Peace Treaty, Addendum

P.S.

Could you also not land in/on/around my mug? As your friend may have let you know (in a seance), instead of the quick and painless death I would've dealt, I ended up trapping him in the mug and drowning him. Long and drawn out. I'm guessing it was rather agonising, too, when he realised that there was no way out and that the water level in the mug was steadily rising while the wet tissue overhead was getting lower.

So. No mug. Thanks.

Peace Treaty

Dear friend,

I believe that the need for a truce has arisen. This love-hate (mostly hate) relationship between us is causing much tension, so I hope that with this letter, we can reach an understanding between mosquito and me.

I know you must eat to survive. Such is life. But really you must ensure that gluttony not overcome you, as several nights I have awoken to 5 or 6 new bites. I hardly believe that you need such a feast at a single sitting. So I ask that you please limit your overeating tendencies. Let us start with 2 bites per night, and if this arrangement doesn't work, we can discuss the matter further.

Let's make that 1. One bite per night.

I ask you not to touch the face. The face is still the most aesthetically appreciated feature of a person, and needless to say, your savage devouring of my delicate skin leaves not only physical but also emotional scars. Please avoid the face.

Know that should you insist on supping on my blood, you will die. I don't care if I have to stay up until 03:00 to catch you, but I will, believe you me. Not only will you die sooner than you hope, but you will live your last hours (minutes) in utter fear. Utter. and. complete. fear.

So. How does that sound. Truce? :)

Sincerely,
N

Putt-putt, just puttin' around

Work is going well, and I have finally been getting some sleep at my place (after I stopped using the pillow).

Maybe it's because it's still Week 2 for me here, but the time seems to pass so quickly. Before I know it, it's 18:00 and my colleagues are asking if I want to go for dinner. And then before long it's 20:00 and I need to rush to catch the last shuttle bus.

My work hasn't even picked up yet, and already I feel that my commute is just too restrictive on my schedule, especially since there are weekly seminars and presentations that begin after dinner. Forget 9-to-5.

So, I've decided to buy a scooter. Yep, I'm gonna be a scooter girl! I've started asking my coworkers about getting one - cost, licence.... I haven't decided between getting the 50cc scooter or getting a larger one. I also have to wait until I get my first paycheque (monthly payments here!) to afford it!

But, until then, it's "Sorry, boss, can't work overtime; I have to catch the last shuttle bus!"

Workin' it

So. I made it through my first week of work. It was tough. Lots of positives and negatives that made my outlook of the future blink like a pedestrian-controlled traffic light.

To start off, my manager is great - I like him. But he's pretty busy, so I don't see him too much (we sit in different areas). And the project manager with whom I will be working - well, he was on a business trip all week, so I spent the week just getting settled, looking at some documents, and learning the basics of GSM and GPRS wireless technology (totally new to me).

I am the Canadian here. Everyone seems to know about me. My manager would introduce me, "This is N. She's a foreigner. From Canada." D'oh! Blew my cover, first thing. So much for slipping under the radar as a local. (Actually, while I may get away with looking the part, I apparently have an obvious accent when I speak. *sigh*) But it's almost as if they're proud of having a foreigner on board - rather amusing.

My colleagues are great. Everyone is really friendly with explaining product knowledge, logistics (how to order lunch), or even just whether or not I need attend certain meetings. Women make up maybe 15% of the staff - high compared to other tech companies here, but abysmal compared to my previous company (approximately 1:1).

Lowlight. The vast majority of the corporate e-mail I receive is in Chinese. Even with an instant translation software, it takes me forEVer to read my e-mail. IT installed an English version of Windows for me, but Dr.eye didn't get installed until the afternoon. I was a sitting duck, and it dawned on me just how inadequate my Chinese is, which was very discouraging.

Overall, getting on okay. More to come ....

Welcome home

I slept my first night at my new home for the next few months. I had arrived in Hsinchu around 19:30, and dropped off my laptop and my mini-pack at my brother's, hung out and then lugged my little suitcase across the street after an hour.

And then without realising it, I spent 4 hours mopping and rearranging the sparse furniture, dousing everything with citronella, and then assembling the simple clothes racks. When I finally emerged from my room, all was quiet in the house.

Today, after hanging up some clothes to dewrinkle, I headed to my brother's to reclaim my laptop ... and steal a shower. What can I say, the shower at my place leaves much to be desired. In a few minutes, I will borrow his bike and (after mopping it down) go off to explore the neighbourhood and figure out my route to work.

I report to work tomorrow morning at 08:30 sharp.

Imprisoned!

Today is my first real day off. I've packed everything I can pack for my move, and I've fulfilled all my obligations. Mom is off for a few days, so today is my first day of freedom, to wander about Taipei as I please.

Today is also the first day of a typhoon. It is raining buckets, and the wind is howling. While it's nowhere like a hurricane, it's still dangerous to be outside in this weather. Work has been cancelled in 9 cities of northern Taiwan, declared a typhoon holiday.

I can see rain being blown almost horizontal and several tv antennae being toppled on the lowrise buildings around us. The wind and rain are tremendous, but being situated in a basin surrounded by mountains, this is about as exciting as it gets for a typhoon here (except for flooding). Out in the countryside, where there is no shield, incredible things can happen.

And so on my first day of complete freedom, I am imprisoned in the apartment. :( The morning was spent cleaning the kitchen, where rain had dripped through the fumehood like a leaky condo. *sigh*

Thar she blows!

Being across the Pond, this came as quite the surprise to me: Mount St. Helens has apparently been huffing and puffing lately!

You can see a "live" picture (updated every 5 minutes) of Mount St. Helens, provided by the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. This image on the left is from the Cascades Volcano Observatory.

While the geek within does think that's pretty cool, I hope that everyone in the Pacific NW is safe. Otherwise you'll know exactly what I mean when you blow your nose.

Spot of tea?

They fooooound me!! :( Some nights ago, a vicious mosquito attacked me over and over and over, while I lay asleep in my bed. The result was 9 bites on my left arm, a couple on my right, ... my earlobe, my eyelid, and even my tailbone! The next morning, my mother thwacked a mosquito, splattering blood all over the washroom wall. Very likely my blood. >:(

I've been eating lots of pomelo, because - well, it's in season, but especially because of Mid-Autumn Festival - yummy. But I've also discovered some other fruits that don't agree with my digestive system. Lovely.

Other than mosquito bites and unfriendly fruit, I'm getting used to living in Taiwan. There's been a cool breeze the last couple of days, which is a huge help.

On Wed, I had the opportunity to check out the Ten Ren Tea Company (did you know that Ten Ren is a Taiwanese company?). My uncle is a frequent customer there, so before sitting down for tea, we got a tour of the factory. The county line happens to lie between the store front and factory, so they are actually in 2 completely different cities! We saw the tasters - who actually taste, smell, look at, ... the tea leaf batches. Then was all the machinery for processing the tea leaves: cooking, deleaving (? separating the leaves from the stem), sorting and packaging. Quite interesting.

And of course, there's the tasting part. My uncle's "account rep" brought out 3 different teas for us to try. These are some *good* quality teas. The aroma is soothing and the flavour clean, with no bitter aftertaste. And after you swallow, your mouth continues to water and water and water, bringing a lovely sweetness to your mouth. My mouth was still watering about 2.5 hours later (and after lunch!) on the way home. Unfortunately, I can't really afford these teas: they cost about 120.00CAD/lb (250.00CAD/kg)!

Other than that, not too much. Interviews are going well, and I've started to get offers. Still have interview requests coming in, too.

K comes into Taipei tonight, yay! Tomorrow we are going to Yinggo, which is a city famous for its pottery and ceramics.

I stand corrected.

I posted a blog last year, for which I must reprimand myself. Don't bother looking for it; I've now removed it.

It was a post I'd written about my friend's grandiose wedding plans. In the post were words that were very hurtful to my friend, as I'd portrayed him to be inconsiderate and selfish, when I don't believe him to be either. He really is one of the sweetest people I know. He's always been generous and kind, and goes to great lengths for those around him. That's not just what I believe and know. It's a fact.

While I certainly hadn't intended to hurt my friend, whom I consider a good friend, what I had written was based on untruths and on a partial untruth at that. Had I taken another moment to think about what I'd heard, instead of reacting to the "shock" of the story, I should have known better. I would've known that that could not have been the full story, nor the person I knew my friend to be.

And now I've succeeded in hurting my good friend's feelings, which hurts me deeply as well.

I apologise to my friend. I am truly deeply sorry for the hurt I've caused.

I won't ask for forgiveness, because I don't think I deserve it. I only hope that Time will heal the wound I've created.

Let that be a lesson to me about hearsay.

Breathing smog

It hasn't even been a week that I've been in Taipei, and I'm already tired of the city smog. It's disgusting. At the end of the day, when you blow your nose, you can see just how much crap you're breathing in. (The "fog" in the picture is actually smog.)

It's also hot and humid here. Taking 3 or 4 showers a day isn't unusual. I pretty much have a quick rinse after any outing.

I get up by 07:30 or 08:00, because it's already light out and at that time the temperature is just right. But darkness falls around 18:30 or so, which makes the day feel "over" already, so we're usually in bed by 22:00, 23:00 at the latest. How odd to shift from my typical 11:00-04:00 hours to a 07:30-22:00 schedule.

My brother K is about 2 hours away by bus/coach. It isn't too inconvenient, and cheap enough for him to come to Taipei almost every weekend, which is nice, because one can only spend so much time alone with one's mother.

Food is ... cheap. And pretty good, for the most part. My mother and I can eat a decent lunch on about 120NT (< 5.00CAD); breakfast costs us about 3.00CAD all together. It's almost cheaper and more convenient just to eat out or buy take-out than it is to prepare something ourselves from scratch.

They have more 7-Elevens here than in Vancouver, heheh: there's one at least every 2 blocks. Definitely a convenience store!

I'm slowly getting used to the heat and everything, but it's going to take me some time. Mostly, I'm itching for "proper" Internet access!