Back at work

Same school, (mostly) the same kids, slightly different schedule, but without a doubt the same bullshit.



It’s been about a month since the last update, so I guess it’s time for a new story.
No fancy travel tales this time, and probably for a while since it’s back to the daily grind. The first 5 weeks have passed and there’s only 20 left, but who’s counting.

The new school year brought with it some hopes of maybe losing some of my not so well liked classes, but alas no such luck. I’m stuck with the same shitty kids as before and managed to gain some more. Even one of my favourite classes from last semester managed to gain 6 new students and now has joined the ranks of shitty classes too. Happy times as you can understand.
The only good thing about the new semester is that they have condensed my classes so that I finish a little earlier 3 times per week.

With work, plus the transport to and from it, making up almost 50 hours of my week, I had better make sure I try to enjoy the fuck out the time I’m not at work. Good intentions of starting to study Chinese have once again not been followed up on and I do feel bad about it. I could give you a list of excuses but really there are none that would hold up if choose to dispute them.

I try to keep fit by running as much as I can, but it’s been a real chore with the temperatures being as high as they are. Here too I have not been able to commit to a good intention, for the longest time I’ve wanted to go run with the hash house harriers but have yet to make good on that promise. The hash is a group of runners made up out of locals and expats who describe themselves as drinkers with a running problem, just for that slogan I have to run with them at least once. To keep with the running topic I had a rare sight this week. On a track I run almost 2 a week at least for the last 6 months I suddenly had an unexpected encounter. I was running and enjoying the view of Taipei101 and its reflection glistening on the Keelung river as I suddenly saw a crack in the road start moving around. Looked closer and saw that in fact it was a snake traversing the track, had to jump sideways to avoid crushing it and didn’t dare to jump just over it because I had no idea if it would try to bite me. I’m well aware that there are snakes in Taiwan and have seen countless snakes on my travels. Once almost stepped on one in Australia but never had I had to jump over one on a run.

To get away from the drag that is work, I try to do something interesting or cool in the weekends. I’ve reconnected with my oldest friend in Taiwan Chloë (she came to Taiwan 1 day prior to my arrival and we stayed at the same hostel and were looking for jobs at the same time) and with her and her friends went to the beach to celebrate the moon festival. With this I finally did something I had wanted to do for a long time, which was to visit the beach on the weekend. Good to know I do manage to do some of the stuff I intend on doing.
Last weekend went to a pool party which was also on the list of things I had wanted to do during the summer, but waited until the last one to finally fulfil that one. Nothing like procrastinating, right?

On my to-do-list is always one item that never changes and never gets crossed out. Get in touch or stay in touch with mates. Sadly this is also one thing I’m extremely bad at, I don’t speak to my friends nearly enough. They deserve to be on top of that list at all times but, I fail miserable at it. If any of you guys are reading this I suggest you go with the, as I now like to call it, “Jasper approach”. Jasper knows best how to get in touch with me, he sends me a message saying I’ve got time tomorrow, get in touch. I always slightly panic when I get one of those messages but it also makes me smile because it forces me to change my schedule (if needed) and finally get to talk to one of the lads from back home. Anyway I’ll make an effort again to Skype with some of you very soon.

It’s been interesting to see where this story went because I didn’t really have a plan for it. I guess I’ll leave it at this since I can’t think of anything else to share right now.
There’s another blog entry due soon but I want to tackle that topic another time.

Have a great weekend!