Rounding the bend

8 more days.

That's all I have to wait before I finally, finally have substantial enough cash in hand to fully lead the life I remembered and have longed for so long here in Taipei. And I have to say that it has been a long road towards the white light at the end of the tunnel. Since I've arrived, it's been nothing but budgeting and belt-tightening...actually, it's been more like 2 years and 3 months of budgeting, as well as saying 'almost there' to myself over and over again. I finally arrive at the seemingly mythical place of 'almost there' December 10^th and it's going to feel...it's going to feel...well, actually, I kind of forget how it feels so I'll let you know. Top of the list to buy/do are some new clothes, a couple of choice dinners and of course, heading out on the town for some serious dawn til dusk debauchery.

So before I round the bend on almost there, I thought I'd share what I've done to pass the time. Wasting time, biding time, or whichever label you want to put on it, I've been doing lots of it. Lots and lots. Many times lots. The bottom line is that I feel I've done a pretty good job of entertaining myself with low to no-cost activities. I've literally read, watched, listened, downloaded, planned, organized, cleaned, emailed, photographed + learned about all I can handle at the mo'...so much so, I feel bored. To tears. I really just need an evening of drunkenness to keep my brain in check. It won't do any good if my brain gets a swelled head with all the neurons I've recovered during the last few months of financially-induced sobriety.

Things have improved over the last few months. While I still have a bit of hostility towards the job sitch, I have given in and secured gainful employment with a new school. The hours round out the sched quite nicely, and the best part is that I didn't have to give up too many hours at my old job to get the new one. I did have to give up one class, loosening my dependability on the shack of lacklustre learning, but gained an additional 2 hours at the new school instead, so a fair trade as far as I'm concerned. The differences between the two schools couldn't be more removed. L.C is, in a nutshell, disorganized, lacks materials, cohesive curriculum and staff who really care whether the school succeeds or fails. CELP is on the other end of the spectrum: hyper-organized, extensive materials to the point of obscenity and one of the most painstakingly-planned syllabi I've ever encountered. Hmm...wonder which job I'll keep when my contract is up?

Job juxtapositions aside, another new happening is the book club is finally off the ground. At last check, the Taipei Book Club has 34 members and growing day by day. We had our first official meeting on Sunday with only 9 of our members showing up, but it was still a great introduction to something which none of the members (myself included) has ever part of before. The group seems to pull people in from different walks of life and is split pretty evenly down the middle between expats and locals. This should give the meetings an interesting flavour and I'm looking forward to the next meeting already. For our first book, we decided on Blindness by Jose Saramago. Looking forward to it at any rate.

Another thing to look forward to is that Shawn is coming for viz here during CNY. We've been trying to come up with as many activities, sights and other points of interest to jam pack into his holiday. I'm working most of the time, but that's fine as we aren't planning on going anywhere except a day trip, or maybe an overnight or two here in Taiwan. We figure that this is where we live and while a sun+surf holiday to would be great, we should really show him why it is that we live here. Not too sure when his dates are yet, but he will be here for around 2 weeks or so. Leesh is off during that time, so they can do the touristy stuff around the city during the day while I'm at work, and I can show him the night-side of things.

Speaking of night, I just glanced at my clock and realized it's time for bed. I also realized that it's now only 7 more days til 'almost there.'

And only 7 more days before I remove 'almost' from my vocabulary.