventure. i am completely on my own here, completely self-sufficient. i can come and go as i please. i am the only one i have to answer to. i call my own shots. i love travelling to new places and meeting new people and living life in a way that i'm not used to...but that also goes both ways. sometimes its so frustrating to not be fully understood no matter what language you are speaking, sometimes i just want a fork and some tea with sugar in it, i want to turn on the tv and be able to understand all of it (or watch tv land!), i want to see my family and friends, I WANT TO GO SALSA DANCING SO BAD I CAN'T STAND IT...i mean for every reason i can think to stay, i can think of one to go. i have no idea where my life is headed and this is also scary.
bah, i hate being "grown up." maybe i don't know where i'm going because i don't know where i want to go: "when a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind." ~seneca
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
南雅海岸
my thigh muscles are still throbbing from hiking in nanya, and i am currently washing my clothes from the second time trying to get all the mud out. also, only 9 of my toes are currently in working condition as i crashed one walking down the mountain! but! it was an awesome weekend :)
mmmmmmm....night market dinner!
in english, these are called "nanya's peculiar rocks" haha
i met the girls in keelung and we went to our old standby hotel; the lady even gave us the same room we had last time. however, we have super bad luck...everytime we go to keelung, its sopping wet rain :( so we hung out in the city saturday night and of course went to the night market to stuff ourselves full of all the food we could find. one of my most favourite things about taiwan is going to the night market and stopping in every stand, eating everything i can get my hands on (everything that isn't still swimming, that is). the next day we headed off to nanya...which was quite the adventure~ i'm pretty sure we are the only foreigners who have EVER set foot on this place, and all the villagers were super confused as to why we were there and what we were doing...but we hiked anyway :) and despite my allergies going mad at the top and ripping my toe off on the way down AND not being able to see anything from the top because of the fog, it was an excellent hike!!
mmmmmmm....night market dinner!
in english, these are called "nanya's peculiar rocks" haha
Friday, February 5, 2010
chinese new year = one week. O-M-G. words cannot express my excitment: spending chinese new year in a chinese country, SEEING RACHEL!, getting a suitcase full of american provisions delivered, a vacation!!!, finally making it to the east of taiwan, seeing david and jeremy, playing translator/tour guide...its going to be an excellent week, one for the books i'm sure. ;)
tonight in the kindy, i was teaching animals vocabulary. i showed a picture of a bird, and this kid shouts of "TEACHER! BIRD OF PARADISE!" i was cracking up so hard that i almost didn't see him point to all the other animals and shout "monkey of paradise! pig of paradise! spider of paradise!" oh~ where do they come up with this stuff...
thanks to rachel's impending visit, i have cleaned my house from literally top to bottom. i swept the upstairs today for the first time in about 3 months (i know, i know...). for anyone who knows me well or has ever been my roommate/housemate, you know that i am a slob and completely messy and not at all domestic. so for the occasion, i bought a broom and -gasp- used it. i mopped, dusted...don't worry, this domesticity isn't permanent and i intend to go right back to my slovenly ways after chinese new year...but i figured my houseguests were getting sick of having to put on hazmat suits when entering into the american abyss that was my apartment.......
........but i'm sure i'll make a horrid excuse for a housewife.
ps-
"i have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. they are strangers at their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. they may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever knows. perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. here at last he finds rest."-- w. somerset maugham
tonight in the kindy, i was teaching animals vocabulary. i showed a picture of a bird, and this kid shouts of "TEACHER! BIRD OF PARADISE!" i was cracking up so hard that i almost didn't see him point to all the other animals and shout "monkey of paradise! pig of paradise! spider of paradise!" oh~ where do they come up with this stuff...
thanks to rachel's impending visit, i have cleaned my house from literally top to bottom. i swept the upstairs today for the first time in about 3 months (i know, i know...). for anyone who knows me well or has ever been my roommate/housemate, you know that i am a slob and completely messy and not at all domestic. so for the occasion, i bought a broom and -gasp- used it. i mopped, dusted...don't worry, this domesticity isn't permanent and i intend to go right back to my slovenly ways after chinese new year...but i figured my houseguests were getting sick of having to put on hazmat suits when entering into the american abyss that was my apartment.......
........but i'm sure i'll make a horrid excuse for a housewife.
ps-
"i have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. they are strangers at their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. they may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever knows. perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. here at last he finds rest."-- w. somerset maugham
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
i am not a trained elementary school teacher, so one of the things i love most about my job is being with kids all day and watching them do funny things. its very strange too, because i think teaching at the elementary level is really helping prepare me to go back to america (someday, maybe...) to the high school level. i know that doesn't make any sense, but i really feel like i'm finally learning how to be a teacher. today, we were doing a writing activity. of course someone finishes every two minutes so i hear a constant chorus of teacher, teacher, i'm finished!!! and someone tugging at my shirt to show me something. i love when they file into the classroom, one by one, commenting on my earrings or saying teacher is pretty and giving me candy or having me choose a keychain out of a box: teacher, you can only have ONE! it is amazing to me how accepting and loving they are to me. i am a foreigner in their country, and they don't seem to mind or even notice. i love the hearts of children, and how they can see past all the things that are bad about a person and love them anyway. i struggle to understand their language and they struggle to understand mine, but we can still talk to each other, laugh, and learn things. everyday when i come in the classroom, they run to hug me and shout hello teacher! and when i leave, i hear a happy chorus of see you next time, teacher! i often wish that everyone could still look at the world the way children do. my kindy kids are the youngest, and the ones who don't really learn english, just use it. however, i feel like i am really making progress with them when they speak to me in english, or see a letter in a book and tell me what it is, or even say hello. they are so young...its amazing their progress! when teaching esl, it is very easy to see the progress your students are making. when these groups came to me in july, oh...those were difficult days. i was often met with dead silence and blank stares (sometimes tears)...but we have come so far! i love feeling like i am accomplishing things and finally doing what i was meant to do with my life.
and by the way, we are in single digit day countdown til chinese new year. only 9 days! 加油加油加油! its almost here!
and by the way, we are in single digit day countdown til chinese new year. only 9 days! 加油加油加油! its almost here!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
i'm so tired.
i am finally back in the land of the living and able to eat real food in amounts that will actually keep me alive and not puke, yay. SO i ate hot pot not once but twice this weekend, and had a meal of some of the best thai food i've ever eaten :) at the second hot pot of the weekend, my dinner was a HUGE plate of alligator meat which i am happy to report was actually so good that i will choose it of my own free will next time ;) i met my friends jayson and milliya sunday night and we watched sherlock holmes (such a good filmmmmmmmm, really made me miss london!) and rode motorcycles...oh my life, i love riding motorcycles so much.
i would like to beg you...as well as i can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
-rainer maria rilke
letters to a young poet
i am finally back in the land of the living and able to eat real food in amounts that will actually keep me alive and not puke, yay. SO i ate hot pot not once but twice this weekend, and had a meal of some of the best thai food i've ever eaten :) at the second hot pot of the weekend, my dinner was a HUGE plate of alligator meat which i am happy to report was actually so good that i will choose it of my own free will next time ;) i met my friends jayson and milliya sunday night and we watched sherlock holmes (such a good filmmmmmmmm, really made me miss london!) and rode motorcycles...oh my life, i love riding motorcycles so much.
i would like to beg you...as well as i can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
-rainer maria rilke
letters to a young poet
die geschichte des meines leben
hier und da komm ich auf die idee
ein andern weg zu gehen
mal verspielt und mal gefasst
manchmal macht mir der nase nach
einfach das unbeholfne spaß
beweg mich gerne mal im kreis
doch jeder noch so kleine teich,
sollte verbunden sein zum meer
immer wenn ich was neues ausprobier
lauf ich wie barfuß über glas
doch ich fühl mich federleicht
weil es sich fast immer lohnt
und so erscheint das nichts so bleibt, wie es ist
fast schon, wie gewohnt
wenn mich das neue dann berührt
tanz ich zuerst für mich allein
dann mach ich all die ander'n wach
doch immer wenn was neu beginnt
sagt auch etwas in mir das wars
doch ich fühl mich federleicht
weil es sich fast immer lohnt
und so erscheint das nichts so bleibt wie es ist
fast schon wie gewohnt
(danke schön, clueso)
ein andern weg zu gehen
mal verspielt und mal gefasst
manchmal macht mir der nase nach
einfach das unbeholfne spaß
beweg mich gerne mal im kreis
doch jeder noch so kleine teich,
sollte verbunden sein zum meer
immer wenn ich was neues ausprobier
lauf ich wie barfuß über glas
doch ich fühl mich federleicht
weil es sich fast immer lohnt
und so erscheint das nichts so bleibt, wie es ist
fast schon, wie gewohnt
wenn mich das neue dann berührt
tanz ich zuerst für mich allein
dann mach ich all die ander'n wach
doch immer wenn was neu beginnt
sagt auch etwas in mir das wars
doch ich fühl mich federleicht
weil es sich fast immer lohnt
und so erscheint das nichts so bleibt wie es ist
fast schon wie gewohnt
(danke schön, clueso)
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