Currently Listening Fever To Tell By Yeah Yeah Yeahs see related

Well I am back to the East today.  For those of you who don't know I spent the last month on a road trip in the States with Jen that took us from the Midwest to the extreme west and back again.  Our route was Michigan to Indiana to Illinois to Iowa to Nebraska to Colorado to Utah to Nevada to California with a little dip into Oregon and back down the Californian coast almost to Mexico then to Arizona to New Mexico to Texas to Oklahoma to Missouri and back to Illinois.  It was really quite epic, especially as viewed from retrospect.  We did SOOO much it is almost impossible to tell about it all in any reasonable form.  The highlights include horseback riding and rafting in Colorado, a great quest for some earth art in the Great Salt Lake Desert along the lake itself, Redwood mountain hikes, swimming in the Pacific up and down the coast, a half case of Californian wine, an AWESOME Indian restaurant in a gas station, lazy pool days in San Diego, a strange bar night in Phoenix, artsy little towns in northern New Mexico including seeing the largest single block sculpture in the world being produced there, the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere standing 190 feet in northern Texas, wine bars, gourmet restaurants, penguins, and awesome giant jungle gyms in St. Louis, and on and on and on...  It was simply great.  I have some pictures on disc but as my CD-ROM is presently down I can't share any.

     After the trip I got to spend a hurried (and somewhat separation anxiety filled) but nice day with my sister and my old friend Mary Ann who I haven't seen since college.  These are pictures I can share.

Tina, Maryann, and I.  Old school buds reunited.

The monkey and I.  Yes, she will be an amazon.  She is only 11.  Here we are looking tough representing the South East side of Grand Rapids, our home town.

So anyway, back to real life as it is here.  It is good to be back though the apartment feels a tad empty, but that is a pretty standard feeling for the past 8 months or so so I am sure I will adapt quick.

Currently Reading Big Sur By Jack Kerouac see related

Love the Engrish

Currently Listening Troubadour: The Definitive Collection 1964-1976 By Donovan Sand and Foam see related

"Our aim is to make the world more beautiful than it was when we came into it."

Helmholtz the Music Teacher

Kurt Vonnegut - The Kid Nobody Could Handle

"I would beleive only in a god who could dance."

Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Part One: On Reading and Writing

Currently Listening You Forgot It in People By Broken Social Scene see related

Let the sun shine!!

I had a nice day today.  Finally the sun has returned!  I had to take advantage of it and spend a long spell outside.  I went to work (job 1: graphic design company) much early than usual and so had a lot of time in the afternoon to myself.  For lunch I had Indian food at my favorite Indian restaurant over here, the Spice Shop.  It was soooo good.  The palak paneer is just, I mean, there are no words…  After lunch and a bit more work I went to the gigantic Taichung Metropolitan Park near my place.  I hung out there for almost 4 hours.  I graded some homework, read some, studied Chinese, got some sun, and even took a little nap.  It was beautiful.  Because of the 16 straight days of rain there was not a bit of pollution in the air and you could see clearly from the mountains on one side of Taichung valley to those on the other.  The sky also had that strange extreme look that only comes after great rains in the summer when it is almost perfectly clear and sunny save for the occasional savage looking wisp of remaining black storm clouds.  During the “sun getting” phase however I got lots of sideways looks from the Taiwanese folks around.  As this is an anti-sun worshiping culture to take off ones shirt to catch a few rays seems crazy.  On the other hand, on my way home I saw a man jogging along the road backwards, looking as if he had run a few kilometers that way already by his rate of breath and sweat marks and no one seemed at all curious about him. 

Taiwan: sunning oneself-weird, jogging backwards-perfectly normal. 

After the park trip I went on a little shopping spree buying lots of shorts and shirts for the summer in general but particularly with my August Great American Road Trip in mind.  And interestingly enough I was just reading one of the labels on my nice outdoor sports minded shorts and I see the fabric is described as “rapture-resistant”, so I feel a little better about being agnostic now if I am wearing these shorts during the second coming.

While shopping at the supermarket this evening I watched probably 5 or 6 separate children freak out in the check out aisle as they grab at this shinny package of candy our that bright bag of squid chips (Taiwan…) strategically placed for them to see and be enticed by so they can cause their parents so much trouble that they break down and buy them whatever it is that has caught their eye.  In that moment, watching this mom and that dad sigh heavily as little Wangpeng or Anli screamed at the tops of their lungs in a colossal effort not to let go of whatever was kung-fu-gripped in their little paws I realized just how devious and evil super-genius like the people who design those packages and decide to put them in there place at 7 year old eye level in the checkout lane really are.  There is evil in the world, I have no doubt.

the road was paved with butterflies, the green of spring was in her eyes

Summer days here again..  It seems the monsoon may finally be ending, though I may be speaking too soon.  See, it has been raining for.. ever.  Well maybe not FOREVER forever, but for around two weeks almost.  And when I say raining I mean raining, like the way it can only rain in Asian countries that have a "rainy season".  Now, I kind of like rain, it has a certain romance to it and all, but when one has no car and their primary mode of transportation is a 125cc scooter which one has to drive around an hour each day, that veneer of romance peals off really quickly.  So yeah, give me 100 degree temperatures if needs be as long as there is no rain.

Jen was here about a week ago.  It was sublime as usual.  Better than expected even, not because I expected it to be bad or anything, but rather because sometimes we are lucky enough to find bits of life that exceed the bounds of our expectations.  Imagination occasionally falls short of reality, rather than the usual case of reality being a disappointment after the musing of imagination.  The only bitch of it all is that post-Jen readjustment period.  I am getting better and better at it now I think, this being our third time, with 3 and a half I guess, that we have had to separate.  Needless to say however my head is very much in the coming days of August when the great American road trip will occur.

However, despite this things are clicking here for me.  I have started a new job in addition to teaching.  I work in quality control and language consulting position at a graphic design company over here.  I also do some accounting and stuff.  I am kind of the everything man there to support the two founders and primary employees of the company when and how they need it.  I have been there only a short time but it has been cool so far.  I hope to move towards working there full time maybe.  It is nice because it is owned by some friends of mine and has a cool office feel to it rather than the conventional blah of office life.  And, I care about the company, much more than I have ever cared about a company I work for, so it makes my work much happier.

With this new job and teaching and still going to come college class I am buy as hell, but then I also find that kind of situation suits me well.  I am quite pleased with my life, but then that is not an uncommon sentiment for me to have.  I just really like being me I guess.  Its not so much that I think I am so great or that my life is better than anyone else's, I am just pretty content with the shades of my existence, good and bad.  In fact, for the most part, I just feel that as time goes on things get better and better for me.  Sometimes I am not sure if I deserve such a blessed life, but I try to accept it all as graciously as I can.

To end, here is a picture.  Its an old one from Christmas, but I love it and just got it.