Life of Putt

My Broke Ass Car

2011-11-21T16:26:00.001-08:00

It broke. My car just stopped working. It might sound normal but this has been happening since I bought that same car when I was fifteen years old. It was old then and it is ancient now. It's a 1991 Honda Civic. LX I might add. That stands for Luxury... xylophone.

I was so excited when, at that ripe age of 15, amongst hundreds of other beaters that were on sale at the glamorous dog racing track, we found it. It wasn't really shining, it didn't look flashy, it didn't have low mileage, but somehow I knew it would be mine. It would have to be mine because we could only afford something for $3k or less. I had no idea that I would come to still rely on its feeble abilities some eleven years later.

My high school years were sprinkled with little shitty moments in my go-kart. In the summer time I would drive around with friends fill the car with the delightful odors of feet, beer, and pot. As winter rolled along I turned on the half-assed heater that would then pump the combined smells right into the faces of those same friends. It felt like a humid locker room confined to a tiny little machine.

I got a lot of much needed exercise during the winter months. My car putted along pumping out a hot garbage smell for about a mile before it decided it could no longer take the stress of working. School was only about two miles away and yet I had to start my mornings earlier so I could anticipate my car breaking down half-way to school. It would chug, chug, chug and stop. I would recklessly roll, unaided by power steering, into whatever nearby neighborhood I could make it to. I then cursed the car several times, kicked it and walked the rest of the way to school in the cold. At the end of the day I always had to find someone to hitch with so I could find my car that would miraculously start after a few hours of rest.

It did this for several years and that was just how I lived. I became accustomed to driving as far as I could before my car simply stopped and I had to walk the rest of the way. The smartest thing I ever did was realizing that it was best to drive through neighborhoods because they had an abundance of parking for those who needed to end up on some random street corner.

The car hit its peak the summer of my senior year of high school when I was driving it to my work in the middle of nowhere. It was 6 am, cold and right before I started to nod off at the wheel I noticed a plume of black smoke pouring out of the hood and through the floor boards. I managed to reach a randomly placed shooting range where I parked in the gravel lot. The range was closed at the time so I had resort to fists and kicks to show my disapproval of my poorly functioning shit-box as I was by this time calling it. I had to walk the rest of the way to work until a hippy in a windowless pervert van picked me up and talked to me about how his favorite fruit was bananas. Thankfully it was a short ride. I left my car at the range for two weeks before they finally called me. These kind gentlemen went to the effort of finding my information from the license plate and calling me to come retrieve it. It was going to be difficult to rid myself of this cursed automobile.

I left for college and then was gone two years more and I was free of my car. In place of the old Honda I recieved constant insults about how I never drove and how I had no right to call shot gun when I was never able to offer shot gun to others. I was content to take this criticism because I knew that had my car been with me it would have only suffered further from the weight of my beer bellied friends. (Myself included.)

So instead it was to my sister that this heap of metal went. She was perhaps not the greatest caretaker for this car, but it seemed to work in the same off and on manner for her. The new symptom that developed during these years was that the key would become frozen in the ignition in the winter and so my sister would leave there all day. It was never once stolen.

It seemed that despite all the invitations no one wanted this car and so it was once bequeathed to me when I arrived home again. And so I still drive this Honda and it still continues to be a piece of crap. The fact is I need that little thing to keep working. While it may not look good and it certainly doesn't help with the ladies, it does, from time to time, get me places.

It is now sitting outside my apartment, broken, dirty and with a flat tire. It looks sadder than those commercials where Sarah Mclachlan sings about dogs getting beat up. I haven't taken it to the shop yet because I'm afraid that it is gone forever. At least when it's rotting outside of my apartment there's still some mystery as to if it will continue to piss me off for another eleven years. Otherwise, I might just have to grow up and make enough money to buy a real car. We shall see.

Marco Polo

2011-10-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

I think I'm beginning to grow weary of my apartment building. I've been here for about two years and while I've certainly enjoyed some great times within these walls, I've come to find the oddities of the other residents quite unpalatable.

Recently, I've changed careers and I've found myself working in the evenings rather than the more typical 9-5 schedule. My mornings are spent doing what most in my position would do; I run errands, work out, paint pictures, trade stocks, and many other stimulating activities.

Sometimes, however, I will skip these activities, which often take me out of the house, and sleep in until 11 only to sluggishly mosey over to my couch to watch crappy movies on the netflix account I should have cancelled months ago. Quite honestly I've been doing that a lot more than the activities afore mentioned.

The life of a loafer can be truly wonderful if one is alone in his loafing. However, my apartment seems to be filled with weirdoes whose daily doings are something more than unusual.

Let's begin with the land lady. Her name is Andrea and she calls me Drew. Whenever I talk to Andrea she seems utterly busy. She always has some sort of major apartment project in the works.

This summer I woke up every day at 7 am to the pounding cacophony of the Mexican workers drilling holes into every single balcony in the building. On the first day I was excited to practice a bit of Spanish and I even thought about offering them beers, but after two weeks of the horrendous drilling noises I began to consider how easy it might be to simply push each one off the balcony in the hopes that at least he might be able to claim worker's comp.

This project then facilitated the painting of the newly drilled balconies by Driller Jorge's cousin Gustavo y los Amigos. These guys took even longer and for another two weeks I awoke to ranchero tunes only to stumble into the patio furniture inconveniently scattered around my kitchen and living room. It was a feng shui nightmare.

Her new kick has been remodeling the "lobby" of the "elegant" Marco Polo Apartments. The new floor tiles have a New Mexican orange rust look that contrasts delightfully with the black and white Swiss-villa-inspired walls. It looks terrible.

Her husband/boy friend/concubine/dude is an odd ball too. He's got long dirty hair, loves him some sweat pants, and he thoroughly enjoys reminding my roommate that his truck is, "the fucking tits man." Aside from that I don't know what he does except have crude conversations with people on a walkie talkie. No joke. A walkie talkie.

There's one guy who I always see throughout the day. It used to freak me out because I would sometimes see him in the laundry room and then only moments later he would be walking down the stairs towards said laundry room. These kind of things happened quite frequently and it wasn't until I was told of the existence of his twin brother that I was able relax and stop carrying my air soft gun with me to the laundry room.

These twins are really twiny. You can't tell them apart. I assume they are from some eastern European country because...well I have no justification, but they certainly have weird accents. All winter one of these guys, or both, who the hell knows, will do "spa" treatments where he sits in the sauna for an ungodly amount of time only to then run outside and sit in the snow. We're talking ass on the ground in the snow. I'm sure this contrast of temperatures is nice for the blood flow, but as a resident this guy or guys or whatever need name tags.

The crème de la crème though is the butt hole who lives right above me. I have never seen this dude, but I have to imagine that he is indeed fat. Probably the kind of jellyfish fat that will shudder on its own under the force of a strong breeze. He most certainly has thinning greasy hair and I can guarantee that his “around the house” outfit of a two sizes too short burgundy bathrobe and white motel slippers. As he strolls around the apartment I imagine that he ties the bathrobe but his gut is too rotund for the full coverage so he has about six inches of belly exposed down the center of his figure.

Now with that image in mind you might be wondering, "What are you talking about if you've never actually seen this guy? How do you even know of his existence?" Excellent question. It is not his appearance that bothers me but rather the noises he makes from above.

It is more infrequent now, but in the heat of the summer this guy would spend at least two hours each day just belting opera tunes. I mean, he really thinks he could be the next tenor. The best part is that he'll often accompany himself by playing a little piano. I don't know if he's just never learned to play or if his fingers are too fat to only push one key, but Pavarotti loves to play simple one handed piano tunes while he literally shouts out the lyrics to some of his favorite operas. I personally think he's a bit too liberal with his use of vibrato because almost every word sounds like he’s singing while falling down staires in a sleeping bag. This guy's talent from drawing out syllables would make a catholic priest sound like a fast talker. Sometimes it will take him more than a whole minute to belt out one sentence.

One time he invited some friends over and "performed" for them and I can only imagine that they were all sitting on his several items of mismatched furniture trying to point their eyes at anything but this guys exposed belly button just bursting from the crack in his robe. I imagine that he probably offered them some slices of white sandwich bread and perhaps some chocolate milk to accompany.

There are many more residents of the illustrious Marco Polo Apartments who freak me out but there simply isn't enough time. The only one I'll quickly mention is this dick who always seems to be in the elevator when I take it. I guess he maybe wants to be young again and he thinks that all guys my age talk like out of work porn directors. He'll say things like, "What the fuck man? How the fuck are ya? You see those fucking chicks outside? Shit man, those asses were ripe for the picking." To this I simply reply, "Maaa." I really don’t even know what to say. I like to think of myself as a pretty vulgar person, but when faced with an actual sleaze ball like this guy I rarely know how to retort to his explicit blabberings.

Now don't think I consider myself perfect. I'm sure people don't like the amount of parties and drinking that goes on in my place. I can guarantee that no one enjoys the volume at which I choose to watch my movies. And I'm fucking positive that everyone hates how I don't have a buzzer so my friends just scream at all the balconies until I come out and throw down my keys. But that's another story and this blog is about making fun of other people. Not me. You take care world.

Vino Baby!

2010-07-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

It was a brisk early morning as I leapt onto the slowly moving bus. I had enjoyed a nice media luna and orange juice for breakfast and I was prepared to embark on yet another exciting journey. This new voyage would take me to some far away cultures, beautiful scenery, and the feeling that I had really taking myself out of my own environment. I was going to WINE COUNTRY!!!

The bus arrived promptly at 9am. It arrived, that is, to a small bench on the side of a dirt road. The bus driver indicated that this was indeed our stop and that it was time for us to get off and stop coming up to him every five minutes to ask if we had already pass our stop.

I leapt off the last step of the bus with an energetic zeal. However, I was quickly brought back to reality when a bustling town driven by the vino tinto and blanco commerce appeared to be just a small farming community where nothing was open. Oops.

We new that this was to be expected as the vineyards were all a bit spread out through the small town. For that we were going to need to rent bikes. Luckily, using my spanish wit and charm, HA!, I spoke to the local butcher to discover that we were in no way near a bike rental place.

As usual we decided to simply move our legs in search of someone who might know a bit more information that the blood soaked meat barren we had just met.

SIDE NOTE: While the people here are very friendly and always eager to help out a fellow traveler, I´ve noticed that most the people have no real idea what is going on or where they are or what things actually exist in their country. For that reason you just have to ask an average of 5 people to figure out something that could most often be delivered by one. I guess it´s a culture thing.

We walked and we walked and would you believe it? we walked bit more. We soaked up all the wonders of the charming town and spoak to the locals about our enthusiasm for their wine and their lack of enthusiam for the obvious cold that was seeping into every crack and weakness in our insufficient clothing.

After an hour of walking we did finally find a bike shop. It only took about 20 minutes to then stir the incompetent (we would later find out) employee of this fine rental shack. He gave us some some bikes and our free ¨drinks¨ which appeared to be gatorade bottles that way way have been from the 70s when the company first began. I don´t know if they think like wine all drinks are better with age, but I wasn´t about to test that.

Well, what would you know, I had a bike and some old gaterade and things were looking up. We picked a spot to make our first bodega visit and we were off.

We took a nice ride about 10 km down the nice tree shaded roads and I was excited for a day that would surely end in me being too buzzed in a place where I should have ¨respected my alcohol.¨ I could see great things on the horizon.

That was, until, BOOM! The pedal of my bike after a slowly withering struggle to stay on finally popped right off in the middle of the road. Luckily the bike was already crappy enough that I was riding rather slowly, so I didn´t fall too hard. I tried to fix it some how, but the bike had decided that it was broken and that there was no going back.

Of course the rest of the group slyly hid the irritating fact that their bikes were still shittily functioning just fine and now they would have to walk with me. I thought the solution would be simple as all we would have to do would be to arrive to the fist bodega, call the bike guy for a new bike, have some wine, and await his glorious arrival.

After that decision was made one hopeful thing happened and a mess of hopeless things occured. While taking my bike on a walk along the road I noticed some gentlemen working on a gate at the front of a resident´s house. I asked if they could help and what do you know, they had a full tool box and all the enthusiam needed to aid the idiot tourist who was obviously just beginning his day as the annoying drunk biker who had nothing to add to his town other than noise and car accidents.

He did what he could to fix the pedal and I thought all was saved. I was quickly brought back to a rather glib reality when the new problem arrived...the bike fell apart. The chain broke, the gears actually snapped off and the pedal fell off again. My bike basically said ¨Fuck you! I quit!¨ Oh did it quit. I knew right then that somehow this day was not going to be as easy as I thought it would be. But then, when is it ever easy. I wouldn´t be able to write these stories if life was always peachy, right?

We continued on the hopes that some bodega would be open for us to call the bike man while enjoying some vino, but vineyard after vineyard was closed Closed CLOSED! Crap.

What could we do but walk the 10 km back into town for the next 2 hours. I really thought that the day might be ruined and I irritatingly apologized over and over for something that was clearly not my fault.

Our first stroke of real luck hit when we arrived to the Cabrini Bodega. They were also closed, however the woman there not only called the bike guy finally, but they offered our first taste of some delicious Mendozan Malbec. It was great!

After the man arrived the day passed with the ease and delight I had hoped for that whole day. It was truly one of the best days I´ve had here in Argentina. We visited several vineyards, all very small, and we learned a lot about the cultivation of Argentine wines and how the process and culture behind it differs from wines in other countries. Ask me some time and I´ll tell you all about it. Not here though, because you´ve read enough and I want you, oh faithful reader, to take a break. Enjoy yourself, take a bike ride, have a glass of wine. Do anything you want to remind you of how great things are if you just maintain a healthy and happy attitude. Remember, there is no spoon!

Stank folk!

2010-07-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

Roommates. Almost everyone has had some type of live in, roommate, friend crashing on the couch, or something to that extent. The difference is that usually you have the option to pick who it is you´re sharing your living space with. When traveling it´s not like that. At least, not when you´re traveling on dirt dollars and can only afford the bleakest of lodging.

I have stayed in some shady places in my life, but this recent location has been one of the most modest hostels I could have ever had nightmares about. Some things you might be able to agree upon would be the constant smell of cigarette smoke even though no one apears to be smoking in the hostel. That smell is even present when you´re sitting on the plastic toilet seat using toilet paper you can see through. Next, you continue to breath in the second hand smoke fumes while itchily walking over to the constantly damp and slippery shower with the see through shower curtain that is barely hanging on the pole. Ahhhh, now you´re ¨showered¨ and it´s time to go get a bit of shut eye. You lay down on your soggy bed and it feels like your skin is rubbing up against the skin of some other person. ¨Have these sheets ever been washed?¨ you wonder? Most likely not. So that´s the start, oh fellow readers, but more is to arrive when one considers the most enjoyable part of the whole experience: the roommates.

I first met our two delightful roommates when I was taking a most awkward nap at about 6 in the evening. You see, that morning I had arrived from a 23 hour bus ride and was feeling more than a bit disoriented and I was really in need of some sleep no matter the hour. Of course, once I had finally gotten to REM status these new people came in and disturbed my slumber. I attempted to be social, but I was inhibited by the fact that I had finally fallen into a heavy sleep coma only to be awoken 15 minutes later. I tried some social dribble and then decided that I was more grouchy than interested in getting to know people and I left to go to a new smoke filled room to read my book on a broken couch.

So that was the intro. Little did I know that while I would not speak to my roommates ever again, I would have many strange and uncomfortable experiences with my new bunkpals over the next two days.

That night I arrived home ready to get in an early night so that I could wake up for a day trip that was truly amazing. (Sure I could tell you about my beautiful ride through the Andes and my experience at one of the world´s largest salt flats, but I´d rather complain about these psychos.) I walked into my room and for once it didn´t reek of cigarrettes. Rather, the room was soaked in the most pungent stink of B.O. I have ever experienced. This English couple appeared to be about as smelly as a dead rotting moose on the side of the highway. Holy shit some stank!!!

Somehow, I managed some sleep despite the feeling of plague ridden rats crawling into my nostrils to then keel over and die inside of my olfactory system. However, I was awoken at some ungodly hour by these two bumbling doofuses. They bumped around and somehow infiltrated a bit a alcohol breath into the otherwise BO dominated cave and then they both left. Note: this hostel is very cheaply built and you can hear every tiny disturbance in the otherwise silent building.

What I heard next was something that took this couple into inconsiderate asshole overdrive. The sounds of passion went echoing throughout the whole of the hostel. That´s right, this couple was having steamy gross drunk sex in the bathroom which only a day later was covered in a newly pungent and black throwup. Yuck! After the passion came to an echoingly loud climax, the newly sweaty couple came into the room, made out some more on the bunk bed above me, and then passed out without putting on their bed sheets.

I didn´t see the couple the next day and that proved to be quite a pain in the ass too. The way our hostel works is that there is only one key for the room, which means that the last one out simply has to leave it on a hook in the main room. Not a problem right? Oh no, I got locked out of my room twice yesterday. Both times resulted in having to call the manager guy to come from his house to phyisically open the door who´s lock has only one key. Why the hostel would put all their faith in every random traveler is beyond me, but I guess I´m not in the biz.

After I finally got into bed again, these dicks arrived once again drunk and late and ready to make tons of noise and add extra stink to an already seweresque atmosphere. This time the girl passed out quickly which was nice only until 5 minutes into sleeping when she started to make some of the most bizzarre and gross noises in her sleep. The guy didn´t arrive for about 4 more hours and even then he crashed with all his clothes on.

When I woke up this morning both were in their unmade beds sleeping on old stained mattresses with all their clothes on. Do these people sound like pyschos or what??? Yes, they are. I don´t understand what is going through their heads at all. But...tis hostel life.

Luckily, thanks to my charming personality and my delightful command of the local tongue (Spanish) I was able to explain my utter displeasure to our hostel folk so well that they have decided to move me into my own private room at the same price. I will always choose to be a good person over an inconsiderate dickhead.

El CLUBE!

2010-06-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

The weekend has come and gone and once again I´ve managed to go crazy, meet a bunch of random people and come stumbling home at a solid 8 in the morning. Want to hear about it?

Futbol futbol futbol!!! That´s what I´ve been doing here in Argentina. I´ve been watching every game with a certain zest and excitement that one only gets every four years. (You see, the world cup only occurs once every four years and for that reason one can only get this excited when it arrives. Now if the cup happened every year, or annually, it would be different, but since it isn´t I have to appreciate this type of fun only once every four years. Get it?)

My day pretty much just flows with the world cup schedule. I usually wake up at about 11 to the sounds of cheering from those who are already in the spirit. I watch the fist game on the couch in my hostel until about 1 pm every day. Then I have about two and a half hours to do something until the next game starts.

On Saturday, I was following my usual pattern which lead to a little walking tour with a new hostel friend from Australia. We walked all over the city and went to my favorite destination so far, the Ateneo book store. It is a giant book store made inside an old theater. Very cool. After that, we picked a semi run down restaurant to have some mid day pizza and even more mid day glasses of wine. Well, she had chocolate milk and I had a couple of huge 75 cent glasses of wine.

She had to leave to meet friends so I worked my way back through the city stopping once and a while to have a wine and keep up with the game. That took me all of 2 hours and when I finally began my B line to the crib the rain kicked in and I was forced to walk soakingly to my little crash pad.

At this point I thought it was going to be a regular movie on the couch and crash night, but I was mistaken. I decided to check out the party floor on the top to see what was happening and to my surprise...it was happening.

Now at this point it might be interesting to know that for the first couple of days here I was being a bit of an anti-social dud. A bit unlike myself, I´ll agree, but nonetheless I was spending more of my time sleeping or laying on the couch instead of actually being friendly or talking to anyone. So, when I showed up on Saturday with a bit of wine in the belly and my usual butterfly like attitude, most were more than surprised.

After a couple more glasses of wine and beer the decision was made to head to the Clubes as they call it. Our group was quite large which meant that the inevitable decision of where to go was going to be nearly impossible.

We found our first club and entered only to find out that half the group had said ¨Screw this¨ and left for some other place. I tried to get into it, but it was clear that the others were also dissatisfied. The music seemed about a half tempo too slow and it was really enjoyable watching all the locals try to compensate for the fact that the DJ had a serious hearing disorder. There seemed to be a lot more people crashing into each other and no one was able to find his/her rythm. It was a no brainer that we needed to step things up.

At this point I was on fire or ¨in the groove¨ and I was ready for any kind of party they could throw at me. After an intriguing conversation with the taxi driver about the beef in Argentina we arrived to the new club. Our second of the evening.

This next part is sort of a wild blur of events. The highlights for me where taking random pictures with all sorts of people, having some massive dance offs with the locals and one serious dance off that led to us being in a circle trading off moves and then agreeing that we both rocked and doing our own synchronized dance together, and of course...getting several different high rolling Argentines to buy me drinks even though I had my own money in my pockets. You gotta do what you gotta do.

After that my Spanish was zooming and I no longer wanted to be around those who wouldn´t speak it to me. While walking with my hostel friends back to the.....that´s right, the hostel, I met some local Argentines by initiating a very inviting, ¨HEY! ¿QUE PASA AMIIIIIIGGGGGOOOOOOO?¨

Some how we got to talking and I ditched the others and we were off to find another beer. Unfortunately though, we were a bit too stupid to realize that no one was going to have beer at 630 in the morning. Of course that did not stop us and we made a long journey all throughout Buenos Aires.

In the end we decided to settle on some footlong hotdogs sold by a Bolivian woman in a kiosk in the middle of a dark street. The ideal way to eat your breakfast. It was fun to team up with the Bolivian in making fun of Argentinian accents.

After some hugs and some goodbyes I was walking off towards the rising sun and my rock soft bunk bed when I heard my new friends shout, ¨You´re the coolest American evvvveeeerrrrrrr!¨ And with those kind words in my head I found my way to the hostel and drifted off to dream land until 430 in the afternoon the next day. A pretty good night over all and a great way to finally start my trip.

¿My Kind of Tourism?

2010-06-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

¡Well here I am in the great land of Argentina! I have finally crossed the equator. I can now add another continent to my list. I have been very lazy since I got here. There is something great about going on a trip for 6 weeks, and that great thing is that you don´t have to worry about cramming a million things into your day. Not only that, but it gives you more time to actually think about what you want to do. Not everyone likes going to old churches or seeing giant museums but they go there because they consider it a part of the unique experience one can have when in that specific location.

I have found that there are many things that you can consider ¨cultural¨ or ¨memorable¨ and many of them are much easier and cheaper than a lot of the more typical tourist things.

Yesterday was a good day because I was able to actually enjoy my first real full day in Argentina. The day of arrival can always be a little daunting because you are still awake after coming from the last place you were just enjoying. When I arrived here in South America I still had the smell on palm trees on my body and the sand of Venice Beach in my hair. Not only that, but I was still filled with the elation I had felt from hanging out with some of my good friends in my own country. Take that experience and then thrust yourself into a completely new environment and it can feel a little nerve-racking. Normally I would like to arrive and then just go to sleep in order to adjust to this new place, but instead I had a long and fun day.

I arrived at the airport after one of the most boring flights I have ever had in my life. I was fine being anti-social on my 6 hour flight to New York, but I was preparing myself to meet a very eccentric and interesting Argentine on my 11 hour flight down south.

To be honest I never actually found out where the guy sitting next to me was from because he did not say a single word the whole flight. Even the flight attendants were confused as to how to address him. The same woman kept coming by and asking ¨Would you like anything to drink?¨ only to receive a head nod or hand gesture. The next time she would stop by and say ¨Quieres algo para comer?¨ and she would still get a mute answer. The guy literally didn´t want to talk to anyone. All he wanted to do was very carefully and methodically analyze the giant book he had brought along.

Now I´ll admit, I have some strange and sometimes uninteresting interests, but I usually divide my attention equally between them all. This guy sat in his chair for the full 11 hours reading a foot and a half wide coffee table book all about the history of modern furniture. We´re talking pages and pages of chairs and tables. Sure that is interesting for some, but 11 hours????¿¿¿¿ Not only that, but he was actually reading all the captions and descriptions page for page. I didn´t think anyone actually read the stuff in the coffee table books. Aren´t they just for guests to flip through while they wait for you to bring out their drink¿ (I forgot that my keyboard has some extra keys for me to enjoy¡)

He also kept rubbing each page and feeling them down as if he intended to measure each individual page with his eyes. It was all just very strange.

This guy seemed so incredibly consumed by his furniture book that even I was nervous to break his chair concentration. I didn´t even get up to pee until 9 and a half hours into the flight, and I always have to pee. Especially on airplanes¡¡¡

So he was obviously not a delightful seat mate and as soon as I got into the airport I was eager to speak to anyone who wasn´t passionately devoted to old furniture or taxidermy or any other thing you are supposed to think one thought and then forget about.

However, I was now in a foreign land and I had to switch to a brand new language. (A language I was hoping to have practiced for 11 hours pre-arriving. BUT NO¡ When I went through the customs I made my obvious mistakes by asking for a pencil when I wanted a pen, saying I was a woman to the customs official, and then asking where I could find my couch when I clearly was in search of my luggage. No problem though, because it got sorted out and after a quick bus ride I arrived in a city I have never quite seen before.

Buenos Aires is really beautiful and very big. It looks like a metropolitan city that you might see in Spain and yet the whole time you constantly remind yourself that you are actually in the southern part of South America. Somehow knowing that this city exists in the same part of the world as the Amazon and Machu Picchu is constantly mind blowing. I´ve seen a good amount so far and I´ve enjoyed some good steaks and some great wines and I even had dessert at a T.G.I. Fridays with a local of Buenos Aires. I´ve also done a lot of hanging out and a immense amount of Futbol watching.

So if I were to recommend how to be a good tourist when staying in a place for a long time I would say........ do whatever you want whenever you want to. Enjoy all the simple things and don´t forget the ¨insignificant¨ things. It is often hard to relate the experience of a great art museum to someone who has never been there or who has no interest, but many can relate to the boring and mysterious dork sitting next to him on the airplane. And that is important¡

Hotel-de-Tramp

2010-06-17T16:47:00.001-07:00

Well, another trip has begun and just as always I've found a room in a dumpy little hostel where I can get on a computer for 5 bucks an hour to inform my faithful readers of my grand adventures.

I've made it to my first destination: San Diego. This is my third trip here in my life and I've really enjoyed myself. This time I've been staying in the heart of the city where one is surrounded by classic buildings, a myriad of restaurants and bars and every kind of hobo/bum/street person he could hope to meet.

I've seen a lot of bums in my day. In fact, when I'm traveling I usually live the life similar to a vagabond. However, I've noticed a special bread of street person out here in San Diego. In this place the bums have a keen sense of how sidewalk life must be pursued. Unlike the bums of Chicago or the cities of the northeast, the SO-CAL bums already have an edge up by recognizing that street life is more effective and profitable whilst living in a warm city. Life is always better when the sun is out!

As I walk through the hustle and bustle of the San Diego streets I'm often fortunate to come across all sorts of colorful beggars. There are so many out here and most have thrown out the classic and creative excuses and simply go for a quick "You got any change?" or a slightly more enticing, "I need a quarter for the bus. Can you spare some?"

Since most bindle punks use the same excuses, they have to rely on other pans in order to win the jingling prize hidden deep within all of our pockets. Some have massize shopping carts with tassels and doo dads dangling from every side. Others sport bizarre clothing ensembles that somehow seem to match even though it's quite obvious that every item has a entirely different origin than the next. These are the boes that appear to be the most successful. They aren't tied down to a cart and they don't need to search endless trash cans in the hopes of snatching a plastic bottle or two. These ones use their tact and spunk to win the dimes and quarters of their loyal supporters. These freeloaders are true masters in the art of flim flamery. They are the bread winners of the street community and for that they are certainly a proud breed.

The grease balls are a type of hobo often confused for the true tramps of these great streets. Grease balls steal from other hard working loafers and are often known to toot the ringer if you can believe that. These guys are tricksters who may look like regular hard working hobos, but are actually thieves within their own community. These grease balls are too smart to actually be on the streets and are clearly driven by sheer laziness. For if one is smart enough to outsmart other hobos, that hobo is thus intelligent enough to find a better means of contributing to society. However, the greasers are more inclined to trick and thieve than to really embrace the Happy Hooligan lifestyle. It can sometimes be hard to spot the difference between a Grease ball and a Boe, but when you do you'll feel glad you didn't make the grave error of supporting this shameful lifestyle. The world simply cannot benefit from these tomato-can stiffs.

So while I've obviously been doing a lot more things in this great city, I feel it necessary to give some credit to those "hard-working" men...and a few women, who make their homes throughout the streets, alley ways, and beaches of this fair city. Would the world be better without the hobo? I doubt it. Sometimes life for others can become so monotonous that they forget the path they took from point A to point B. Spotting a tramp, hobo or streety helps us stay awake. They add a bit more color to an already colorful world.

A Monika will often attempt to run the line, but if that scalawag ever wants to find a scenery cruiser he had better get some thin ones by throwing his feet and avoiding the yahoos. Right?

Getting Domesticated

2009-11-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

Well here I am. I have managed to survive a bit more than a month in the US of A. For a while I really thought that I wasn't going to make it. After months of exotic travel and years of bizarre living conditions, becoming a full blooded "American" seemed a bit too terrifying to truly accept. Now, however, as the stomach is once again calming to the food, my job search is (hopefully) nearing a result, and my life in Denver shall soon be realized; I feel like I'm going to make it.

But before I decided to devote my bloggues to the wonders of suburban-all-American-style-livin', allow me to tell you about some of the things that really scared the shit outta me upon entering this immensely strange place.

FOOD- Whooooooooaaaaaaa now that was quite the adjustment. It could be that I was drinking too much tap and river water in Central America or (which I think is more likely) I could have just been too overwhelmed by the crazy diet they have here.

The first day back in the States I was visiting friends in Chicago. My friend JP took me to a famous heavy metal style hamburger joint where you eat 30 pound burgers while Pantera rages from the speakers and kung fu movies play endlessly on the omnipresent flat screens. Only in America. After we dined on the half-heifer heart attack cakes we left to go for a bit of tux shopping for my friend's upcoming wedding. Along the way, I felt like my stomach was bursting and that I literally had no vacancy for all the toxins boiling away in my belly. I asked my friend for a fruit shake as I was accustomed to drinking light mango shakes on the beaches of all my little hot spots. He of course brought me a cornucopia of 8 fruits crammed into a brick of a smoothie. I drank it to what I thought was delight until about ten minutes after.

Driving along the streets of Chi-Town, as the locals secretly call it, I started to feel a bit of both queasy and nauseous. I ask my friend, "are we close to your house?"
"About fifteen minutes. Are you al.."
"Dude I just want to....uh...maybe lay down or drink some water or take a nap I think." I interrupted awkwardly.
We continued along the street until my friend spoke, "I'm just waiting for you to POP!"

Well that did it. I burst. I yelled for him to pull over and chucked the car's weight in vomit out of his slightly open door. The puke went about 80% all over the bus stop and 20% on the passenger side door of my friends 2 week old Volvo. It was amazing. I could feel, first, the cold, mildly refreshing smoothie followed by the warm Heavy metal burger, all the way up to the oven roasted pear shooting out my nose like a spit wad. Quite a relief in all.

I puked like this about once a day after eating for the first two weeks. I even puked up the filet mignon and sea bass at the aforementioned wedding. OOPS!

DOG PARKS- Another thing that really scared the shit out of me at first was going to the dog park or DP as my parents called it. I was frightened by the realization that people's pets could actually have better personalities than themselves.

You enter into the park on any random day and it is full of people watching their dogs fight, sniff, and hump with utter delight. The dogs go and have fun and while a bunch of random people walk around waiting for you to make eye contact or yell at your dog that is playing with their dog.

"Oh they play so well together, don't they?" The random old lady will ask.
"Yep, sure do," says me, the guy who doesn't really know why he is here and just wants his dog to crap so he can leave.
"I've seen these two playing a lot. The other dogs tend to be so dominate and aggressive, don't you think?" She smiles.
"Yep, sure do," I really don't know why we are talking about this.
"Your dog's name is Sophie isn't it? That's my dog's name too." I neglect to tell this woman that, like all of our family dogs, this dog has been named after a famous Hooker. It's just something we do. However, we spare the knowledge for some.

Eventually after we talk about how many tennis balls there are in the park and how small some other dog is and how much "yucky slobber" another one has, I say "nice to meet you" and walk over to another quadrant of the park. I say nice to meet you and yet we never actually met. We are actually socializing servants for our pets. We talk about our pet's personalities, names and funny quirks without ever actually talking to each other. It would be like if you just started talking about a tree to someone just because you were both standing next to it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

You also have those buttholes who go the to "pick up chicks." I would too, but this park is filled with regular North Face wearing Colorado family people. One old fart once showed up while I was with my mother and thought he might try a little cougar hunting. He looked right at her and said "Excuse me, what do we we do here? I never been to one of these before. You see my girlfriend left me with the dog and moved off to New York and now I don't know what to do." After he said that I knew that there was something that pissed me off more about this man other than the fact that he had his sweatpants tucked into his socks.

I immediately wanted to yell, "Oh you don't know the complex science of a dog park sir? Well let me inform you. You see we all bring our dogs here, have sex with them and then let them run around in circles for about 30 minutes. Everyone else has been here a while so that's why all the sexin' is all over. Go ahead, I mean your girlie left you anyways so this will be refreshing."

Come on man. Your opening line is going to be how you don't know how to take your dog's leash off and then the closer is that, despite your impeccable style, you have just failed in your relationship and got stuck with the chick's pet while she went off to make millions in NYC? I just don't understand people. My mom of course enjoyed his pathetic effort and he did figure out how to take his dog's leash off. Good boy!

COLD WEATHER- I don't really have much to say about this except that sometimes it gets cold as nuts out here. Last week it snowed almost 12 inches in two days. That is a lot of snow for October. It's much colder than a tropical island. Much colder.

So while there are many other things like these that could be classified as "culture shock," I have gained the confidence to move on and become a part of this community. I think the days will be good and as long as I admit that there are pants in socks morons everywhere in life, I think I'll survive. I will be domesticated.

The Guatemalan HULK!

2009-10-02T22:07:00.000-07:00

It is true. My enthusiasm for the bloggueing did diminish with the commencement of my journeys. This entire time i thought taking some more trips would reinvigorate me to take a seat in yet another crappy back breaking "internet cafe" chair to throw out some new and exciting stories for all those concerned in what it is i do.

I guess, on this particular trip, i became so involved in the moment that i hardly had enough time to react to the day to day happenings, which made it even more difficult to actually sit down and record some jaded and "humor" injected reimagination of them. But the trip has been very good and I can say that the only reason why I haven't been bloggueing is because I have been filling every moment with real life bloggueing or...living. So now, on the day before my final departure to a very confusing existence in the US, I will tell you of some of my adventures only in the hopes that the stories will further peak your interests and thus make you more inclined to find a way in which to visit me and hear them from my mouth in their purest form.

Guatemala - Advice for going to Antigua, Guatemal: If you want to go with some friends that is fine. If your two friends happen to be best friends who are themselves El Salvadorians and thus free to roam and "create any type of rukus they please" in neighboring Guatemala, remember that they have their own nationalities and your's does not permit you to go and act the same way as they do.

Antigua is a drinking man's place. Well technically all of central america is like that. The whole world is. Ok let's start over. Antigua is the clostest place to San salvador where you can find an ancient city thus "culture" and hordes of excitable gringa girls who have come to guatemala on their parents credit card to do a three week spanish course which they forget each night as the get plastered off tequilla shots and cheap beer poured into old styrofoam cups making it possible to booze in the streets.

We went there because the dudes were ready to shock all the girls, as they always do, by looking super latin (we're talking a kilo each of hair gell per cabeza) and yet speaking English like a mother toungue. It's wonderful to watch the girls as they stutter through their basic HOLA, Como estas? to then recieve the eloquent reply "I'm quite well thank you."

We were having some luck here and there, but no one was really "feelin' it." We continued to peruse the bars in the hopes that some girls might find our well pressed polo shirts a bit more appealing than those of the other 300 horndogs walking the cobblestone streets of this old central American capital, but we had no luck.

Finally, I have managed to allow my bad luck to simply be bad luck and not an excuse to get outrageously intoxicated...or maybe I just got lucky with this night. Our good friend, however, was not able to separate his emotion from the bottle and this is where the plot thickens.

This young man who we shall call....Juan Carlos, to both protect his identity and be slightly offensive, is no small dude. Imagine if a VW Beetle came to life and sprouted limbs and this would be an accurate discription of the ex-body builder who can crush litre beers faster than you can take a pee. In the beginning of the night Juan Carlos informed us that he usually put away around 30 beers in the period of one drinking night and he was getting very close to our believing every word to which he had earlier spoken.

After drinking what seemed like a child sized pool worth of beer JC was doing pretty well for himself and was showing that extra umf of confidence only realized through the use of the old "social lubricant." But then we got the time honored after party invite and there was simply no hope. (You see, in Guatemala all the bars close at 1am making it hard to do much late night partying. In recent years it has become a bit of a cult phenomenon to throw "after parties" to continue the bar feeling after hours. However, these after parties are usually someone's effort to open their own bar and illegally sell liquor to the select few bar folk that they choose to invite. The police do not like this practice.)

So we went to this after party and someone bought us a bottle of vodka and we started mixing it with orange juice. I know, brilliant! Alberto and I got the idea, that after parties are for mingling and not creating bad vibes in an already tense environment of law breaking partiers. Our friend JC however, got haaaaaaaammmmmered. Finished the bottle. Fell around. Made mean faces. Now looked like a drunk VW Beetle swirving around a small poorly lit bar. Oh yeah, disastrous.

The night ended without problems until big man JC saw us collect the girls emails (oh yeah, we are like so gonna email long distance syle until marriage get's into the convo) and he went off his rocker. Walking around the streets just screaming in any language that popped into his head first. 265 pounds of El Salvadorian raised meat rolling around the streets on a full on sexually frustrated rampage. He was yelling and pulling his hair, and banging on people's closed doors and even came up to me and bit me saying "i want flesh." It...was...fucking...crazy!!!

We tried our best to console him and figure out what to do, but before we could even get our footing right to brace the giant walking T-bone steak, I saw the blue sparking caps of the Guatemalan police force. Oh yes, Guatemala, one of the most currupt governments in all the lands, where the police do whatever they feel needs to be done in order that they recieve dinero. (Don't worry this isn't another I pooped my pants story, but it was close.)

I began to freak and wonder how I had even ended up with these two 19 year old bozos who were doing exactly the same things i was doing for four more years after the age of 19. I paniked and tried one last efort to stop JC when I was blinded by the two police jeeps that followed from both ends of the street to then reveal 8 more soldiers brandishing real live machine guns. HOLY SHIIIIITTTT!!!! (Don't worry, if I was shot i wouldn't be able to write this...or would I?)

So with guns drawn and police everywhere, who do they turn to for responsibility? El Gringo..ME!

Thank god I speak spanish

Officer- what is going on here?
Me- too much to drink sir. we were just trying to get our friend home
officer- do you know how late it is?
me- muy late
Officer- yeah, so why is your friend walking around banging on doors?

(JC is now walking around shaking hands and taking pictures with the police officers and asking to hold one of their machine guns.)

me- he has had way too much to drink sir and we have just been trying to get him back to our hotel.
Officer- what are you scared of you friend?

At this very moment we both look at JC and he lets out a giant scream before ripping his shirt off to expose a bigger chest than any two cops combined.

Me- sir, he is the fucking HULK!

At this both myself and the officers had one of those moments that only happen in outrageous movies; we slowly rose together in a giant eruption of group laughter.

We somehow made great pals of the cops and they even elected to throw us all into the back of the police pickup truck and drive us back to the hotel.

4am 4star hotel

Our three car police escort arrrived to a bit of fanfare as you might imagine. All the late night auditors came out to see us rolling a giant half-passed whale out of a police car and I'm sure at least one had a hernea. As we rolled down the halls waking every resident with the moans of old sexually frustrated JC, the manager was asking us our names and nationalities and many other questions.

He did that to ban us from ever staying in that hotel. We left the next day, sad at having had no luck with the girls, but happy nonetheless to have made a good story.

A Day in Honduras

2009-09-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

I know, it´s true, I´ve let you all down by not keeping up with my blogguing since I´ve been traveling these past 2 months. But I´m ready to stop all that and write you all something, but since i have to use this mexican key pad, ill be refraining from using capital letters because the button is in a different place that my pinky simply cannot reach. i hope you can understand

So here i sit in a small smelly orangish brown cubible in a place called choluteca, honduras. But let me tell you first about how i got here in the internet cafe owned by the brother who´s sister is currently housing me.

FRONTERA FRONTERA FRONTERA. these were the words of the young man hanging out of the old yellow school bus as we raced down the two lane highway on the eastern edge of el salvador. we were moving to the frontera, or border, and there was no turning back. every 30 seconds the bus would halt to a rolling stop to pick up new border jumpers or to drop off others who were simply tired of the blaring reggaeton music that blasted through the fuzzy creaking speakers of the long retired school bus.

the landscape was incredible and every new turn of the bus would reveal some new type of geographical layout. on the right side one could glare at the cows grazzing through long green hills sprinkled with healthy sprouting trees. then you could look on the other side of the bus past the sleeping locals to see giant mountainous valleys with a orange sky painted by the descending sun.

just as the sun was at its hottest the bus stopped and the last sign for el salvador was duly greeting as it read ¨bienvenidos a honduras.¨ I jumped off the bus and was the first to greet my fellow immigration officers. as I sat in the interview chair i felt like a true explorer crossing from one ancient land to another. after a good conversation with one officer about the educational standards in the US the checks were made and a door was opened to reveal a long solitary bridge in front of me.

I put my best foot forward and made the great walk from one country to another. it was amazing walking across that bridge and glancing down at the people bathing in the river. from one side el salvadorians were washing their clothes while conversing with their bathing honduran amigos on the other side. even the look of the country seemed to change as i walked across the bridge. it only took me one minute to walk to the land i once visited only 5 years ago.

And now the story gets interesting as i step into honduras.

questions and more questions. I ask so many questions in these places because 1. i want to use my spanish 2 i have no idea where im going and 3 everyone else seems to be just as lost and therefore i have to weed out the doofs who simply point in the direction away from them when i ask how to get to another city.

after asking three people i finally found yet another rickety school bus with a hand made sign flowing accross the windshield that indicated it would take me to choluteca.

now, you might ask, why the hell was i going to choluteca? well i can´t really tell you why. I´ve done a fair amount of traveling in my life and it always seemed to have a purpose whether it was to see some museum or visit some old town or something else.

before this tip i was able to save up more money than i have ever had for a trip. and yet my objective here has been to spend hardly any money and to get around with the locals. and in the past week ive done that. ive stayed way below my 20 dollar a day budget and i´ve been floating wherever people i meet take me. why for instance i was in antigua guatemala just two days ago and now i´m two countries over.

So back to the hottest bus i´ve ever been in ever. the sweat was literaly pouring down my face as i sat waiting for either the driver to get some air flowing through the cab or for the sun to cook the skin off everyone´s bodies. i would have waited outside of the bus if i hadn´t been afraid of having all my belongings stolen.

the bus finally left and we rolled away peacefully until a very fat man came aboard. he was slow to find the seat next to me and could hardly fit in the child sized bus.

for the next fifteen minutes i was mesmerized to watch this landwhale jam out to the music while eating some sort of meat and potato goolash that he produced out of a thin plastic bag with his grit covered hands. i was half mesmerized by his nasty eating habits and half dying for a bite since i hadn´t eaten anything all day.

After the man finished, he did what all people in these situations seem to end up doing...he offered his finger lickin´ hand in the clasic gesture of ¨let´s be friends and get to know each other.¨ so i then met walter and we talked only for a little while about our lives until he got onto, what seemed like his favorite subject, sex. so, at 8 pm, with an empty stomach and a sore ass from 8 hours riding on 4 busses, i talked to an old fat honduran man about his different sexual exploits. most entertaining!

i was set to stay with a recent aquaintence i had met in san jose, el salvador and the man was most interested in helping me to get in contact with her. when we arrived we walked around the dirty dark streets of choluteca asking random people for their cell phones. we finally got a hold of my ¨friend¨ but the woman´s phone was messed up and my friend couldn´t hear my voice.

so when after all this trouble what did i do in this foreign town in this foreign city? i piled into a the shittiest cab in the world with all these new people and we drove off. well actually the driver first had to plug in a battery for the car and we were all instructed to hold the doors tight since they no longer closed. and then we were off.

we drove around everywhere with simply a piece of paper with my friend´s name and phone number. we went to a gas station and asked if anyone had heard of her and what would you know, the man was sort of friends with her and told us where her neighborhood was. at this point i felt like this little ¨adventure¨ was bridging from an invite to me and two fat dudes stalking a poor girl down. I didn´t really know what to do.

We went into the neighborhood despite my many offers to simply go to a hotel and then the men started walking around asking people on the street where this girl lived. we did this for about an hour, always rejumping the car and holding the car doors closed. it was very uncomfortable.

when we finally arrived at this girls house and her mother opened the door i realized that i probably now knew the two fat guys in the taxi better than the people who´s house we had stalked down. now the tables were turned and everyone started to ask me questions like are these your friends? is this the girl? and from the other side, what are you doing here? can i....help you? of course i was doing a bang up job of shittily explaining in my broken spanish that i had no idea what i was doing and that i really just wanted to go to a hotel where i could stick my head under a pillow and die of confusion and embarrassment.

but instead i went into these people´s house where i then tried to explain myself and how stupid i felt for hunting down some people whom i simply met in passing and was probably never supposed to see again.

so what happened after all that? ....well.....the dudes just wanted to rip me off for the cab, which they did, and the family wanted to forgive my ignorance, which they did. i was served a big late dinner, my first meal of the day, and given a room in their house. so how about that, i survived my day in honduras.

Oh the Philippines!!!!

2009-08-10T04:01:00.001-07:00

I started recording this blog almost exactly a year ago when I was leaving France and heading to Thailand. I had a great time for a month bouncing around different islands on Thailand and in Malaysia. After that it was a very interesting year spent in Taiwan where I learned only basic words in Chinese and thus had very limited conversations with all of the adoring non-English Chinese speaking girls I met. In all it has been a pretty interesting and fun year.

And now after all those adventures I decided take a quick, easy and cheap flight to the Philippines. I'll admit that when I was mentally preparing myself for this trip I just figured that it would be kind of the same experience as Thailand. However, after several days of the most intense traveling imaginable surrounding one of the coolest island destinations you could dream of, I think that this is a pretty uniquely special place.

The best part is that the trip isn't even over. I don't think I am ever going to be able to go back to short little 5 day vacations after I've had so many long and exciting ones like these.

I guess the things that make this country so great are that everyone treats you like a local. There aren't many gawky eyed glances as you walk through crowed street side markets with your giant backpack and blond hair. Even when visiting such small local spots like the closet sized shoe repairman you can easily explain to him in English what you need and how much you'd like to pay for it. The food here is cheap and they give you smaller portions so that you leave feeling satisfied but never stuffed. The beaches are white and the sand feels like flour from an unmade cake. The culture is mixed with it's previous rulers, the Spanish, so there are many similarities in the language and in the way of life. And then there are the girls. Any girl you see on the street, on the bus, walking in the mall, or laying on the beach will smile at you, wave, and even talk or dance. It is awesome. It is to the point that when you glance back at a girl you pass on the street, chances are that she is already checking you out herself. Where else on Earth can you find a place like that?

On that gushing note let me do what I do best and fill you in on some shitty and miserable experiences that I have had so far on this trip that will basically run fluent until the middle of October. While almost everything has been great on the trip the main shittiness has been centralized around our days of travel. And actually I can't even even explain to you yet what has happened because I still haven't slept after a 20 hour trip that only covered 350 KMs. Do the math. Maybe I'll fill you in tomorrow.

The important thing is that this place is cool and I sort of want to live here.

Ayyy yaaaa!

2009-07-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

Ay ya. Ay yo. These are two of the most powerful and potent words in the Chinese language. Do I know what they mean? Vaguely. I mean not really exactly, but I do know how and when to use them. There are all sorts of times throughout one's Taiwanese days and nights that the words Ay ya and Ay yo can be blurted out. Let's start with some brief but necessary definitions.

Ay ya/yo - this is a word based on two different Chinese characters and while it is only one actual word, the accent can change giving it two different connotations.

The ay ya form is something that you yell and elongate (ex. Ayyyyy yaaaaa) when you see something gross or disturbing. An example would be if you were sitting on a bus bench waiting for.......that's right, the bus, and you saw an old man sitting next to you. Let's say this man is ancient and has on a large jacket and gloves even though it is going to be around 95 degrees outside today. The man slips off one of his gloves revealing a sweaty hand and before you know what he is going to do, he crams his wrinkled dew covered index finger into his hairy cavernous nostril and begins to pick away. AYYYYYY YAAAAAA! Yelling this would indicate you displeasure and disgust at this raw and animalistic action.

Now the ay yo form is a bit different. You say ay yo quickly and without pause. It is used to indicate irritation and is a general verbal representation of your growing anger and frustration at a situation or person. An example when you might use this would be if you were a seven year old girl and the little pain in the ass sitting next to you, who is always hyper and never pays attention, grabbed your favorite Hello Kitty eraser that you don't want to get smudged and started erasing his shit homework until his paper ripped. Ay yo! you could proclaim!

This word is so incredible and it can be used in all sorts of other situations:

You are already late for school and you step in a heaping pile of dog shit. Not only is it fresh and warm but you just wasted your best smile of the day on the dude walking his freshly lightened pooch who just passed you. Ayyy yaaaa, for the poop, and then Ayyy yo for the fact that it is poop and it is on your shoe.

You're swimming in the ocean and you do one of the best underwater handstands you've ever accomplished and when you come up no one is looking. Just as your about to scream Ay yo a giant phantom wave crashes into your face injecting your nose with enough saline solution to kill a horse. As you come back up finally you scream...Ay yo!

You're sitting on a small and uncomfortable chair grading papers for a bunch of 4 year olds who have formed a psychotic and hectic "line" behind you. You're about to compliment the boy who finally figured out to make that curve on his lower case g when he sneezes snot all over your face from about 6 inches away. Whichever comes first will work. Oh oh ay yo, or Jesus Christ! Ay yaaaa!

You wake up early to get ready for a long and hard (those words don't sound good together) day of work and all you want to do is make it a silent morning. As you walk into the shower you look down at your naked legs and BAM! There's a giant hand print sized spider creeping up the shower wall heading straight towards you, no doubt hoping to devour your face. You scream like a girl and don't have time to say ay ya and simply grab the spurting shower head. The spider is climbing even as the water hits it and you don't know what to do because your only defense is the lukewarm water and your weak, frightened and naked body. After a minute of thrashing and screaming the spider falls to the drain where you crush it with your roommates shampoo bottle. Once its smashed carcass is kerplunking down the drain you can exhale and say Ay yo!

Perhaps the best time to use ay ya and ay yo can occur when you are in a bar. A crowed bar on a free beer night at that. You are having a good time even though there is a line for everything including a seat. You dance to your favorite song and then chug your free beer with your pals and it hits: OUCH MY STOMACH!!! You rush for the bathroom and wait for what seems like forever for a stall to open up. Ay yo! The guy who has just vomited 8 shots of homemade rice wine (Ay yaaaaa!) stumbles out and the shitshack is all yours. You take a look and sadly realize that it's a squatter. Ay yo! This squatter is a hole in the ground and your objective is to crouch so low that your quads will often feel the effects of the workout the next morning when you wake up. Ay yo! You take the first plunge and oh no, you got the angle wrong on the squatter. You have relieved yourself and none of it made it into the twinky shaped hole. Ay ya you whisper so that no one knows its you. You clean up and scram out yelling as you walk out the door, "some asshole shit on the floor... Ay yaaaaa!"

Ay yaaa and Ay yo are a time honored form of Chinese language. From Taiwan's great illustrious founders to its new and modern inhabitants, the term ay ya/yo has helped many to put a branded name on an otherwise regrettable situation. It is in the great Chinese tradition that I hand this down to you, oh faithful reader. May you go forth and relish in your right to yell Ay yaaaa or Ay yo when the situation merits it. For without Ay ya and Ay yo, our lives are truly meaningless.

Blinded by the White!!!

2009-06-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going to splice in random photos of Taiwan while I write this bloggue. Hope you don't mind.

Blinded by the white is a saying that we have here in Taiwan. It is a take on the classic tune titled Blinded by the Light and our new meaning works out to correlate quite well with the original song. I, of course, am talking about white people. Not just any old white person, but the white people from all over the world who choose Taiwan, and more specifically Taipei, to be their new place of exile.

The term blinded by the white is most true on two levels. The first level is the reaction that the rest of the population (ie. Taiwanese people) have when they spot a blatantly different looking vanilla face. Almost anyone, despite his or her inability to pick up any other Chinese, will understand the commonly whispered and not uncommonly shouted "Why go ren." (This of course is the phonetic spelling of the Chinese term for foreigner.) The most common person to use this when you're standing in line for food or simply checking the mail is a child. In the same way that everyone burps and farts without regard for those around them, so too do they allow their children to point and stare and shout at the crazy blond-haired blue-eyed demons lurking around them.

This of course, is the light side of the blinded by the white factor. That is more of a sun in your eyes by the white experience. The next group are those who become physically impaired by our vary existence. There are others, who simply stop dead in their tracks at the mere sight or reference of a white person. Often times, while strolling down the street people will stumble, mouth agape, as if I were spouting a unicorn horn and farting bubbles. They are truly blinded by my mere presence and are incapable of resuming any normal activity until I pass or depart. This makes being table neighbors a difficult process for some Taiwanese children who can barely make time to watch the fork going into their eye as they gaze wondrously at the strange alien enjoying the hot and spicy chicken next to them.

Now of course, there are many Taiwanese who think nothing different of the white person. They pass by them on the street like any other member of the human race. Many will say hello to you and you feel like your snappy "hey" really brightens their day. So many of the Taiwanese are very thoughtful and love the idea of foreigners enjoying their wonderful home.

So from now on let's leave the Taiwanese out of it and focus on craziest and weirdest minority on the planet: the whites of Taiwan.

Frankly, most of the other white people here just scare the living shit outta me. The blinded by the white term is really the most relevant for the white people because there are sometimes so few that the mere site of one makes you feel like you are characters in a World of Warcraft game who must dodge the monsters to finally discover the mystical cave with all the missing gold.(Or something to the extent of that nerd crap.) Honestly though, I would rather fight to the death with the majority of the crackers I see on the street than meet them and talk to them. Aren't I optimistic?

You see there are really only about three types of white people in this country. (Keep in mind that there are some darker skinned peoples here as well but they have even different problems. Like the photo screening process that most schools have in order to select the candidate with the most "ivory" coloring. Seriously.) The first group would be people like myself. I admit, I am no perfect man, nor do I embody the essence of a true ex-pat traveler who soaks up every bit of culture thrown at him, but I can at least hold a conversation with all types of different people and, like the others in this category, I can still function like a normal person having a normal life in perhaps a slightly abnormal place.

You also have the second type who are really the more admirable white people. These are the folks who have come here and decided to make this island their home. They have perhaps learned Chinese, made lots of Taiwanese friends, gone out (successfully) with Taiwanese girls or guys, and they have managed to find order in this place. They can live and prosper as they would any where else. I like these people.

And then you have the third group. This is the group I would like to discuss for the remaining part of this bloggue. The third group is a bunch of people, and by that I almost always mean white males, who come to Taiwan as a form of escape. Yes that's right, these guys were so fucked up and lame and weird and bizarre in their own countries that they have been forced to exile themselves literally onto an island in the middle of nowhere. (Taiwan is actually geographically located at the epicenter of international Asian commerce, bringing in techniques and cultures from north eastern Asian nations as well as south east Asian cultures, but for these dudes, they just couldn't fit in anywhere else.)

The most common features of this third group are a pale and pasty skin, most likely due to reclusive and overall antisocial behavior, bad posture, strange walks, and terrible clothing. These guys are the dorks with which the dorks of our own nations would not even accept. I mean these guys are blindingly goofy, whether its the see-through white shirts combined with man boobs, or the guarded and creeptastic glances they will give you on the metro when they realize that they weren't able to escape every single white person on the planet. One girl I met characterized this group of nut jobs simply as "drips."

The problem is that we white folk are the minority and like all minorities around the world, "we gotta stick togethah." Combine that with the fact that almost every white person here is an English teacher, and you are bound to meet some "drips" in a training meeting or at a teacher's convention or on the street.

These "drips" can often be deceiving at first, allowing you to consider that they are normal travel fancying buffs like yourself. They may even drink some beer and hang at some bars and go to the same restaurants that serve the same western food you miss so much, and you may see each other at the museums and around your neighborhood, and in the parks....oh wait they do do those things and you really can't avoid them. They go to your dance parties and stumble and contort, they do the head nod to you without notice to the latte cream forming a mustache across their face, they wave in the metro exposing yellow pits stains, and they just sort of go to all the same places as you. You see I too am one of these random white pool pocket playing kind of guys.....Ha gotcha! I'm actually cool as shit and these dudes really are crazy lame creeper dick bags! We just happen to do the same stuff.

Oh that felt good. Please don't think me high and mighty. I suppose what I should have done was to put the cool people who actually make their life here as the first group thus allowing them to be the top of the wacko white minority pyramid. They are the true ex-patriots. But I mean, my level of people at least do what they can to try the foods and go to the Taiwanese places. Some of us put great effort into learning Chinese and almost all of us are social and kind to our hosts; the Taiwanese. These other guys though make basic social behavior look as awkward and impossible as trying to lick your own elbow.

So when you travel the streets of Taiwan it is OK to feel blinded by the white when it happens. The wild part is that you really are in that different of a place and you aren't around many other people like you. That is what adventure is all about and that is how you learn to be able to communicate and to enjoy the company of others. You see, a weirdo from the third group wouldn't be able to say that kind of wisdom because he would be too busy playing his eight thousandth game of hearts on the computer.

TAIWAN IS WEIRD!!!!! I'm out

Acting Made Complicated: Part Two

2009-05-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time. I have been working a lot and I get so fatigued by the end of the day that I am unable to sit down and jot some news thoughts and embellished stories for my immense readership. But now is the time for me to invite you, oh faithful reader, to read about the second half of our acting debut. (PS If you want to read the first part of the day, simply scroll down the page.)

The day was still fresh at noon on this lovely Saturday and I was becoming more and more disinterested in continuing our adventure as actors as the weather seemed much more inviting than spending time with the random film crew and some chicks who had already proven to be "not our type." Nevertheless, we chose to take the leap of faith and changed locations across town where the second half of this infomercial would be filmed.

After a long and cramped car ride filled with rude and mocking remarks about our less than average director/driver we arrived at the second site. The building was down a more than dirty alley and it felt like we were entering the most painful and horrifying part of our gang initiation as we ascended up the cracked and rusty steel elevator. When the elevator doors opened our anticipation of relief quickly disintegrated at the site of this putrid employee "lounge" that lay before us.

Seeing as we were the stars I thought it only appropriate that Graeme and I take seats on the one couch dying in the corner of the depressingly decorated hall. I plopped down on the couch thinking that I had finally arrived to some well earned comforts when my leg knocked into a sloppy sounding bucket at the foot of the couch. One look at the puke filled waist basket was all I needed to initiate the thoughts of regret and irritation of knowing that I had no way of leaving this place. I did, however, feel at ease to know that I now knew the locations of all the fire exits as well as the puking section of the building.

I moved the portable outhouse behind the couch and watched as the others filled in quietly apparently undaunted by the grim prison yard we would be restricted to for the next couple of hours.

After a sit on the couch and a brief admission to Graeme that we weren't in the most excellent situation the staff arrived with two giant bags full of boxes of Chinese food. The over eager French speaking Taiwanese man was excited to have us sit with him to discuss, in both Chinese and French, life as a traveler, opera singer, and patron of the weekend entertainment jobs.

As was chewed briefly on our barely edible food boxes Graeme and I took great pride at our abilities to hold one conversation using the combined abilities of French, Chinese, and English. The girls at our table could only sit, watch, and listen to bits and pieces of our sporadic dialogue. This set the scene for the next event. The three stars had met and certainly did enjoy each other, so we were now ready to make 'em weep as they say in the bidness.

The soviets had gone (bowing their heads in embarrassment I may add) to brew a new poison while kissing and chanting prostitute inspired Russian poetry to each other, and it was our turn to show the crew who the actors really were.

Picture this. We find the crew in a thinly lit and moody board meeting. The board is Graeme, myself, Opera man, Guy with twenty pins sprinkled throughout his suit coat, random white girl with lab coat, and "told to say nothing hot Asian secretary lady." Our motivation is to keep serious faces but be relaxed as we discuss this fantastic Chinese sex medicine. We were the elite team that is to lead this great presentation about whatever the hell we were selling.

The audience/low level employees were instructed to do more of the same, nodding heads in pretend agreement, smiling in accord to made up ideas, and clapping out of satisfaction to the random things that each actor could produce. The scene was set and.....ACTION!

My first spot gave me the chance to really go for a different range of monologue. With the lights shining and a Chinese book in front of me I began my speech to all of my hard working employees. "Well we can see from last quarter's numbers that Graeme has been spending a large amount of the company's dollar on a range of different kinds of prostitutes." I got some smiles and nods from my attentive audience and continued running my finger down the page moving on to the rest of the information. "From the looks of these numbers there is no contest that Graeme seems to have a very serious sex addiction that must be handled. He is spending so much money and having so much sex that it really has become a concern. In the next quarter we would like to really address this problem and (pointing to my 'employees') I trust that you will help share this responsibility in getting him off of the vagina." I was received very well by my staff who thought whatever the hell I had said must have been very good and interesting. I then pointed to my "associate" Graeme who now knew that the game was on.

"Well everyone, we have some interesting numbers on the board." Graeme had been instructed to use the power point page as the basis for his fake speech and with his thin black tie and his borrowed suit coat, he was the model of success. "We can see that this graph here clearly states what a giant homosexual Andrew is. I mean the graph goes all the way to 84% which indicates that four fifths of you in this room believe Andrew to be a giant fudge packer." At this he cleverly, like the great improvising actors before him, pointed and smiled at the staff leaning on his every word.

"So while I may be a sex addict," he continued, "we can see that Andrew has a much more profound secret to admit because the whole room here believes him to be a giant gay!" The claps were loud and everyone could see that the crew was feeding off of our powerful acting ability. I think a guy in the front may have even winked at me.

Graeme and I continued to battle for the most random statements each time we spoke. I tried a bit about different things you could put in a soup and how they were all very delicious and healthy, and Graeme gave a kind shout out to the man in the crowd who had loaned him his 3XL jacket that made him look like Tom Hanks in Big. We enjoyed the experience and at the end we were complimented for our body language and sincere facial expressions on camera. Oscars here we come!

We went on to do more scenes that were dumb and hard to understand and will only be laughable when I receive the video and post it on youtube for everyone to enjoy. However, it was the last scene of the day that made the whole 9 hour adventure worth the effort.

At this point we had been contrasting from dark corners to bright spotlights so much that I think we were beginning to get a little delirious. We were now getting carried away with the recognition that no one understood what we said in English, so we felt free to curse and make humorous remarks about whatever we felt like. It may not have been the most noble thing to do but we certainly found it to be enjoyable and entertaining.

Now I must say that while we were rather flamboyant and free with our speech by now, we hadn't been making fun of anyone or doing anything cruel or disrespectful. (Except for the things we said to the director, but that is just a working hazard for him. I seriously think he was saying "Fucking Actors" in his head the whole time. Or maybe he was saying it aloud in Chinese. I don't know.) So like I said, we had been nice and friendly and we had gotten to know most everyone there and they were all nice and friendly and we were having a good time.

But then came the New Dude. A man they had been saving for this last important scene. A man who was nicely dressed and who was getting his face powdered on the set. He seemed the ultimate professional.

The scene was New Dude, white girl with lab coat, (now in my delirium) super hot Asian secretary, and the two CEOs: Graeme and myself, Doofus McGumphrey. It seemed like the scene was going to be quick and easy and we would be outta there in no time.

The first cut began and everyone seemed cool and relaxed as we scanned through giant Chinese books pretending to talk about the ancient lore and usage of Chinese sex medicines. Moments after the the big hot lights came on and the classic RORRING! (rolling) was called New Dude began to sweat like he was at a wool convention in the Sahara. It was hard to even listen to him speak as his hand visibly shook with the giant book in his hand. He was shaking so bad that the camera was probably seeing both sides of the books as if he were trying to spin it.

He made it about halfway through the scene until he was startled when the window shade fell down and blasted us all with the rays of the midday sun. This was then the beginning of the coexisting moments of New Dude totally loosing all control of himself and Graeme and I doing the same but in a more impossibly insensitive way.

Disclaimer: Now I'm not trying to be a dick here but this dude must have had tourettes or something. That of course is no big deal but combine that with an absolutely crazy dominating fear of being on camera and you add white gasoline to the already raging fire that is the two boneheads' laughter. So maybe we are dicks or maybe acting just isn't the right profession for this guy. That is all I'm saying.

In our next scene New Guy was hard to handle. We were sitting across from him and every time he would try to hand the book to us his eyes would bounce up and down and his mouth would go from frown to smile frown to smile frownsmile frownsmile frowile AHHHHH!!!!

I was the first to loose it. I couldn't help it and I know it is bad but the day had already been one of the weirdest experiences of my life and this dude with pin ball facial movements and a shakiness that would make an ice swimmer look steady made me crack.

Graeme and I were still committed to our art as well, so we wanted to have some fun ourselves. We were sharing the same couch as before and every time the man would hand over the book I would try to make my commentary using a gay accent. While I was doing this Graeme would point to the book and talk about different employees who really had to read this and that and how he wanted to buy 4 million units that day or else someone would be fired. On my other side the secretary was taking fake notes which I noticed to be Hello Kitty drawings. Everyone was going completely crazy in front of this camera and yet all it will look like in the end is a group of totally random people talking about Chinese medicine. How could anyone have kept it together?

Suddenly, it was all too much and Graeme burst out in a laughter best described as uncontrollable and contagious. I was doing the spitting laughter where I tried, unsuccessfully, to hold it in and all the while the white girl kept acting away without the slightest attention to her couch mate (New dude) who was about to explode right in front of all of us.

I think the moment when we really lost it was when the cameramen noticed what was going on and started laughing along with us. We made it through a last cut with Graeme and I visibly giggling on camera and then the staff burst out into a torrent of unfathomable laughter. Graeme of course didn't see most of this because he was in the bathroom almost about to puke because he was laughing so hard.

So we almost lost composure from laughter all thanks to one man: The New dude. However, great actors like Graeme and myself can always be trusted to keep composure in a scene.

The real shocker is, guess who was the one good and kind person who saw through this man's uncontrollable nervousness? Yes, that's right, the hot ass secretary. In fact the only hot girl there that day, was madly in love with the New Dude and in the end he showed us all up by being the actor who got to score with the hot chick on set.

So while we didn't get the girl who did a passionate portrayal of a sex starved Harvard educated secretary, we did get to be considered the main actors on set. We will even get credited in the final cut and I got paid again to come in three days later and film the final monologue where, acting like a physics professor, I spoke sincerely about different ways to grow, cultivate, and harvest weed. Ain't life sweet in Taiwan?

Acting Made Complicated: Part One

2009-04-14T05:01:00.000-07:00

Well since I know that I hate jogging and that even if I do drag my ass out tonight it will most likely never happen again, I will go ahead and relate to my four readers(Dunkle, My dad, my sister, and Chris Dandurand) another funny and unique happening in this otherwise normal existence that I lead out here in Asia.

The week was finishing as most do. It was Thursday night and I was sitting at home on my computer wasting one last evening before the impending weekend could bring all types of activities to make my wasting seem a bit more meaningful or at least eventful.

I received a quick instant message via Internet chat from a friend who indicated that a friend of his had a friend who's friends were in some form of the "entertainment" business here in Taipei and they were in need of "western" (white) actors to fill up some negative space in their upcoming commercial. I was initially interested in the opportunity as I found the pay rather lucrative considering the minimal amount of work and the chance to get some much needed camera time, but after a quick "it could run from 4 to 8 hours" remark I realized that this would interfere with my lazy Saturday, so I declined and felt if nothing else, relieved disappointment.

However, the next day I talked to another friend of that first friend who said that he would also be interested in trying out some acting if only we could do it together thus allowing for the opportunity to either 1. have a total blast or 2. have a terrible and miserable time, but less so when suffering with another.

We signed on and it was decided that our acting careers would commence on Saturday, April 11, 2009.

We showed up late to some sort of university here in Taipei to discover that the higher paying parts had already been given to two guys who, at first we believed to be the "talent," but just stolen the parts because of their prompt arrival. We took some seats in the back of a dark and half-full auditorium where as the only white guys surrounded by other Taiwanese men and women dressed in similar suit and business attire.

The group had obviously been waiting for us, as we were about an hour late, because the second our asses hit the chairs the lights went out and the cameras flashed on and "action...rolling!" was called out in a Chinese accent too funny to describe in any form of typing whatsoever.

It was then that the hilarity and atrociousness of the day really kicked in. Now it may help to give you a little more information about what we understood going into this experience. The first thing we knew was that everything said during the filming would be dubbed over in Chinese later. We were instructed to say whatever we wanted to this fake audience as long as we moved our mouths and made lots of "business related" body gestures.

The first guy stood up and was dressed in a fashionable well-fitting suit and smiled into the crowd with a confidence that made me understand why he had won the part rather than my less than disheveled self. Oh but how appearances do deceive.

A PowerPoint slide show began on stage and the outwardly comfortable white guy was told to use his laser pointer, fantastic smile, and good looks to pretend to give an informative presentation to this made up group of "clients" as the giant camera rolled in front of him filming his every move.

My friend Graeme and I's weak attempt to remain polite and quiet was botched the second this guy opened his broken Russian mouth to reveal a speech off the top of his head about some picture of a guy being his ex-boss, the joys of drinking vodka, some girl who may or may not have been his ex girlfriend, and many picture descriptions put simply with the words, "I don't know what is it."

Now after seeing the slide show two times I could tell that the product in this commercial was obviously some kind of ancient Chinese herb that through time and medical breakthroughs had become more mainstream and was now being made into a common over the counter drug to help a person's kidney. It was easy to derive this simple message, but take after take with these blabbering Russian's only forced them to drift further into obscurity as their attempts to jsut say anything to the camera became more and more impossible and they drifted further away from what the commercial might have actually been about.

Then came Ex-KGB agent number two's "presentation."

The second Russian's presentation had Graeme and I in tears. Keep in mind that Graeme and I and the two other westerners there were the only people who understood what these guys were talking about as they were filmed in front of an audience for a commercial that will be on television within the next week.

(An old painting of a man in traditional Chinese dress comes on screen and next to him there lies a plate with what looks to be several kinds of dried herbs and plants.)In comes Russian retardboy drawing circles around the man's crouch over and over with his laser pointer.

"Hello....ok well....this man is some man....I don't know who is he but he is very big man in Taiwan or China I don't know. He has this bowl here and we can see that it is the medicine or maybe it is a poison. You see at our company we have learn to make both the medicine and of the poison and many people do not know which to use."

(You might to know that everyone else suggested he simply tell a story like the Three Little Pigs just to make his mouth move and to keep himself talking. No one said that he should invent his own bizarre product and then make a presentation about it using slides devoted to another product of which he knew nothing about. Also remember that the only thing this guy could see was a giant TV camera, an auditorium full of straight faced or sleeping Asian people, and two white guys now carelessly laughing and rolling at him as he butchered the English language in his wild and rapidly descending speech.)

"Many peoples take of the medicine for their loved ones when they are sick, but you always give sick people medicine and then they just get more sick and take more money. Our product is a very nice poison that you can use to save your money. Wouldn't it be great if you could just poison your family if they were sick so that you didn't have to give many medicines?" The uncomprehending crowd is still nodding their heads in agreement to the Blah blah blahs that they are unable to interpret.

"We say that you buy our product (please try to imagine Borat saying all of this and you'll know how we felt) and have the poison for you."

And then he really got carried away with his last stunning monologue.

"You see with our poison you can give it to anyone. You can kill your mother or you can kill you father. Go and use our poison to kill your children and to kill you aunt or you uncles. It will kill everyone and then you will not have to use any medicines. Dis poison is very good...." and then he apparently caught on to what he had just been saying for the past couple of hours.

From here he went on to, first speak Russian to his friend, and then to quote a long and complicated Russian poem about a word that kept recurring throughout: "prostituta." This poor guy was seriously giving one of the most psychotic and messed up business proposals many will ever hear. He was doing this into a live camera, in front of a bunch of random foreigners, in the light of a Chinese power point, in a three piece suit that looked to be about three sizes too large as it sagged all over his body.

I mean you just can't make that shit up!

His farewell monologue had him looking sweaty and obviously uncomfortable as even his friend was now unable to support him. He said a little more about his mythical poison that I hope he never actually creates and then went to even more desperate measures. As his anxiety increased so did his difficulty with creating whole English phrases.

"So now I don't really know what to do or to say. Can someone please help me? I...I....I no know. I...do you have any questions for me or what could I do I mean, well you could say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.....(yep he started counting he was that desperate) oh I mean I just don't know. Please someone help me I cannot.... oh help.... what do I say..............well you see we have a great poison and only the rich people can have the poison." He was back on a role again. "Our poison is da best poison and so only the rich will be able to have our poison because then they can poison the poor peoples. So we will give to all the riches and of the poison.." and then we was silenced and a great weight was lifted from his body and heaved onto those of the five other English speakers who now had to spend the last moments avoiding the creepy poison salesman who's sickeningly weird subconscious had just revealed itself in the form of the worst verbal diarrhea to hit our ears.

After three hours of switching camera angles and doing different takes with different lighting and even taking bathroom breaks this guy had continued to stand up and return to the same speech about some sort of crazy fucked up poison that he thought would make this glib and dark world more manageable. We could not believe how uncomfortable and yet hilarious this situation had become, and it was only 1130am.

Several times, the guy would finish his terrifying speech about killing people and we would all give him a standing ovation which I imagine, once in commercial form, will look simply like people cheering on this amazingly groundbreaking kidney medicine spokesman as he is dubbed in Chinese. No viewer will ever know that the "visiting business man" in the advertisement was actually speaking in his sterile and horrifying Russian accent about his passion for creating a product that could help him, and all the other kill crazy people of the world, brutally poison and kill all the members of their family.

Let me tell you, I have never witnessed anything as amazingly awesome as that guy making such a huge ass out of himself. When he made the remark about killing one's kids a girl from Massachusetts, who probably goes to church every Sunday, actually jumped out of her seat. There were about 50 people in the whole room and only 5 of them actually understood what this guy was rambling about.

After the psycho killer left to go find some family member to poison it was our turn to step up to the plate and show our acting skills.

I was cast to do the pretend post-interview. I would, through my body language and hand motions, pretend to explain in an informal way our excitement and giddiness about this new kidney product (or poison.) I had about five cameras around me and it looked like a fake little press conference where I was the leading CEO type figure whom everyone wanted to interview.

I began by telling all of the Taiwanese gentlemen how excited I was about eating sandwiches and that I especially liked ham and cheese sandwiches. I knew I could say anything, so this was the topic I picked. I talked about the size of sandwiches that I enjoyed and we even did a wonderfully fake laugh when I said I hate when the pickle slides out the back of the sandwich and lands on your shoe. I even threw in a little thing about how I like to put that Russian guy's poison on sandwiches and feed them to my whole family on beautiful summer mornings. I got a lot of smiles and "oh yes yes" from my audience. No one had the slightest clue what the hell I was talking about and I was about about 10 to 15 years younger than all of them and yet they were still all keenly pretending to listen to my sandwich rant as if I were the celebrity CEO of this mythical medical company. I was also getting paid about three times more than them because my minority status here means that it is harder to find people like me to do these things.

Once again, you just can't make this shit up.

So that about sums up the first half of our descent into the Taiwanese entertainment industry. After the fake interview about sandwiches and a talent agent offering us membership with their agency (which we accepted haha) we packed up to get ready for our next shooting location. This next shoot would simply involve Graeme and I, another white girl, our agent, twenty randomly selected Taiwanese people, the wild haired visionary of a director who screamed at us in Chinese until our agent made basic translations for us, and a fat Chinese opera singer who's life as an European opera star had helped him to become fluent in French and fascinated by every type of exotic woman of the world. Our afternoon with these people was incredibly strange and exciting and ended with us crying so hard of laughter on camera that Graeme actually had to leave the room to be able to breath. We also ended up being on camera for every single scene.

So please do read on next time if you dare!

Free time makes you feel what?

2009-04-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

Free time. Ohh free time is nice. A little free time is great when you are caught up in work and the rush of life. Sometimes you get more than just a little free time and that is great too. You might call this a vacation or a holiday and you might find that you enjoy it a lot because you have so much free time that you are temporarily released from your otherwise stressful, or in the least repetitive, duties to enjoy a bit of the sweeter things in life. There is also that middle amount of free time. It is time that you have free but is never that far away from more work but and merely allows you enough time to complain about what you could be doing in exactly the time that that middle time allows you.

I have middle amounts of free time and it is hard to use them wisely and efficiently. To many, the amount of free time that I am allotted in a day would be rather pleasant and would enable one to do a myriad of fun and profitable things. I however, have accustomed myself to a pattern of creating things to do and then spending, or wasting, my time planning them out in great mathematical detail until the time is up and I must resume my work or whatever thing I would call not free time that interrupts the free time that I am lucky to have but waste.

Everyday I arrive at work at around 8:35 am and I am allowed to enjoy a little free time until class begins at 9. This will often be the most productive time in my day when one considers the many other moments of free time that I will be given throughout the day.

During these 25 minutes I will often try to plan my upcoming lessons. This typically involves making photocopies to provide for maximum busy work. Photocopies are amazing because the beautifully pleasant children can do a silly ABC activity on a sheet of paper and then when they finish I can make the suggestion, "Oh wow! Great job! Can you draw teacher a picture on the back?" This helps to fill a lot of time.

Other times I will prepare by reading through the teacher's manual and search through different methods and activities that suit my style. My style is one of extreme relaxation and an easy going attitude in the class and the early morning stupor doesn't aide in reverting from it. I still manage to prepare fun and interesting activities that require little work from me other than an occasional "NO SPEAKING CHINESE!" threat or the classic, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT? YOU BOTH SAY YOU ARE SORRY AND GO DRINK SOME WATER." (Whenever trouble is brewing I throw out the "go drink some water" comment and everything is saved by the children's mouthwatering desire for a little free time themselves.)

However, most other mornings I will neglect to do this photocopying and that lesson planning to go slouch in the tiny 4 year old chairs like a giant with my ass hanging over the sides to drift into a sort of hypnotic state where my face resembles that of a drugged out groupie's as he watches a Pink Floyd laser show in a planetarium. I zone out until the heart attack inducing baby music about sharing and saying thank you BLARES through the speakers. This is a new policy directed at all the teachers who's similar morning rituals has caused them to be so late every morning that such drastic methods seem to be the only solution.

My day continues on until I am given the longest break of the day between 11:30am to 1:30pm. There are surely many people who could find ways to do great and amazing things with this kind of free time but my colleagues and I choose to spend the two hours in our own way.

All the singing and dancing and yelling and sneezes in the face get one more than a bit exhausted and famished. I, along with my colleagues, WE, will usually dine with the children on whatever slop is served that day. I hadn't believed the worst about the food until I realized that it was cooked along with the breakfast at 8am and then left in several steal pots until it was brought into our classrooms at a deliciously steam less room temperature. However, it still isn't that nasty and when you are trying to be the cheapest mofo this side of Manila, free lunch is a great deal.

I will usually eat and make funny faces with my half chewed mouth, thus bringing my students to an unruly laughter most unsuitable in the eyes of the more stern and anal Chinese teachers, for about twenty minutes and then it is downstairs for socializing hour with the ill-tempered coworkers.

Now keep in mind we are all good friends and spend most of our real out-of-work free time together as well, but during this time we love to talk shit about people, complain of things in general and even go onto each others facebook sites to tell amusing stories involving "this girl who seemed beautiful at the time" and that guy who's movie list is "piss poor" and the other dude who's ass "I totally kicked!" We enjoy ourselves until someone gets those heavy eyes that either mean 1. the kindy food was rotten and we are all going to start dropping off or 2. it is time for the sleep club.

On those days that we don't do a mariachi dance while waiting for our turn on the one and only employee toilet we will adjourn to the large and spacious gym to take naps on the gymnastics mats. This usually gets me through the day. Even though the gym is quite large everyone tends to lay his or her mat three feet (one metre) away from the others and we all experience that comfortable warmth as we sleep and dream of work and lives far more challenging or legitimate than our own.

This bit of free time usually ends when, in an unsettling panic, we manage to sleep through the incorrectly set cell phone alarm and run about the school spottily grading old tests and quickly skimming through random homework assignments.

After the second class there is just one more hour of free time where I am able to drift into mindlessness as I wait for my last and most energetic class. If I'm not caught talking to someone on the top floor or grading more tests as my Chinese teacher gnarls at me while telling the children in Chinese what a clumsy and unprepared doofus I am, I will return to the low level computers that provide no leg room and the same small chair that fits any normal person's ass like a baseball bat.

I struggle to find booty comfort in the tiny and oddly grooved seat and I will attempt to read various newspapers and internet postings all the while wishing I could not have this middle free time that is not short enough to feel quick and not long enough to feel relaxing.

But we must remember that we don't get jobs for the free time that they promise and usually take away. We take jobs for the love of the work and the hope that it will lead to bigger and better jobs and also for the pay check that helps pay for that nice cushy chair which alleviates the pain accumulated from the "work" chair.

So in the hope that I might find better and more profitable things to do with my middle free time I ask for your, yes you oh weary and ghostly present reader, opinion and thoughts. Do tell or rather inform me and our other readers as to what you do with your little free time, middle free time, or long free time. Let us hear your stories be they long or short. Use some of your free time to tell me what you do in the rest of that free time. In the desire to change what you do you may start by taking the time to tell me what you do. How about it? Let's read....

Dinosaurs Rule!!!

2009-03-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

You know Micheal Jackson or The Beatles really can't even contend with the long lasting popularity of dinosaurs. Even most of the ancient art of Greece has been overshadowed by the later products of the Roman period. There have been many great civilizations that have come and gone and their moment in the sun was surely replaced by something new and more impressive. But dinosaurs.... no way.... they still have a lasting effect that is incredible. Many immense and impressive animals have tried their best to equate with the coolness and beauty of the big lizards but nothing has ever come close. Dinosaurs were here 65 million years ago and each generation of children still picks up the idea that dinosaurs were and are the only deity ever needed for the human race. No human has ever been able to say anything other than, "Dinosaurs were here 65 million years ago." No 64s and there probably won't be any to say that they were here 66 million years ago. They are just so cool and it is beyond comprehension why more movies and books and clothing and furniture aren't made in direct support of these majestic and enigmatic creatures from a time and world that will never be forgotten.

It is also astonishing how the dinosaur population became so adapted and omnipresent only to just stop being here. One minute they were all hanging out eating meat and plants and doing dino stuff and then they were gone.

There are plenty of theories and beliefs as to why these animals had to leave but none really explain why they had to quit on such a high note. The feeling of dread that many had when Jimmy Hendrix died after a measly three rocking years in the limelight is one iota of how most children feel about dinosaurs existence. "Why did they have to die so young?" the children might say. "Why does something so cool have to be so far away from me?" These are a few of the stirring questions many boys ranging from 8-12 inadvertently ask each day.

My period of obsession and "I will die for anything related to dinosaurs or linked to them" emotional status was a wonderful time but indeed short. I was fantastically excited about all the different colors and personalities of dinosaurs. Still some of the largest words in my vocabulary stem from my early "research" into the world of these herbivores and carnivores. Names like Brachiosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex brought a feeling of elation that could only be compared to an opera lover's first experience in the audience of Candide. To hear those syllables bounce so wonderfully off my tongue made me shudder with delight and hope that my dreams would be invaded by my scaly skinned friends' immense and mind-blowing presences.

I had dinosaurs wherever I was. There were lunch boxes, bed sheets, stuffed animals, t-shirts, pajamas, and an entire library filled with books detailed with those pictures of a full sized dinosaur standing next to the tiny silhouette of me, a minuscule and therefore unimportant human being. I would have been honored to have ridden atop the mighty cranium of an Andesaurus delgadoi. I was truly in love with all things dinosaurs and yet, just like the creatures themselves, I had no idea that they would soon be coming to an alarmingly quick and violent end in my life.

I began to see myself getting carried away with this fixation when I was able to throw out names like Micropachycephalosaurus as easily as one might use a monosyllabic "mom" or "cake." I started to become exhausted with the role that dinosaurs were playing in my life. I was only 9 and already my day consisted entirely around my "Dino Schedule." It was up to rise, take off stegosaurus pjs, out of dino bed, into the bathroom to brush with my triceratops toothbrush, off to school with the dino imprinted clothes where I would drift through class doodling little velociraptors when the teacher's eyes weren't fixed on me, and then back home to play with dinosaurs, read about them and do everything according to my large and cold blooded amigos.

I was becoming sick as one does at the end stages of an addiction. I didn't know how to get over this craving for my dinosaurs. At my age, serious treatment didn't cross my mind and I knew that the only true way to get ride of these creatures was to blitzkrieg them from my very soul myself. So the day came when I went to another place in my psyche and officially stated, "fuck dinosaurs." When my parents arrived home that afternoon they found my bedsheets and stuffed animals sliced to pieces and like their real life ancestors, they were obliterated from this planet. I was finally free of the creatures and had had to sacrifice my sanity (if only for a brief moment) in order to cure myself of them. I believe that to have been the only way.

When something becomes so completely awesome one must go cold turkey and just erase it from one's being.

Now that I have grown and recovered from that aching childhood illness I am mystified in the way that all the children of this new generation have acquired the same gene that will simply not permit them to not like dinosaurs. Luckily the gene appears to be on the Y chromosome as the girls do not seem to be nearly as affected by the allure of these green and brown beasts.

When I asked my four year old students how they felt today as I do everyday they replied as they do everyday: "I feel like a dinosaur, ROARRRRRR!!! Today was toy day and while the girls brought in the newer dolls and things that may not have existed during their parents generation, all the boys brought in things involving their best friends the Dino dudes. One boy with dino dolls, one with dino cards, one with a book of dinosaurs, and one boy who had forgotten his dinosaurs but was happy to show us the T-rex smiling on his t-shirt. They love the dinosaurs to an even more outrageous extent than I myself did.

When we take breaks in the class the students are permitted to draw pictures of anything they want. Every boy will always draw his favorite hunter from the cretaceous period. They will compare drawings with each other and will even have pretend fights using only the flaccid pieces of paper with which I have so kindly procured for them. The boys are dinosaur fiends and find a slight moment of solace each day with a brief and less interesting conversation about beetles only to jump right back to the subject of which dinosaur ate more meat and which one had the longer tongue for more effective roaring.

It is all quite captivating and yet I remember my crash and burn when dinosaurs became extinct for me and I fear that this moment will be even more severe for these children. I am beginning to lose my trust in these creatures because they only seem to be around for a small experience and then they break your heart by splitting all together without even offering to pay for half the check. We shall see what happens with these ignorant boys but I hope that as an ex dinojunkie myself I will be able to guide these young lads to a safe and speedy recovery when the day comes that they too must eradicate dinosaurs from their very souls.

My apartment

2009-03-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

We had to pick something fast because by the time my good pal Dunkle arrived to Taiwan I had been staying in a dirty and loud locker room-style hostel with 13 other dudes who made "social retardation" seem like a gift compared to what they possessed. I had to make that crap palace my home for nine terrifying days where I was alone on this foreign planet simply struggling to find new and interesting ways to feed myself by making grunting noises and raising various fingers combined with a general rubbing of the belly to indicate my condition. I really didn't like having to live in the hostel and so upon Dunkle's much awaited arrival I was very eager to find some other place of residence with more comforts than just the five seconds of every minute when I received a cool gust of air from the room's only fan providing a most unsatisfying relief from the otherwise rain forest atmosphere of the hot and crowded room.

That first day Dunkle and I looked at 7 places all of which seemed ok to him and fabulous to me. I mean I was the one who had been living in a mental institution on the 13th floor of a building so old and decrepit that it swayed in the wind. We finally settled on what we thought was a quaint, conveniently located and inexpensive apartment located just a block off from the uber sheik Minchuan Shi Lu road. Well how lucky for us.

So please allow me to give you a little tour of our anti pussy pad.

We have now been living here for 7 months and while one might imagine that the delightful conditions of this beautiful little bachelor pad have improved and given it a "lived in" feel, it is quite the opposite. Each new day brings more neglect and disregard of all things proper and clean to this apartment which, if it were a child, would have already gotten us arrested on extreme misconduct and negligence charges.

As you walk to our apartment you will be blasted with the foreshadowing of our doom castle by the pungent odors of other people's trash and something that mostly resembles shit and a dead animal's baby. The smell can often become so strong that your walk to the door quickens to a jog in the hopes that through the door you will find solace from the horrid and dirty smells encircling the little back alley.

Your last bit of dignity can be used to give a nice wave and "Nee how" to the local barber who every day greets all those passing by while cursing them under his breath because he knows that they got their hair cut from "those bastards down the street" instead of him.

The walk up the steps would make more sense as a descent as you are basically going to some form of hell anyway. The key turns and the door loudly opens and you have made it into our squat heap.

Now if Dunkle's door is closed to his room that means that the rest of the apartment is almost completely dark as his room yields the only source of natural light in the apartment. I thought it rather unique that all the bedrooms had windows that looked into the other rooms but I now see how they were meant as a distraction from the fact that there are no real fucking windows in the whole dank and abysmal apartment!

If your shoes are wet do not worry as our lax dress policy around the house does not require our infrequent visitors to have any more respect for this place than we do. Sometimes we will invite the small courtesy of allowing someone to wipe his or her feet on the rug from the neighbors house but if we are in haste we invite those to simply drag whatever type of mess right into our dumpster of a home.

As you walk down the small and cramped hallway you pass into the wonderfully decorated living room that still only contains a couch and a TV. If you feel so inclined you are more than welcome to have a seat on the stiff and ugly colored sofa but do make sure to brush off whatever rubbish, be it food or Dunkle's toenails, from the seat as you sit down. You might feel the need to push some other kind of trash or general rubbish away from you but you will most likely be distracted by whatever various bug has decided to invade our house for the week. If you do happen to swat and kill a bug by smacking it against the wall please feel free to just leave the sticky carcass glued to the white wall so that we can avoid cleaning it up until it turns into another thing to bitch about in this eye soar of an apartment that's eye is really more of a butt hole.

As you glance around the null apartment you will notice a complete absence of inspiration combined with the type of carelessness you never really thought existed until this moment. You may even cry.

On rare occasions a patron visitor might have need to use the bathroom. This is usually rare as we hardly ever have any food or drink to offer that might provoke the need for one to use a facility. Nonetheless, there are often those who have consumed something out in the real world before entering into this uncomfortably awkward dungeon and we invite them to purge it out in our little WC.

The source of the freeloading insects is usually in the bathroom as they enjoy bathing on the top part of the toilet who's lid broke a mere two months ago and has been kept that way I imagine to remind us that every single thing we have is complete and utter shit and worthless. The bathroom brings to mind that photo one might have seen from the case files of some sociopathic murderer's outhouse. There are old tubes of tooth paste that have established colonies growing across them. (I think they may even be at war with the colonies from the old can of shaving cream.) When in the bathroom try to keep clean as our inattention to ever buying that second bottle of soap 5 months ago has lead to a bottle filled with water and shaken so many times that the plastic seems like it is beginning to wear through.

On the rare occasion that one of us has decided to buy some food, ei- pasta and cheap Ragu knock off sauce, you might make your way into the kitchen. Despite the fact that no one ever actually cooks there it seems rather dirty and has a generally devirginizing sleaziness to it.

While cooking be sure to give our pots a good scrubbing with the almost empty dish soap as the previous user has most likely not done an efficient job. The convenient idea of buying the cheapest cook ware became inconvenient right after its purchase. Since then the pots have taken on the same malignant appearance of the chamber pots used by thousands of soldiers in World War II. The nice thing is that with our pots you have no need to worry about the nonexistence of our spice cabinet because all the residue from the previous dinner-for-one-loser will most likely have broken off into whatever pitiful meal you are preparing at that moment.

Feeling sleepy? Why come into my room and have a rest. I can't promise you'll be sleeping on a cloud but as long as everyone else is completely still and the TV is off you might be able to have a small amount of quiet and privacy. Otherwise the once charming "window to the living room" in my room will be sure to grant all light and noise access to the tiny closet of a bedroom.

As you glance at my bed you may notice that the sheets seem a bit nonsheetlike. That is due to the fact that I never actually bought sheets except some pink ones with flowers that I gave away for obvious heterosexual alpha-male reasons. My sleeping supplies are actually just the stretchy thing and an old blanket I bought half priced from a street vendor. If you cocoon yourself just right with the small tissue sized blanket you may be able to get some sort of feeling of warmth and comfort. Of course there is really no need for extra warmth in an unairconditioned and humid room like mine.

That should last right up until you start to notice that you are actually laying on a marble slab that simply looks like a mattress. The stiffness of the mattress could only be comparable to perhaps laying down in the street. And maybe that is sounding like a better idea right about now.

You'll be happy to know that I do have a pillow. It is unattractively green with pictures of cows all over it and it feels a little like if someone stuffed five of those brittle airplane pillows into a potato sack and then slapped the imagine of some bovine adaptation of a animal on it.

Once you take the time to angrily murder a few more mosquitoes that have taken residence in your room like a couple of European Gypsies you can probably get ready to sleep. You can put your things in my closet which is easy to access since the door fell off a couple of months ago. Be sure to spray yourself one more time with Off before heading to bed and then it is off to sleepland where even the dream of a monster chasing you barefoot through streets filled with chomping crabs will feel like the ultimate adventure compared to the conscious knowledge that you actually live in this dismal piece of old cheese that someone made into an apartment.

When you wake up the next morning, the best idea is to just forget even asking if there is any cereal or orange juice and get the hell outside where once out of range of the poop alley you can attempt to have a real life where you have a real job and friends. If you dress yourself nicely enough no one will actually discover that you come from a squalid disease house that makes some parts of Africa seem like a spa in the south of France.

I have lived and stayed in many places in my life and I am sure to stay in many more, (as I naturally plan not to make this apartment my permanent residence) but this little spot truly put the canker sore on the top of the suck ass cake. I could move somewhere else or try to improve these conditions on my own but I could also just keep counting down the days when I will go out and resume my travels where I will stay in places that require me to flush the toilet with a ladle of water set on the side of the bowl. I guess my happiness here spawns from somewhere else than the place where I live or the places I will stay in the future.

State of Emergency

2009-02-24T03:17:00.000-08:00

Kindergarten was certainly an interesting time. I suppose I really don't even remember much from my kindergarten years and even my new class of four and five year old kids isn't really jogging much memory. I imagine, if I haven't changed too much, that I was most likely just as much a pain in the ass in my kindy years as I think I might be now. But the more I search for some long purged memories of the beginnings of my lifelong pursuit of knowledge the more I start to feel embarrassed because I see how random and inexplicable kindergartner's actions can be.

Let's start with Katrina. Katrina is a nice girl who is only five years old and already has a prettiness about her that will surely get her attention throughout her life. (I have come to suspect that her mother may even give her slight applications of makeup before she comes to class. This could be the reason for her habitual tardiness.) Katrina doesn't have that "go get 'em" attitude that is shocking to see in some of the other young overachievers in the class. Katrina prefers the pursuit of boys. Where others in the class crave knowledge or desire to have every moment of every class be set to some sort of jumpy Disneyesque song and dance; Katrina simply wants all the attention from the boys who hardly know how to pull their pants up past their bare little asses after peeing without falling over, let alone how to respond to the flippant behavior of a tiny member of the opposite sex, of whom they also don't quite understand. Nothing excites Katrina more than being hugged or receiving interest from her fellow male classmates.

Today Katrina asked me if she could go to the bathroom to which I curtly replied, "no, we are having class!" (I think the strict Asian educational standards are subtly becoming a part of my general teaching philosophy.)Katrina was fine until about a minute later when I saw her head bouncing around past the shelves separating the seating areas of the classroom. I stopped class again to ask "Katrina, what are you doing?" Katrina's answer was nothing verbal but simply the action of slowly and cautiously raising her arm to reveal a pair of recently doo doo stained panties. My reaction would most likely be categorized as profound and utter horror. Katrina thought that as the teacher I might want her newly manufactured A-bomb but she was quite ill-informed as I wanted nothing to do with her little "death present." Of course none of the little children saw anything wrong with Katrina walking around wearing nothing below her waist, and it was only I who was growing pale and terrified as this horrendous nightmare was quickly becoming more of a reality.

As these stories often go, my Chinese teacher, and helper of all things dirty, was absent when I needed her the most. I tried to calm my nerves and think of a rational and sensible solution to this disgustingly strange predicament but I couldn't collect my thoughts and Katrina was creeping ever closer to me with that little stick of dynamite clasped in her cold clammy hands. So, when no other idea sprung to mind, I ran out of the classroom and closed the door behind me leaving 14 kindergartners and a 15th half dressed time bomb alone in a classroom together.

I peeked in through the window as if I was watching a failed bomb tech unit fight to be let out before the misfiring explosive went off with them inside. I checked the outside of the class and couldn't see anyone who might like to tackle this horrific responsibility for me. I started to picture all of the things that would have to happen between myself and Katrina in order to get her "class ready" again and the image made me so weak in the knees I almost fell over. To think of the strange angles and positions and the mortifying questions I would have to ask made me wish that I could jump off the roof and relieve myself of these doody duties.

I was finally able to calm down and I went next door to my co-worker's class. He was sitting in a nice happy little circle with his students reviewing the week's phonics lesson and all his kids appeared to be attentive and intrigued. I quickly interrupted the mood with my stuttering, "Kakakakakatrina just crapped her pants and is wawawawawalking around half naked in the classroom!" Everyone in the class began with a most unhelpful and hysteric laughter brought on by their "supportive" teacher.

To my luck his Chinese teacher was still in the class and informed me that my teacher had gone downstairs to do some paper work. Well I needed a different kind of paper work done and it involved using that paper in dark ways that still make me shutter. I repeated my indelicately formed sentence that should never have been used in front of a group of young minds whose every English action is derived from the inspiration and examples of their teachers. The Chinese teacher immediately snapped into "let's clean up the shit mode" and was ready to help.

We entered the city of New Chernobyl aka my classroom, myself a couple of feet behind my savior of dirty deeds, and the students had now discovered their freedom and were going a little bit past bat shit crazy all over the classroom. Whatever kind of order I may have had earlier with the children was like Katrina's soiled panties: destroyed and completely irreplaceable.

The teacher escorted the young Katrina out of the classroom and I was left to a most disagreeable smell and an even more obnoxious group of rowdy children who I now feared had just as volatile bowls as their classmate and former nice pants owner. For the rest of the day I was sending children out at even the slightest uncomfortable movement that I detected might lead to their pant legs becoming a slide to a river more dangerous than the Amazon and Nile combined. One student even confusedly replied, "but teacher Andrew, I don't need to go potty" as I sent him to the bathroom for a gesture he made of squeezing his little pecker in what I thought was an effort to "plug the pipes."

I was indeed helped by more experienced and thus more irritated personnel and the day started to resume a relatively comfortable tone again. I restored some aspect of calm to the class but was forced to initiate a coloring activity because all hope was lost at learning anything comparatively important.

However suddenly, while pacing around the classroom trying to think of new and unique compliments to put smiles on each individuals face, I tripped over what I thought was a chair leg.

Oh no, it was a real leg.

It was Katrina's leg.

It was Katrina, whose sickness had evolved from crap in the pants to throwing up in the recyclables waist basket as the rest of the students happily colored a Cinderella scene. (We are learning about our favorite fairy tales in this unit. This is not my favorite fairy tale.) Katrina was apparently quite sick and yet displayed some sort of amazing skill that enabled her to separate her physical from her mental. I hadn't noticed that she was puking because she had been kidding around and laughing with one of the boys in the class in between purges. Katrina was managing to be flirtatious while vomiting in her panties free and new shorts attire.

I asked Katrina if she was OK, shocked at the circumstances I couldn't begin to comprehend, and she gave a confused look and cutely responded, "I OK. Why?"

Before I could prepare a comment or bounce off such a hilariously content response Katrina slammed the top of the waist basket down, put a smile on her face, and hopped in line to go to lunch as if nothing had happened.

Now imagine the times when perhaps you were feeling sick from the top end or the bottom end. Visualize the agony and discomfort that you felt as if the sickness would never end and would only become increasingly worse as seconds in your miserable life ticked by. Picture that the only comfort was perhaps the idea of someone hitting you over the head with an object heavy enough to send you away from your utterly wretched condition forever. Try to envision having that sickness through both ends in front of all your friends and your educator and you might be able to understand what it was like in Katrina's shoes this day.

And how did she she act through all this? It was as if she was just going about her boring tasks finding them not agonizing but rather a slight disruption to her coquettish wanderings with the boys of the class. I don't know where Katrina will go in her life or what she will become, but if I am in any way an effective teacher and get her to understand and enjoy English the whole rest of the world will find out.

Taking it Easy

2009-02-11T05:10:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong, being a world traveler is certainly an exciting gig but it does have its' difficulties. The primary hardship about this leisurely existence is how easy it is to be lazy about everything. Being in a foreign country means that you have to either go out of your way to constantly try and experiment with new things, or simply find your comfort level and then ride out the good life.

I like to think that I have tried some new things and been in some weird and awkward situations while having lived these past six months on a small island, located just 100 miles west of the coast of China, known as Taiwan. I have learned some Chinese in the form of language and I have met some Chinese people and become friends with them as well. I have eaten exotic foods such as BBQ chicken ass and pork intestines stuffed with spleen which I will most likely never even look at again. I can even say that I have made a life for myself as I hold a steady and profitable job and have a good group of friends while living in my own place and frequenting several establishments that house a staff and similar group of "regulars" who remember me and elatedly welcome my daily "drop ins."

But at the core of all that there exists a very relaxed and tranquil aspect of my life that boarders on blatant slothfulness. One example would be how, for the past two weeks, I have been working simply from 9 am to 1130 am everyday. That time is spent with my kindergarten class who love every idea I create for class whether it be dancing and singing the same song five times in a row or talking about how we feel each day and how the weather is outside. Around 45 minutes of the time I spend in class is either watching the students eat and asking "is the food yummy?" or inventing new games to teach them the basic art of socializing and enjoying one another.

As you can imagine a day like this does not exactly leave one fatigued, and with the early hours of class I am able to utilize the whole day in any way I please. This, I find, is better for me than just having the day off of work because in that arises the basic battle of motivating myself to even go outside when I have six movies channels just feet from my bedroom. By already having showered, dressed, left my home, and energized to the excitement of playing with little four year old children I am quite ready to embark on an adventurous day.

Now as I say this I want you to think of what you might do on a day like such as this one. Be sure to remember that this is not one day either but rather two whole weeks. That creates the first struggle I encounter each day. I begin to plan my many activities and am soon overwhelmed by all the potential things I could do and how it would be easier to just do them tomorrow or the next day. Thinking too hard like this can get tiring so I usually pick a place to go and calm my excitable blood for a moment.

I do a lot of theorizing in the park. Sometimes, on a really productive day, I might even go sit on a bench and write down the things I might like to do and see and finish for the day or the week. Often times, however, I pick the "Huckleberry" option of finding a shaded tree to relax and dream under. I like to role up my pants and pop off my shoes and lay down in the grass to take a break from my "on the go" lifestyle. I got so comfortable the other day that after sleeping under a particularly nice tree for about two hours I realized that I had found my bed under a great load of sap and needles which made the sticky transfer from the earth to my brand new pants. If I hadn't looked like an misplaced hobo for my irregular napping habits I was most certainly exposed when the locals were able to view my "rustic" backside. I thought, I could find this situation stressful and embarrassing, or I could find a new tree and take more care to create a nice bed for myself.

Today I wanted to finish reading a book, call the bank in the US, call the bank in France, go to the bank in Taiwan, call about student loans, finish my lesson plans for class, buy groceries, do my laundry, clean my room, and I think even a few more things. While I didn't get to all these things I was impressed with my idea to convert from my hot and humid jeans to a nice free pair of shorts. It did require me to go all the way home but I thought since the weather was so pleasant, a breezy 73, I would make that much needed transformation.

I turned on my computer with the intention of calling one of these many banks today but thought I might check the essentials like facebook and gmail first. The mission that had initially drawn my attention to using the World Wide Web was lost and I found myself browsing through long lost friend's profiles while mentally guffawing at their limited musical favorites. To justify my Internet ventures I read a quick useless tidbit on Wikipedia and then realized that my lap could no longer take the heat of my computer and so, once again, I was in need of a siesta.

This time I left my shoes at home and strolled across the street, book in hand, to the local park. I borrowed one of the chairs from another "regular" like myself and took to reading in the sun. I made it through perhaps ten pages before I caught my neck snapping as I had fallen asleep, mouth wide open, in front of plain view of the other visitors and neighbors in the park. I chose a perfect time in which to arise as a violinist had found a delightful spot in which to practice the soothing songs of Beethoven (I have no idea really.) So I resumed my reading and listened as the musician and the sun reminded me of how much nicer doing nothing is than doing something.

Now maybe it would be splendid to go home to the jobless USA where I could ponder and stress at discovering my vocation in life only to accept work as a gas station attendant to at least help pay the rent my roommates (or parents) would most likely assign me, but I think this life here also has its' benefits. I may not get many things done or work very hard outside of my job, and I may not own anything except a few clothes and books, and I may not be a lot of things, but in my little world here I enjoy every moment in the way that I want and it suits me to be a relaxed, and perhaps a little bit lazy, world traveler.

A Day To Remember

2009-02-03T00:05:00.000-08:00

Well how does it feel to be back in Taiwan? Oh sorry for those of you who didn't know I live in Taiwan. And for those others who knew that I live in Taiwan but are wondering "where did he go?" The answer would be the land of the free, where burgers save lives and the beer comes in suitcase form.......ah yes the old U. S. of A.

I hadn't been back to my old country in nearly a year and even that visit was a quick two week jaunt filled with more "weird happenings" than "life altering experiences." This trip felt a lot different. I had a lot of fun being back in my homeland where talking to people required simply speaking in my own tongue and the only awkward conversations were due to the content of my words rather than the difficulty in forming half-assed, simple minded sentences.

It was great to once again breath in that fresh mountain air and see the brown snow blanketed trees in there transition from one pretty season to yet another one. All in all I couldn't have asked for a better visit back.

The trip started as usual with a little jet lag here and a little more jet lag there and than a nice wholesome serving of what I imagine was my stomach's way of communicating, "you think you can just cram all these crazy foods into me at hours most irregular?" By that I mean I thought I might die from ring sting. I misconceived that returning to "civilization" meant a return to a normal diet and regular "bathroom break" rituals, but this was hardly the case.

One of the first nights I was back we decided to make a very nice French meal for dinner which, obviously, required horrendous amounts of delicious, stinky cheese. We all enjoyed ourselves wonderfully while dining and drinking fine French wines while keeping a light atmosphere with our whimsical stories of great times past. 'Twas truly a divine night that I believed would be the start of an ultimately divine two week vacation from my "hectic, non-stop, on the go" life in Asia. (haha)

This was certainly true until the next morning. I say morning but I hardly mean it because anyone who calls 4 am in the morning can kiss my Asian ass because it's clearly the worst time to ever be awake. Nonetheless it was 4 am when my stomach declared, "shit's going down!" It was miserable sitting upon a cold, hard "throne" in a half daze while struggling to keep at least one eye open. My mind had not yet made the 15 hour time change so my gut renching squirts were muttled by most unsettling halluncinagenic dreams. At times it was nice be able to mentally escape from such physical anguish but in reality, sitting on a frigged toilet in a jet-lagged stupor was not exactly an ideal way to spend an early morning.

I was able to calm myself down enough to drift off into whatever whacked out imaginings my reversed brain could create for what I thought was a couple more hours of much needed sleep. What actually happened was that a newly discovered lack toast and tolerance was about to go full speed into the "just kill me" realm. The amount of cheese I ate the night previous was as close as one could get to actually overdosing on a food and I suppose my strictly Asian (all soups, noodles, and rice) diet had turned my stomach into a gigantic whimp (or pussy if you really want to know) when fighting against all things dairy.

Of course, It was a delightful Sunday when my family arose to find me watching Hostel, curled in a blanketed cocoon on my sofa. Why I picked that movie to watch during the two miserable hours before everyone woke up at a descent hour was beyond me and the little "doo doo" breaks "sprinkled" throughout made it all the more tortuous. My family was extactic to see how I was already to go for the day. So with clammy hands and a pale face I embarked on a nice day throughout my quaint little town for a little Sunday family outing.

I complain sometimes. Sometimes I do it as a joke and sometimes I am even too mean spirited about it. Sometimes I complain to aid in others complaints and thus encourage them to complain more as well. This day I complained because every ten minutes I felt the urge to rip out the red hot demon boiling in my stomach with my bare hands. When you are sick everything seems terribly unimportant. Most day to day things feel like a chore as is but when you struggling to stay conscious in the bathroom in the ladies section of Macy's, the nullity of day to day life really begins to sting.

We went many places that day including a bakery, the movie store, and even the hillbilly reject, half-smoked cigarette totting, slack jaw yokel filled mall. I thought I could make it until we went to one of the last stops, which was the dog park. Now I actually wanted to go to the dog park to see our new little puppy in action and to maybe see what was cooking in the American girls sector. Perhaps I watched one to many episodes of Entourage, but the whole time home I was consumed by the idea that having a puppy around would quadruple my chances of meeting some beautiful girl who I could then explain, "I'm only taking care of her today while I'm home from Taiwan where I am trying to learn my fourth language while also teaching some of the most splendid and beautiful children to ever pass before my eyes." Usually we only met other goobers with similar intentions as myself who would strangely ask questions like, "What kind of personality does she have?" This then lead me to realize that the only way you could ask a question like that would be by checking between my dog's legs as SHE ran past. Gross.

So we went to the dog park in the hopes that we might be able to see our dog run and then maybe watch some other dogs run and maybe even see a small dog bark at a big dog, and then see one bad little dog that would remind us of how good our dog was and then see some dogs that were friendly and others that we thought were "yucky mean dogs." I guess that's why people go to dog parks. Either way all I could think about was that it was cold as hell and my ass was about to fall off of my body and leave me to die being humped and slobbered to death by copious amounts of crazy little mutts who, more often than not, could socialize better than their masters.

I finally convinced my family to end the charade of errand running and let me get home to the place where no candle could survive and just chill. We made it home where no one saw me until 20 quick minutes later when it was time to go see Grand Torino because I guess it was the last day and time that the movie would ever play.

We saw the movie and gosh darn it I really liked it. I don't know why but apparently the ultra racist, hater of humanity character played by mister Eastwood really soothed my throbbing bowels and put me at peace. Just as the man calmed himself and became a better person in the end, so too did my stomach and my attitude. We left the movie and I was in a much better condition all around and therefore able to start truely enjoyed all the quirkiness of my sister, mom and dad.

I wasn't sick for the rest of the trip and even though I thought I might actually die that day, I was comforted to be around those who cared most about if I was actually feeling sick or not. If it wasn't for my family's insistence on going out and taking the day by storm I would have stayed at home and missed out on all the little things that make my little family of four so charming. We talked and we laughed and they made fun of my terrible condition the whole day just like our strangly functional family always treats those who "can't take the heat." It was a terrible day when it was happening but it will be a great memory for a long time. It just shows that even when you're in the worst pain imaginable a good family can provide all the relief necessary.

Hail to the bus driver!

2009-01-09T03:53:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had one of those things that while it was happening you were sure that you were going to remember it and then five minutes later you forgot? Then the next day the same thing happened and you thought, "oh yeah, I wanted to do something about this yesterday but it must have slipped my mind." It keeps happening like this over and over and you suddenly discover that you are more pissed that you can't remember to be pissed than you are at the thing that originally pissed you off. What I, in brain dead words, am trying to explain is how I seriously dislike the process of using public transportation and how it really pisses me off each day in a new and uniquely stupid way.

First there's the walk. Yeah, I know, here I am using public transportation like a broke-ass loser and I have to walk there first. I mean walking to get to somewhere to go somewhere seems like all sorts of wasting time. I usually do this intricate math problem before every day adding 13.5 minutes for the walk, 12.25 minutes for the bus, and then 3 minutes for the second walk. I am often known to skip the 14.34 minute shower in the morning for an extra 14.20 minutes of sleep. (That allows for the 14 seconds of much needed deodorant usage to hide the fact that I am an adult who sacrifices bathing himself for a couple minutes of in and out half sleep.)

Then you get to the bus stop or the station and the first thing you have to do is wait some more. Sometimes you get lucky and you can just cram onto a bus with all the other hurrying Taiwanese people who feel it absolutely imperative that they get one of those hard broken down seats for their ride which lasts only one stop in the first place. If you have to wait you get the wonderful opportunity to take a look at all the nutjobs of society who have deemed the bus station a fair place to "wallow in their own crapulence." The majority of the people at bus stations don't even look like they are going to use a bus. In a place made for taking and bringing people to different places, half the population is just there to smoke a cigarette, take a nap, or maybe try to sit up straight and not throw up from the diseased rat he just chased with a shot of watered down vodka before embarking into this fine museum of human curiousness.

Next comes getting on the bus or the metro. People act like they are racing to a pot of gold or swimming to a drownling child when they are JUST GETTING ON A BUS! They do the complete opposite when they get off as if they broke both their legs on the ride. This mix of motivations really messes with people and you end up seeing a lot of tripping, face planting, and lots of "accidental" butt grabbing.

The buses are always crowded and when they are crowded they suck and they are always crowded so they always suck. Usually about seven seconds after the doors close you quickly realize that you were no pioneer in your idea to skip the shower. On real bad bus rides the windows will fog up like a car at the drive-in when in reality it is just a bunch of ratbags marinating in their own effluence.

The biggest dickheads always seem to be the ones who get the seats too. You walk in tired after a long day, maybe you have some stuff from work so your backpack is getting heavy, and who do you see but some 15 year old punk jamming away at his PSP not even noticing the old lady begging for a seat as she sways on her chopstick legs. My favorite are the people who close their eyes and pretend like they are sleeping while they relax in the "comfy" little chairs. I find being surrounded by a million stink bombs coughing and scratching is the ideal place to catch a little rest and relaxation.

The buses are always rickety and bouncy and after a while a covered wagon sounds like a much better deal. (At least you might get to enjoy a little buffalo jerky along the way.) Often times it gets so crowded that everyone moves together like one big blob. I imagine the best way to think of it would be like a bus sized slab of jello jiggling after someone knocked the table. Once and a while the bus will have just enough space for the only morbidly obese dude in Taiwan, who is wearing a sleeveless t-shirt at the time, to smash his perfectly angled armpit into your face. (True story.) If you didn't already have your gag reflex working over time from the smell, something like this might put it into overdrive and end up giving you more space on the bus than you might desire.

The last part that really twists my arm (that's not true, there are a lot more) is the way Taiwanese people only enjoy order for half the experience. While waiting they are calm and collected and polite and they collect in a nice little line in wonderful expectation for the magical mystery bus to take them to some far off place. Suddenly the the red lights start blinking and the wind picks up and everyone knows, "that's that mothafuckah comin' to get my ass home to some dumplings." The chaos is like a great orchestral piece that slowly builds into one giant pound of the drum. The line looses its strength and everyone crams into the doorway like play dough being shoved into a keyhole. (It is a bit like when a man tries to make love to a woman after consuming a lot of whiskey.... it just ain't gonna work.) Eventually someone from inside the train or the bus decides he has had enough and gives a little shove so that everyone can fall out like beans out of an upside down can. Then these same people go and stand on the left side of the goddamn escalator making it impossible for anyone to do anything but ascend slowly up the metal stairs staring at the gum and dirt pasted on the passing walls.

Public transportation may suck a whole bunch of ass but it does get you somewhere. Often times it is taking you to work which is just as uninteresting, but at least you don't have to walk anywhere. Well, you did have to walk to the bus stop and then there was that little walk you made as slow as your mathematical schedule would allow. (no longer than 3 minutes and 17 seconds.) And there are some rare times when you have to take a bus and then a train and then another bus just to get home so you can take a crap two days in the making only to comfortably sit down and find out that the house is empty and so is your toilet paper dispenser.

But hey that's just how it is and when you are as cheap as I am it works alright. Perhaps I'll catch you on a bus sometime. I'll be that asshole slapping you across the face as you pretend to lightly snore in some poor old geezer's seat.

'Tis the season

2008-12-26T06:39:00.000-08:00

Wow, Christmas is over and I hardly even knew it was here. In fact, for the first time in my life I think I feel a bit alleviated to have it be finished. If I could tell you one thing it would be that Buddhist's do not, in any way, do the Christmas thing like we do. I never really realized it but once you take out all the love and sentimentality of the wonderful holiday, it can feel hollow and stale like old bread. People think that Christmas in the States is becoming way too absorbed in the commercial aspects but I think they should see it here. These people practically think that we celebrate the holiday because it was the first time Frosty the Snowman came to be.

You know, when I was a kid, Christmas was a really special thing for me. It stayed that way until I left home and had to celebrate it away and even alone. Now that I am a working man life seems to be much shorter after the work is done. There is less time for play and even less energy for that play I earn. I feel like it was only yesterday that I had dreams of being a famous robber or even better, a real live garbage man and now the reality is debt and work. (But it ain't so bad)

However, I suppose after all that banter about how everyone seemed to forget about the meaning of Christmas I will go ahead and describe the grand Christmas show that our school put on this past weekend. We worked diligently for about six weeks on the show and it our immense work load finally culminated in a bizarrely successful night of children running around, sweating from stage lights, and curses thrown out by various adults in just as many various languages.

Some how my "charm" or "ability to get sucked into too many things" led to my being involved as an actor in my classes' skit and MC of both the two hour shows. Hooray, more work for me!!! So we worked way too hard and by the end my new arch nemesis (aka my Chinese teacher Brenda) was bitching at me like she was my accidental wife and mother to my ill-gotten bastard son. I mean Christ chick we teach first grade chill your ass!!! So she was way too stressed and therefore I decided to be not really troubled at all and thus even more of a poisonous thorn in the side of all these caffeine jacked nutcase Taiwanese teachers.

Somehow we made it through most of the night despite our differing opinions about how fun should be had and I thought that no major catastrophe would happen. I was wrong. To give you an example of how things were going, the two other classes in my show were naturally doing skits about Christmas where all the children got some time in the spotlight to say "I want a big and fast toy truck for Christmas Santy Claaauuus." Who wouldn't love that? It's simple and sweet and you know that you are getting the hell outta this shitass cramped and stinky theatre on the fifth floor of the library at a good hour. Then you have the last skit come on; mine of course. Now, I thought some sort of Charlie Brownesque play would be delightful for all those darling parents in the gum and stain invested seats in front of us. Sound good Brenda? Ohhhhh nooooo.

"Alright audience, weren't the last two performances great? Let's give them one more round of applause and then welcome my class with the 2008 Hess School Science Fair!" This was all I had to announce to make most of the fathers in the crowd (who even understood English) think, "Jesus, give me a gun right now and I'll do it. I'll end this misery." No Santa, no reindeer, certainly no Herby the little elf who just wants to be a dentist; just me and fourteen kids in white lab coats and big... black... afros (Taiwan's idea of an Albert Einstein impression.) Oh yeah, and a long boring skit about the wonders of science.

[I'll give you, oh faithful reader, a little background on the scumbagery of the this idea. You see our school is the most expensive English school on this entire island. They give the kids every opportunity in the hopes that it will help them evolve into Asia's next great generation and what it really does is begin a lifetime of unattainable expectations added to a giant early hear attack giving mountain of stress. My class in particular, is the cream of the white collar crop so they have to do every "fun" after school activity from piano, French and English tutor, dance, and every other thing possible. Most parents drop their kids off in Porsche's, Jaguars, and even a Ferrari and one parent came the night of the show with her best friend, the "Britney Spears" of the Taiwan music scene.

These fanatical parents insist that their kids have all these useless and expensive science textbooks and that I deliver insightful and scientific lectures for their 6 year old sons and daughters each week. (Remember these are kindergardners learning a second and often third language.) Needless to say, our school manager felt that by pumping up the science at the show would increase other parents interest in science for their kindergartners and thus sell more books. Ah the beauty of "educational ethics."]

Pardon,I'm getting way carried away because it was a rough day and I found out that I have to work tomorrow, that's right Saturday, at 8 am.

So the story continues. We go through the boring motions of our science fair with some of the old, "matter is anything that takes up space and has mass" from one six year old and "this is called a physical change" from the adorable 2.5 foot tall Nini. I think the only thing that held people's interest was all the giant bouncing afros on scattered throughout the stage.

Then comes the dreaded last scene. I had worked really hard to memorize all my stupid lines and those of the others so I could help them when the influx of cycloptic (yes I know it isn't a real word) parents was too much to handle. There was not a single person who didn't have some sort of camera to his face the entire show. So things were sailing along nicely and then I forget a line. Oops, one girl was missing and I had forgotten to say her part about the chemical change. I can already see Brenda growing livid with dissatisfaction. Then, boom! and pop! "What was that? Oh just a light bulb has popped. Oh and what would you know, a fire is emerging up in the rafters.....WAIT, HOLY SHIT A FIRE" I am thinking all this while the cameras snap away and the kids look at me wondering how I have forgotten my lines.

I freeze. I am now ruining the show throwing gestures to the side of the stage mouthing "THERE--IS--A--FIRE!" The flames are growing and a white smoke is beginning to collect and all Brenda can do is grow red-eyed with disgust waving at me to go on with the now completely unimportant skit. I ponder "what is more important, these bored parents hearing the definition of a liquid and solid or their children not making headlines for being burned to death as the acrylic afros melt to their small craniums?" I feel that my panic is justified and yet everyone else seems to believe that the show must go on. Rain or shine or growing inferno.

I struggle through some more lines and even receive a kick from the little girl standing next to me who can't see the fire and thus believes that her teacher and mentor is a brain dead idiot who still can't remember his part after 6 weeks of grueling and excruciating practice. The smoke is visible and yet still everyone seems more interested in finding out if the robot toy has more mass than the dolly. What can I do?

Finally the teachers decide, "well if it will make him happy we will do something about the growing fire in this crowded theatre filled with small innocent children." They get the fire down by fanning it and preforming some other much needed remedies and my stress level declines to only two future ulcers status and I stumble through the end of the show.

I am now visably drained of energy due to my flipout session combined with a sudden fatigue, and the big furry afro make me out to look like the ideal junky crack addict. I am physically shaking and yet what do I get for all my troubles? "Why did you forget your lines?" Brenda is actually fuming more than the previous fire.

"Why don't you shove it right up your ass you evil demon bitch!" I was doing a lot of angry thinking that night that filtered out as a calm and collective, "I apologize but weren't you aware of the fire?"

"We took care of the fire but you still messed up the show." Brenda retorts.

"Well I guess it is the end of the the fucking world that all these parents don't get to hear some useless science shit three days before Christmas." My far past irate screams once again get squeezed out as, "I am glad you took care of the fire and it just got me a little freaked out."

Brenda had nothing to say to this and walked off probably to go bite the heads off of chickens just to get her fill of death and hatred of all things unorganized and spontaneous.

Of course in the end I desperately needed to go get some fresh air and was stopped by many adoring parents with nothing but nice things to say about my teaching, my friendliness with the students, and their enjoyment of our "well-rehearsed" science fair. No one was displeased and no one died. It was a fair evening and it didn't stop until I was polishing off a bottle of Saki on my rooftop at 730 the next morning with Guillaume, the French man I met and went out with that night.

That there is an entirely different story in itself but I'm tired and I must depart to joylessly arise at 730 am for my early Saturday classes. Life ain't so bad but it sure isn't what I thought it would be when I wrote my second grade report about the wonders of being a garbage man in the future.

Tektonik

2008-12-14T00:55:00.000-08:00

I must say my weekends in Taipei are interestingly spent. They are almost always filled with new, fun, exciting and a bit mind-boggling adventures. Quite the contrast from my weekends of the year past where I often didn't leave the comfort of my PJs for all three days. (I write this as I take a break from Sunday movie watching in my PJs right now.)

Let's just go ahead and start with Friday. The week was over and as it wasn't all that hard of a week I was feeling rather content and light hearted and in a merry mood. Ready for anything. I came home to my little mosquito invested casa to find Dunkle in a rather similar form of spirits and thus the inspiration for the night was born. "Let's go drink a bunch of scotch and then go to a Dutch DJ hosted rave," was our fantastic idea. "Why not....sounds like a good old time."

I have made a worthy effort to figure it out but for some reason there has been a big Chinese type festival going on all around us. Friday night started with Dunkle and I talking a leisurely walking around the neighborhood checking out the different festivities while once and a while taking a swig of Famous Grouse sctoch recently purchased at one of the fine 7-11 establishments. What amazed me then, and still does now as I listen to its music from outside the window, was the traditional Chinese musical theatre set up in the park next to our place. Dunkle and I took some time to enjoy the music of the Chinese violin and the dancing of the singing women (kimonos and make up and all.) It was pretty amazing and seeing that type of stuff really makes me appreciate the fact that I really do live in a place different from what I have ever known or will.

So after taking in some Taiwanese/Chinese culture and a bottle of the good stuff Dunkle and I were more than ready for a little high intensity drum and bass at one of the premier Taiwanese dance clubs. I think we were supposed to be meeting some people there but that pretty much fell apart when we just showed up (neon green T-shirts and all) with one idea: LETS DANCE LIKE IDIOTS IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE! And man did we do it. We were all over this club dancing with absolutely no regard for what we must have looked like. I'm talking doing the wave sort of stuff with the hands and even spinning on the floor. At one point I stopped myself and went "holy shit, I'm dancing like an insane person who is simultaneously ceasing in front of all these people." Upon that realization I looked over at Dunkle and saw that he was doing the same thing and not only that but the crowd had made a circle around us and was cheering for us. No joke, we had become the life of the party.

That is when I knew it had to be done......dance contest! I started picking people at random and saying "you! Me! right now on the dance floor!" I then commenced to make a fool out of myself just because it was a Friday night and I live on an island off the coast of China. The best part was that I wasn't turned down from one single challenge. You see club folk take their dancing seriously and don't like to see a poser wannabe like me putting shame to their art. It was all very.....awesome.

After all this dancing Dunkle and I decided, "now it's time to meet some girls and show them our new found confidence." We talked to several girls and danced with a few more and things were looking up for us both. That was when I came up with what I thought was the best line ever given at a club. I walked "smoothly" (stumblingly) up to some girl and simply said "here take this and call me sometime." I walked back to Dunkle all smiles and said "oh yeah dude, that was sweet."

Dunkle's only reply was "dude you just gave that girl your cell phone. Why did you do that."

"Don't worry bro, she'll call," was my fabulous retort.

I still don't know where my cell phone is and I am probably going to have to buy another one.

The rest of the night was a blur of similar encounters where Dunkle and I managed to be the most prolific morons found in a nightclub. The funniest part was Dunkle waking up the next morning with of framed picture of us at the club that neither of us remember receiving.

The next day woke up with three hours of drunk sleep with the intention of meeting a pal for a nice Saturday lunch. I went to the rendez-vu point only to realize that I no longer had a cell phone which meant I had no way to contact anyone and no idea what time it was. I waited for an hour with no sight of my friend. Rather than dining with my friend at one of his favorite Indian restaurants I went to eat by myself where I realized that I almost hate Subway more than I do McDonalds. The food made me sick all day and I had to sleep on a concrete wall in a park for an hour because I didn't have time to go back home before my private tutor.

Sometimes I surprise myself at my inability to grow up. Sorry ma and pa I know you guys are wondering when I will retire my childishness but it was unfortunately not this weekend. At least I can admire that fact that I am becoming one of the best teachers at our school. I am on the list with the A level teachers and all the kids like me. I guess weekday Putt and weekend Putt are two different sides of the same face.

Mack's Lounge in Taiwan

2008-12-06T00:22:00.000-08:00

Man fuck McDonald's! I am sorry. I know I have been pretty good to abstain from cursing on this blogue but I can't help saying it as I sit in this chair feeling like an old miserable piece of crap. I think I would enjoy the feeling of eating pesticide more than McDonald's. Just in case you didn't know, I just ate some today and feel like some kind of farm animal took a giant shit down my throat and now the toxin is sitting there, cooking in the bowels of my insides just waiting to pass through more vital organs and thus pollute my body more.

That place sucks so bad and yet I eat it on average about once a week. What it is about that giant arch that seems so irresistable to the hungry wonderer. I mean back home people eat it because it is a quick and easy alternative to going to a real restaurant where you are treated like a person. The line at McDonalds makes you feel like you are in the same assebly line that the cow you are about to eat was in. I just can't stand the damn turd palace.

The experience of eating this garbage food is only made worse by the fact that I can't even communicate what the hell I want to eat. I mean you really feel like a piece of shit when you're too stupid to even order the manure food that you are about to regret eating. I go there because I consider it an alternative to going to some Taiwanese restaurant where I don't know what to order because it is all displayed in crazy character form. So instead I go into the dirt shack and hold out four fingers like some idiot who just fell down a flight of stairs and I yell "COKE." I couldn't even figure out how to get a Sprite today because they call it something different in Chinese. I am worthless.

Why do I put myself in these humiliating positions where I am made the brain dead pupil of Docter "works the cash register at Mcdonalds" who has to guess from my stupid looking facial expressions if I would like a small or a large fry. I don't want any of that crap....well... ok gimme a big mac.

Somehow when you eat at these shaddy belt popping establishments you always spill something on yourself too. That really pisses me off. Not only am I eating food that is one step away from being pig feed, but I just dumped some of this shit onto myself as if I was some clumsy horse sloppily eating out of a goddamn trough. What a terrible place.

They don't even have red box DVD rental or Dr. Pepper at the Mack's lounge here in Taiwan which means I really am going there just to eat there gutter slop food.

You know what's funny? Dunkle eats there probably like three times a week and I honestly think he likes it. Whenever I come home to that dank, cancer giving smell of old soggy hamburger buns in my house I know that Dunkle has just finished "fat boyin' it up," as we call this miserable experience. Why is it that we can't resist the urge to go get a food hangover from the shit shack? We can't fight the urge. It's like a disease that makes you want a disease.

Everytime I leave the restaurant I bow my head in embarrassment as if I was walking out of some low grade scum bag porno theatre. "Mothers hide your children! That fatass just crammed his face with a mud burger. You can tell because it's plastered all over his wrinkly dirty old shirt. What a regect!"

The Mack's by our house is the funniest because if you don't want to make the "high intensity" walk up the stairs to where the seating is, you can simply take the one table on the first foor. There is literally one single solitary table next to the order station where you can often amuse yourself by checking out the fat old doofus sticking fries up his nose because he can't get them in fast enough with his already full trash can mouth. That table is when reaching the lowest level isn't enough and you just have to admit that your life is that horrible and you are the reason for all the wars and disease exist in the world. They should call it the "Sweatpants Only" section.

So while a lot of food here is very good there still does exist that sickening tope tiled oil leaking ball of melanoma that is Mcdonalds. And yet many others here call it the American Embassy. I hope that one day I will be able to fully renounce that terrible place once and for all, but for now I will just have to accept that sometimes I am so desperate for a hambuger that go into the restaurant that makes me feel like Jabba the hut's alcoholic inbred half brother.

Maybe it isn't so bad.

2008-12-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

In my time traveling the world I have found myself in a lot of rather uncomfortable situations. I am always the foreigner and even when I think I have accurately assimilated into whichever society I might be visiting at the moment, there still exists those strange and awkward moments that remind me of what a stranger I really am.

I think when I look at my two contrasting experiences in France and Taiwan they appear to be on opposite sides of each other. Both experiences have been plentiful and eye opening while very different from each other. When I was in France it was often the things that I did that seemed overtly bizarre and strange whereas in Taiwan it is all the actions of those around me that makes me realize how out of place I am.

When I was in France I was always trying to look the part and be cool. I never wanted to seem like a tourist who just wanted that 500th picture of the Eiffel tower. I would walk up and down the streets of Paris trying to act like I knew exactly where I was going and yet I didn't care if I ever got there. A lot of the French people have this type of attitude where they are always in a state of wondering with no real direction. They walk from cafe to cafe and enjoy people watching and reading the paper. I think a lot of times people consider that an example of the classic French laziness and perhaps that is true. I tried to accomplish this type of living and perhaps at times I did but I always felt like an outsider no matter how much black clothing I wore.

In contrast, Taiwan has made me realize that it is not my actions that make me feel foreign but rather how everyone else reacts here that seems so crazy to me. I mean they have rivers and oceans and trees just like we do back home and yet the things that happen within this landscape simply blows my mind. I feel like our culture has become so omnipresent that almost everyone knows a little bit about us in every part of the world. Everyone has heard of Justin Timberlake and most anyone can quote from one of their favorite American movies and yet what do we know about Taiwan, or many other places for that matter.

When I arrived in Taiwan I didn't know a thing about it. I mean nothing, nada, no nothing. Come to think of it I still don't really know a whole lot about the going ons of this place. I have seen many things and I have already had some interesting culture clashes and experiences that I feel have changed my impression of the place, but it is still such a mystery. I know little about this place even though every time I looked under one of my plastic toys and saw a Made in Taiwan sticker, I was seeing a part of it.

They speak Chinese hear, Mandarin to be specific. They speak another form of dialect called Taiwanese but it really all sounds like some crazy from of hip hop lyrics spoken too fast for me to even attempt to comprehend. There are also a lot of people from the Philippines here and I often here them speaking to each other in a quieter voice as they are the less respected minority group of people here. Their language sounds, to me, a little like Spanish which is sort of funny.

The food they eat here is really sort of strange but I enjoy it most of the time. They have the classic "I dare you" type of foods like old rotting chunks of tofu appropriately named "Stinky Tofu," but they don't compare to the wacky vomit inducing dishes of the mainland China. Apparently those people will eat every single thing that you could possibly think of......everything. The Taiwanese are really big about their food and culture and since they would all say "Fuck China!" with the drop of a hat, I imagine it will stay that way.

Certain things here are old seeming and traditional while others are fascinatingly new and stunning. I am now feel as if I am beginning to understand the simple aspects of their way of life and that has made me feel pretty good and almost as if I am at home. Taiwan is a place where everyone smiles at you and oftentimes people will say hello as your passing by. You can go into the same restaurants and stores and the people remember you and are happy to see you in again. I don't think I will ever convert 100% to this strange and new life but the majority of it is rather suiting at this juncture in my travelling career.

Plenty of Fish in the sea.

2008-11-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

Sorry to have left you in disappointment but I have to say that I felt obligated to remove my post from last week due to complaints of its offensiveness. While I will try to be a bit more sympathetic in certain regards, please do not worry, my blogues will not turn into mindless boring blurbs that have no "color" or appeal. I shall not disappoint.

So for today's little bit of Taiwanese Enlightenment I would like to discuss a recent night I had where I encountered my first rendez-vu with a real live Taiwanese girl.

The story starts like all great love stories, in a crowded, rap playing, smoke-infused night club at about 330 in the morning. I was perusing around the "club" seeking to indulge my sweet tooth in a bit of the old booty dancing. I tried dancing with some girls here and there in the rap music room but none felt like they might offer the sort of emotional depth that I look for in a girl I meet at some random club in the middle of the night. So I decided I would make my way over to the techno room where dancing there is merely of form jumping around and doing whatever the hell you want to do. It was there that by chance I met a delightful young lady by the name of Katrina.

We didn't really do much talking in between our circling and hip thrusting on the dance floor but we did meet eyes once and I while and I knew that I had found a real spark plug of sorts. We spent the rest of the night together bouncing from her table to mine and enjoyed ourselves as any self respecting clubbers might do by drinking long pours from various liquor bottles randomly distributed throughout both tables. In all this Katrina was quick enough to put her phone number on my phone which saved me the rest of the night when I forgot her name every five minutes. To make things short we spent the night having fun and I woke up on my buddies couch not quite sure as to where I was. (He found himself on the bathroom floor.) Quite classy in all.

After that night I thought that we would never see each other again and I was quite saddened at having to accept that I might never see my dance partner again. That thought only lasted about 5 minutes between when I woke up at 130 in the afternoon and her first call rang on my phone. I let the phone ring simply because I did not quite feel awake enough to enjoy a good ole chat with my new princess. I talked to my friend about the night and had some laughs at other happenings that had taken place throughout all the while watching the calls and text messages mount up and up.

After a good breakfast I left my friend's house and decided to respond to the 4 calls and 3 text messages I had received from Katrina. I found her to be quite well and excited at having met me the previous night. She certainly made that clear by her desire to talk this day. We talked a little about not much and the whole time I was finding it a bit hard to bridge our different language abilities. "Oh well, I'll give it a chance" I thought, "we could have a good time." So we made plans to go on a lovely date the next Wednesday.

Wednesday was a long wait, especially for Katrina who called me every couple of hours those next two days and even sent me a late night text message saying "I miss you so much." This started making me think, "why don't I miss her too? Did we not have a 'connection' at the alcohol fueled binge party? Do I really know anything about this girl? Do I even know what she looks like? " Nonetheless, Wednesday did indeed arrive as it often does and our date was planned.

I was going to go right after work so I had to dress a bit nicer than I normally do for work. I didn't know what to say as to my night's plans because I really didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't even know where we were meeting. I don't think I really knew anything.

I called Katrina after work and had another in our fantastic attempts in conversation that would have been made so much easier if I could just speak some Chinese.

"Hi, how are you?" I said
"Hi, why you always say how are you before me?" she asked
"Uhhhh... well I want to know how you are."
"Yes, but you want me to ask?"
"You can ask."
"But you always ask first. I cannot ask" she didn't seem upset.
"I am sorry, you want to ask now?"
"No"
I thought at this point it would be a good time to shift the conversation to a new topic that might be a bit more successful.
"So are you ready to hang out tonight?" Aren't I sly.
"Hang? What you do? I don't understand. You come to my office?" I didn't remember conversations like these during our club night. Although I wasn't sure if we had really talked about much that night.
"Yeah, I will come to your office." I said
"You come here?" she asked excitedly.
"Ok, but can you tell the taxi man how to get to your office?" I rarely ride a taxi on my own and if I do I usually just say one street I sort of know and then say stop when he drives me somewhere I recognize. I do a lot of walking this way.

After she consented to help me out I found a cab and immediately handed the phone to the cab driver who proceeded to talk about where to go and maybe asked why all these stupid Americans come around their country not knowing shit about anything and still picking up girls. Or maybe they talked about something else, I don't really know.

I got there and had just enough money to pay the cabby with the change in my pocket. I was a little scared because I didn't know where I was and had forgotten to pick up any money before going on this date. I was already imagining the apron I would wear as I washed dishes to pay for our meal.

Luckily the man dropped me off and I paid him. Once the cab drove off I realized, I am in a different part of town now but I still don't know where I am, what I am supposed to do, or who I am looking for, oh and I am out of money. Some planning eh?

Luckily, I got back in contact with Katrina and eventually she figured out I was on a street corner actually quite cold because I was planning on spending my hard saved jacket money (fresh out the ATM) on tonight's dinner.

She came out the doors and man was I shocked. A vague image of her floated back into my head but she still seemed a lot different than the Taiwan's Next Top Model that I thought I might have met in my sloppy slurry condition. She was indeed a bit older and a less attractive. However, nothing terrible just a little different. I quickly realized that I was perhaps not the Brad Pitt she had imagined either, so I put on a smile and got ready for a nice evening.

Katrina and I talked while walking to an "American" restaurant she thought I would like and I felt like the conversation was flowing a lot better than it had on the phone. Sure the sentences were choppy and void of many grammar complexities but the heart was there and it was strong.

We stopped in front of the doors of an English pub and she said, "here we are." Ok maybe not quite an American spot but maybe they just think all white people look the same and are the same. I think maybe other cultures are guilty of that one too.

We went in and sat down and looked at menus and I ordered a beer because I thought I might want one once things got going and then the conversation began...

"So, what do you think?" Wow, as if English wasn't hard enough for this girl I have to start the chat with that crappy ass question.
"What you say?" Ok totally my fault let's try that again.
"So am I a disappointment to you?" What the hell am I doing? Did I fall down the stairs right before entering this bar?
"Disappoint me. Oh you not tall and ehhhhhhhhh you are not handsome. But you are cute." Ok so I deserved that one. Maybe not so soon into the date but ok, you start conversations like this one and things like that are bound happen.
"Well sorry, I guess we had a wilder night than we might have thought." I said.
"What you say?" Ok, give up on that one.
"Do you like movies?" I was really trying this time.
"Yes, I like all movies, but not many movies......eh.....sorry what you mean?" she asked with a smile.
"No you are right. I like a lot of movies too." Hey look at that we were agreeing on something. Maybe this date would work out.

We continued a simple talk like this and I must say that I got over the fact that she was going to be completely honest about how she felt with the situation and maybe she understood that I was not going to be very honest about how I thought things were going. It was pretty much like every other date I have ever been on.

And I think that is when I realized "hey, she does look older than the 28 that she told you and is a bit disappointed that you are only 26 (oops), and maybe she isn't the prettiest bird out there, and maybe she did make you change meals right when they were put on the table because she liked your obviously better dish more, and maybe she smoked several menthols after eating about about three bites of her meal that cost me my jacket money, and maybe she did have to go at nine because she still lives with her parents and has to be home early, and maybe I did at one point think about asking her what her favorite color was because the conversation had dwindled down to a tiny belt holding our giant waist of mistranslation together; but maybe she isn't so bad?"So maybe I will hang out with this girl, or I suppose I should say woman seeing as how she has a car and a career and all, again.

Or maybe I won't. Later that night I went to a Taiwanese bar with Dunkle where, using my post date confidence, I got three numbers from some girls who were in fact young and quite beautiful. Maybe I just gotta keep on playing that ball game until I find a good one. Plenty o' fish in Taiwan.

Another one coming soon to a theater near you.

2008-11-06T09:04:00.000-08:00

That is all I can say right now because I stayed up too late watching Lord of the Rings. Sorry. Don't worry, I still care about you all a great deal and I won't let you down. I already have a new collection of wild and interesting stories to impart upon you. I am also getting paid tomorrow which means this weekend you can be assured that I will have something good to report. Keep your eyes open.

Sickness in Asia

2008-10-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

Hey there, I don't know what I gotta say but I need to stay committed to my little blogueing effort and so I must write a little something something here. Let's see, things have been ok. Life has been a series of minor ups and downs but nothing outrageously exciting. I guess that is how normal life becomes wherever you live.

Probably the most amazing thing that I have witnessed since I have been here has been the wild effects of the Chinese medicine. I was battling with some serious ear ache problems and it was really messing with my professional judgement. I mean when your ears really hurt it doesn't really screw with any part of your body except the two small holes that go straight through to your brain. It was like the sickness made everything I heard or witnessed turn into some sort of irritating babble. Imagine having to go to class with a bunch of crazy loud ass Chinese lookin' kids with the feeling that your brain is going to explode. It was like that except that it was real and it was real sucky. I tried to be an ok guy but I was one cranky son of a bitch.

But hey I got off the subject of the medicine. I had another fantastic "what the hell am I doing" experience when I went to a "Medical clinic" (or so I thought) to talk to a doctor and/or get doped up on some feel good pills. I first gave it a shot and walked in to a sterile bright white room covered in shelves piled with different bottles of mysterious pills. I went up to the lady who was already looking at me like "please don't talk to me and ruin my whole day. I am just about to get off." I asked her as physically as I could, hands all in the air and whatnot, "can you help me? My ears are so hurt and I want to see a doctor. I don't know what to do." Normally I have to yell at Taiwanese people because somehow I think that screaming a foreign language into someones ear can make them understand this unknown language better. However, you add the fact that at this point my ears are so backed up with sickness that I can barely hear anything, and I am practically screaming at this poor woman.

She brings out someone else who makes me feel a little better because at least she has snappy glasses and a white lab coat. I go through the same awkward and loud description of my misery and she simply replies, "you no want heeya. We heeya makeah Chinee medcin. You wan go to oddah doctah." She continues with this to the best of her abilities. I mean I can't complain because all I could do was prepare about fifty cheh chehs (thank yous) upon my departure. She then wrote a bunch of hieroglyphics onto a piece of paper indicating some place. Who knows.

I continued to wonder around almost deaf at this point with no luck. At one point I thought I might have arrived into something right but it turned out to be some sort of third rate dentist on the forth four of a dilapidated building. I can honestly say that I just peeked in and saw a guy writhing in a chair with some sort of dentist over his face. It was scary and lets just say that I have added a third brushing to my daily schedule just to avoid any encounter like that in the future. I think that guy might have been involved in the inspiration for the hostel movie.

In the end I gave up for the night and spent the night pissed off on my couch feeling crappy and deaf.

The next day I tried to call off work because I felt even worse and what do you think my boss says? "How about you come to your first class (which is the worst and the loudest) and then I will take you to the doctor." Ok, sort of unfair trade but I guess I really did need some sort of interpreter.

Basically my boss, who is hot and young and I want her to get a divorce and run away with me, took me to another craptown clinic with coughing and wastebasket vomiting gallor. In Asia things like that are no problem to preform in public. You often hear loud burps and farts all over while on the busses here. Wonderful. I waited about 30 minutes before I was finally taken into a room that really did look like a torture chamber just with more lighting. My boss had left at this point because I kept saying how stupid I felt and how I really needed to grow up and figure shit out for myself. The doctor was hopefully a qualified doctor but in no way an English prof. He did a little "inspection" of my ear holes and then made his diagnosis; "Well, I see some information in there."
"Excuse me?" I replied.
"Yeah, I can rearry see some information there," he insisted.
"Well what kind of information?" I was really wondering what sort of information this man had found. Had someone placed some microfilm in my ear in the night only to be discovered by this mask wearing doctor of misinterpretation?
"Yeah, redness and information," he says.
"Oooohhhhhhh," I say, keeping off the upcoming laughter, "you see some inflamation do you?"
"Yeah, inframation," he said so wonderfully coherently.

Half of the appointment was us going through difficult and funny conversations like that one. In the end he sent me the wrong way towards a pharmacy.

I found the place and was given a wild "cocktail" of pills that the Asians are known to prescribe. All sorts of stuff and even some eye drops that I was instructed to drop in my ear.

In the end, the funniest part was that after only 30 minutes of dropping my crazy concoction of pills I needed to take a quick pee. I peed and almost fell over in shock at the sight of what had just been polluted out of my body. My pee was school bus yellow. No that doesn't even do it justice. Have you ever had that orange Gatorade? Well I was pissing that out and it scared the hell out of me. I couldn't believe it. I thought if I were to cut myself my blood would be a solid bright green goo as if I truly was turning into some sort of monster. It was crazy and I made sure that over the next four days, while taking this bizarre medicine, everyone I knew here had either seen the magical pee or at least heard about it. I was truly fantastic and I hope that it will never part from my memory.

Road trippin' with my favorite allies.

2008-10-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

It is pretty hard to try to remember and recount happy moments when you feel as shitty as I do right now but I am going to try. (I have gone back to feeling like a six year old again with not one but two ear infections. It doesn't feel good at all but I supposed I would be really dizzy if was only sick in one ear.) I think it is going to be a really long time before I can actually be sick and have any idea as to what I am supposed to do with myself. Most of my sick moments have been eased by my mother patting me on the head while serving me any type of feel good material I have would have need for. Now I am in China land and it makes going to the doctor about as appealing as drowning while getting kicked in the nuts by a steal toed boot. I went into the doctor's office today and was roughly told that it was a Chinese medicine place. Maybe they could give me some sort of tea and a cockroach to crawl around my brain eating up the illness. Who knows?

DAY ONE

Now I don't want to end up depressing you fellow readers so I will give you the details of my first weekend spent outside of Taipei. I and several of my comrades assembled a hodge podge of scooters and took ourselves a road trip into the mountains. We had wanted to go somewhere for the "vacation," and when all the buses to the beach were sold out we picked the music festival in the waterfall littered forest option. We were not disappointed in the end.

After an invigorating and beautiful 2 hour cruise up into the heart of the island we arrived at a makeshift campsite where we would spend the next three days doing all the fun, wild, and horrible things one does at a music festival. (Rest assured though, it was a drug free weekend. Not for everyone else, but yes for us.) We set up our tents under the designated "camp site" and deplorably awaited the time when we would decide to retire to our homes resting under a concrete foundation. We all decided that this weekend would just have to be about something else besides sleep.

Some of the features included in this "festival" as they would like to call it were a 18, no-name, but often talented, band lineup, 24 hour bar, three swimming pools, two hot springs, lots of girls, and all for the low low price of 20 dollars for the whole weekend. (camping included.) Not too bad if you think about it. Hell even you don't!

The first night was like any first night of a three day binge: way too much alcohol, dancing and making an ass out of one's self in front of all sorts (good and bad) of girls. In general we call it overexertion. It would sort of be like running a marathon the day before you do the iron man except there is no honor in what we did. We told jokes and stories, pushed people we didn't know into pools, and watched others on hallucinogens run around climbing trees and trying to tell you which star was their favorite. Oh by the way, you know which group was the easy majority at this hippy festival in the mountains?........that's right, the wi go ren as they call us, or as we are more commonly know: dirtbag white folk.

DAY TWO

Going to bed at 330 am in a tent laying on a concrete foundation turned out to be just a terrible idea on our part. This was because only 2.5 hours later while taking a quick one tenth awake pee break I ran into a group of crazed out South African Asian bitches screaming at me while laughing at the same time. These girls were claiming that I had both thrown up on them and into the pool in some sort of drunken rage. Now I know for a fact that this was not me because I was sleeping at the time and I also was still clear headed enough to know what I had or hadn't done. That and the fact that these girls were acting like they had eaten horse tranquilizer hamburgers before talking to me so I wasn't sure their judgement could be trusted.

Luckily the daemon women left me and what do you know? I couldn't return to my slumber. I don't know if it was the general discomfort of the rock hard tent or the fact that I was frighteningly shivering under my Kleenex blanket, of which was my only sleeping material at the time and now still, but I just couldn't go back to dream land. So I ran barefoot on the gravel filled ground as pathetically as I could to the hot springs where I spent the next 1.5 hours watching the crap end of the party people crashing over each other and the dudes in the collared shirts still trying to muster up the courage to simply say to their girls, "so you wanna check out my tent?"

My saving grace was in those hot springs where I met the only other person awake for the morning. It was a friendly 30 something woman and her 7 year old daughter. I split my time talking to her about her life in New Zealand and throwing her daughter into the air much to the wee one's delight. The best moment was when a Taiwanese woman who had joined the fun said, "why don't you get your daddy to play with us?" in reference to yours truly. Ever so politely I shouted, "oh oh ah ah ah no she isn't mine!" (oops) The best part was the Asian woman not wondering how two white people would make a half black child like the one in question. I guess she wasn't paying attention.

After my "bath" I went and tried to rouse my compatriots once again (only 7:30 now) to the same "what the hell are you doing awake?" and a nice middle finger for a finish. I thought instead, since the sun had risen, I would take a nice scooter ride to get some well deserved coffee. Only about 800 metres into my ride I saw a girl walking on the side of the road, and what do you think I did? I pulled right over and said nothing more than, "hop on and lets have some coffee baby." I even added baby just so I could tell it in the story later. Cheese dick to the rescue!!!

I thought maybe I recognized her from the party and when she screamed from behind my hog, "you're Andrew right?" I knew I probably had met her. Me and my meeting too many people at parties. So we took a nice ride down the mountain, stood by the water falls, talked about our families and music and got some coffee and lunch. I must say, it all made for a nice morning and I was delighted to have risen at such an early hour.

The rest of the day I tried to cling to some sort of deep rooted energy no one thought I had. I continued to jest and have fun with everyone as I always do. Sure, I was a little loopy but no more than anyone else who had slept little or none that night. After a while we thought we would take a break from the party world and scoot on down into town and visit our French friend Guillame.

Andrew and Graeme (the South Africans), Dunkle, David and Jennifer (the cool work couple), Francheska (the girl who made fun of me all weekend for some reason), Leslie (the new girl from the campground), and myself strapped on our helmets and peaced up out for the day.

We ate and we walked around, took pictures (which I will eventually post), and I quickly became the foot dragging complainer I can sometimes be after nights like the previous one. The highlight of the day was when Guillame and his friend took us down to the locals only hot springs. Man let me tell you, walking in there I could not have felt more out of place. Half naked Asians taking hot showers and laying in boiling pools of water, and they all couldn't stop looking at us, the wi go rens. But this feeling only stayed for a brief moment until I took a shower while using old laundry detergent bottles to pour scalding water all over myself. I think the most fun we had was when all of us poured twelve bottles of lava water onto one person. You could have cooked a lobster in this stuff and off course we are throwing it around and laughing like a bunch of idiots. I probably laughed the most when I helped an old man by pouring water on him while another Asian guy poured water on me. Maybe we are descended from monkeys. It was great and once again we realized that getting all the attention here really is pretty great.

After that we ate at a place where they serve you whole cooked chickens and then you wear gardening gloves to aid in ripping the shit out of the recently diseased bird. Graeme, my new partner in crime, saw how quickly we were fading after dinner and made an affirmative decision. There was no way we could try to soberly sleep on the concrete tents again, so we would simply have to go out wild again techno dancing in the rain with any girl and all girls. We also got squirt guns that turned out to be rather effective ice breakers.

So that was the weekend and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact I enjoyed reliving it so much that I actually feel a lot better. I mean my ears still feel like someone took a shit in them while jabbing a hot poker in my brain, but no worries. That was the first really good weekend I have had since Thailand and it reminds me that maybe a person can adapt to any place.

Is Hungry a country or a state of mind?

2008-10-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

To answer that question I would say that for me Hungry is a state of misery that I find my myself meandering through almost every day. I am now in my second year living below the poverty level and I think it is starting to mess with me. Or at least it is starting to mess with my stomach.

While in France I was forced to survive off of not much money at all. When you consider that Paris is one of the most expensive cities in the world, I was most certainly on the poverty line. I once saw one of those exclusive "le Dateline" shows in France that did an expose on people who were poor in Paris. I kept thinking, how do these people live like this? How can they survive? I then soon found out that most of the "victims" made almost twice as much money as I did. Now that seems odd.

There are many ways to dealing with one's poverty and almost all of them rely on you feeling bad in some way. You may feel unhealthy, you may feel guilty, or you may feel rotten for all sorts of reasons.

Food is something we all need. If you try to say otherwise you are a complete idiot because like water and air, it is just something you gotta get once and while. When you are trying to salvage your money it seems like anything but your food should be what you skip out on. Every day I find myself between the option of the shit behind an alley food or some legitimate good stuff. I always go with the first option because it always seems like a good idea at the time to save a little green. So I have found myself day after day eating this retched food that really does make me feel sick at times. I find that if I keep it cheap maybe I will be able to use that leftover money for something else that I need. I have really gone with this philosophy for around a year now.

The option that I don't recommend is simply to stop eating all together. The nice part about this is that if you just don't eat, you don't have to pay for food at all. At first I wanted to try my own version of "fasting" simply because I new that others had done it and survived and had actually felt changed in some way from it. I can honestly say that giving up food for so long a time did make me appreciate my meal once it was finally steaming in front of me. The smells were more potent and I could feel the tasty morsels filling the empty voids in my body. It was really rejuvenating.

But I mean that was a long time ago when I would waltz through the lively streets of Paris wondering how much longer I could go denying myself the carnal pleasures of food. (In the end I almost always chose doner kebab too, so it really wasn't that much of a step up.) Those days were good because as I stumbled from cafe to cafe I could imagine myself as one of the hunger crazed artists who's barren stomach released sparks into his brain which thus aided his creative genius. But that was how I felt. I acutally looked like some stinky bum wondering around aimlessly with nothing else to do. I guess I sort of was that description.

The difference is that now I am here in Taiwan and I am much much poorer. I had come to this wonderful island believing that I would make my big payday and I would be able to begin my ascent/descent into real life adulthood. What has actually happened is that my whiskers grow quicker, my clothing has become less diverse, and my hunger more profound. The other day I set a new record; a 30 hour hunger strike. It is miserable but I have begun to acquire quite the endurance for hunger because I hardly eat. I don't know why I choose to save money on something I love so much and need so badly but every time it happens the same way.

I said that when you give food a break it seems all the more delicious later, but here it isn't always true. You can either eat some really great food and some food that makes you want to throw up just writing about it. Of course I wouldn't be able to throw much up because I haven't eaten in about 18 hours.

I try to keep myself on a regular cycle of eating and I take advantage of free food whenever it comes by but that just simply doesn't do in this hunger lifestyle I have begun to acclimate to. I will often hope that I get to my school early enough to steal some of the cafeteria food and I almost always miss the deadline. This means that for the rest of school I have to maintain a positive and patient attitude while my stomach begins to absorb my muscles because the fat is already gone. That is the edible fat. My boss has on several occasions informed me that I need to do some work on my "tummy." The Asians here are such a kind and honest people.

There are two types of hungry people in the world. There are those types of people who do not have food and they do not know when their next meal may arrive. They go about their day to day activities just the same as anyone else but they do it without any food based energy inside them. The same people who would give a bit a food to someone else before consuming it themselves. These are the people that you and I should admire because while they have no choice in what they eat, they still survive.

There are also people like me. Now I will tell you, I really am poor and even when I do start to make any real money that money will have to go back to other people who have had to hear me say over and over "just help me a little bit and I will get it back to you." I have to borrow money in order to still look poor which gives no satisfaction to those who loan the money. People like me are hungry because they don't know what the hell they are doing and they make impulsive decisions that put them in the position of having to deny themselves sustenance in the first place. These are the people that you probably won't be sympathetic to but you can at least laugh at their slightly less miserable predicament.

So is Hungry a country or a state of mind? Well I travelled to hungry by myself and I was so poor then that I had to sleep in a bus station with a bunch of hobos who smelled like rotten pumpkins and I can tell you for sure that I had some hungry times then as well.

Lazy Typhoon Days

2008-09-28T03:40:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you something. While the idea of a typhoon may sound scary (especially with the complicated ph instead of the simple f) it really isn't so bad. Basically the storm began today when I arrived home at about 7 in the morning. It was as if each cloud were a giant sponge being squeezed dry and therefore crapping out pounds and pounds of rain on me. Actually I think it might be a little more technical but that should be close. It has been raining all day today and while I don't mind a little rain it is weird being trapped in one's house all day. The funny part is that even if it were nice out today I would probably still just lay around my house not doing anything. But that isn't the point. The forced confinement is way worse than the voluntary confinement that I often subject myself to each weekend.

So that is what's going on right now, besides the fact that I just lost at cards and got sore about it so I had to leave. Now I can tell you faithful reader, I am trying hard to not simply make a record of my weekend adventures but rather give you something new and intriguing each week. So what I am going to do this time is tell you a small story from an excellent weekend that made many great moments. Than after I do that maybe I will try something else. Maybe I will complain about something or tell you about how much I miss tacos to the point where I would eat one if I saw it laying on the ground. That would be something new right?

Well either way this particular story gave me a bit of a tickle in my funny bone. Well at least it did the next day when I could get over the slight awkwardness of it all.

On Friday night Dunkle and I went to a club/bar with some friends that was called Hips. This particular club is a Latin club in the middle of China where you can be assured to find people from all over Latin America. People have tried to explain to me the complexities of why there are so many Spanish speakers around here and I think I sort of understand.

You see back in the 1950s when tension was growing between China and Taiwan a man named Julio Gonzago came from Panama with an offer that none could refuse. He was determined to sell his famous "Chickititata" plant to the neighboring Chinese people. The Chinese and the Taiwanese were in talks of making a trade embargo that would put them on the map psychologically and fiscally. When the "Chickititata" plant arrived in both countries there were mixed reviews because the plant had very strange ingredients that would make one very slow and unresponsive. While the Chinese did not embrace this plant Julio Ines received rave reviews by the Taiwanese and was elected "chairman of agriculture" for Taiwan. Thus the relationship was made and since then many have come from afar to live, eat "Chickititata" plant and dance salsa in this one club that Dunkle and I went to. Ok I don't really know why there are so many Central Americans here but it is pretty cool because the girls are hot and me like dat much.

Dunkle and I were having a pretty good time and we had met a good amount of people in a quick amount of time. We were having drinks and telling jokes and really just enjoying ourselves. I began talking to a pretty little lady named Leslie and was subsequently dragged onto the dance floor for a little rug cutting and what not. It was a little intimidating because Latin girls always know how to dance well and they can tell that my jumping around throwing my hands in the air is not a rehearsed move I got from my days working with Timberlake. Nevertheless, we were having fun and I was pretty happy with how things were going. Suddenly a girl came up to us with Jorge or Alfonso and I was startled. It appeared that this girl happened to have a twin sister. She tried at first to introduce me and her sister very quickly brushed me off and started talking to Leslie a bit abrasively. After only a minute Leslie ran off like there was a damn fire in the building. I stood there watching her run off and was like, "and who the hell are you making her run off?" I was trying to be somewhat cordial but it seemed like she had said something fiery (as latins often are) to her sister. So I said screw this and walked off.

After pondering what had happened Leslie came back. I started with "What happened? You just ran off."
"Me. You ran off from me. What it that all about?" she retorted.
"Are you kidding I was just standing there and then you just peaced out."
This went on for awhile and we moved on to other things and they were all clouded by this somewhat crappy attitude on her side. I talked to her for a good twenty minutes with many confusing looks made by both of us. I mean it felt like I was talking to an entirely different person, what had happened?

Ahhhhhh, I very lately realized. I had been talking to this girl's sister the entire last twenty minutes. I was completely flabbergasted. I really felt stupid and yet somehow she had not detected that I thought she was someone else. I can't imagine what she said to her sister later but it was probably something along the lines of "that dude is completely off his rocker and has no idea how to communicate with girls."

So I felt pretty stupid about that happening and now that I just wrote the whole story out I am going to have to apologize for it not being very interesting. I guess I thought it was funny at the time but some things grow old with time, even if it is just a weekend. Well they can't all be gold.

The rest of this weekend was followed by many fun times and new people and it ended last night with me stumbling into some Asian people's karaoke birthday party. They immediately invited me in and I sang some duets and drank some of their whiskey. It was fun and we all stayed together until 630 singing and laughing and hanging out. Very fun.

This is quickly becoming an adventure that I will certainly continue to enjoy more with each day. We have now entered a new season and that means new things to look forward to. Who knows what will come with the next day.

What a life to lead.

2008-09-20T23:56:00.001-07:00

Well I am still here somehow and I am still alive. That is good enough news I suppose. Things are quickly becoming comfortable here in little old Taipei and I think just maybe I am going to be able to survive here. Let's see I suppose a lot of pretty interesting things have happened in the past couple of days.

Let's start all the way back at yesterday. Yesterday was a pretty fun day and it was my first time since I have been here that I voyaged to some other distant part of this island. It wasn't even very hard because I simply had to take the metro all the way down from my house. You wouldn't believe it but if I take the metro, that is directly outside of my house, and I ride it for about 30 minutes, I will arrive at the edge of the island and thus the ocean. It is pretty amazing to consider because I have never lived so close to something as wonderful as water. Now if I actually wanted to go to a swimming beach I would then have to take a bus or something for about ten minutes. But still, there is nothing like eating spicy squid while walking down the fisherman's wharf. And to be honest I don't even know if it was a wharf or if it was the beachfront walkway but it was nice.

I went down with Dunkle yesterday with the intent to meet up with some of his friends from El Salvador to take a nice leisurely bike ride along the river. Now I would have been interested in doing something like this except that it was the hottest point in the day on a day that was already around 94 degrees. Too hot. So instead of trying something that could have easily killed us, we decided to just keep it real in the air conditioned apartment of Flora and Mercedes. This was pretty fun because I got to shyly practice a little bit of some old school Spanish while having a good time with some pretty girls.

After a game of pool in their lobby (which also has ping pong, a movie theatre, a bowling alley, and a library) we decided to go out into the hot ass world in search of some sort of food and drink. This is always the key motivator here in Taipei because it just gets soo hot here that it sometimes hurts to go outside. So it was the two American dudes and the now four Latin girls on a quest to just go hang out somewhere. I can tell you nothing noble but it was all we really needed to do at this time.

After walking around trying to fluff my shirt every five seconds I was getting a little restless. As my shirt developed more and more sweat rings that made me look like a lactating pig rotating over a roasting fire, I desperately needed to go somewhere that would release me from this embarrassing condition I found myself to be in. We found solace in an ideal little shore side restaurant called....... well I can't remember but it was really nice and we were able to get a little food and some ice cold beer. We had a very nice time just hanging out and talking and telling stories about this and that.

After some chit chat and some well deserved shade, we sat in big comfy couches and watched a bright red sun descend into the water. It was a very beautiful sunset on this particular Saturday evening.

Now that we had started the party, the only other thing we could possibly do was to go to a real party. Let me tell you this was a great capstone (or so I thought) to our evening because we had a rooftop party with nachos and good friends. Actually, I had just met all these people but maybe they will be my good friends someday. The best part was being able to see the whole city and bay from the top of the building. By now the sun was gone and a nice wind blew across the balcony and it reassured all of us that maybe life wasn't so bad.

We spent quite a few hours laughing and talking and eating before we realized that it was still only about 9 pm. The girl from Hong Kong had gone as well as the El Salvadorian and Mexican Girls. I was finishing up my conversation with a Turkish couple and a Swedish guy so Dunkle, our Thai friend Steven and I went off to new and interesting adventures.

I will let you know, there was no real reason for any of us three to be going to some other "social" environment except that of our own beds. But certain times, all times, call for just doing whatever you feel like. So after running home and changing into our "sweet douche bag" clothes we were ready for an evening at the uber sheik Club 19. When we arrived to this place, that I could never find again on my own, we were overpowered by a barrage of young go getters excited to spend their next hour waiting in a line in the hopes that their ticket would come and they could go buy overpriced drinks while yelling into peoples ears for an attempt at conversation. I can't say that this place was in anyway my style but considering the fact that I only have one backpacks worth of clothing now, I don't know if I even have a style to stick to.

Nevertheless, I was certainly not about to stand in some line waiting to go to some place. That was when I saw a young gentleman climb out of his Ferrari and go right in. Why couldn't I do that. After some smooth fanagaling, by our friend Steven, we were in da club. No line, no hassles, no pissed off Andrew complaining in a line for an hour. Perfect!

The club was just like any other one where you go in and try to talk to some girl and are finally used to the loud music only to have the volume turned up the second you were going to say something you really thought would win her over. I tried this many times to limited success. The best part of the night was when the three of us said screw this, let's just have a good time. If you can imagine three buzzed up dudes in a club about 8 times too shee shee for them dancing like maniacs to some crappy techno music, you would be accurately picturing us in some Taiwanese club at 330 in the morning. Sometimes I amaze myself. All in all it was the best way to get off all that steam from our earlier stressful day of relaxation and slight flirtations to any girl that would have it.

After arriving home at an hour most certainly too late, Dunkle desperately desired a bit of sleep before he woke up at 7 to take a flight out to the Philippines for a little "visa run." We of course made sure that he was sound asleep before running in his room screaming followed by a nice doggy pile. If only Drew had been there we could have added to our long list of pissed off sleepy people who's only defense is "grow up, you're not a kid anymore." Well I beg to differ. The last part of the night was spent with Steven and I eating Mack's Lounge breakfast (which I totally did not know existed here). He left, and I, eyes closed, stumbled into a most uncomfortable pink bed. A day well spent in Taipei.

Long time no blog!

2008-09-11T07:34:00.001-07:00

Well life is starting to sort of work out here in Taipei so I am feeling pretty good. Now I have an apartment, my job pretty much has a regular feel to it, and I have even begun to make some friends if you can believe it. You would think I would try to make the excuse that I am so busy but I still have way too much free time and struggle with getting up before 10 each morning. Most of the time I am not able to get up that early.

So let's think about some stuff that I really miss about my wonderful home in the United States of America. Well lately I have really been craving some good spicy Mexican food and they just don't seem to know at all what it is. I talked to one guy who said he went to a "Mexican" place here and they gave him noodles with crappy salsa atop. Not really what I am looking for. I want that big giant burrito that looks bigger than my thigh, or so many tacos that they look blurry when I try to see the end of them, and lets not forget the authentic marg. I mean that stuff is just classic and so great. Oh and I forgot how much I have been wanting some nachos. I would even settle for some gas station style stuff but no goes. In the 7-11s here they have hard boiled eggs soaked in tea and I can tell you I would rather get kicked in the balls 8 times than have to eat one of those turds.

I also really miss just the general variety that we have in our country. I mean you want some of this you go that way and if you want some of that you just go the other way. Taipei has a lot to offer but there really isn't much outside of maybe Chinese or Japanese culture. What does it take to get some real hamburgers or some quesadillas? Maybe I am just hungry. And you know there is one thing that is great about eating here.... it is so cheap. Well actually it isn't soooo cheap but it is cheaper. I still like the food here but I just want some MFin' Mexican!!!

I had a little celebration last night because it was my first day as an illegal immigrant in Taiwan. You see, before I came here I was supposed to get a 90 day tourist visa and then illegally get my real stuff once here. My problem was that I was in Thailand and while I could have gone to an embassy there, I was too busy hanging out on the beach and keeping it real. So when I arrived I was only issued a 30 day visa which I guess just doesn't cut it. But someone is in the process of doing some sort of magic so I am confident that it will all work out. And if it doesn't maybe you can keep the light on for me because my ass will be getting deported. Oh well life is boring when it is legal. I was actually illegal in France for almost two months and that worked out ok.

Overall though I am really enjoying myself here. My job is probably my favorite part to be honest. I really like my classes and they are proving to be a real challenge. Of course a positive one. I am already being emailed by parents who like to give me tips about their kids and one mom called the school and said that because of me she would make sure that all her friend's kids got into our school. Now just let me try this charm in the real world. The strangest part is trying to keep calm because some of these kids are so crazy that I want to slap them across the face. I would never do that but I think if I did it to some they wouldn't even know what had hit them and they would just continue singing while having a seizure and crapping out butterflies. (That crazy.)

Sorry this blog sort of sucked but I am back to writing with a hot ass computer on my lap and all I can think about is the song "chestnuts roasting on an open laptop." I am dying. If you have never had that feeling don't try it cause I am sure I will end up having some three eyed children because of it. Fare well and I will contact you soon.

Oh I forgot to mention that I went to this huge pool party this weekend and it totally rocked because there were movie stars (Chinese movie stars) and all sorts of hot model chicks there. And this weekend I might take the metro to the beach. Life ain't so bad.

Beef Fried Noodles

2008-09-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

This really isn’t a guide to eating here in Taiwan but rather how I have come to survive each day. Like many of you I have just arrived into Taiwan so my knowledge of the language and culture here is at a bare minimum. This makes things like eating a little more difficult but much more interesting.

The key to my limited success has been to be sure to wait about 10-12 hours between my meals. This allows me to be so hungry that I can hardly even think straight. When I am in this condition it makes for some very interesting restaurant choices. Before I embark on a live or die mission to eat I have to decide, “Do I want to try a night market? Should I just walk into the restaurant with the most people inside? Should I let my fear overtake me and just eat a snickers bar from 7-11? Or should I really wuss out and just point to a cheeseburger picture at McDonalds?” I am happy to say that I have only lowered myself to the last option once since I have been here.

Once I am out in the street I really start to feel strange. Not only is my stomach a barren wasteland but I also feel like a cake roasting in an oven. I need food FAST so that I can retreat into my lair of AC. Around the corner is my token noodle shack followed closely by someone yelling for me to try their new deep fried liver sausage (at least that is what I think that is). Hmm… not today. I venture forth.

The places that really intimidate me are the ones that only have a menu in Chinese characters and some old guy cooking on a grill. These places always seem attractive because the prices are often quite low, but require a lot of pointing and unintelligible hand gestures until some sort of agreement is reached. In this way I have had varying degrees of success (hey I am still alive!), but a lot of times I am so hungry that I confusedly wander from restaurant to restaurant hoping that someone will simply say, “I know exactly what you want. Come on in and we’ll get you feeling better.” This might actually be happening to me all the time and I just don’t know it because I can’t understand anyone.

After I have walked for about 45 minutes to an hour around these new streets I realize that a new problem has arrived, I am completely lost. But before I can have a freak out session about finding where I could possibly be, I really need to get full. This is why knowing the phrase for beef fried noodles is so very important. This wonderful dish is good, cheap, and can be found on almost every street. This dish is a safe bet to getting me feeling like a human again and thus being able to take on the new challenge of getting back to wherever it is I came from.

Getting to eat new and exciting things in Taiwan is one of the best parts about it. But sometimes you just need something that will work and will get your brain and stomach back into proper order. Maybe one day I will tire of the beef fried noodles but it is not this day. While living in Taiwan the thing I have found to work best is to not be picky and to always have a fallback plan.

Stay in Milk and Drink yo School

2008-08-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

I am now officially comfortable in my new home. I wasn't sure if that was ever going to happen but I really think it has. There are still a lot of things that must be done before life can really start kicking ass here but over all I am pretty pleased with how everything is going. So far all I can in Chinese say is "thank you, bye bye, I want dumplings, and excuse me." It isn't exactly a large vocabulary and I haven't even eaten a dumpling yet so I am still struggling. So here is what is going on.

Yes, we did finally get an apartment and it is pretty great. I am so happy to be out of that craptastic hostel that I was starting to call home. I almost thought about getting myself arrested because living in a prison seemed more attractive than where I was. For those of you who look stuff up a lot, our new place is located right near the Minquan W. Rd MRT (Metro). It is pretty centrally located and I have already found some pretty cool places around us that I will probably pop into on a daily basis. The best part is that there is a little local market around the corner that actually sells 1000 ml beer cans. It is so hilariously large when you have one in your hand and the only way it could be more funny would be seeing it in the hands of some small Asian guy.

We moved into a three room apartment (Myself, Dunkle, and the new guy Dan from MOtown.) So far there is some real positive roommate energy flowing around so we all hope that it continues like that. I think the place will be nice once we all have some money to spruce things up and get some trinkets to fill it up and give it life.

The first night at the place was a bit hard for me because I didn't really get the idea of "furnished." I just figured that "furnished" meant everything is there like furniture, plates, clothes, and food. Not quite. The first night I had to sleep on an old dirty mattress with a pullover for a pillow. That was bad but still not as bad as the hostel. Of course now I have some sheets but I still screwed that up. You see, it is really really hard to do things here when you don't know Chinese. I wondered around a Wallmartesque store the other day for about an hour not knowing what to do. I mean seriously, if I ever meet someone who packages bedsheets I am going to kick the shit out of them. Why would I want to separately buy just the stretchy part and a pillow case? Why do they sell just that? Do they think that that is the most important part of the bed sheet stuff? Why can't you just buy a big thing with a pillow, stretchy thing, little sheet, big sheet, and pillows? Why do you have to buy it all separate? I found out that you can't even really find all the same stuff so you have to mix and match. It is even worse when you are cheap like me. After my hour in the store I had bought a pink stretchy thing and pillow case kit, a blue blanket, and a giant neon green pillow with cows all over it. It looks like a blind six year old decorated my damn room. I didn't mean to get pink sheets but when a sheet is small and folded the color comes off as a nice red and when it is bed sized it is pink with yellow flowers all over it. I can't wait for the day that I bring a girl back (just to read a book together of course) and she sees my classy decorating style. Oh well I ain't no metro homo.

Sorry I was actually going to try a real blazin' bloggin' today and then I wrote that garbage up above. How about I talk about my school.

I actually really like my school. My boss is totally hot too. (oops I'm getting off track again) Seriously though she is super hot but also very nice and intelligent. Her English is almost perfect but it is funny when she types things out with little mistakes. Yesterday I was supposed to teach my kids the words "purple yarnt and bron tape." But hey it isn't like I speak any Chinese. The school is in a really nice part of town and is surrounded by tall and fancy high rise apartment buildings. Our school teaches the cream of the crop as far as the families are concerned. Everyday I see Mercedes, BMWs, and other nice cars dropping their little kids off. The inside is all new and high tech as well. It looks like how you would design a kindergarten if you had as much money as you wanted to do it. The whole place is made for tiny little kids. Tiny toilets, tiny chairs, tiny everything. Speaking of the toilets, one weird part about those is that they are surrounded by windows. I guess it is so we can make sure that they don't mess around but everytime you walk upstairs you are bombarded by little children waving from their toilet seats while pooping out a little turtle head. It is really strange but I guess no one else minds. I asked about it and they said "don't worry, you'll get used to it." So I am supposed to get used to watching little kids pee? Whatever.

Speaking of the kids they are all soooooooo smart. This isn't like it was in France. While I would say the French kids were better disciplined, they were in no way as sharp with English as these kids are. Most of the kids I teach (7-10) can pretty much understand English enough to communicate and read. It is really amazing how good they are. Sometimes I forget that they even speak a completely different language until I hear one of them say something in Chinese. Having them speak English makes teaching them English so much easier. Whoda thunkit?

Right now I am teaching only two classes which is also an improvement from last year's eight classes. I have a class with about 12 kids and one with 5. Last year my smallest was 22 and my largest was 28........damn! While the 5 kids class is great the 12 is outrageous. I have never seen these types of human beings ever. About 5 kids in that class are certifiably bat shit crazy. One kid will actually break out in the middle of class and just start screaming and shaking his body all over. One is so ADD that he seems to be able to not pay attention to not paying attention. And one girl cares so little about class that she wouldn't be fazed by the discipline of an army general. I have to teach this class for two hours a day and we don't do simple stuff. We start off with the weeks grammar and vocab. We play games, do flashcards and pretty simple class stuff. After that 30 minutes we move on to the workbook where the kids do writing activities and practice their reading comprehension. Then we have a pee break and I have to go monitor a bunch of little boys who pull their pants all the way down to pee. Then we go back and do phonetics, creative writing, reading, and story writing depending on the day. For the last half hour we do art, science, literature, or math. This happens all in English and is prepared and executed all by myself. Crazy I know. Totally different from my days in France where my lesson plans were often "created" in my head as I walked to school each day. So the structure is nice but trying to keep a bunch of cracked out nutcases in their seats for 2 hours is no easy feat. I think I am doing pretty well though and having a Chinese teacher in the class really helps a lot.

There is also another funny aspect of life as a teacher here in Taipei. It was very important for me to know before I got here that what I am actually doing here is completely illegal and punishable by deportation from the country. In most cases you are even banned from ever entering Taiwan again. This is totally serious too. Westerners or foreigners are in no way allowed to teach kindergarten in school here. The way they get around it is by registering us as elementary teachers and literally hiding us in the nooks and crannies of the tax system. My school is so paranoid about it that I am only permitted to enter the school from the back door. Twice already I have had to run and hide with the rest of the white folk because the government alarm went off in the building. If their security people detect a government vehicle or a gov type person we have to run and hide. For real. So every day I am dangerously risking my livelihood just to educate these beautiful children. (Can't wait to use that on the American girls when I get home.) I just hope I don't get caught because having to tell people that I was deported for illegally teaching kids every day could really get misinterpreted. But I doubt that will ever happen.

So that is life as of now and I enjoy it a lot. Tonight Dunkle is going to introduce me to a woman he has casually dated here and there. She is going to bring some of her friends out so I get to meet them too. The hilarious catch is that he only recently found out that this woman is about 32 to 35 years old. Hahahahahahahahaha. But that is how the Asians are, you seriously cannot tell their age. So I hope you are all well and enjoy the stories. Now that I am settled and found the shop that sells 1000 ml oilcans and am going to meet a bunch of middle aged Taiwanese chicks I think life here is going to get very interesting here. Bye

Hostels suck so much!

2008-08-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

I guess I can take some time to record another blazin' bloggin' since I lost my friends. I just took a quick stop in the train station to get some bubble gum and then they were gone. Oh well, who needs those assholes. Plus the gum I got was pretty good and not a bad deal as far as bubble gum out of the machine goes. I mean it lost its flavor pretty quick so I had to spit it out but the first ten or so minutes were pretty enjoyable.

Let me tell you, 9 days in a hostels totally sucks ass! Not butts about it (except for the ass I said it sucked.) You have to live out of a backpack, you have to share a shower and toilet with 12 other dudes who you don't know, it smells like eight kinds of shit in the room, you always have to have the damn light on, you can't sleep cause its too hot and some bombed out Japanese dude is snoring like an asthmatic elephant, and you pay twice what it would cost if you just had your own place. So I don't mind it too much but if I don't get out real soon I might strangle someone with one of the clothes hangers littering our floor. But Dunkle finally got in yesterday so the apartment hunt is on.

The thing I like least about hostels is all the long boring get to know you conversations you have with people you couldn't give two shits about. I just don't care about all these people. I mean I know we are all here to "experience the world" and "change our perspective on life" but I can only take one conversation like that a day. Here in this hostel you are constantly saying "Oh, yeah I went to school here, I have traveled here, I know this person, this is my reason, Tanzania has better parks than New Zealand, my dick is fifteen feet long and I can pee over a semi truck." Everyone wants to compete as to how amazing their life is and how great they are at spending money on a plane and then sitting in a crowed seat eating terrible airplane food for 5 hours. Having roommates is hard enough but when its all a bunch of strange socially disconnected people talking about their jet lag I simply can't handle it.

I am sure I seem like a dick but maybe it is because I have been re wearing the same 7 pairs of underwear for the past 7 weeks. (I wash them but I am just stressing how little clothing I have. Well actually right now I am wearing dirty underwear but normally I am clean. I swear.)

One night I met a unabrowed video game nerd Austrian dude and a heavy lisping pudgy Texan kid. As usual we talked about all our adventures and travels and blah blah and we decided to go have some dinner. They assured me that their Chinese was good so I trusted they could order me something tasty. We started with one of those endless searches involving everyone saying "I don't care" and "whatever you guys want." The lispy Texan kept saying "I want a schteak" in his goony accent and the Austrian kept talking about every single restaurant possibility in existence. I still have no idea what is going on here so I just say "wherever we can find cheap beer is good for me." We finally settled on a very cheap noodle shack with very cheap beer so I was content. The fat lispy Texan kept talking about how our noodles were just an aperitif and in no way filled him up. The only way I can figure he was able to consume his noodles that fast was if he figured out how to eat with his mouth, nose and ears. Kind of a gross dude to be honest. Both guys kept talking about how girls were so impossible here and the Texan was even considering some sort of service where you pay 100 bucks a day for a girl friend. Stooopid! So basically the night consisted of mildly interesting dialogs like this while jumping from bar to bar. And by bar to bar I mean, after we got the kid his steak we drank Busch beer on the stoop of the 7/11. My style all the way.

At this point I started to notice a real change in the two as they got more drunk. The Austrian was at first seeming social with everyone and then was just getting in everyone's face and the Texan was getting touchy feely with the other dude a lot. I wasn't liking where this was going. On our way to the bar the Austrian dude tried to steal a bike, took someone's fries off their table in Mackdonalds, took a box of something out of 7/11, and stole two of this girl's cigarettes right in front of her "reassuring" her with "yes, yes I like." While this was happening the Texan walked around making three very awkward attempts to give random people massages. This is all real, what the hell?

The end of the night I took these bozos to an English pub where they met three Chinese business men. The Austrian got to practice his Chinese and the Texan got to give his massage while the business men got the two totally liquored up. By this time I was sick of em and I met a Nicaraguan dude who was cool and liked tequila but kept calling the bartender a whore. I felt like I was on another planet where no one understands anything about how to interact with other people. After three martinis the Texan passed out at the bar and getting him out of the pub was like pushing a beached whale back into the sea. Now I don't know why but when homie G woke up he was all of a sudden Mr. Into Dudes. All over the Austrian and trying to touch on me. I kindly stated "dude, whatever your deal is is fine with me but you better stay the hell away from me or I will bust your head in." We arrived at the hostel only after our cab driver almost crashed because he discovered the Texan's hand on his thigh. Yuck. My last memory before passing out in my bunkbed was seeing the Texan trying to bite the Austrian's nipple in the elevator. Let's just say I haven't talked to these dudes since but due to the fact that I am still in this stupid dingy hostel I have to run into them every day. It is horrible.

But now Dunkle is here. I am relaxed. The apartment hunt is on and I am ready for the adventure.

2008-08-18T00:55:00.000-07:00

It takes a long time to post photos so for now I will just do these five. The first photo is of Koh Samet off the east coast.
That is Chris and Drew hanging out at our beach view bungalow in Koh Samet
This the whole gang posing for a sunset shot in Penang, Malaysia.
This was from our canoe going through caves off of Koh Samui in Thailand.
And the last is the secret lagoon that inspired the book The Beach. The beach used in the movie was on the other coast of Thailand but we saw that too.

Asian girls with pigtails!!!

2008-08-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

Now I am on my third day of Taiwanese life and I am enjoying it. I certainly am in no way figuring things out but I am starting to get used to the idea that I am stuck here for the next 12 months. In that respect it is nice to have so much time. I do things when I want and if I don't want to do them I chill out and I don't worry about it. I will have all the time to do things later.

As I walk along the streets I have to constantly jostle with my shirt so that all the sweat doesn't stain it and make me look like a fat, hot, sweaty, disgusting, westerner. I mean it really is like walking around inside of a living furnace here. Of course no one else sweats except the long haired blond doofus walking around wide eyed with no direction at all. All lot of times I try to escape the heat by walking into stores where I can feel the air conditioning blasting out of the door. I always try to pick the biggest looking stores because then I am less likely to be bothered by someone trying to sell me something in his/her alien language. I also like the big stores because this is where I can see some of the best looking Taiwanese girls. I have to say that at this stage, I understand about 8% of my lifestyle. 4% percent would be the hipster clothing stores because they are everywhere, 4% would be the pretty girls from the not so pretty ones, and the other 90% is a bunch of stuff that I really cannot for the life of me figure out. A lot of times I will look in a store and seriously have no idea what they are selling. I see people waiting in lines excited for something but when I look in I just see a bunch of crazy looking Chinese symbols and a person at a desk. It is all just way over my head.

While I have met some people at my hostel (blah, who cares) and some very nice people at my work, I have only had one real social moment so far here in Taipei. The second night I arrived I said to myself "dammit man, get off your ass and do something!" (then i realized what an idiot I was for talking to myself.) I decided that I would go out and hunt for this "bar" that Dunkle recommended to me called Roxy 99. I know it already sounds like a gay bar. So I put on the same clothes I have been wearing for about 6 weeks and will probably have to wear for the next 6 months and went out. Before I left I asked the guy at the hostel where this Roxy 99 bar was and he showed me the "correct" metro stop to take. The metro system is pretty easy so I got to Ping Pong Ding Dong metro (whatever it is called) with zero problems. Now, growing up in Colorado was great but the bad part is that if I can't see a gigantic mountain range to the west I have no idea where the hell I am. So as always I don't take time to figure that out and I simply start walking towards the brightest lights, loudest noises, or in this case: the prettiest girls. Now I still don't know where I was exactly but their were pretty girls all over the place. I felt like I had died and gone to Asian heaven and had just slipped through the radar. I walked around aimlessly trying to not get caught staring until I came to the end of interesting stuff. This was the point at which I pulled out my map.

I didn't really know where I was so had I had the chance I probably would have just blankly stared at the map and then continued to walk around. But as soon as I had the map open I heard, "hi, can I help you?" To my surprise standing next to me was a pretty little Taiwanese girl. She had a hipster baseball cap, pretty girlish black clothes and was on a mountain bike. I really was in Asian Heaven. I told her that I was looking for this Roxy 99 "bar" that Dunkle seems to love so much and she said "you are looking for a club? Well that club is on the other side of the city and you wouldn't like it anyway." Any girl as forward as that has my heart forever. So instead she recommended that I go with her to a bar that she new of and that I might enjoy it more. So after a nice conversation, some twists and turns and down a dark alley we arrived at a quaint little bar. I tried to get her to stay and have a drink but she was apparently headed somewhere else but to my surprise she said "talk to the bartender, she is more your style." So Joy (her western name) introduced me to Daphne (the bartender's western name) and said that I was a lost American who was looking for a cool place to hang out. It was all very pleasant and I was surprised to be getting such positive attention.

I sat down and ordered a beer and immediately my bartender, Daphne, started asking me questions and flirting with me. I seriously have never had this fast a reaction in the States and for sure never in France so I was having fun. We talked about this and that and I really thought that I was in like flint. However, after about an hour of progressive, slightly choppy English dialogue Daphne's "boyfriend" showed up. Now this guy was a pretty boy with his collar flipped up and the cargo pants and all. I was more than a little disappointed that this douche bag had arrived. As soon as he was there he was grinding all over Daphne and trying to smooch her and I really just wanted to say "the lady has spoken for sir and it is no longer for the likes of yourself." But instead I sat stupidly watching Taiwanese baseball drinking Budweiser and eating popcorn like a dipshit loser. The whole time Daphne kept looking at me when "tough guy Joe" wasn't around and I was a little bummed. I kept checking this dude out to see what he had that I didn't but I couldn't put my finger on it.

That was when it hit me. This guy is a pretty boy for sure, I mean he even shaves his legs, and he has a weird mid section..... wait are those boobs?........hold on..........that ain't no dude! It's a girl! This pushy, asshole "bro" was actually some super, weight lifting, boob eliminating, butch chick. Then I started to actually pay attention to everyone else in the bar. "Well what do you know," I thought, "there are a lot of girls with other girls here in this bar." Here I thought that everyone was looking at me as a white guy when they were actually wondering what this man was doing in "Queens" lesbian bar. Oops! So now I have been drinking beers at the bar "hitting on" the bartender while everyone else is just trying to get there lezbo drank on in peace. Boy did I feel like a jackass.

So I paid my tab and got in an extra sour mood when I found out that not only was this a butch bar but also an expensive as shit one. I would like to think that I have had more successful nights out before. Either way though, except for madam "Hugo" rugby wannabe dudegirl, everyone that night had been very nice and courteous to me and that made me feel pretty good and not like such a stranger. I mean, second night and I already know of one bar I never need to go to again. That means there are all the other places to explore and enjoy while I am here. And there are plenty of other hot, straight, (or slightly straight) pigtail wearing Asian girls for me to meet and attempt to woo in a broken English "you be pretty" sort of way. Hooray for Asian girls and watch out cause dog will hunt!!!

New Perspectives

2008-08-14T03:27:00.000-07:00

The sun was bigger and more red than I had ever seen it as I descended towards Taipei. The blazing ball set at the same speed as the plane fell and it was a strange yet comforting. That was probably the last time I felt calm since I have been here!

Now that Thailand is over I can say: "that shit was awesome and I had more fun than I have ever had on a vacation." Our last week was spent at Ko Phi Phi relaxing and checking out the islands around, Phuket for a couple of days, and then one last night in Bangkok. Originally Drew and I had thought that the day Dunkle left we would take a boat to another island called Ko Lanta. But when we found out there were no other boats during this season we said screw it and stayed another night in Phi Phi. Phi Phi was fun after a while and on our last day there Drew and I met our first Americans on the whole trip. The wildest part was that one of them was even from Denver. Small world. Before our boat to Phuket Drew and I walked all over the island (not by desire but because we got lost) and eventually climbed the highest point to see a magnificent view of the whole island. It was actually the evacuation route from the Tsunami that hit in December of 2004. From the top of the mountain we had a beautiful view of both gigantic beaches which was really an eyeful. Ko Phi Phi was really amazing place because you got to observe what an impressive job of rebuilding they had done since the 2004 Tsunami. While there was still some dilapidated buildings and a lot of washed up rubbish, the community had really done a great job to get back to normal.

Our reason for going to Phuket was because we wanted to take a day trip to this amazing natural reserve nearby. However, when we got to our hotel, we realized how much we needed some time to just take a break. Our hotel was only 15 bucks a night and it was our nicest one. Instead of taking another trip we took some time to unwind. We had a lot of things to reflect on and a lot of future plans that we were both ready for. (or not) So Phuket was our time to relax after so much relaxing and we enjoyed it. Then it was back to Bangkok and off. Thailand really was cool and the primary reason why was because I got to go on such a wild adventure with such good friends. Every moment was an experience and everything we set to do we accomplished. It is an experience I will never forget and I hope many are encouraged to have.

So I don't want to go too long but I wanted to make sure that those who have tuned in so far will continue. And by the way, if you have been reading these blazin' blogs let me know with those commentary things. It would be a lot more encouraging for me to know that people are actually reading these things. If you ever have questions about something or have an idea of something I could do just let me know.

Well here I am in the great city of Taipei, Taiwan. I mean holy shit I am in this crazy ass city for the next year. I am in no way *wink* freaked out about being here *wink wink.* I arrived last night with no idea at all of what I was doing. All I knew was that "maybe" someone was picking me up from the airport and that for sure I was and am broke.

I walked through the customs worried as all hell. You see I didn't even know how to go about getting a visa. I only knew that what I needed, a three month visa, was now no longer possible and thus I wasn't sure if they were even going to let me into the country. I got in somehow with a 30 day visa and saw some dude holding a card with my name on it. Well so far so good. As we walked outside he reached his hand out in what I thought was an attempt at a handshake and my giant backpack (which he was reaching for) crashed down on him. I don't even know how to greet people here, do I bow? or do I shake? or should I just smile like an idiot? I have gone with the latter. As we chopped along sentence to sentence I soon discovered that this man was not my boss but just some cab driver who knew little more than I did. As the door slammed on the cab, Simon (his chosen English name) asked "where you go?" Well how the hell should I know, I didn't even have a hotel reservation. Luckily he had the number of my boss lady, not me, and called her. They squared things up and he took me to this mediocre hotass inferno hotel I find myself in right now. Thank god the Taiwanese know what they are doing because if they didn't I would probably be dead or at the least still crying and wondering around in the airport.

I got a chance to talk to my superior and we made an appointment to meet each other today. So for that night I was unleashed on the city that I literally knew nothing about. And it is big here, I mean lots of lights, music all over, people calling me over to eat there pig ears, and tofu squares, nothing like Paris. The other thing too is that I don't look like anyone.........anyone!!! It seemed like Thailand was so flooded with tourists that you often saw more ferangs (white folk foreigners) than Thai, but here it is just all black haired Asian people. I feel like all I see are either 15 year olds or the oldest people on the planet. I don't know where all the middle agers go. I got lucky with dinner because I had soup, a salad, tempura chicken, a big bowl of rice and a drink all for about 4 dollars. I made sure to try every sauce which meant I accidental poured salad dressing on my chicken and some sort of vinegar in my rice, oh well. But guess what, for the first time in more than a year.......free refills, I musta drank me about 4 cokes just because I coulda. It was all quite lovely. Sleep was rough because I kept waking up to heat fevers not knowing where I was or what the hell I was doing there, and that went on until about when I woke everyone up to my french alarm screaming "c'est l'heure de se lever, il est 9:30."

Then there was all of today, basically it just felt really good to do something after so long of doing nothing. What I covered today was what it took my French program about 2 months to do. It would mostly bore any regular reader but now I have the medical stuff figured out, my work visa will be coming soon, I have a schedule, I have looked at apartments and may have found one, I might get to skip training cause I am such a bad ass, and my boss has already told me that the best way to learn Chinese is to date a Chinese girl. She even said she could do some introductions. That part isn't anything great though because I don't care at all about girls........hahahaha not! So while just a day ago I thought I was going to die because I was so unprepared the Taiwanese have showed me that if you are indeed unprepared, just leave it to them. So now I have until Wednesday before I have anything to do and I feel pretty good. Shoot I might even go have a beer tonight, who knows. Thanks again for reading and stay tuned for more nuttiness.

The Beach is real!!!

2008-08-08T02:28:00.000-07:00

We did it. After very little preparation but a lot of anticipation we did go and see the beach from the movie "The Beach." It was totally cool. Here is the story.

We woke up not too early which means we went out the night before, which means we all felt crappy and had headaches. We really weren't even sure how our little day trip was going to work but we had to have faith. After cramming in a fast and soon stomach upsetting breakfast we went to the tour agency to wait for our pickup. We were a little worried at first because it was raining all morning and we didn't want our one opportunity ruined. However, some lady in a sarong suddenly showed up and thus began our journey to Ko Phi Phi Lay. (pronouced pee pee haha)

We all assembled in some back alley behind a tatoo parlor so already I could tell that this "adventure" we had signed up for would be in no way organized or legitamate. After being yelled at by all sorts of people and hearing, "hello! you come here," we got into our boat and were off. I really wasn't that impressed by our group. While the other boat was filled with all young and goodlooking girls, ours was a hodgepodge of randos from who knows where. The first place our captain took us was a pretty cool snorkle spot. We did that for a while and then the boat broke down and we got monsoon rained on. Us three guys were pretty hopeful but there was one old fat bastard that was not pleased. Now I have lived in France and while there I met a lot of great, nice and interesting people. But if I ever meet this French dude again I really will push him into the ocean. Not only did he keep complaining and yelling at this nice thai guy but he didn't even speak a word of english so nothing was getting done except the fact that the captain thought everyone was mad. I thought of offering my translation talents but then I figured I would have to do that the whole damn day and I was not interested in that. Plus this nasty dude was flashing his rock collection sitting spread eagle at the top of the boat in a speedo. Screw that man and whatever man invented the speedo.

So other highlights were a couple of amazing snorkle stops and some of the most fantastic views I have ever seen. Also we stopped at "monkey beach" and got to feed bananas to monkeys. I laughed my ass off and have decided that for me monkeys are the funniest animal in the world. I mean just one raised eyebrow from a little monkey and I was rolling. I think I want to buy one or maybe I will just sneak one over in my suitcase.

For how cheap the trip was we really did do a lot of things but the whole time we were wondering when we would actually see the beach. That was when our captian brought us to the super choppy cove and pointed to a little hole in the rocks and said "you go dere. I wait one howa." We are talking big waves crashing into a tiny cave about the size of a door and this guy wants us to swin through it. We thought he was joking but when he kept smiling and repeating, "you go dere. I wait one howa," we figured he must be serious and we jumped in. It was probably one of the most dangerous things I have ever done but so worth it. When we made it through the hole and after a short walk through sandy ground and palmtrees we found it. Bigger, better, and more beautiful than we could ever imagine. It is called Maya Bay to the technical but to us it was "holy shit dude, right there is where Leo stabbed that shark." The best part was that since the weather had been a bit rough that day we were the only ones on the beach. Pure paridice! We took just one picture with the last shot on our underwater camera so hopefully it worked. It was too awesome.

So that was yesterday and it was really great. I started planning for this trip six months ago with the sole drive to go and see that beach. And now that I saw it I realize that the beach was totally worth seeing but also that this whole trip was worth taking. We have a couple days left before I go to Taipei and I am going to enjoy this time left here. I love Thailand and I believe everyone should go.

Hellooooo.....Massage?

2008-08-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

I hear some Thai woman yell this at me about ten times a day. I go walking around looking like my any other ferang (gringo in thai) and everyone wants me to buy something. However, while others are thrusting boat trip adverts in my face or asking me to look at their fish on display, the thai masseuses always yell a simple yet effective "helloooo massage?" It is almost as if they were greeting someone named massage rather than trying to sell you something. We pass by so many massage parlors everyday and normally they will shout those simple words with very little conviction. You also get the even lazier ladies whom you can see through the window sleeping on the mats. I guess yelling "helloooooo massage?" can get a little tiring for a lady.

So far on this trip we have gotten about six massages on five different islands. I can really say that what these women lack in marketing strategies they make up for in their ability to touch skin. Now make sure you don't get confused. Many people think that all massage parlors in Thailand are scum invested shanty brothels but this is not at all the case. While those types do exist, they don't even try to hide it. For example in Koh Samui there was the "Pink Lady Massage" that had scandalously clad girls falling out of it. I never even saw any massage beds there, just a bar and couches. So those are the types of joints we stay out of. We prefer on the beach or in places with big windows so that there is never the thought for a girl to say "we go private room?" or "you want I go all the way?" That simply scares the shit out of us.

Today I received my sixth massage and it was really pretty nice. So far I have gotten pretty lucky with my girls. They have all been pretty young and pretty good looking. While Chris was here he always seemed to have the best luck because his girls were usually the lookers. Dunkle is often about average and then comes Drew. Now if you don't know, Drew happens to be a giant human being. Giant humans are quite a bit of work and in no way for the weak of hand. It is because of that that Drew has always found himself being mounted by the biggest and we'll say "most seasoned" of the massage crew. I mean we are talking the big old ladies. I try to put his spirits up by saying, "well they probably have the most experience and thus you receive the best massage." But it is always nicer to get to talk to the young thai girl.

Today my luck changed though. We just jumped in to the parlor without doing much investigation. If you can believe it we have been a bit lazy even with getting massages. It always seems like so much work to get up from laying around all day to go lay down for just one hour. But today we did it and even though my wrist feels a little broken, the rest of me is peachy. Let me tell you, today, I did not meet the girl of my dreams. My masseuse today was of the short and portly character but with an overall jolly presence to her. I figured, "well, I did come here for a massage so what does it matter what she looks like." I was sticking to that thought until we got to the part where she got her entire body on top of my back and proceeded to smash her knees into my lower back. I thought I might break in half! I also noticed a noise which was at first subtle but rose quickly until I thought she might be licking her lips. Since this was an oil massage I hoped she wasn't thinking of buttering me up like a Christmas turkey. And for some reason she really smelled like popcorn. (I think I prefer Chanel 5 over Eau de popcorn.) Still she did a good job and popped my back way more than I think is healthy.

The Thai massage is a time honored tradition and considering that it is only about 6 bucks for an hour, you really can't beat it. I think if I ever meet a beautiful, English speaking, thai masseuse I will take her to America and show her how she can do the same thing for about 75 bucks an hour. That would blow these girls minds. So I have so far had 6 massages which means that 6 hours of this trip have been spent awkwardly watching my friends get oiled up by the mysterious massage ladies of Thailand. It is all pretty hilarious.

The last one got deleted

2008-08-04T02:54:00.000-07:00

So I got pretty pissed off at this blazin' bloggin' thing because I wrote a kind and touching blog and then the stupid ass computer froze up on me. Of course all the computers on these thai islands are like 80s throwback comps. You can probably still play pong on them.

Well we just did about two days on a beautiful beach still on Ko Phangan called....gotta ask Dunkle........ok well he doesn't know either but maybe I can't tell you because it is our secret place and we wouldn't want someone to come and build a giant high rise hotel there. I have been really surprised that whenever we arrive at a new place because no matter how "developed" they say a beach is, it really never is. This beach we just went to however, was about as remote and secret as they come. It seemed like the only people who knew about it were us, some stoner english dudes, and a handful of extremely hot girls. I love Thailand because when you go to the bar you can act like a pimp and buy girl's drinks and it costs nothing. Last night I bought drinks for four German girls at a pretty swank bar and it cost me 10 bucks. The girls feel happy because a guy bought them drink and I feel happy because I practially stole them. It is every guy's dream to be super cheap and still get girls. That works here in Thailand.

So basically the past week or so since Chris left we have done nothing. Usually our day starts rather early like 9:30 to 10 am. It is pretty much impossible to sleep any longer because the heatless room starts to turn into a furnace. After getting up and chugging all the water we can find in the room we usually start to discuss our day's itinerary over breakfast on the beach. It consists of "we could go kayaking, we could look for waterfalls, we could take a hike, we could get laundry done." And then we finish breakfast and just lay on the beach all day doing nothing and only moving enough to get in the crystal blue water to cool off. But let me tell you, that is still fun as well. I mean there is a real art to lounging out on the beach and I think we have become the Van Goughs of sun bathing. (that was pretty stupid sounding.)

High moments of this past beach was having an entire beach to ourselves, having the front bungalow that faced the beach, this cool bar we went to where all the workers and owners loved us, watching Dunkle scream ever five minutes as he got bit by crabs. It was a pretty great place and it was cool the the people we met there actually waved goodbye to us from the beach as we wizzed away on a little dingy boat.

So now we are back in Haad Rin and we are going to Ko Samui to then fly to Krabi and then take a boat to Ko Phi Phi. At Ko Phi Phi we will visit the actual beach from the beach so we are all excited. So keep in touch as the stories shall continue.

And then they were three

2008-07-29T02:51:00.000-07:00

It is true after two weeks already we are now just the three Andrews which means that if we meet anyone else on the trip we are going to seem like the biggest losers on the island. Maybe we will all use fake names and see how that goes. I usually pick Oscar when I feel like lying to a girl at a party but maybe now I will go by Jose. Yeah that's good.

We were all a bit saddened today to have our good forth member, Chris, leave today. It was a great two weeks with him and now we are going to have to adjust to only three. Also, playing hearts is pretty much out of the question now. Well while Chris is still at the airport waiting to fly for about 30 hours, we three have just arrived in Ko Phangan. I believe now this is our 7th island on the trip so not too bad. Ko Samui was great fun and we did a lot of things and I suppose if you would like to hear about what we did, you can keep on reading.

We found a nice bungalow joint where we could relax and have free breakfast so that was great. Probably the best day we had was when we took a trip to Angthong National Marine Park. It was a day trip/adventure thing that turned out to be one of the most amazing things any of us have ever done.

The day started off by my loud wake up call at 6:45 am because we were getting picked up at something like 7:15. We thought we would be smart and get up a little early to catch the breakfast at the hotel and then get a second breakfast on the boat. It was like how hobbits eat. However, to our dismay the breakfast place didn't even open. In fact, nothing seemed to be open and when our bus to pick us up was running late we got pretty suspicious. We thought we all had gotten swindled and someone just took our money. Embarrassingly enough though our alarm clock man (ME) had his phone set on Malaysian time which was an hour earlier. So basically I had just woken us up at 5:45 am to sit around and play cards. Everyone was extremely pleased with me.

After a long sickening car ride to the boat we made it to the pier, jumped on the boat and were off. We didn't really know what to expect and considering the fact that our boat appeared to not have any pretty girls on it: we were a little frustrated. But man did we get put to shame. we arrived by cruising past several small, tree covered islands to a completely unspoiled beach. Then we all hopped onto some beat up canoes and went exploring. It was truely amazing because the ground was only about a foot under us and we had just enough clear blue Thai water to see everything below. after going through some caves and seeing several beautiful untouched white sand beaches we stopped for a small hike. We had no idea but after a ten minute climb through trees and rocks we found a secret lake hidden inside of the island. It was about the greatest thing I have ever seen. Mostly everyone has heard of the book/movie the Beach and it just so happened that we were standing ride in front of the secret lagoon that inspired the story. It was incredible, spiritual, and basically just totally kicked ass! (Don't worry, I gots lots and lots of pictures too.) After that we climbed back down and ate a quick but delicious lunch on the boat. Then we were taken to another island and given a million options of things we could do there. It seemed that almost everyone just went to the beach and laid out (because I guess you can't do that anywhere else....duh!) We chose to take another hike up to the island's caves. I figured it would be cool and maybe we could see a bat but nothing like what we eventually found. I mean just to get there we had to climb up with a guide rope attached from tree to tree. When we found the caves it was outrageous. The walls went up at least 100 and more feet with stalactites as long as 25 feet. We were like ants in this commanding cave and it really was humbling to be in something so immensely larger than us. We climbed around and goofed around and basically just had a good time. I think we are pretty good at that. When we climbed back down we were all happy to have gone but sooooooooooooo tired from sweating and climbing. The rest of our day was spent laying on the beach, attempting to snorkle on an unsnorkelable (I know it isn't a real word...whatever) beach, and played volleyball with the park rangers. For some people Thai people really love us, and with that I will quickly give the details of the rest of the night.

We were pretty much all in a state of ecstasy from our fantastic voyage of the day so we decided to have some beers on the boat ride back. We thought everyone would be in accord with us but we were the only ones so we turned it into a party boat. When we got home we showered and drank more beers and then went for some dinner. Our dinner was fresh salmon, shark, prawns and lots of sushi........oh yeah and more beer. From there we went to another bar and had one of those great conversations that really remind you why you wanted to take a trip like this. It was really fun. By then, as you might imagine, we were a bit buzzed and excited. We found our last big bar and went there. The end of the night was spent dancing and partying with the three beautiful Thai girls I met. Drew went and got pizza and more beer which suited him as well. It was a perfect day and night and all because of the good friends who got to enjoy it together. So that was just one day but a day I thought most might enjoy hearing about. I hope you, whoever you are, have enjoyed the tale and keep in touch for more. 14 days down and 15 more to go. Oh yeah!!!!

PS sorry if this is unedited but I only have limited time.

Ko Samui girls are wonderful

2008-07-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

Well the last time I was talking to all you loyal blog reading people I was sitting in an internet cafe in Penang. Now I am in a laundromat/ travel agency/ cafe/ and probably brothel in Ko Samui, which if you look up a picture, is cooler than wherever the hell you are right now. Sorry. Our flight from Penang, Malaysia to Ko Samui, Thailand was scary as HELL!!! We spent the entire liftoff watching gigantic propeller blades buzzing two damn feet from outside the window. I don’t know how anyone has ever flown one of those things because we were all terrified that the props were going to explode thus sending us to a watery death only after our knees got chopped off from flying machetes. However, we landed and all was good.

I suppose I could tell you about our day yesterday because it kicked ass. We first walked around with our stupid backpacker backpacks getting honked and grabbed by anyone and everyone. We pissed and moaned about hunger and the fact that we all had to pee for about an hour and a half while we looked at several accommodation options. We finally picked a magical bungalow joint that is beachside, our own rooms and free breakfast for about 10 dollars a night. Pretty expensive, I know, but somehow we will manage. After getting another awesome hour-long massage (in plain view of the beach so that the “suckie suckie” option didn’t come up), we went to get some dinner. Basically dinner sucked ass and I didn’t even get to eat. Oh well I drank my dinner and than got some 1 dollar pad thai noodles. We gotta go get another message so I have to finish this quickly.

Last night ruled because we then went to a Muay Thai boxing match and watched a bunch of thai dudes beat the shit out of each other. We screamed and smoked and drank and basically just acted like men. Coooooool!!! After me betting on five matches and winning all of them we got let out and went for a walk. The walk happened to be in the red light district and we saw the hottest Thai girls in existence. Not only that but they were all cheering for us and grabbing us and trying to get us to go to these bars. Duh they were all hookers but it still made us all feel like pimps. It didn’t feel like the real world at all but more like a magical wonderland where frowning is impossible. Luckily we are all good American boys and we didn’t do anything immoral but it was the most laughing and smiling and high fiving I think we have all ever done. I love Thailand and everything here. Now I must go home to try on the Lacoste polos I just bought for 5 bucks. OH HELL YEAH!!!!!!! Talk to you again soon.

2008-07-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

Ok this one is going to have to be another post with no pictures because I don't really know how to put pictures on from random beach side bungalow internet cafes. It has been just under a week since this whole trip has started and I have to say that things have been fun while also rough. Asia is a whole different planet as far as I am concerned. This trip has made our Euro voyage seem like a walk in the park (or anything other thing that you might think is easy.)

When I finally got into Bangkok with no real problems except for the 12 hour late factor I was really excited and paranoid. I had to get into town and do things all by myself and the fact that it was the dead of night did not ease my stress. I took a long trip by bus to get into some part of town that I thought Chris and Drew mught be in and kept calm by talking to these Canadian guys which I don't like doing as much now becuase I met a bad Canadian in Nice. Oh well, I arrived at the stop and before I could even take some time to realize I had no idea what I was doing Chris Dandurand slams into me almost spilling all the poop I have been saving for whatever hotel we might be in. Everyone was so tired that first night that we just said some excited hellos and this is sweet and "what the hell are we doing?" and then it was off to bed.

The next two or so days we took a long half airconditioned bus ride to Ban Phe where we then rode the ferry to our first island in Thailand: Ko Samet. Ko Samet was really cool! The day we arrived was the full moon party which is legendary everywhere in Thailand. We started to get pretty worried when all the bungalow joints had full signs on them and we finally found our spot in a tent on the beach. This was perfect for us because we could wake up on the beach and we only had to pay 2 dollars each.

The weekend in Ko samet was fun. I was woken up by the hotel manager because I had sort of passed out on the beach. And then Drew almost woke us up from laughing when he saw my entire face covered in sand. We ate some of the best food we have had, along with the hottest and spiciest noodles ever created. One night we ate dinner in the ocean, as in our feet were in the water while we sat for a nice dinner. That was cool except that we ordered "same same" (which is what we do with everything) and recieved blubber noodles that were probably made from banana slugs. They were disgusting. One night we went to a happy hour on the beach and watched this guy juggle fire and then after too many gin and tonics Chris got the guy to let him play with the fire. Chris was literally wobbeling on the beach spinning a double sidded flame stick and almost caught the whole beach on fire when he was inches away from hitting the karosene bucket.

There were plenty of other good stories from that trip and I will soon also explain why our trip to Kuala Lumpur was the worst experience ever, especially for Chris and Drew. I hope all enjoy our adventure stories.

VIP Lounge in Osaka

2008-07-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

Yeah that is right, I did not plan on it whatsoever but it seems that I find myself in Osaka, Japan right now drinking as many Saporo beers as I would like while I wait for a flight to Bangkok. As far as shitty layovers are concerned, this is not at all one of them. So far my day has been going great even though I was supposed to be in Bangkok right now. How about I start at the beginning?

First off for those of you who have actually read my first blog, I apologize for not writing more often but I want to change that now. I figure since I have four hours till my flight and a free bar at my finger tips, i should relax and tell you how things are going. (By the way, bars are not like ice cream. I mean you want to sample everything and with ice cream it is ok but drinks might get you in trouble. I honestly don't know what these people were thinking in putting a guy like me in a swank ass place like this.)

So the day started out really well. I made all my trains with no problem and I said my goodbyes to Paris the city and all my friends I had met in Paris. It really was a great experience and I will never forget it. I made it all the way to Helsinki with everything going well. Then the trouble started.... they didn't have a seat for me on the Bangkok flight. For a second I really freaked out because our plans for Bangkok pretty much consisted of "go to the airport and we will see each other." While several folks were complaining about this and that a lady said, "well you could go to Osaka and then we could figure it out," to which I politely responded, "fuck it, I'll go to Osaka." So a quick email to let the guys know what had happened in the hopes that they might find internet and I was off. I mean literally I went one gate over, got on and we pulled out. I really didn't even have time to think about it and when you don't have time to think you don't have time to freak out.

It was a rather leisurely flight to a completely incorrect destination, however, I was entertained by piece of shit movie after piece of shit movie and glass of free wine after glass of free wine. I can honestly say that I really was never worried. I knew that my friends were intelligent and had most likely found each other and I was really only going to be about 12 hours late. Not bad.

So the flight lands and the mix of the half drunk feeling from the South African wine and the deliriousness of several 15 minute naps dispersed over a period of i think 9 or 10 hours makes me feel a little jolly.......or crazy. Suddenly as we land I hear, "Wirr passenger Andrew Putt prease speak to a fright attendant before descending da prane?" Wow I had officially made it to Japan and someone already wanted a piece of me. So to my surprise I walk out of the prane as they carr it and was met by a lovely Japanese girl holding a sign with my name on it. I felt like a star! She indicated to me that everything was in order and since I had had such a rough ordeal the airline had invited me to rest at the VIP airport lounge. Now perhaps you have been to the Detroit lounge or the Phoenix armadillo club where you are promised a fresca and a can of beans, but the Japanese have got it all right. (yes I will have another beer.) I mean we are talking beer, bar, wine, saki (which I hate but will soon drink), pastries and even a toilet that talks to you and heats up your butt.

So after being brought around and everyone helping me (one girl even held my coke while I looked for my passport) I am enjoying myself in probably the nicest place I will ever visit. Not only that but I have communicated with the boys and all is set in Bangkok. Oh and not only that but since my plans got so screwed up, Finnair decided to write me a fat 'ole check for $1000 bucks for my problems. Wow! Little did they know that that money just saved my life as I was planning on moving to Taipei with about $80 on my person.

I have a feeling that life is going to be alright and that this vacation is going to kick way too much ass. I hope that hearing about this day was as entertaining for you as it has been for me. So far I have been up for about 24 hours, drunk twice, been in three countries, two continents, and will most likely be awake for another 18 or so hours. But dat's how I rock. Stay tuned cause I will keep the blog a flowin'.

The Eyes of the Children shall Change

2008-06-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh! Paris est une très belle ville, mais pas comme Maule!

If you can believe it, this person has been responsible for eight classes of little French children for the past nine months. No really I'm serious. A lot of people like to say that you grow up a lot while in college and this picture exemplifies how I chose to "grow up" and "mature" during my university experience. However, after this past French experience I really can say that some changes have gone on.

My desire to start this blog was for many reasons. Well, in fact just three. First, I felt that since my cousin had done something similar for her friends at home I might entertain my friends as well. However, her "blog" told the tale of her adventure through different parts of France as a French teacher seeking the meaning of la vie des jeunes enfants français. It was also geared towards her little 3rd grade French students which means most of the comments I made throughout the trip would be edited out. The second reason for deciding to write a blog was because my mom told me I should do it so all her nurse mates could read what I was doing on my travels and pray that their children never did the same. The third reason is for all my friends who I still love even though they think I will never be coming back to America.

So to open things up I have spent nine months living in Maule, France living through some of the most weird, emotionally exhausting, boring, lame, cool, life affirming, stupid, embarrassing, and fun experiences in my whole life. And you pretty much won't hear about many of those times on this "blog" creation. Sorry, but if I spent my time recording all the past moments it would make it pretty hard to live any new ones. But rest assured as long as the desire for girls, money, and booze prevail in my heart, there will be great stories for you, the viewer (all one of you).

Oh yeah I guess I should give you a reason to want to read the next "blog" that I make in a day or a week. Well in about two weeks I will be flying from Paris, France to Helsinki, Finland and then to Bangkok, Thailand. The trip to Thailand will be a month long backpacking excursion with three of my best doofus friends. I believe that we will certainly encounter some fantastic stories and pictures on our exploration of Thai beaches and islands and bars. After that month I will then fly to Taipei, Taiwan to become once again an English teacher and therefore seem even cooler to American girls when I return. Whenever that may be. So stay tuned and I assure you I will not dissapoint. And if I do......screw you! Go do something else!