The Contest

Well, sorry to disappoint but I didn’t win at the karaoke contest. There were actually a lot of performers, 33 in fact. Many of them were pretty good, and some even brought guitars. I definitely severely underestimated the competition. Actually, I was almost not going to perform. Since my song had to be specially mixed, I was supposed to have brought it in at least a day before for them to make sure it worked on their karaoke machine. But, in a funny combination of being busy and lacking in foresight, I simply brought a thumb drive containing the mp3 that my friend helped mix for me. When I presented them with the flash drive, the organizer of the event looked like she was going to smack me across the face with it. She gave me a verbal lashing and said “you missed yesterday’s rehearsal so there’s nothing we can do.” There was already a version of my song in the karaoke machine, but it wasn’t my version. That was kind of the whole point. I could have went with the original version but it would’ve been lackluster.

I couldn’t believe it. To think, the only reason I missed out on rehearsal the other day was because I had to pick up my mom coming from the airport early in the morning. Now I was on the verge of not even being able to sing what I wanted.

Fortunately, even though the ladies told me the thumb drive was useless, I rightly doubted their technological know-how and tried my luck with the AV people the room where the karaoke machine was kept. Magically, the monstrous machine had a lone USB port. We were in business.

So what was the damn song, you say?

Good question. To be continued in part 2.

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Happy Halloween

Better late than never…

@ Halloween Massive party at the Taipei World Trade Center last Sat. Couldn’t think of a costume so I just put on shades.

Techno fans will cream their pants.

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Two Months

Last couple of days (couple of weeks really) have been rainy, and all of a sudden it’s felt rather cold outside. FYI: Cold in Taipei = brisk in NYC. Nonetheless, it still doesn’t seem right when I’m forced to don a hoody in Taipei like I did today. It was a warning that autumn, the one I’m accustomed to, has finally arrived.

I’m glad the heat and humidity are gone but the sudden approach of cold is sometimes an unwelcoming feeling as well. Maybe because the fall always reminds me of going back to school, or more recently the end of half-day Fridays at work. It reminds me of the daily grind of life- there’s no avoiding it, the best I could do was come here and delay it. And despite my best efforts, I still fall in that “routine” trap from time to time: I have classes every day and then I study for a couple hours at least. From there I’m free to do whatever but keep in mind that the last bus to my place is at 9:40pm. If I rode my bike out, my “curfew” is extended but with the rain we’ve been getting, I haven’t been willing to bike it. Although I’ve been used to commuting since high school, it still gets weary at times.

With that said, maybe I just need a moment to reset myself. Perhaps it’s just the lack of sunlight that’s been getting to me. I’ll be picking up my mom from the airport tomorrow morning, so…that oughtta liven things up. We’ll see. At the very least I’ll have home-cooked meals for the first time in ages.

It’s been two months already. Feels like just the other day when I was saying bye to my fam at the airport. It’s probably too early to reflect on stuff but I’ll do it anyway. After class, if I have nothing to do and end up going home before 6pm- that’s a perfect example of when I miss my homies the most. One of my friends works in the city but lives in the middle of Long Island. After working the morning shift he always looks for shit to do, people to hang out with, otherwise going home too early would feel like somewhat of a fail. Now I understand much better what he meant. I can also appreciate to a greater extent the value of having good friends who are always down to chill.

<goes to flatten a mosquito against the wall>

Maybe it’s just because it started to rain again outside and I just came back from smacking to little pieces this POS mosquito flying around that I felt like writing this. Well, this exercise has been therapeutic (the writing, not the smacking. Actually, the smacking too.), but I best get back to preparing for my singing contest on Friday. Yes, singing contest. More on that later.

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Visitors

Looks like my first official visitor will be none other than…mom?

Yup, my mom’s gonna be heading back to visit the motherland (heh). She actually has to come here in order to be eligible for some government thing, but I’d think of it as a vacation as well especially with all the madness in NYC in recent times.

This is pretty exciting news since I always came to Taiwan by myself and never shared the experience with a family member. She’ll be staying at my place – sooo looking forward to home-cooked meals.

Can’t wait for our first argument so I can brandish the Mandarin skillz I’ve been honing.

來吧!

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The Early Years 2

Due to overwhelming response from my adoring fans…

Yeah, I was a lil' chubster back in the day...

I’ll have a more substantial post soon…hopefully.

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The Early Years

Digging through my Aunt’s stuff, I found a few gems. This is the first part of what shall be named The Can’t-Think-of-Anything-To-Write-About Series.

Even at this early age, Greg could not be contained

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Bing Alums Reunite

Glad to say after a month and half here, I finally met up with one of my inspirations for this trip: my old college friend, Cory.

We both took Chinese in Binghamton for two years. We both withstood the b.s. of Elementary Chinese (although with my background I had it much easier). We had a much better time in Intermediate Chinese; we both even became TA’s for that class. From there, our paths diverged. He continued his studies, taking another year of Chinese, while my dumb ass had to catch up in Econ classes or I’d never have graduated on time. He then took his studies abroad, wisely coming to Taiwan to learn for a while.

When I heard from my professors the progress he made, I couldn’t help but be impressed and somewhat envious.  Needless to say his Mandarin is vastly superior and he’s currently getting his degree to teach Chinese. I guess I couldn’t let the gap in our Chinese abilities widen any further.

It was through his recommendation that I bothered to look into the Mandarin Training Center at NTNU. The other school I was heavily considering was the one he studied at before he started grad school, NCKU. The school is in Tainan which is way down south, so it would have been a much different experience. I’m not able to see which one I would enjoy more, but I think either choice would have been fine. Surely my Taiwanese would have become much better living down there. I would probably be 10 pounds heavier too, since the food is a lot cheaper (and a lot of Taiwan’s famous delicacies are from Tainan).

It’s funny how our paths converged, considering that only a few months ago I would be taking the shitty MTA subway to work at about this time. Life’s funny like that.

 

Sitting with Mr. Moy

 

He might not know it, but I owe him one. Or if this trip ends in failure, I’ll know who to hunt down.

Note: that pic is of me pre-haircut. Yes, there will be a haircut post. How did it turn out!? Stay tuned.

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Inappropriately Labeled

Fried radish cake. Tastes like chicken?

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Settling in

好久…不見…妳還…好嗎?
Long time no see, how are you?

It’s been a while so I best jot some things down  before I forget.

Slowly starting to get a routine down, getting into a “groove”. Here’s what my daily schedule is looking like:

Wake up in the morn’ about 7 or 8 (and yell to the cabbie “yo homes, smell ya later!”). If it’s early enough, I’ll head outside and shoot some hoops. Gotta go before the sun gets time to flex, otherwise the heat’s unbearable. Depending on time, I think I’m gonna start off with a 20-minute shoot-around, a la Nash. Once that’s done, I’ll spend some time working on the “secret move”. Afterwards, I’ll head back and shower up.

Then it’s time to review class notes and look over the homework. Ideally I’d have finished the work the night before. If not then I’ll just use the remaining time to finish whatever’s left. When the clock strikes 10:00, it’s time to pack up. At that point I have a decision to make: I could catch the 10:30 bus (it comes once an hour) or bike it to the train station. Since the next bus is at 11:30, taking that would cutting it close. Don’t think I haven’t tried. Taking the bus is an extra 15NT, so round trip would be an extra dollar (USD) a day.

Really, the only reasons not to bike are: 1. I’m afraid of getting it stolen, and 2. I’m feeling lazy, especially because the route back home is slightly uphill. The first problem has mostly been remedied- I originally bought a U-lock for the back wheel, but I ALSO happened to get semi-lost one time and stumbled upon a Giant store in the neighborhood, allowing me to purchase a wire lock to hook around poles.

Anyways, I hop on the MRT at Yongning station take it to Guting. From there it’s about a 10-min walk to the school. In total around an hour’s commute each way. Oh well, nothing I ain’t used to.

Class is from 12:20 to 2:10, and then it’s whatever supplementary class I want to take that day. I usually end up finding something to do, which I hope will continue to be the case because it’d be boring to just go home right after school. Ideally I’d head home around 7, taking the MRT all the way back to the last stop of the blue line. If I biked that day, then as I exit the station I’m usually praying that it’s still where I left it. So far, so good.

I biked home through the pouring rain other day. Maybe I should invest in a raincoat. But hey, at least my thighs aren’t burning when I reach my apartment like they used to. Progress.

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Fork in the Road

A coworker wrote me after I left: “You’ll come to see that so many roads will appear before you and choices will have to be made.”

Couldn’t be more true. On Friday, barely a day after I got here, I interviewed at an English school. A friend of mine knew I was looking to tutor so she told me to get in touch with her friend. The interview was set up soon thereafter and I still had little idea what the school or the job was about. Way to be prepared, I know.

I took the train out to Yong-An Market Station. Walked for a bit, got semi-lost, then finally arrived at the Sunshine School. I talked to my friend’s friend and discussed my background. Everything seemed to be going alright… and then all of a sudden she asked me to give a mock lesson to one of the classes. I had 15 minutes to prepare. Oh shit.

I’ve never given a mock lesson before, and now I’m being asked to teach pronouns and plurals to some 4th graders?

Well I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for new experiences and I think I handled it fairly well. The kids were well past the level of material I was teaching, so that was a relief. It also made me reflect on the poorer emphasis on schooling back in the states.

Afterwards, my friend’s friend said she thought I would be a good fit because I’m young; from her experience the young ones tend to give a shit when it comes to the kids’ educations.

Alas came the kicker. They were looking for a long-term teacher, which meant 1 year or longer. I told them about my situation and how I can’t stay in Taiwan too long or else I might be shipped off to Kinmen. They actually laid out a way for me to avoid this and stay past 6 months: I would leave the country and come back with my US passport. Then they’d help me apply for an ARC which would spare me from the military. All they need is for me to sign on the dotted line…

One thing I promised myself when I got here is to be mindful of every opportunity I come across. This one was tempting as hell, but in my heart of hearts I believed the right choice was to pass it up. Life.

They seemed to understand and was even glad I was still willing to fill in as a sub while they looked for a teacher. In fact, just yesterday I taught my first class ever! It’s such a strange feeling. Everything went well, except I found out I crammed two lessons into one by mistake. But these kids are smart; I left very impressed, and worried about America’s future.

A rewarding experience indeed.

At the end of my coworker’s email, she added this: “Just go with your heart and see what’s around every new turn”

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