Looking back

Well, I'm still fighting off the last remnants of the Death Flu, but things are getting better. I finally got some antibiotics yesterday, and can keep food down for the first time in a week. Things ought to be truly back to normal in another week or so, I'm guessing. It would be sooner than that if it weren't for my school's aforementioned habit of keeping the windows and doors open all the time when it can't be more than 10 degrees (low 50s in Farenheit) outside! But I'm getting there.

So, with New Year's Eve suddenly upon us, what do you have to say about 2004? What were the good and bad points of the year?

I'll start. By just about any measure, 2004 was the best year I've had in quite a while. Here's why...
THE GOOD
After two years, I finally escaped from a nightmarish work situation and from increasingly stifling DC.
I realized a dream I'd had for years of working overseas, and have loved nearly every minute of it.
However accidentally, that escape coincided with the election of a bunch of thugs back home whose rule I'd prefer not to live under anyway. (Anyone who is thinking of criticizing me for running away from my country when it needs me - come back when you have spent the better part of a decade working for progressive causes, usually at a much lower salary than you could otherwise have expected to make! I did my part, and I've earned the right to try something new - especially something where my efforts are rewarded instead of ignored and abused.)
I've had my loved one here with me since August, after a year and a half of living thousands of miles apart.
I got all the help I needed with my grad school applications, and got a lucky break or two on things like the GRE scores.
Thanks to a variety of circumstances over here, I lost that weight I'd been trying to get rid of for a few years.

THE BAD
I do miss central heating at a time like this!
Applying to schools is demoralizing by nature, and I had hoped last time that I was done with that part of my life.
If the back-to-school plans don't work out, finding a job back home won't be any easier next year.
The elections really were a disaster from where I stand.

So, on balance, it's been a great year. Here's hoping it keeps up in '05! Everyone feel free to add your own good and bad in the comments.

...And the cabin turned castle till the breaking of dawn

No matter how crummy the weather is, sometimes a cup of hot chocolate and a good book are all you really need.
It's too bad that Tuesday still has to come around and my mind has to return to Longtan from that cabin in the pines somewhere - but hey, it's just for now. Someday I will.

We're okay!

I just heard about the earthquake. It didn't hit anywhere near Taiwan. All's well here!

12/26 Blues

And so that was Christmas.

It was a pretty good one. My illness was mostly past, enabling me to eat substantially for the first time in three days. Always a good thing, that. I taught one class in the morning (it's not an official holiday here, after all) and then Trina and I were off to Taipei for the afternoon. A pleasant few hours were spent in the bookstore, then after a pleasant dinner we caught the bus home. A low-key Christmas, but a nice one.

I'm not feeling so cheery today. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because my illness is still only mostly past, although I do feel a heck of a lot better than last week. Maybe it's the chilly, drizzly weather or the Taiwanese's maddening tendency to pretend their semi-tropical weather is fully tropical by leaving all the windows open even when it's cold. Maybe it's that post-Christmas realization that yet another year has gone by. It was a very, very good year for me in most respects, so I know I shouldn't complain, but still. Another year. When did I grow up, anyway?

I'll be fine in a day or two. Happy new year!

I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell

It's a real pain in the neck trying to teach the word "an" with a stuffy nose, let me tell you!
I'm riding out the storm on what was either the flu or the worst cold I've ever had, and will be back with more stories of the Christmas season in Taiwan when I'm feeling less groggy and more alert!

I AM a feminist, but...

What is the big idea with the men's rooms at Taipei 101 always having a cleaning lady poking around while we're expected to be, er, using the facilities? Yeah, I know the threat to our physical safety is infantessimal compared to the other way around, but that ain't the only reason why we have separate bathrooms for men and women. It's also a matter of privacy and boundaries, folks.

It's funny, though. For a society that has a reputation for being far more reserved than the West, certain taboos aren't really taboo here. I guess this is one of them, like it or not.

This year's Scrooge Moment

I'm feeling more eloquent - and longwinded - than yesterday. You've been warned!

I don't really know why Scrooge Moments happen, but nearly every Christmas season, they do.

I can recall them as far back as junior high, when I was still young enough to be a sucker for the feel-good Christmas specials on TV and such. That glowy well-being you got from watching them would only last until the next morning at school, when I'd run head on into the bullies on both sides of the teacher's desk! (It's embarrassing to admit now that I'm a teacher and a would-be PhD candidate, but I didn't like school much at all until about halfway through high school, and my grades tended to reflect as much until then. Sorry, Mom!) Once I got my fair share of real-life abuse, all the warm fuzzies of the holidays just made it seem worse rather than better.

Later on my grades and my attitude got better, but Christmas didn't. I vividly recall the holidays when I was a high school senior, feeling lonely and isolated even though I had quite a few friends at the time and wishing someone would say it was okay to feel that way just then. But it wasn't to be found! Everywhere I looked, nothing but platitudes about friends and family and peace and joy - there's nothing worse than celebrating togetherness when you're not "together" with anyone. I finally found some satisfaction that year, though, from an Ann Landers column reminding people that the Hallmark moments you see on TV are fiction and no one's Christmas is really that heartwarming. It was Ann's finest hour, and almost enough to get me to forgive her for that anti-suicide column she published, which ended with an inspiring encouragement to "remember, the sun also rises." No, I'm not joking. You can't make that stuff up.

And about the Hallmark commercials and others like them. They were and are to blame too. It's easy enough to remember that they're fiction and no one's homefires are quite that bright and cheery, but then it's even easier to fall into the trap of "maybe no one's home situation is that nice, but no one's is as chilly or uncomfortable as mine is either!" Most of us are wrong to think that way, of course, but the constant bombardment with "heartwarming" images from Thanksgiving to New Years makes it awfully hard to keep that much perspective.

Happily, of course, something has nearly always happened to pull me out of my annual Scrooge Moment after not too long. Record hunting with Bernie back in high school and being greeted at the store door by our favorite dealer with his latest Beatles 45s...coming home from Arby's at 1:00 in the morning and listening to the Jimmy Buffett box set (a purchase that literally changed my life a decade later!) for the very first time...a lazy afternoon in Allison's room after finals week '93 with the freezing rain falling outside and us cozy inside, chatting about her family and my dating fiascoes (of which she soon became the biggest of all time, but at least I got one wonderful memory out of the deal)...imbibing with John Z. at a townie bar after helping him move into his new apartment just before I flew home for my last Christmas in college...arriving for dinner at the student house after the long walk home from work during my first December in DC, when I was sometimes too broke to ride the subway home...Christmas teas in the same house with the trustees after I got back on my feet...relaxing on my own with my records and comic strip books after finishing that last paper...like it or not, the joy has usually worked its way back in sooner or later whether I wanted it to or not.

So just what is a Scrooge Moment? The name is really pretty self-explanatory. It's a moment when I just want to shut myself in my room and fall asleep until two weeks or so after Christmas and never have to think about Glad Tidings and Cups of Cheer again. This year, it came yesterday at our kindy planning meeting. Between three extra classes this week and being acting head teacher while the real one is out of town and having to write a five-minute Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer skit for next week's Christmas show and trying to teach all my kids the words to various carols when they want nothing to do with it and getting over a cold and having to run home and pay the rent, I really, really did not need to find out that it was also the day we were supposed to give our first secret-Santa gifts to our assigned "partners." I hadn't signed up to be a secret Santa (no one had; the entire staff was required to participate), I wouldn't have done so if I'd had a choice since I'm never very good at these things and have so much else on my mind, and I was just truly peeved that I'd let the ball drop just like I knew I would! It was noon and I hadn't bought anything. I just about announced to all assembled at the meeting that my recipient could take a flying leap and take the collective Christmas Spirit with her - but having the branch manager sitting next to you is a pretty big incentive to mind your tongue.

And then I found my gift.

It wasn't much, just a snack pack of cookies like you can buy in any 7-11, but my mystery angel left a note with it. "Dear Dave, you look so cute with your glasses. Have a nice dream! Your Angel."

Awwww.

It's funny, I've thought glasses were sexy on women (and girls before them) for about as long as I've been aware of them at all, but it never occurred to me that I wasn't the only one. You learn something new every day. So when I read that, all my bitterness vanished. And I remembered that on that trip home to pay the rent, I would pass a stationery store that sold all sorts of cheap accessories that are great for teachers. I picked up a couple of inkstamps with encouraging words on them for her to use on her kids' homework - my kids love them. And gee, somehow I managed to get everything else done as well. Except the Rudolph play, but I have until next Saturday for that.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a great weekend!

Christmas in the sunshine

Last Friday, I had a six-hour break between classes, and managed to sneak off to Chung Li for an afternoon sipping and reading at Starbucks. Between the peppermint latte, the cloudy weather and the Christmas music in the dimly lit coffee shop, it almost felt like home. I'm glad I managed to get that afternoon in, because the rest of December will be very busy except for Sundays.

In any case, this will be my warmest Christmas yet by far. I must say it is nice needing no more than a light jacket (and sometimes not even that) in December, and I'm not too upset about missing the worst of the commericalism back home. There is some of that here too, of course, but Asia being Asia, the kitch is present to varying degrees year round anyhow.

Hmm, I'd set out to make this post quite a bit more profound, but that's all I can think of to say just now. Maybe tomorrow.

Tell me again why health care is a losing issue for progressives?

I had a pretty bad cold over the weekend. It's an occupational hazard of spending so much time around children. I was concerned about losing my voice - doing my job is literally impossible without it, and we have no sick leave at my school - so I went to the doctor this afternoon.

I hadn't made an appointment, and I wasn't even able to communicate verbally with anyone in the office except the doctor himself. (Most doctors in Taiwan speak English. There's some kind of requirement that they study in an English-speaking country at some point.) I showed my health-care card at the front desk, paid my fee, saw the doctor, got my prescription, and had it filled at the pharmacy across the street.

Without an appointment, the whole procedure took ten minutes and cost about $4 US.

I truly hope there's a special place in Hell for the DC insurance lobby.

Someday Finally Comes

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I can usually stay pretty well up to date on what's what in music, as in politics and other things that interest me. But the very big news of John Fogerty's new CD had somehow eluded me until I picked up a copy in Taoyuen yesterday.

And let's not underestimate what a major event this really is. In 32 years since the demise of CCR, this is only his seventh* album - and the other six include one all-covers collection and one live set consisting mostly of old Creedence songs. So another CD of all-new songs is really something else. Besides, given what's in the news these days, it's no time for the genius behind "Fortunate Son" and "Who'll Stop the Rain" to be silent. Sure enough, the title track to "Deja Vu All Over Again" is all about the war and how depressingly predictable it's been.

I got home late last night and only had time to listen to it once, and my preliminary feeling is that it's not quite up to the level of his best. But it's a nice surprise all the same, and sometimes the great records do take a while to grow on you. Thanks, John, and God bless!


*Excluding the Hoodoo album, which has never been released legitimately and all but certainly never will be. Bootlegs abound, but I've heard it isn't very good.

Never give up!

When I was a kid, tomatoes were high on the list of foods I hated. I still don't like them much, but I do eat them if they come with something I order. They're good for you and all.

Sometimes our morning snack for the kindy kids includes cherry tomatoes. Some of the kids love them, but quite a few are more like I was at their age. One of the boys is particularly firm about it all - a few weeks ago, I persuaded him to eat his tomato, and doing so made him cry. So I was less forceful with him this morning when it was once again Tomato Day, but I did put one on his plate and encourage him - gently! - to eat it.

He got as far as putting it in his mouth, but wouldn't bite on it. He just kept it between his cheek and teeth for the rest of snack time. Oh well, I figured, sooner or later he'd eat it just to get it over with. Or at worst, he'd spit it out.

Two hours later, we were getting the kids ready for lunch. I shepherded them all into the bathroom to wash their hands. As Oliver was on his way back out to the classroom, I noticed he still had that bulge in his mouth.

"Do you still have that tomato?!"

He grinned and opened his mouth. The peel was still intact!

I think he finally got it down along with his lunch, but it's hard to tell for sure. He proved to be pretty good at hiding it!

My turn to write a recommendation

If any of my dozen-or-so readers are also in or near Taipei, allow me to put in a plug for Jake's Country Kitchen in Tien Mou. They're a breakfast-all-day place (always a big plus with me) whose breakfasts actually resemble something you could get at a roadside diner in America. (Everybody and their brother sells waffles in Taiwan, but good ones are a rarity.) Their other specialty is Mexican food, and I discovered last night that they also do that very well. They are a bit expensive, but in light of the logistics involved in getting all the necessary ingredients here, I can accept that. We were even treated to our first blast of top-40 style Christmas music, piped in on the Internet from a station in Hawaii.

I hate to admit it, but I have been getting a bit tired of the fairly limited food choices we have in Longtan lately. (I'm not alone: a colleague of mine went to London for a weekend recently - and came back raving about how wonderful the food was. In London. Isn't that sad?) A taste of home last night was most welcome!

Now what will I do with my free time?

Ten minutes ago, I mailed off my ninth and final grad school application. (I started eleven applications and considered three or four other schools seriously as well. But Michigan's draconian applications process turned me off, Harvard didn't have much going for it beyond the name in my field of interest, and I preferred to keep the number under ten anyhow.) So after two months of devoting nearly all my free time between classes to filling out online forms and trying to keep track of various paper items to send all over America and Europe, it's all over except for a few odds and ends (such as sending off GRE scores) which will take about five minutes each.
It's a relief, but also a bit frustrating to think there's nothing more I can do now except wait and hope for the best. And maybe enjoy a free afternoon now and then!
As for where I applied to, all will be shared once I find out where I get in. I don't want to jinx anything by commenting publicly before then!

Lost in Translation Part X

Even halfway around the world, there's nothing like that first Starbucks Peppermint Latte of the season! I so indulged yesterday, along with a number of colleagues both Western and local.

Since we were all speaking English, including the woman behind the counter, one of my Taiwanese fellow teachers made a casual request in English. "Please give me some sugar," she said to the clerk.

Trina was kind enough to explain to her what that phrase usually means if you say it to anyone other than a coffee salesperson.

Another theory blown to bits

Five years ago, my then-girlfriend and I had a mix tape which spent most of the summer in my car, as did the both of us. One of the songs on the tape was Joni Mitchell's "Carey." Insightful as we were, we both thought the song was about bondage because of the refrain: "Carey get out your cane/I'll put on some silk." How very racy for 1971, y'know?

I lost the tape along with Sarah, but I finally got around to buying Blue in Singapore this past summer. (How that masterpiece avoided finding its way into my collection for so long is a good question, but never mind...) Last weekend, I happened to read the lyric sheets for the first time. And she's really saying "I'll put on some silver." Grrr.

For what it's worth, here is an interesting page about the story behind the song. Apparently the Mermaid Cafe was real, but a picture is lacking.

You can STILL mess with that mouse in Orlando

Need a great way to waste a Saturday afternoon on the Internet? Have a look at this site for All Things Disney. Yeah, yeah, I know they're an evil greedy multimedia empire and ol' Walt wasn't a totally savory character. But you know all those movies you saw on TV once when you were a kid and think no one else remembers? They're all here!

I just went surfing because one of my kindy girls has a shirt with Marie from The Aristocats on it, which got me thinking about how much I loved that movie and how little I can remember about it now. (Oh yeah, and a couple of weeks ago, Trina and I rented You've Got Mail (don't bother if you haven't already), which features a snippet of "Never Smile At a Crocodile" which hasn't stopped replaying in my head since then - how could I have forgotten so completely about that song?! Oh yeah, and every now and then Trina mentions that we should try to find a video of Song of the South as long as we live in a country where it isn't banned. See what I mean? This stuff is everywhere in our lives!) Next thing I know, it's been two hours and vaguely familiar titles (remember The Cat From Outer Space?) are still jumping out at me!

It's a good thing for my credit card balance that I don't have a region 1 DVD player handy.

Singing for our supper

A funny thing often happens when I get in a taxi over here. The drivers don't usually know much English, but they always seem to have a pre-set button on their radios set to an English-language station. (I'm not sure if there's more than one of those or not, since I stick to CDs in my own apartment.) And when a white guy gets in the cab, they always put that station on. I appreciate the gesture, but that station tends to play very old, square-the-minute-they-were-released easy listening songs that so many people love to hate. They are, however, pretty easy to sing, which leads to a certain impromptu karaoke effect. I've actually gotten pretty good at Engelbert Humperdinck's "A Man Without Love," which is really very cathartic to sing. (Think of all the big climaxes in the refrain - "Every day I wake up, then I start to break up," etc.)

I'd had that thought several times before last Saturday night, when Trina and I hailed a cab home from Chung Li. It was about a twenty minute ride. And the driver had a karaoke machine on his passenger seat.

He handed us back the microphones without really explaining what they were for - he probably didn't have enough English to do so, although he was able to speak a little. It was left to us to figure it out, which of course was pretty easy to do when he hit the play button on the video monitor on the dashboard. There was the classic serene clip of an anonymous but attractive woman wandering around the grounds of some vacation spot to the tune of Jacko's "You Are Not Alone," with the lyrics rolling by below.

Well, we did need to keep him happy if we wanted to get home.

The ride lasted about five songs, each one worse than the last and all of them making me wish he'd just switch to that cheesy easy listening station - heck, I'd gladly have sung along with those songs at that point. But, like so many such things, it was kind of fun. And the driver seemed to get a kick out of it too. Hey, why not humor the guy, right?

I did have it in the back of my mind that he might take an NT or two off the fare if we sang for him. He didn't, but at least we got a funny memory out of the whole thing. And with the driver's apparent taste in music, he probably didn't know that we couldn't sing anyhow.

...and in English we call it an "artery clogger"

I never really put too much stock in the idea that field trips were supposed to be educational. Sure, they were usually (though not always) to places where you could learn something. My fifth grade trip to Old Sturbridge Village is still a fine memory, for example. But mostly, we kids always just looked at it as an excuse to get out of school for a day.

Besides, last week's new vocab words were mostly different types of junk food (French fries, chocolate, soda, etc.). So I wasn't too upset about our kindy field trip to McDonalds this morning.

Nutrition sensibilities aside, it was kind of fun. Seeing behind the counter and in the kitchen took me back to my Arby's days (and once again made me grateful for that summer of '92 slinging curly fries, which was more than enough to convince me not to drop out of college after all). Even the smell was pretty similar, for better or worse. The French fry thawer was new to me, and fun to watch for a minute or two. And the kids did pick up a few of the items whose names I'd taught them in English.

And of course, the kids loved it. The eating area of this McD's is two floors (as is the case with almost all of them in Taiwan for some reason), so after each batch of kids had had the tour, we shepherded them upstairs to play on the mini indoor playground while the others had their turn in the kitchen.

When it was all over, they brought up a big tray of fries for the kids to eat. I happened to be washing my hands in the bathroom when that happened, and I came out to find all the girls munching happily while the boys sat at another table looking like they were at a funeral. My co-teacher explained that "the boys don't eat. Because they fight." In what is becoming a second nature reaction, I immediately looked around for Chris, my one boy who can always be counted on to behave himself. Before I could ask, my co-teacher figured out who I was looking for and laughed. "Chris is here. He was good." Sure enough, there he was, amidst the girls and looking pretty happy about it.

Guess who Chris reminds me of? I hope he doesn't stay shy around girls as long as I did.

I wonder if the folks at CNN know that there are McDonalds in Iowa too?

We have running water in Iowa, too

I really do find it sad that things have gotten to the point where what John Kerry ordered for breakfast two years ago makes the news, and that a reporter would be dumb enough to find Deep Meaning in it all. But it is a good thing that somebody is finally holding people like Candy Crowley accountable for stuff like this.

And about the Blue State-Red State thing, yes, there is something to it. Here is a thoughtful entry from another former Iowan about the realities and nuances of the whole thing. However, the differences are nowhere near as dramatic as Candy Crowley or most others like her seem to think, and, frankly, their attitude is really pretty condescending. You don't need to have been reared in Old World blueblood surroundings to know what green tea is. The very idea suggests that they think all Red Staters are the stereotypical guy kicking back on his dilapidated couch watching the Super Bowl with a cheeseburger in one hand and a gun in the other, and he's probably planning on using that gun on the first Democrat he sees. To be fair, there are indeed some people like that, and the Republicans do a great job of appealing to them, but this whole "The East Coast hates you 'cause you're real Americans" thing is insulting to both sides of the divide. Of course, I tend to believe anyone who falls for that tripe deserves to be condescended to.

By the way, the five states (+DC) I have lived in run the gamut from solid Red (Virginia, although I lived in the most liberal part of the state) to solid Blue (Connecticut and DC). And if you look hard enough, you can find rednecks in any of them. I also have it on good authority that you can get green tea without much trouble in Montana.

Dear Santa...

Well, I only really wanted two things this year. I got one of them back in August and just missed getting the other on Election Day, but if my blog has brought such sunshine into your life that you feel you just have to give something back, my Amazon wish list is now up to date. No pressure, of course. Hey, why have a wish list if no one even knows it's there?

Where everybody knows your name

We had sort of a mini staff retreat on Saturday, where the native English teachers treated our kindy HRTs (homeroom teachers) to dinner at Friday's. (Yes, they have Friday's in Taiwan. And it was their choice to eat there!) There are some concerns about some of us not getting to know our co-workers as well as we could, and we really did make an effort to rectify that on Saturday night. We made a big show of having alternate seating so that it wouldn't turn into Westerners at one end, Taiwanese at the other - but in the end, it did come pretty close to that. This was officially because a couple of the HRTs wanted to share a dinner, but probably because of...well, things I shouldn't go into publicly. Suffice to say my own hands are clean.

It did, in any case, lead to a few amusing moments, one of which I've been curious about ever since. One of the HRTs found a way to grab our attention: she started revealing their Chinese names, including her own. (They, like the students, have English names that usualy carry no meaning beyond being phonetically similar to their Chinese ones.) And she ran into a bit of resistance from them in doing so, as if they were embarrassed to have us know their real names.

Once the secrets were out, everyone had a good laugh about it and no one was really embarrassed or anything. But I am still wondering, why any resistance at all in the first place? Why, for that matter, should they not be expected to use their real names outside of the classroom where it's not a matter of all English all the time?

Odd.

Great article link, and a few other thoughts

I really do intend to go back to being mostly non-political, but this article is wonderfully encouraging. I'm not entirely sure I buy it, but it does make a lot of sense.

And while we're on the subject, I do have a few other thoughts to share. For starters, I read just now that Bush's percentage declined among rural voters this year, from 60% to 56%. That's a great sign - and it's also a sign of something I've believed for quite a while. It really is about time Democrats start at least trying to pick up more rural votes. True enough, nothing is going to make us competitive in places like Kansas or Wyoming immediately (or even anytime soon), but now that we do have a solid base of support on the coasts and around the Great Lakes, it's about time we start laying the groundwork for taking the fight to their base.

One reason why those states are so solidly Republican is that the Dems haven't made any efforts at all to attract voters there in decades. It's about time that changed, since laissez-faire Republican policies are ultimately just as bad for farmers and ranchers as they are for factory workers in the Midwest or white-collar workers on the coasts. Yes, rural voters are more socially conservative, but appeals to homophobia and antifeminism only work among most voters when everything else is going well. All is not well in a lot of the countryside, and if we start speaking to their concerns, I believe a lot of voters will respond. Even if we can start hitting the low 40s consistently in the Corn Belt and the Rockies, it'll open up a lot more of the map to the Dems.

There is, however, one region I do think we should give up on for now: the South outside of Florida (and possibly even including Florida, to tell you the truth). Sure, the Old Confederacy is changing just like the rest of America, and those states will be competitive for us again eventually. But for now, the cold hard truth is that an awfully high percentage of voters down there really like George Bush's meanspirited wingnuttery. In fact, they're the ones who put guys like him in charge of the Republican Party in the first place. I say let's leave the mouth-breathers in charge there and concentrate on winning elections in greener pastures. Sooner or later the right-wing dominance in the South is bound to collapse under its own weight, and in the meantime it'll scare voters elsewhere away from the GOP.

On to '06, already!

Far beyond the twisted reach of crazy sorrow

It's funny what kids can imagine about life as an adult. I have a vague recollection from when I was about 10-12 of The Perfect Life when I got out on my own. I used to imagine living off somewhere in the northern New England woods, so far back in the pine trees that they had to pump sunshine in, with a rather nondescript Best Friend who wasn't based on any of my real friends that I can recall. We would have a nice small house with just a living room, kitchen and two bedrooms, done out like a real mountain cabin with rugged looking furniture and Indian-style rugs and blankets, the only modern touches being the TV and library of videotapes. We'd sleep on bunk beds in one of the two bedrooms, and have a huge electric train layout in the other. Maybe there wouldn't be much to do in the woods, but we wouldn't care because it would be so cozy and we'd have each other's company and the trains and movies to amuse us.

Lately, after the elections and some increasingly unpleasant office politics and the demoralizing-by-nature process of PhD program applications (they get hundreds of applications for a dozen or so slots and this is all they're going to know about me?!), that whole idea is starting to sound pretty good again. Of course, I already am living with my best friend at this point and the bunk beds are no longer an especially desirable option, and I would now want the trains to coexist with my records and books. And maybe I would also follow John Prine's advice and blow up the TV. But the basic idea of getting lost in the country with my better half and a few creature comforts is now sounding even more appealing than when I was a kid.

Granted, I don't actually remember how I planned to pay for that beautiful home, or for that matter where I even hoped to find work that far from nowhere. But I'm beginning to think it's worth trying to find a way around those obstacles. My little experiment with staying out of the rat race is already agreeing with me pretty well - why stop when I get back to America, y'know?

It's funny what doesn't change sometimes, even when you grow up. If we ever really grow up. Right now I can remember that Wendy decided she was ready to leave the nursery after all, but I can't, for the life of me, recall why!

Don't mourn, organize
After an obviously depressing day, I must admit that I'm glad to be halfway around the world at the moment! I'm still working through my own predictable little emotional cycle, complete with the feeling that progressives should all just throw in the towel and move to Canada (or even Taiwan - health care here is great and super-cheap). But really, the fact that those guys will be in charge of our security policy, health care policy, civil liberties and judicial nominations for at least four more years (with extremely little resistance in Congress for at least the next two) just means giving in is the last thing we should do.

As promised, here's my post-mortem:

What went wrong? I've heard a couple of opinions on this one, the leading one being that youth didn't vote. Apparently turnout was up - way up - on everyone except the 18-35 vote. Odd considering this election may well determine whether or not those very voters will face a draft in the near future. I find that really sad. The other plausible theory I've heard is that the progressive infrastructure just isn't well developed enough to defeat the right wing noise machine just yet. As a favorite blogger of mine noted, the Republicans have 40 years of parts and labor invested in their movement while ours began in earnest last year.
Neither explanation is very comforting, of course, but they do make sense. And they also point out what we need to do next time: don't give up, don't shut up, keep on organizing!
Eternal optimist that I am, I continue to believe that sooner or later, the media will stop refusing to state the obvious about the Republican party being owned and run by a bunch of bigoted thugs. No, I do not have such a low opinion of all Republicans. But George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum, Tom Coburn (see below), et al have gotten where they are through a combination of dirty tricks and pandering to people's bigotries. That's objective fact, and it's gone unchallenged for a long time because the Left in America has lost its voice for so long. I think that's finally changed in the past year or two, and if we keep it up, it will make a difference.
I have friends who used to chide me for "hating all Republicans" because I said things like that last paragraph. More often than not, they used it as an excuse to avoid responding to examples I gave of how nasty those guys really were and are, usually demonstrating in the process that they (my friends, that is) simply didn't know much about just how ugly things were behind the curtain. No one throws that accusation at me anymore, with the occasional exception of a more moderate conservative who is up to his or her eyeballs in denial about who's at the wheel of the GOP.

Biggest Disappointment: Besides the obvious one, I'd have to go with the election of Tom Coburn to the Senate from Oklahoma. Coburn is the epitome of everything I despise about the modern Republican party. He's puritanical and hypocritical at once (he supports the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions - of whom he was one before he entered politics). He's vulgar. Among his many soundbites of this past campaign was one that involved calling political opponents "crapheads". He's a bigot, with a string of anti-gay and racist remarks a mile long to his name (most recently, it was something about lesbianism being so epidemic that some schools wouldn't let more than one girl go to the bathroom at a time). The Democrats had a great candidate against him, but Oklahoma is Oklahoma. As always, though, there is some hope that having him across the aisle will help Democrats in more moderate locales.

Bright Spot: Not that I have many to choose from, but seeing my home state of New Hampshire elect its second Democratic governor in a decade was a nice surprise. Prior to 1996, there had only been one such animal in my lifetime and for several years prior to that.

Blessing in Disguise: Anything that puts us another seat away from a Senate majority also puts civil liberties, abortion rights, gay rights and much more at bigger risk, so I'm sorry to see the Dems lose any Senate seat. That said, I'm not too sorry to see Tom Daschle lose. In a decade as Senate Democratic leader, he brought wishy-washiness and capitulation to a new level. Those of you who saw "Fahrenheit 911" might recall the footage of him saying "We will support the president [on Iraq]" on the Senate floor. That support earned no respect at all in the 2002 elections, of course, and it was just the tip of the iceberg for Daschle. I've always recognized that he had to be that way to an extent because he came from a very Republican state - but then, that's all the more reason why he should never have been made Democratic leader in the first place.
Now let's hope the Dems learn from their mistake and elect a real Democrat to replace him. I'm hearing a lot of buzz about Dick Durbin, who I think is an excellent choice. Barbara Boxer or Ron Wyden would sit pretty well with me too, or even Hillary Clinton - if nothing else, the satisfaction of seeing her drive Republicans to fits of apoplexy just by continuing to exist would be gratifying. But for Pete's sake, guys, it's time to start acting like a real opposition.

What to do now: Don't despair. Take a few days to stay as far away from politics as you need to - I certainly plan to do so - but don't give up. If you haven't already done so, read The Emerging Democratic Majority, which makes a good case for the future belonging to us if we're sharp enough to take it. (Anyone who tells you the last two elections proved the book wrong hasn't really read it, since the introduction makes the astute point that "The Democrats aren't there yet." Indeed, our biggest problem is that the growth of our new constituencies isn't keeping up with the atrophying of our old ones. But it won't stay that way forever.) I also recommend Mark Crispin Miller's Cruel And Unusual, which I just finished. It demonstrates pretty convincingly that Bush and Cheney really are as bad as those wild eyed liberals always say they are, and why. It also supplies examples by the truckload of right-wing hypocrisy and how conservatives tend to project their own worst qualities onto their opponents. Miller's style is hyperbolic and he occasionally even sounds paranoid, but frankly, that's not really uncalled for in this situation.

Rome wasn't built in a day. The recovery from 20+ years of silence on the part of progressives won't be either. But we'll get there.

Rooty Tooty Fresh and Soy Sauce

Never do I miss America quite so much as on a Sunday morning after a party where I had a couple too many. There just isn't any Taiwanese equivalent to breakfast at IHOP or Waffle House or Denny's or whichever is your greasy spoon of choice. I have become pretty astute at making my own omelets, though.
(I meant to post this yesterday, but it was one of those busy days. In other words, I have not taken to drinking heavily on Monday nights!)

Gimme back my f*#%&g country, #$^&*!!

So, two more days to showtime. From afar, I can only offer what I've picked up from surfing the blogs and such:

1. Don't panic about Hawai'i. Those polls apparently are based only on results from Oahu, which is by far the most Republican of the islands (and even "most Republican" apparently means around 43% at best here). It's a bit like saying Kerry is in striking distance in Utah if he's almost even in Salt Lake City alone (which he probably isn't, if you're wondering). As for why the media hasn't bothered to report on the Hawai'i polls not really reflecting the whole state, well, what else would you expect from those guys at this point?

2. That last round of polls in general doesn't smell right to me. Kerry behind in Michigan and New Mexico but ahead in Colorado? Ahead in Ohio but only tied in Pennsylvania? I'm reminded of those last minute warnings in 2000 that Gore was slipping in California and would lose Minnesota by 10 points. The only difference this time is that there is bad news and good news for Kerry. I'm betting both will turn out to be baloney on Tuesday, although I would love to be wrong about Colorado.

3. The first two states to report are almost always Kentucky and Indiana. Their polls close a bit earlier than everyone else's for some reason - quite possibly so they can get their fifteen minutes of fame every four years. Kerry hasn't got a prayer in either one, so don't be alarmed when the networks call them for Bush. If Kerry comes within ten points in Indiana, then the rest of the evening should be lots of fun. If not, I know some schools over here that are hiring!
Both states have at least one competitive House race, involving a Democratic challenger and a Republican incumbent, so if the Dems win either one it's a great sign for the good guys. You can fully expect Judy Woodruff or Cokie Roberts to say it all means nothing for the big picture. They're wrong. There is also a bizarre situation with the Kentucky Senate race, in which the Democrat is probably a slight underdog. If he wins - especially if it's a big win - it could be a great night for you (and morning for me).
Oh, and if Kerry does somehow win Indiana or Kentucky, break out the champaigne. The suspense is over. (Not that I expect this. Far from it. I'm just sayin'.)

4. The first real signs of what is to come will probably be Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. Of the three, Michigan was supposed to be Kerry's easiest win and Ohio his toughest, but the last polls say the opposite. I don't really buy those (see #2 above), but if he does lose MI it could be a long night. I must admit that I keep thinking of the Georgia Senate race in 2002, and how nobody I knew believed that those last few polls were right - but they were.
Think positive anyhow. And remember, no Republican has ever won without Ohio!

5. It's a beautiful, sunny afternoon in Longtan as I write this. If Kerry really is sinking, there are greener pastures out there for the next four years. But let's think positive.

6. A few of you might recognize the title of this post as a play on an inside joke with an old friend who is a rather vocal Bush supporter. Just a bit of irony to show the literary crowd I can cook.

Any Democrats living in any of the states I mentioned, just remember that you have two more days to make a difference (or even three if you count Election Day itself)!

See you Wednesday with Dave's Post Mortem Analysis.

Hallowe'en in Longtan

Face painting is more fun than I thought it would be. The kids loved it too.

I joined in the fun myself this morning, having my face made up in a charming shade of green with black scar marks and such. Can't wait to see the pictures! Trina, however, had it all over me on the costume front. She came as a tea bag, and was brave enough to walk to work in costume, earning us even more attention than we already usually get. I chipped in by wishing everyone who stared a happy Hallowe'en, even knowing that quite a few of them wouldn't understand me.

Gotta love cultural exchanges!

It's gone and you can tell that one goodbye

Normally I'm rather proud of my near-complete indifference to pro sports, but...I must add in my hurrahs for the Red Sox. There's nothing like seeing a losing streak end!! I can't even remember the last time I actually looked forward to reading the sports page.

Now that the Curse of the Bambino is gone, let's see about that whole thing with Northerners never getting elected president anymore. Geez, people, you'd think we'd won the Civil War or something...

Two out of three ain't bad

Well, the mini-crisis of recommendations came to a close this morning. I finally heard back from one of the back-up professors I had approached. His response couldn't possibly be any more lukewarm (i.e. "I don't know how helpful it would be to you, the class was five years ago," etc.). But it is a recommendation from a respected professor at a well-known university (which I prefer to keep anonymous on the blog, as y'all have probably noticed by now), so I suspect it'll help me about as much as anything would at this point.

I must say, this week has made me appreciate the two other professors I already have on board even more than I already did. They both agreed without any reservation to help out, and never gave the slightest indication that I was unworthy in any way. In a field where ego seems to reign supreme on a level you see with surgeons and pro-athletes, that's a nice surprise. I hope, if lightning strikes and I ever end up in their shoes, that I'll remain humble and willing to help others.

In the meantime, I'm back hard at work on the remaining applications. It's hard not to get discouraged when you look at the statistics (600 applications a year for 18 slots?!), but you'll never know unless you try. Still, I guess it's a good thing I like my current job as well as I do!

Teacher! You say Chinese!!!!

I found a new way to amuse my older students last week. Just throw in a Chinese word or two.
That's strictly forbidden for the students, since the only way you're going to learn a foreign language is to practice it as much as possible. (This can be a sticky situation for the teachers, who need to enforce the rule without looking like we hate their culture. But I like to think I'm pretty good at it.) It's not usually much of a temptation for me to speak Chinese, since there aren't very many things I can say in it.

But last week, I did have a kid ask what "thank you" meant. That's a fairly tough one to explain in simple language, if you think about it; and besides, he'd been studying English long enough that he really should have known anyhow. But, seeing as I was at a loss of how to explain it, I just said it in Chinese. (The most common Anglicized spelling is Tze Tze, two identical syllables starting with "sh" and almost rhyming with "pay," but not quite.)

And the kids loved it. "Teacher!" "Chinese!" "You can't speak Chinese in class!" "Say sorry!"

The kid who said the last one (the same one who'd asked what "thank you" meant, as it happened) was particularly insistent, so I said sorry. In Chinese. "Deibuchi." More laughs. Lots of them.

Since then, those kids have tried to encourage me to speak a lot more Chinese, including a number of phrases I don't know and which probably shouldn't be said in a classroom full of kids anyhow. It's come to be something of a running joke. "Teacher, say 'thank you' in Chinese." "Thank you in Chinese." They think that's pretty funny too.

Still waiting on a Third Recommender, by the way. I just love organizing this garbage from halfway around the world. At least most of my applications are ready to be sent as soon as I know whose name I can put in that third slot.

Been nice knowing you too, sir!

There are certain possibilities in life we all know exist, but don't ever really expect to happen.

Among these is asking for a letter of recommendation and getting turned down. Sure, it could happen, but you know, you're most likely to ask for recommendations from a professor who was happy with your work. And why would such a person decline to help you?

I now have that quandary to wonder about this morning, after receiving just such an e-mail from a prof who gave me an A (or the equivalent thereof) in his class three years ago. He explained that if our school had allowed for it, it would really have been an A- rather than an A (which I knew, as he'd explained it to me at the time). Heaven knows, a PhD program is no place for an A- student.

To be fair, I can't entirely blame him. His area of expertise is quite different from the one I wish to become an expert in, although the two are somewhat related at least. He also wasn't among my top three choices to ask for letters, and perhaps he suspected as much. (Of those three, two said yes but the third never bothered to reply to me. I think he would say yes if I pursued the matter, but then I don't trust him to write the letters on time if he can't even get back to me without pestering. That's why I needed to ask someone new in the first place.) And he did offer me some well-intentioned - if not really helpful to my particular circumstances - advice on who else I could ask.

Still, it wasn't a very nice surprise to get this morning. I learned a lot from the guy, enjoyed the experience and got a grade I was pleased with, even if it wasn't the highest grade possible (although officially speaking, it was). This hasn't destroyed that for me, but it does leave me feeling a bit irritated all the same. I always have hated that rather large segment of the academic community which considers an A- as good as an F, and this only adds to that. Also, it means I didn't make nearly as good an impression on the guy as I had thought. Plus, there's the hassle of still having to find one more recommender when my applications are otherwise mostly done.

I have already sent off another request to another professor, who is probably a better match for my interests anyhow, and I have several other options even if he says no. This is probably just a minor bump in the road, and to tell you the truth, it just makes me want to try that much harder so I can prove the arrogant bastard wrong. Thanks for the memories anyhow, professor.

I feel the earth move

Regardless of the other highs and lows of my time in Taiwan, it appears that I am likely to leave here having borne witness to more minor natural disasters than at any other time in my life.

Just after kindy today, I and a few other teachers dropped by the computer room to check the e-mail, political gossip from home (so the Kentucky Senate race is suddenly in play, eh?), and such. The computer room is on the second floor and the first floor is currently being renovated, so I wasn't too surprised when I noticed the room shaking slightly.

Then I noticed that the heavy machinery downstairs was silent. And that the shaking didn't stop quickly the way it did when they had the big hammers and drills going.

After 15 seconds or so - which somehow seemed longer - someone finally asked, "What is that?"

"Earthquake," one of the Chinese teachers said calmly, as if it happened all the time.

It was a mild one, just strong enough for me to get up and head for the door-frame the way they always tell you to. By the time I got there, though, it was over. Trina and I went out for lunch shortly afterward, and there was no sign of any disruption in downtown Longtan.

Back home, even a mild quake like that would have been big news, I think. Apparently Taiwan is one of those places where it just happens now and then and it's part of life. There was a pretty big one here about four years ago, easily within the memories of most Taiwanese (albeit not most of the Taiwanese I know personally!). Today, of course, was nothing compared to that one.

There is a slight chance my next stop after Taiwan will be the San Francisco area. (I never count on winning the grad school jackpot, but you never know.) I guess it's just as well that I get used to these things!

No matter how old I get...

Writing "personal statements" for university applications still sucks. After forcing myself to write at least one paragraph every day since Sunday, this one is starting to come together, though. Thank heavens. It's amazing how long a two page paper can take when the stakes are high!

Had a heart-attack moment in kindy yesterday when I was reprimanding a couple of kids for talking nonstop during the lesson...and I glanced out my classroom window to see the branch director and regional manager observing me. I felt compelled to go downstairs and apologize after class, explaining that it was otherwise a great class today.

Their response: "No, no, it was great! We like your communication with the kids."

They do like discipline here, I guess.

EDITED TO ADD: The "reprimand" in question was entirely verbal. After reading one of the attached comments, it occurred to me that my use of that word coupled with my last line made the episode sound quite a bit uglier than it really was. Oops!

William Shatner is a ****

Even if my ties to the state of Iowa are somewhat faded at this point (and were admittedly tenuous in the first place), this is just wrong. I think Shatner is Canadian - I wonder how it would go over if someone like Tom Cruise pulled a stunt like this in a small town in Saskatchewan.
This makes his singing look good by comparison.

Doing my part from beyond the sea

I mailed my absentee ballot in yesterday, doing my bit part to send Dubya back to the ranch.
Remember the Simpsons episode where Homer's driver's license gets revoked? Patty and Selma take turns stamping it with their "CANCELLED" stamp (or maybe it's "REVOKED" - I'm sure one of my ex-roomies will correct me if he happens to read this) again and again, each of them sighing deeply as if she'd just had an orgasm and saying things like, "Oh, I never thought it'd feel this good!"
Yep. It was kind of like that.

The same, but different

That's the theme in kindy this week, in keeping with lessons on the English words for body parts. (I.e. we all have two hands, two legs, etc., but our hair and eyes look different.) It also reflects my thoughts on Taiwan after last week's holiday, Moon Festival. Also called Mid-Autumn Festival, it's a day off to celebrate the harvest moon. I'm not entirely sure why the harvest moon matters when they actually harvest the rice at least twice a year; but apparently it does.

And the vehicle of choice for celebrating Moon Festival: moon cakes. They come in elaborate packages, and people buy them by the dozens at this time of year to give to friends, co-workers, etc. I received quite a few of them from colleagues and the parents of some of my students. Some of them were pretty good, but quite a few of them are awfully heavy and filled with some, er, unique tasting food paste.

I found out just after the holiday that I wasn't alone in that view of the moon cakes. There was an article in the paper detailing how many younger Taiwanese people don't like them much at all, but they feel compelled out of tradition to give and receive them at this time of year. Just like fruitcakes back home.

We only think it's a different world over here.

I guess, on both sides of the Pacific, there must be some people who like the holiday grub of choice, eh?


By the way, I believe my blogging hiatus is over. I don't know how much time I'll have to play on here for the next month or so, but I don't think I'll be going silent for three weeks again either!

Don't go away, we'll be right back!

Just wanted to drop in to apologize for my long absence, which will have to go on a bit longer after this. Nothing is particularly wrong; things have just been extremely busy at work at the moment and the Internet situation there has gone from bad to worse lately. Also, I'm approaching crunch time on my grad school applications, if only because some universities set deadlines as early as December 1 but won't even let you see their forms, much less start filling them out, until mid-September. I wonder if there's some arrogant ulterior motive behind that involving discouraging less serious applicants. But oh well.

A few tidbits from my recent life:
1. I'm finally sending out the postcards from my trip this weekend. Yes, I know I've been back for over a month. Yes, I've learned my lesson about putting off writing postcards until after the trip is over. If you don't receive one from me in the next week or two, I probably don't have your postal address. Don't be shy about updating me!

2. Trina picked up a couple of the Chronicles of Narnia books last week, having never read them before (which suprises me - they're right up her alley). This has cut down further on my blogging time, as I couldn't resist re-reading them myself. I'm a bit miffed, though, that they've resorted to numbering the books in the order in which the events in them take place rather than the order in which they were written. (I.e. "The Magician's Nephew" is now #1 rather than #6, even though it's full of references to some of the previous books which will go over the head of anyone who hasn't read those first, notably the story of how the wardrobe became enchanted.) I did at least prevail upon Trina to buy them in the "old" order. In any case, the books are just as magical as they were when I was 12. I don't think I ever actually read "The Last Battle" all the way through - I seem to recall not liking the first few chapters very much and then skipping ahead to the last chapter just to see how the saga ended. Maybe now I'll finally finish the job. I certainly hope the Harry Potter generation is reading these too!

3. A little bird told me "Magnum PI" is coming out on DVD. I'd already been thinking of buying a DVD player, now I guess I'll have to. (Compatibility is an issue, of course, but some DVDs are now universal anyway.) And no, I haven't forgotten about Tom Selleck's politics.


I'll be back on a regular basis as soon as things calm down over here! If they calm down over here.

Leave a sinking ship behind?

When I first came to Taiwan, I fully expected the Western community here to be "an intentionally lost Lost Generation" like the one reportedly found in that book, Prague. (I say "reportedly" because I haven't read the book. It sounds like the sort of story I'd really enjoy, but I think it might also make me feel really depressed for having just missed the boat on the big early '90s expat wave in Eastern Europe. But I digress.) But it wasn't, and isn't. Most other Americans, Canadians, etc. whom I've met here are a lot like me: just interested in seeing the world as something other than a tourist, expanding our experiences, paying off debts, and making a living outside the rat race. A few of them are even trained ESL teachers - imagine that!

It didn't take me long at all to learn as much: I pretty much had it figured out after a few days of our training back in February. While the reality is more mundane than what I expected, I think it's probably better this way. It's easy to romanticize Paris In The Twenties, after all, but they say that time and place didn't earn its capitalized title until A Moveable Feast came out 40 years later - and, in the interim, its author stuck a shotgun down his throat. So much for the golden era. Anyhow, meeting all those fellow twenty- and thirtysomethings (and especially discovering that there were quite a few of us in the latter category) with their feet just as firmly on the ground as my own was a nice surprise, and it was great getting to know them. If you're a newcomer to the blog, see here for some of my past thoughts on that pleasant matter.

A bit less than seven months later, at least half of my training colleagues have left.

A few of them are still in Taiwan and working for other schools, but quite a few took off entirely. Just last week, my best friend from training joined that club. This has me rather sad, obviously. Among several other things, she was one of the first three fellow expats I met here on my very first morning in the country. The other two have been gone since summer, so she was my last link to the first chapter of my story. I haven't yet heard the whole story on why she's going home, but I had an experience of my own this week that gave me a clue - and also illustrated for me why so many of our friends have already taken off.

I recieved some welcome and very helpful advice from my branch director on how to improve my performance as a kindy teacher. The catch is that I received it in the form of a written warning, which wasn't even really presented as such, and it was in response to my doing things no one had told me were against policy until now (i.e. encouraging the kids to read when I was supposed to let them play and/or vice versa). The episode will more than likely make me a better teacher, because as I said, much of the advice was very good; but the way it was handed down was seriously out of line in my opinion.

There is good news. My job is in no immediate jeopardy, my performance appraisal with the older kids was about as good as could be, and there are plenty of other teaching gigs in the area - quite a few of which pay better anyhow. Still, for the first time in seven months, I'm feeling less than happy about my situation. It's not a welcome change. I had felt a certain loyalty to my company because, although quite a few colleagues have had bad experiences with it, the whole experience had been very good for me up to now. It still isn't too bad, but this week, combined with the sheer number of ex- colleagues I have, is enough to make me think seriously about alternatives. Sure, it's just one more year, but that can be a long time under conditions like these. It's probably just as well that I don't get too complacent anyhow, given what I've seen with my friends.

Faye, if you read this, thanks for the memories! You have my e-mail address, so don't be shy.

Doe, a steer, a female steer

As a Westerner in a small town in Taiwan, I guess I'm bound to be treated like a celebrity now and then. Such an incident happened this past Sunday night. (I'd been meaning to discuss it here much sooner, but some all too real world issues got in the way before I could.)

The father of one of my kindy students is the conductor of Taiwan's army band. How that band came to be based in Longtan, I'm not really sure; but it's here. They gave a concert in town on Sunday evening, and all of us teachers were invited. Only three of the five of us ended up going, and it was quite the event for all of us.

The emcee (who apparently was the conductor's mother and thus little Emily's grandmother) interrupted her Chinese introduction to wish us welcome in English, and of course everyone in the modestly sized audience turned around to play Spot The Caucasians. Some of my fellow teachers don't care for that sort of thing, but it's never bothered me.

Then it was on to the concert. The army band is fond of medleys. The setlist included what was billed as a "Latin revue" which turned out to be a medley of "La Bamba," "Hot Hot Hot," "Conga" and "Livin' La Vida Loca." I must admit that one had me clapping so hard Trina had to pull my hands back from each other at one point because I was making her ears hurt. Oops. Other highlights included "Danny Boy," and even some Taiwanese music.

During the intermission, the conductor sent his oboe player to our seats to thank us again for coming, in perfect English, and then he later came by himself. I had occasion to tell him I was looking forward to hearing "76 Trombones," which was listed on the bill for the second half, as Iowa is one of the half dozen or so states that can make some claim to being home for me. He seemed quite touched by that. (Additionally, "The Music Man" played a bit part in the beginning of Trina's and my relationship: when we first started exchanging e-mails, I often closed mine with "Good night my someone, Dave." After a few times, she asked where I had heard that phrase, and was then inspired to rent the movie. Of course, there was no time to share that tidbit with my friend the conductor!)

Well, as you might expect for a local celebrity like myself, back on stage after the intermission, he dedicated "76 Trombones" to "my best friend, Dave." It's enough to move a guy to tears, y'know? The show then finished with two more medleys: one of songs from "The Sound of Music" with vocals (hence the title of this post, which was one of a couple of verbal gaffes in the performance - their English was great, but when they made a mistake, it was, well, an amusing one!), and one of disco songs. Yes, Trina and I did do the arm motions on "Y.M.C.A." I left the concert hall feeling about ten miles high.

It was the sort of scene where, when it happens in a book or a movie, you know that the zenith is about to give way to the nadir. That did in fact come perilously close to happening on Monday, astoundingly enough. But things appear to be back on track, which is why that concert will now live as a wonderful memory instead of a horribly bittersweet one. I'll probably discuss the events of this week in more detail on my next post. Right now I'm still working out what to make of it all and what exactly I want to share publicly. Suffice to say Trina and I both might be trading up to a better work situation fairly soon. In any case, things are all right for now.

And I've got one more beautiful memory to take with me to whatever comes next. Thank you for the music!

Update

Regarding the purple heart band-aids I linked to below, I read yesterday that the RNC chairman ordered the distributor to desist as soon as he found out about them. Good for him. It doesn't change my view one bit with regards to the people in the pictures who obviously thought they were a wonderful idea, of course, but it is nice to learn that someone at the convention had a conscience.

New Link

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to my link to the website about Bernard Baran. Baran is one of the (relatively) few victims of the '80s daycare sex-abuse hysteria who remain in prison today. While most of the falsely accused daycare workers were either never convicted or were exonerated at some point in the past ten years, Baran has languished in prison since 1984. There are two key differences between his case and most others like it: abuse really did occur in the case of one of the children on his watch (probably at the hands of the boy's stepfather or foster father; no evidence at all points to Baran himself), and Baran is gay.

He was convicted more or less entirely because of that second point. Indeed, his only real crime was being gay and liking children in a small town in the '80s. (The prosecutor at his trial called him a "fag" in the courtroom, among other things.) As you can see on that link, the accusations against him stemmed entirely from his efforts to help the son of a drug-addicted, abusive couple who was, not surprisingly, a troublemaker at school. This couple responded by complaining to anyone who would listen about the "dangers" of an openly gay man working at a daycare center. The boy contracted gonorrhea, and Baran immediately became the prime suspect despite conclusive proof that he'd never had the disease and a complete lack of evidence of abuse. Within five months he'd been convicted and thrown in jail for life - and immediately afterward, it emerged that the victim's mother had accused at least one boyfriend of molesting the boy. The prosecuting county's Department of Social Services was aware of this, but didn't report it to the DA's office until - conveniently enough - a few days after Baran was convicted.

Bernard Baran has been incarcerated since October 1984. He's been beaten and raped innumerable times, attempted suicide at least twice, and his case was pretty much forgotten for a long time. Gay-rights groups have tended to shy away from helping him, lest they perpetuate the stereotype of gay men as predators. The good news (relatively speaking, of course) is that a new trial motion was finally filed in June, and it looks like he'll probably get his day in court before too much longer.

There is reason to be hopeful: two other victims of the same witch hunt, Gerald Amirault and John Stoll, finally won their freedom in April. But there is a lot left to be done, and that link has plenty of information on what we can all do to help.

By the way, if you do any further Internet searches on your own about this topic, you're likely to make an unfortunate discovery. A number of right-wing "men's rights" groups have seized upon this issue as a bludgeon against feminists in particular and liberals in general, using the rather twisted logic that the disaster only happened because so many people bought into feminism's "vilification" of men and the "culture of victimhood". (This is less true in the Baran case than in most others, since people who hate feminists also tend to hate gays.) While it is true that a few prominent feminists, notably Gloria Steinem and Anna Quindlen, were indeed on the wrong side of this issue, the mouth-breathers are ignoring their own culpability, since their homophobia and opposition to daycare ("a woman's place is in the home") had as much to do with creating the hysteria as anything else did. Don't let the unfortunate association scare you off.

By the way

"Character does matter" my ass.
I especially like the pictures of the smiling delegates with the band-aids. It really shows just how willing they are to embrace a known lie in their support of a guy whose own war record is a bad joke. A picture's worth a thousand words!

Schrocked - Schrocked!!

I've been meaning to put my two cents in about Congressman Schrock, the right-winger from Virginia who announced his retirement last week after being outed as a frequent patron of gay sex hotlines.

I have mixed emotions about the news, not so much as a Democrat (Schrock's seat is about as Republican as you can get no matter who the nominee is) but as a strong supporter of gay rights. Schrock has a solidly anti-gay record in the House and, like a lot of politicians of his ideological stripe, he attracted support mostly by appealing to people's bigotries. That he is gay shows that he's not only a bigot, he's also a grade-A hypocrite. While I find homophobia unacceptable no matter the source, there's something especially disgusting about it coming from someone who knows what it's like to live with the effects of that sort of hatred*. We're talking about a guy who has lived with an uncomfortable secret for 63 years, even going so far as to marry and have a child, and for the past few years he's had a job which could enable him to raise awareness of what gay-bashing and legalized bigotry can do to a person whose only "crime" is to fall in love like we all do - but instead he has used that position to further the damage and the abuse. So I don't feel much sympathy for the guy no matter what he's been through.

On the other hand, "outing" doesn't sit well with me at all. Coming to terms with one's sexuality is an awfully personal, private process, and no matter how big a jerk the guy might be, I have a hard time condoning that sort of invasion of privacy. It just ain't right. Still, we are talking about an individual who supports legal discrimination against people who do things far more pure and innocuous than what he apparently did. So let's just say my outrage is tempered. One thing's for sure: if the Liberal Media really were liberal, we'd be hearing an awful lot right now on just how full of s**t the "family values" movement really is. Schrock, of course, isn't the first or biggest example of that.

The blogger who outed Schrock says there are more to come like him. I wish I could say that bothered me. But if you're going to win power and prestige by fueling the fires of hating people* based on whom they love, I think you pretty much deserve whatever you get.




*To anyone who is thinking of giving me the "it's the sin, not the sinner" speech, please spare me. I know only too well that that's just a way of justifying hatred of a person by pretending it's something other than that.

Just another s***ty day in paradise

Okay. I like adventure as much as anyone, and I know all about how that which does not kill us makes us stronger and how crises bring out the best in most people, but folks, enough is enough.
Today, we ring in seven days without running water. Our county made the front page of today's China Post as a candidate for a disaster area. (I wanted to post a link, but the article doesn't seem to be online yet.) The reason is apparently that the typhoon landed an unusually large amount of mud in our reservoir, which has made it impossible for the waterworks to purify it fast enough to serve everyone - or, apparently, anyone. I don't really see how much difference purification makes in a country where you have to boil your drinking water anyhow, but hey, what do I know?

And the "good" news? We can apparently expect to get our water back in four more days. Blogging may be light until then as I try to avoid getting cholera!

The mess has, however, brought out the best in most of my neighbors. I have been pleasantly surprised at the cooperation and courtesy I've seen at the water stations afterhours as everyone drags his or her collection of buckets up to the big tanks they've set up. Still, when the silver lining is a lack of rioting in the streets, you know things are pretty darned bad.

Epilogue

NOTE: I recommend reading the following two entries in reverse order before you read this one. It'll all make more sense that way.

It wouldn't be the tropics without at least one monster rainstorm, and that came on my second night in Cherating. Remember how I said the cottages looked rickety? Well, I discovered those aluminum roofs can take quite a beating. The rain also makes quite a noise hitting them, though, so I found myself up for quite a bit of the night watching the torrential downpour from my window. Like everything else about those couple of days, it was somehow not boring even though it sounds that way as I read my own words here now. I can't explain, you'll just have to go there and see for yourself!

The rain had passed by the time the sun came up, though, so I had no problem getting up in time to catch my ride to the bus station back in Kuantan. Well, at least the rain didn't give me a problem. I got up a couple of times to look at my watch, which read shortly after 4:00, meaning I had plenty of time to sleep yet. Except that the sun was much too bright for it to be that early. On closer inspection, I discovered that my watch had stopped, since I hadn't worn it at all the previous day. Oops.

Luckily, I noticed this just in time to get my clothes on and get down to the bistro for a cup of coffee before the ride was due. I also got to chat briefly with a British tourist who had been all over Southeast Asia, and came away with all sorts of advice on more great places to visit next time. Can't wait for that to happen!

With my watch and me both back on time, I got to Kuantan in plenty of time to get the next bus to Singapore. Since I was now on the opposite coast, I got to see more countryside and such, but I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I was nervous about getting back in time to catch my plane back to Taipei. Had the trip been as quick as advertised, I would have just made it; but it wasn't even close. It ended up taking about two hours longer than it was supposed to. There were no traffic jams or breakdowns or any other good reason for the delay - as far as I could tell, they simply hadn't told the truth about how long the trip was. Oh well. There was nothing waiting for me back home until work on Monday anyhow, so one last night in Singapore didn't strike me as so bad. The only additional hangup was getting back into Singapore, since they don't stamp your passport on the Malaysian side when you take the train up to KL and I therefore didn't have documentation on when I'd entered Malaysia. The travel guide had said to expect this and to just show customs your train ticket as proof of when you'd come in. I did so and had no further problems, but it did make me wonder. If this is such a known problem that it even leads to preemtive advice from Lonely Planet, why don't they just start stamping your passport on the train? At least they do give you a stamp on the way back out of Malaysia. They're pretty neat looking stamps, too.

I got a room in a cheap but very clean (hey, it was Singapore) hostel, and indulged in a few last hours of urbane abundance. Getting to the airport in the morning was simplicity itself: it's at the end of the subway line. Actually getting on the plane proved dicier. It probably should have occurred to me that Sunday flights are likely to be more crowded than Saturday ones. I made it to Hong Kong on standby on the next flight out, but then missed the next four flights from there to Taipei. (I also had to clear customs in HK to claim my luggage and get it back on the next plane - if I ever need security clearance again, it ought to be fun explaining why I have a Hong Kong stamp on my passport when I've never actually been there. But then, since it's so close, I do hope to go there as well one of these days.) So it was a long and somewhat nerve-wracking afternoon; but I did finally get on the last flight out, at 9:45 that night - and once again got an upgrade to first class for my troubles.

And that was the end of my first big vacation over here. Worth every penny (and new Taiwan dollar and Singaporean dollar and ringgit). As we touched down in Taipei and I saw the blue neon "CKS INT'L AIRPORT" sign from the runway which had marked my very first sight in the country I currently call home, it occurred to me that that same week marked my half-anniversary in Taiwan. It's been a blur! And to think those first few hours back in February had seemed like months in their own right.

Getting off the plane, to be honest, didn't feel all that different from that very first time. I was traveling lighter and it was a less ungodly hour, but an airport at night always looks about the same if you ask me. I changed my Singapore dollars into NT just as I had done with my American ones way back when (I saved the Malaysian money as a souvenir), and had an offer for a cab ride back to Longtan before I even got out to the curb.

In the cab, I told the driver the town and the name of the apartment complex, which most cab drivers in that part of the country recognize. He didn't. I repeated it again and again, and he called a friend on his cell phone who spoke English and had the friend tell me to tell him the address I wanted in Longtan. I explained that I had. He suggested I could just give the cabbie directions once we got to Longtan. I explained that I had already agreed to do that, only my Chinese wasn't good enough to get the point across. He said he'd tell the driver that. It didn't look like the driver got the point as he continued trying to say "address" in English all the way down the highway towards Longtan.

Yep, I was definitely back in Taiwan. And I did get home without too much of a hassle.

Yet folks still lie on the beach, and some even think it's fun

Now, Cherating is truly a back of beyond beach town, and it was love at first sight. The main drag is sandy and there are rickety looking cottages (which, I would soon discover, can nonetheless withstand a heck of a thunder storm) everywhere, as well as outdoor restaurants just off the beach. And, because this is the 21st century, there was even an Internet cafe, which doubled as a library for those who wanted some light beach reading. I, however, didn't make use of that. I was here to get away from such things for a day or two.

It all reminded me of what I've heard the Florida Keys were like before they were "discovered." There are some unfortunate signs out there that Cherating is also being discovered: the travel guide mentions a luxury motel just up the road from where I stayed which features two restaurants, a disco, a pool (steps from the beach, for Pete's sake) and lots of other amenities I can't recall offhand - and says the motel "is possibly the future face of Cherating." I hope not, but...

For now, anyway, there's plenty for the more rustic traveller in all of us. I stayed at the Cherating Cottages, where I more than willingly shelled out an extra US$5 for a room with an air conditioner. The staff was friendly and accommodating and even willing to watch your luggage for you if you happened to have spent too much on the cab ride into town and had to go to the nearest ATM 12 kilometers up the road to get cash for the rent. Not that I would ever be that irresponsible, of course, but it's nice to know it could be done. And hey, if I ever were that careless, the trip to the next town might even involve a ride in the back of an ancient Mercedes taxi with right-hand drive, something some of us are willing to shell out a few bucks for anyhow. I'm just sayin'.

With all monetary issues squared away, a leisurely evening was had by all in Cherating. The cottages had a Western style bistro which only had pizzas on the menu for that night, but that was good enough for me. I got to chat here and there with a few other Western tourists, most of whom also hadn't been there before, and I finally made it down to the beach (a block away from the cottages) just at sundown for a quick walk. One more Tiger Beer at the nearest beachside bar and then I was off for an early night.

The next day - my only full day in Cherating - was the real fun, though. I was up bright and early and off to the beach, which was still mostly deserted when I got there and never got too crowded. Cherating is apparently sort of a budget getaway for those who come to Malaysia (and perhaps for the Malaysians as well); the beaches further up the east coast are reportedly nicer, but it's much more epensive to stay there and most of the beaches themselves are in the hands of private clubs.

Having not been further up the coast, all I can say is that it's a pretty good trade for those of us who stuck with Cherating. The water was warm, the view wasn't bad at all, and the whole place felt authentic in a way a private club almost certainly wouldn't. Like I said, there were other Westerners there, but there were also some locals and there was no tension between the two that I could see. Although this part of Malaysia has a big Moslem presence, it was no big deal for women to wear as little as they wanted to on the beach. In fact, it presented quite an interesting contrast to see locals in full head-to-toe regalia watching their children poke around in the tidal pools and Westerners in bikinis just a few meters away.

But of course, I wasn't there to people-watch. I was there for the water. I never quite saw the appeal of just lying on a beach for hours, even before I learned about skin cancer. No, it's always been about playing in the waves for me, and I spent hours doing that. Sitting in the shallow water just at the edge for a while, then wading out into the waves and letting them crash over me, then back again - it never got boring! I spent a lot of time thinking about things and just feeling good to be alive and where I was, and all my disappointments and regrets of the past couple of years. (Truth be told, there have only been a few of those, but they've been doozies.) And all that just seemed to wash away in the South China Sea, which not so long ago was little more to me than a memory of one page in one of those atlases I used to love so much as a kid. Once again I found myself wondering why I didn't give this life a try years ago and coming up with no good answer. I was - and am - just glad I finally did find this path. Some people never do, after all.

One day of this was enough for me, but apparently quite a few people come to Cherating and stay for quite a while. Not a bad choice at all. I highly recommend it to anyone who is in the area, and in case the Lonely Planet was right about the future of the town, I suggest you get there now!

Back to the trip

Another crazy weekend has gotten in the way of my finishing the story of my trip. Oops. I really do have a number of excuses, including a lack of running water in Longtan since the typhoon (I've had exactly one shower in the past five days), but things are finally starting to calm down - even if they're also starting to smell. So kick back and read on for the tale of my last couple of days on vacation. This'll probably be a long entry.

After my second night in Kuala Lompur, I more than happily packed my bags and grabbed the first available cab to the bus station. Like I said, I didn't dislike KL, but I also didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would and I was definitely looking forward to the beach. The bus station was another taste of the rustic side of Malaysia: it was all outdoors, just a couple of rows of tiny shack-like buildings where they sold tickets for the various bus lines through slots in the door. Given how grungy bus stations usually are (in America and Taiwan alike, and I'm guessing most everywhere else), it wasn't a bad change.

Thanks to my recent travels, I had the currency of three countries in my pocket and it took me a while to sift out all the Singaporean dollars and pay only in ringgit. Then it was a matter of waiting on the curb in the sunshine for an hour. That, of course, was one of those memories of travel that are kind of exotic and fun to say you've been through, but they really aren't that much fun to actually live. Still, it was a bit interesting to watch the everyday life of this faraway land go by.

In any case, the bus arrived just a minute or two late (which, I would soon learn, is very impressive by Malaysian standards) and I was off on the ride across the peninsula to the east coast. It took about four hours, but it truly was never boring - when you're seeing a new country for the first time, even the countryside you see from the highway is fascinating, at least for me it is. Of course, it wasn't anything unique compared to Taiwan, except of course that it was cleaner and less developed!

My first stop was in Kuantan, which was billed in the travel guide as a good transit point for those on their way to the coast thanks to its big bus depot, and not much else. From what I could see, this was basically true. It looked like your average small city, interesting to me only because I was from halfway around the world. A week or so after I got back to Taiwan, though, I would read about Kuantan in the paper: it seems a young woman there was trying to earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records by living in a glass room full of scorpions for several days. She would be doing this in a mall in Kuantan, so the public could see. I can't quite decide whether or not I'm sorry I missed that one!

Anyhow, after the bus arrived, I waited for a while for another bus to Cherating, the resort I'd settled on; but as of half an hour past the time that bus was supposed to leave, it hadn't even arrived. So I settled on taking a cab out to Cherating, which according to the travel guide would cost 40 ringgit (a bit over $10 US). That price turned out to be exactly right - I do wonder how Lonely Planet keeps so up to date on these things. So I got to Cherating at around 4:00 in the afternoon, with a few hours of sunlight left to possibly take advantage of, at least.

...And walked out with my soul (and my apartment) untouched

Taiwan got slammed by a typhoon this week, handing me an unplanned two day vacation as it was too dangerous for anyone, teacher or student, to be going to school. I lost a few bucks in wages as a result, but there's nothing quite like watching a typhoon from your fourth floor kitchen window!

I really was going to put up the final installment of my vacation journal today, but I'm too busy catching up on homework I couldn't correct until this afternoon and such. I'll do my best to have it up tomorrow. See y'all then.

The Young and the Vegetables

It was a lovely morning in Longtan today. A bit drizzly as I left my apartment building, but I got in without getting too wet. The big storm came just after I got into the building, as it happened, and kept up for quite a while. There isn't much that's more cozy than spending a morning in a room full of happy kids with rain coming down in sheets outside. So my whininess of last week has officially subsided. Now, on to today's story...

Maybe some of you remember the story of Peter, my kindy student whose mother ordered us not to make him eat his vegetables at lunchtime. I have feared all along that sooner or later, some of the other kids would start complaining about having to eat veggies when he didn't. Sure enough, it finally happened today.

The complainer was Peter's friend and frequent partner in crime, Young. (Some of the parents here give their kids English "names" that aren't really names at all in the English speaking world.) I'd suspected for a while that he would be the first to protest, since he sits near Peter and plays with him a lot, and I'd even solicited advice for just such an eventuality. One colleague suggested half in jest that we could just tell Young that if he eats his vegetables, he'll grow bigger and stronger than Peter. It's not the most diplomatic thing I could say and a five year old won't necessarily find it a convincing argument, but it seemed worth a try.

And so I did try. When I spooned out some greens to put in Young's lunch bowl today, he said, "No, teacher!" and gestured to Peter (who, as it happened, did take some veggies today anyhow).

I leaned in conspiratorily and said, "You know, Young, if you eat your vegetables, you'll grow bigger and stronger than Peter," and dropped the greens in his bowl as I said it. (It was all I could do not to say "If you eat your vegetables you'll be able to beat Peter up." That one might have gotten me in a bit of trouble.)

Young looked at the vegetables in his bowl, looked at me, looked at Peter, evidently thought about what I had just said, and then pointed at the serving plate of vegetables.

And he said...







..."More, please."

Yeah, I know I ought to be ashamed of myself. But hey, he's a smart kid!

By the way, Peter does sometimes eat veggies without an argument now, although he tends to spill more food on his shirt than he ever gets into his mouth. It's a start.

Together at last

As of 7:30 or so this morning, a year and a half of waiting and wondering is over!

A word of advice. If someone you know only slightly ever sends you an odd-but-sincere sounding e-mail, don't be afraid to respond! It certainly changed my life.

Meanwhile, back in DC...

Warning: Those of you who believe being honest and open about one's past troubles and unfairness amounts to whining might want to skip this post. Alternatively, you might also want to consider the possibility that sometimes people have good reasons to be upset about things. Just a thought.

I interrupt the account of my vacation because I'd like to share some news and thoughts which, I hope, will lend some perspective on why my last couple of days in Malaysia were so cathartic and overdue. I got an e-mail recently from a friend I used to work with back in DC. It seems that my ex-boss from my first job out of grad school has been promoted. He's now the second in command for the entire bureau I worked for under him.

Now, this individual is basically pure evil, but I also feel like I probably ought to be grateful to him in a perverse way, because he's the one who started the chain of events that led to my coming to Taiwan. He started it by trying to fire me, for no discernable reason that he ever actually shared with me. He had a reputation for such things - something I have often desperately wished I were aware of when I took the job in the first place, but of course I wasn't.

All told, I worked for him (if you can call it that) for a bit less than a year. For nine months, I went to work every day and did the best I could to learn how to do my job, with extremely little guidance from him or anyone else. (I'm tempted to say there was no guidance at all, but the memories of this time are fuzzy now as I've done my best to block it all out.) Although I was often vaguely aware that the boss didn't like me, I never received any kind of specific criticism that would have enabled me to change that. Besides, he didn't seem to like anyone too much, and at least I didn't call in sick when I was really just taking a long weekend, or take off three hours early on a Friday, like colleagues of mine did. They got in trouble for it, but no one's employment status was ever threatened as long as they agreed never to do it again. So it seemed to me that I ought to be okay.

I wasn't. I got an e-mail one afternoon calling me into the boss' office, where I was told in gentle but firm terms to start looking immediately for another job. Once again, no specific reasons were given. I have my theories about the boss wanting to hire a very attractive young woman who had applied for a job at a time when there were no vacancies, but I concede that I have no proof. I did my best to reason with him, but there's really no reasoning with a dishonest man who's holding all the cards. Of course what he did was completely illegal, since he hadn't shown any kind of cause and I was exempt from the rule he was trying to invoke anyhow, but the rules only matter to the extent that they're enforced. And in this case (as in so many others where the boss doesn't like the rules), they weren't enforced at all. This led to six weeks of mostly sleepless nights and the humiliation of going in to spend eight hours a day with colleagues who knew all about what had happened while I searched desperately for a new job. In order to keep my tenure as a federal employee, I more or less had to take the first new job I could find before the ax came down (illegally, but who cared about that?).

That new job turned out to be just down the hall from the old one, which was at least convenient. But while I escaped with my employment status intact, the new job was essentially as a glorified receptionist with no substantial duties of any kind. I tried to persuade my new boss to let me take on some meatier duties, but she demurred and then refused (and later had the nerve to criticize me for "never taking the initiative"!). I ended up spending a year and a half there, first trying to make something of the new job (I felt I owed the new boss that much for bailing me out of the tough spot I'd been in), then trying to use it as a springboard to a better job. This almost worked several times, but various bulls**t bureaucratic rules always got in the way. Of course this wasn't the old boss' fault, but then if it hadn't been for him, I would never have been in a position where I was forced to take the new job.

All of which is why I was only too willing to make as drastic a move as I did this past February. I really am glad something shook me out of my inhibitions about taking such a big step that I'd always wanted to take anyhow. But it continues to gnaw at me that it all started with an unscrupulous boss who got away with being unscrupulous - and who has now received a cushy promotion. Understand, if you will, that this guy is extremely unpopular with just about everyone who knows him. His behind-the-back nickname is "The Prince of Darkness," which tells you pretty much all you need to know. I must admit that I've gotten a degree of perverse enjoyment from knowing that even if he screwed me, I have gone on to much bigger and better things and he must be a very unhappy person, since he's so unpleasant to be around. Still, the man drives a Porsche, owns a house in a ritzy Northwest DC neighborhood, has a job that enables him to travel all over the world, and can never be fired under any circumstances short of committing a felony. I find it hard to believe he's all that unhappy no matter how many enemies he has.

And there's something deeply unfair about such a person being placed in a position where he can destroy even more careers. But it does make me that much happier that I've made my escape to such a better-suited place, anyhow.

Took a lightning trip to Malaysia

I like trains. A lot. One of the things I was most looking forward to about the trip was taking the trip up to Kuala Lompur from Singapore after I slayed the GRE beast. It was a long trip - longer than anticipated, because I was a couple of hours early at the train station - and the economy line I rode on was pretty Spartan. But in a new country, everything is an adventure.

The Singapore train station is the one place I saw in that fair city that is kind of run down; but it's under renovation. I'd really like to see it again in a few years and see if it's undergone a miraculous rebirth ala Union Station or Grand Central. Malaysia is, of course, quite a bit more down at the heels than its southern neighbor, and sitting there in the station for a couple of hours, I felt a bit like I had already crossed the straits.

I lost that illusion as soon as we did get on the train and cross into Malaysia. There was quite a bit of rural poverty visible from the train throughout the six hour trip to KL, but also a lot of pretty landscapes and such. Both, of course, kept my attention for obviously different reasons, so I didn't get bored too often on the long trip.

Arriving in KL after dark, I had a slightly intimidating introduction to the city: quite a few people speak English, and there are signs everywhere, but the layout is very, well, convoluted. The main source of my confusion was that I had already decided on the hotel to spend the night at, and from the Lonely Planet guide, I thought the hotel was linked directly to the train station. It turned out that it was actually an old train station that had been renovated into a hotel, and there was a subway train that led there. But I was too tired to try to figure out the local MRT map (more about that later!), and took a cab there instead.

The hotel at the old train station was great, except that the air conditioner in my room was busted. No problem on that first night, as I was tired enough to sleep just about anywhere; but I wasn't nearly so forgiving the second night. Just one mosquito can really change your perspective on a hotel room, I find. One thing I really loved about the hotel, though, was its restaurant, which still looked very much like something you would find at an old train station - lots of ornate decor, high ceiling fans, leather chairs, a fair sprinkling of Asian kitsch, and the food wasn't bad either. Not to mention everything was quite cheap, a big draw for the country in general, actually.

Now, about the MRT. I've never run into an MRT quite like Kuala Lompur's. It's actually several different train lines run by different companies (at least three, from what I gathered), which intersect occasionally at stations and sometimes have stations across the street from each other; but since they're different companies, you have to buy separate tickets and go to separate platforms even on the occasions when they do stop in the same station. So right off the bat, that made it tricky to get around. It did at least make for some adventurous wandering around downtown KL on the morning of the one full day I spent there.

I'd like to say I spent that one full day doing something - anything - uniquely Malaysian, but, well, there honestly wasn't a whole lot to choose from in that department. I had heard that the city's boosters are trying to play it up as a cheap alternative to Singapore when it comes to shopping, and that does seem to be the case. There are stores everywhere there. I did seek out a couple of outdoor markets and spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing there, but I didn't see anything I couldn't buy back in Taiwan. I did at least manage to sample some of the local cuisine, which was terrific. Kuala Lompur also has a slightly different subset of Western food outlets than either Singapore or Taipei, so I was able to procure my first A&W root beer float since who knows when. So it wasn't all bad by any means. But I must admit that I wasn't too sorry when the sun went down and I had an excuse to go back to the hotel for dinner at that great restaurant I mentioned.

There was one interesting sighting at the hotel, which does still have a small functioning train station attached to it - I got off the MRT there, having finally deciphered the system to an extent. As I was getting off the subway, I saw the Eastern & Orient Express stopped outside the station for what looked like a refueling of some sort. With forest-green cars with gold lettering and trim, the train looked straight out of the 1930s, as did quite a few of the passengers, who were eating dinner in the plush dining cars. (Yes, you could see they were plush from all the way across the railyard!) Everything about it looked gorgeous and, of course, expensive. And naturally, it didn't make me feel so enthusiastic about getting on the train or bus (I hadn't yet decided where the next stop was at this point) out of town the next day. I'd have given a lot right then to be sitting in those air-conditioned cars in my linen suit - if I had a linen suit, anyway. My usual response to such things is to think of a pithy Fitzgerald quote that fits the scene. This time, the first thing that came to mind was the fact that Scott and Zelda spent most of their adult lives up to their eyeballs in debt!

When I got back to my room, I looked up the E&O in my tour guide, and found that hunch was right. The well-dressed passengers I had just seen had shelled out well over US$1,000 for the ride from Singapore to Bangkok, with stops in KL and Butterworth - so much for the "express" in their name! Somehow a plain old dinner of roast chicken and Tiger beer in that hot but pleasant restaurant didn't seem so bad after all.

So Kuala Lompur didn't sweep me off my feet like Singapore did. In any case, I didn't dislike it by any means and I'm glad to say I've seen it. It was a nice introduction to Malaysia, and was followed in style by my first Day At The Beach in far too long. More about that tomorrow.