The Dust Has Settled

             So here is the first blog post in over 20 days. Things were looking grim. It was beginning to look like I would have to pack up and head back, tail between my legs. I had been fired twice in a month. My money was low. I had 30 days left on my tourist visa. I had to find a job, keep the job, and navigate the tricky visa process, which can take almost a month to complete, so that I could stay in they country and work.
            Today, I have a job and I have just been told that my resident visa will go through in time. I get paid in 10 days. It would appear that the worst is over. It seems that a future here is possible.

           I like the new job. It's called English Wonderland and it's located in a public school. The kids come and stay for three days and it's designed to let the kids have fun so that they will like English and decide to enroll in voluntary classes later. The work environment is good and state of the art. I work with 7 other English teachers on a team. The schedule is really rough for a few days but then we get lots of time off. I have two 12 hour days, one 8 hour day, and one 4 hour day every other week. So basically, I have 5 consecutive days off every other week. But the two 12 hour days are brutal. Plus, the commute is an hour one way and an hour back. So with the commute, I have one hour when I get home to unwind and go to sleep to get 8 hours...then I do it again the next day. There are 3 teaching hours the first day and 6 on the second...so those two days are grueling. But all things considered, I can't complain. Also, they give us free lunch and dinner on the long days. So it's pretty great. Good pay, good environment, reasonable expectations.
          I reduced my spending drastically this past month. I've been keeping a log and really trying to live efficiently. If I spent what I spent last month, rent included, I'll be able to save half of my paycheck.
       I've been hanging out a lot with this girl named Katherine who you will see in the pictures below. Been riding on her scooter to go places. One is called Yanmin mountain, the other was a university called nptu or something. The mountain is pretty magical...looks like the misty mountain from lord of the rings (or at least like I imagine it would). I hope to go back and spend a day there. Also, I went to the hot springs in an area called Beitou which is like an hour on the MRT. Also very beautiful. My team went to the beach this week, but I was sick so I couldn't go. But I hear the water is pretty warm all year round they say. So I'm looking forward to doing some sight seeing here...it's a beautiful place. Not so much clubbing anymore...that's kind of played out.            I went to the doctor two days ago. I had no appointment and no insurance. He saw me within 10 minutes, diagnosed me in like 3, sent me out and gave me like 3 days worth of pills all for 600 nt which is like 20 dollars US. Remember, this is WITHOUT insurance. With insurance would have been 200 NT, less that 10 dollars. So that's awesome. I don't know why we can't it together in the states. It doesn't really seem all that complicated. So I'm going to upload a bunch of photos below.

  

Pillars of Success

            I am feeling better today. I met with the recruiter from my new job and he has said I could have my work permit by next Friday, which means I could be working by Monday. This weekend is a holiday. 10/10 ...national day.  So on Tuesday, I intend to start going to the school to meet and observe the teachers who have been training there already for a few weeks. This is a possible snagging point...so I'm going to make sure I get there early and start training as soon as I can. Although I won't be paid for training, bosses have already shown that they will have no mercy on you even if you have not been properly trained and also, it will keep my out of trouble this week since I can allow myself almost no budgetary indulgences. I have taken inspiration from all my friends and family back home who continue to encourage me to persevere through my rising mountain of failures and embarrassments...also from kind and supportive new friends who I have met here in Taiwan. I have also taken courage from some good passages in some books I've been reading...here is one.
             "Failures are but the pillars of success. To learn by our failures is to achieve success. never to have failed is never to have won. Unless we experience failure and its bitterness, we never appreciate the sweetness of victory; it becomes merely a turn of events that is of little or no interest. Failures not only help us to succeed, they make us energetic, enthusiastic, and rich in experience.
'We live and work and dream,
       Each has his little scheme,
Sometimes we laugh;
       Sometimes we cry,
And thus the days go by.'"-Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda The Buddhist Way

These pictures are from the area called "Sheng Kai Sheck Memorial"...there are multiple structures there...it's sort of like the national mall in DC.

Fired again...hired again

           So there's good news and bad news. The bad news is, I got fired...again. The good news is, I got hired...again. This is crazy. The adult English school fired me because they said I was too informal. There was a point at which I was told to use the phone to call my old school. My manager made it a point to not go behind the desk. Later, I needed to explain to one of the secretaries what to say to my old school in Chinese...so I went behind the desk and talked to her. Fatal error.
            Also, the fact that I wasn't patient enough in his eyes with the employee who was on the phone who I was having difficulty speaking to in English in that I just decided to hand the phone to the secretary instead of saying what I had to say again, then handing the phone over. Also, apparently there is a personal space thing when talking to new business colleagues which I did not observe well enough...I wasn't far enough away from people when I was talking to them I think. Also, he though I had been trained at Hess, which I was not. So he thought I had been oriented already and told about culture shock and so forth, which I was not. So all that was enough to get rid of me. I'll be damned. I can't seem to hold a job.

           So I had another job offer pending for public school which obviously I have now accepted. I was a little foolish in that I bought all these formal clothes for the new job (which I needed) and now I can't get my money back. I actually had them made because it's hard to find shirts that fit me here and it's relatively cheap to get fitted clothes here. Anyway...that was stupid and an unnecessary purchase. At least I was able to put it on credit so I can pay it off a bit at a time.
           I don't know what to say guys. I tried not to get fired this time. I did. I tried to act more humble and dress right and not say too much of what I think. But I wasn't able to pick up on what he was putting down. He said they have really high paying clients who are not at all accepting of errors in formality. They are CEO's and people like that. So that's why he couldn't have someone there that was going to make cultural faux pas(sp?) like that.
           He gave me some insights into why I may have been fired from my last job. It seems I probably made some of the same "territorial" errors there. Also, he said, bosses here won't tend to tell you what they actually want and you kind of just have to figure it out. Also, when bosses ask for your opinion, they don't really want to know. They just want you to see how nice and awesome they are because they asked. They're not really interested in you...they're just interested in saving face. So once again, my bad on that one.  He said if I had gone through Hess training, I would have had these things explained to me. Of course as I mentioned before, I did not go through training.
           I'm going to give this one last shot. If I get fired again I'm coming back home. Maybe I'll join the wall street occupation.

Re-employed

So today I got a job teaching adults at a language school called *omitted*. It seems nice. The atmosphere is relaxed, professional and quiet. I will need to be trained in their system which will take like a month. I'm going to try hard not to get fired from this one. But it seems like they are pretty straight forward about what they want. So I won't miss it if they tell me to do something. I was talking to another new employee and she was telling me that this company is renown to be a great place to work. It doesn't have a lot of the other pitfalls of "asian" style education or management because it is a multi-national corporation...one of the largest schools. This is also good because if I can stick it out at this company, there's a good future here or even in a different country with these guys. I will be teaching 30 hours a week...small classes of 3-8 adults...maybe some larger classes...I actually don't exactly know yet.
Right now I'm at the *omitted* branch training. But later I will be at the *omitted* branch...further south...but I have also heard good things about that one too. The downside is that I will have to get paid very little for about a month of training...so I have to live very lean for a month or two...which I am apparently fabulously bad at. Anyway, I'm happy that I'm no longer working with children and their crazy parents. I heard horror stories about other language schools in other Asian countries like Korea. Like if a kid has a spelling error on his homework, all the parents are called in for a conference and you may loose your job. Also, the bosses typically yell and scream at you even when something is not directly your fault. Crappy. I also have to finagle my documents to get my ARC...this is tricky. I may have to make a visa run to Hong Kong if we can't get it done in time. I can't wait to have all this nonsense out of the way so I can work and stop worrying about how I'm going to survive. Cause I can't even get a loan until I have this ARC...so it really is not fun not having one. I still have my master card though so that will enable me to buy some work related clothes items perhaps...like the shoes I bought today. But what the hell am I going to do? Show up in sneakers? I had to buy some shoes. Maybe I didn't have to spend as much as I did...but it was like either 60 or 100 and I figured if I'm buying them anyway I might as well get the good ones...it's on credit either way.
There's this giant department store next to the place I trained at today. So much stuff. I saw Indian food for the first time since I've been in Taipei. It's pricey for Taiwan, but cheap for America.
This brings me to my next point. People keep on saying stuff like well it's so much cheaper here than America. That's all relative...at this point, it doesn't make a difference how many American dollars something is. I'm not IN American...I'm in Taiwan. And I'm getting paid a Taiwanese salary. OK maybe I lied a little...it does matter. But still, I need to begin to gauge what is reasonable to pay for an item by Taiwanese standards. You can eat for 300NT a day easy. That's 10 dollars American. But clothes are expensive. It's like 30 bucks for a tie. I guess it's the same in America. Anyway, I got sidetracked doing some other stuff and now I'm tired. So that's the end of this entry. Goodnight!

Unemployed

                OK, so for reasons which I am not going to get into, I am currently unemployed. I think maybe all the stress combined with all the work at the same time made me a rather sour fellow. My job satisfaction appeared to be none and my boss and I have decided to part ways. I'm not really sure if I got fired or if I quit. I've decided to accept the fact that I probably did something wrong and didn't know about it. Another way to look at it is I have now achieved being unemployed in two different countries...how many people can say that? Anyway, it's not important anymore. What IS important is that I find a job so I can get my green card and keep living it up in Taiwan.

I am starting to be comfortable here. I got this thing called Strong VPN which basically gives me an American IP address so I can watch netflix and hulu.

STREAMING TV AND MOVIES ACHIEVED!!!

I've gotten some of the jitters out and I'm not spending money like a drunken sailor anymore. Which is good, since I already spent it all hahaha. But it's cool, cause I got paid for the time I worked already. So it should be enough to tide me till I get a new job. I have an interview on Monday and also another offer for a public school job. The public school one is a bit weird so I am going to try for this one on Monday which I believe to be an adult teaching gig. The public school is a schedule of 12 hours on Monday and Tuesday. Then 8 on Wednesday. Every other Thursday, I would have 4 hours of work. So that means every other week I have four days off. Sounds nifty.
I don't seem to have the best luck with teaching positions. So I am beginning to look at alternative ways of getting paid. I may look into music here because you can apparently actually get paid for playing well here...a novel concept in America no doubt. So the plan is get my ARC (green card) then I'll be free to do what I want basically. I am impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit here. Basically everyone I talk to tells me I should start a business here. It's like the second thing that people suggest. I'm not too keen on that idea, but at the very least I think I could freelance as a musician, music teacher, and/or tutor.

I don't have a whole lot of insightful things to say this week...it's a tsunami week...raining all the time. Plus I am once again in survival mode. But this time it's much more comfortable. Once I get a new job I plan to travel and see more of the city and of Taiwan. Of course I have to get the job first. So I'll let you all know how it goes. For now, enjoy these amusing images which explain my current condition.

http://positivesharing.com/2006/09/how-to-lose-your-fear-of-being-fired/

Night Life

          It shouldn't even be called night life here...it should be called "life". Because "night" would imply that said "night-time" activities occur within the constraints of the time when it is dark outside.  Last night, I left the club and the sun was up. Not coming up...up.
          People don't congregate at the bar here before the go to the club...they congregate at the 7 11. Here's why: not only can you buy beer in the 7 11, but they will actually open it for you at the register and you can drink it in the store...as you leave the store...and as you walk down the street. It's totally legal. You can even loiter outside the place and drink, and people definitely do this.
          This all starts around 10 pm... people START to come into the clubs at 11 pm. The clubs here are INSANE. There was so many people in this place you could barely move...and it's a big place. Underground with two main rooms...all new and chic. Everyone is dressed up and gorgeous. As I've said before, there are very very few fat people here. Actually, there are very few ugly people here. So everyone looks great and the sound system in the club is super high fi. The bass is so loud that the whole dance floor literally shakes...the drinks on the bar vibrate like in Jurassic park. There were hired dancers dancing on the bar tops...what a scene. We congregated with my teacher friend who had rented a vip table section. Good time...I'm not typically a club person, but even I enjoyed myself. This club was called room 18. This is the classy club.
         Now, about the "other" club. There are two foreigner bars that I went to. We are not well represented. It seems like just about every foreigner I talk to at these places is beyond incoherently drunk. To be fair, there are quite a few people who are incoherently drunk. The first two times I went to "Roxy 99", people passed out in the bar. I'm not just talking regular pass out, I'm talking EPIC pass out. This one girl literally fell flat on her face and was completely unconscious when she hit the floor. Epic. So people fall over and knock people over all the time at this place...it's a mess.
        This type of thing doesn't really happen at the other club, but the other place is more expensive. The other foreigner bar I went to was called Brass Monkey and there was a lot of foreigners there. It's like an Irish bar in Taiwan. Nothing special, many of the same people who were at Roxy were there.
        Anyway, I've been going out too much. I have to reel it in...it's getting expensive. But the point I'm trying to make is Taipei goes hard...real hard...real often. I mean this week I went out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And then tonight I went to the night market and it was packed. So time to tone it down a bit. This is much different than Philadelphia...more like DC or New York...but it doesn't have that "small town" appeal like Philly does...anyway...apples and oranges.
        So I got some cool stuff for my room and I'm almost done furnishing. I have a new bed (mattress) coming, then I'll put the couch mattress back on the couch at which point I will have a couch...then I'll get a Japanese divider to section off the sleeping part from the rest of the room...then a wireless router so I don't have to run this hideous yellow chord across the room. The room will have a Japanese feel to it...mattress on the floor, sitting cushions, a few tatamis, the divider thing...I'm excited.

My sweet new tibetan singing bowl.

My sweet new meditation cushions.

Taiwan Beer...it's not great, but it's cheap. They drink with ice cubes in the beer...at first I was revolted, but it's actually pretty good...now I can't drink it without...of course I would never drink say, Guiness, with ice cubes.

Roxy99

Roxy

Awesome.

Men in black.

Room 18 Night Club

Night Market (the biggest one)...I can't remember the name.

My sweet new light.

My sweet new meditation table...with table cloth, candle and naag champa incense (the incense and bowl were not easy to find.)

My sweet new spot for my bed with sweet new covers.

My sweet new shoes.