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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Taking the Good with the Bad

I've been pretty stressed for a while now and as you can tell it has been built up. That last post was right after a breakdown I had (PMS also played a BIG part in that as well). I have been an absolute SUPER bitch these past two weeks to EVERYONE and am surprised I still have friends and a boyfriend left!

Anyways, last week was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. On Sunday, I went to Ming Chia Mei and went on a cleaning supply shopping spree(Well...not really, but bought a few things). I FINALLY found a product that cleans the bathroom tiles so Hino helped me on Sunday to do that. He was AWESOME! He cleaned my bathroom of ALMOST all the mold and yucky stuff while I organized my closet, cleaned the mold off the NON-bathroom walls and arranged some things. the reason why he cleaned almost and not all was because I told him to stop. The product is basically bleach and even with my little window open, he was starting to feel dizzy so I made him stop.

During that time I got an SMS from a friend that GĂ©ant was having a sale on Flat Screen TVs and there was a 32" for only NT$9998 (€230) so while were waiting for the bathroom to dry, Hino took me there and I ended up finding a nice Ben Q 32" HDMI for about NT$14,000 (€320). I was trying to decide which one to buy and thought since I'm here and want to stay here at least a couple years, the Ben Q would be nicer. Plus, the TV that came with the apartment was blurry and hard to read and when it's cold blurs even more and frosts over..haha! Sooo...the TV came yesterday and it is sooo nice! I even stayed up to watch Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" speech on CNN and watching it on the flat screen was amazing!!

Buying a flat screen might sound odd for someone who is "just" an English teacher, but I am going to move out soon and since my horoscope is Cancer I NEED to have a comfy home...if I don't have a comfy home, then I usually have breakdowns like the one last week. I don't get out at all during the week and come home at like 21:30-22:00 from work almost every night and when I come home, I just want to veg out.

I also ended up buying a heater for my apartment which should come today. In Holland, it is cold from October to May pretty much and sometimes year round so central heating is necessary. But in Taiwan it is only cold for a couple months so places don't have central heating. But the past couple weeks have been REALLY cold at night..like 6 degrees celsius and like I said in my last post, there seems to be a lot of moisture in my apartment and I think a heater will dry things out and maybe keep me from being sick the ENTIRE winter..like me last year and like my colleagues now..ALWAYS sick!

Speaking of sick, I went to an ENT doctor last Friday because I had probably the worst sinus headache I had ever had. I've had sinus problems my whole life and Taiwan has made them worse!! He told me I have Acute Sinusitis and gave me antibiotics. Guess what the two of many contributions to Sinusitis are: Pollution and Mold...Gee! Not like I come in contact with those EVERY DAY!! So, my mom bought me a Neti Pot in the States and will be sending it to me.

What is a neti pot you ask? Well it's basically a teapot/genie lamp used for nasal irrigation for..well..Sinusitis. It's an Ayurvedic method and I've been wanting to get in to more Ayurvedic methods and cooking for a while now. Here's a link:

http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/store/product/d0e29a4e-507c-417e-86d0-f5c05320fbbe.aspx

Here's some possibly disgusting but perfect demonstration images of what it does:

http://images.google.com/images?q=neti+pot+images&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title


Last thing I wanted to mention before I go relax with my cup of Vanilla Chai Tea is something that dawned on me yesterday...
Yesterday after my first shift, I raced home from work cursing and swearing at the Taiwanese drivers thinking how I wanted to have EVERYONE banned from the road. I went to go park my scooter at my apartment and walk to my other school and along the way saw a dead rabbit in the middle of the road. There was no one around and I couldn't see any damage, but I could tell it wasn't breathing. I poked it ever so softly with my foot in case it was just sleeping...HOPING it would wake up and hop off...but it didn't. I am OVER-emotional and seeing something like that always makes me feel sooooooo bad! It didn't look run over...but it still made me really upset.

I began thinking that maybe someone was cruel and threw it out or abused it for fun and then I got so angry. I began thinking "What the hell am I doing here, if these people have ABSOLUTELY NO REGARD for anything...ESPECIALLY animals and their OWN children!!!!" The way they treat dogs and cats is horrendous. They cut off shark fins just to make a fancy soup and let the shark (which is endangered) die off to extinction. "Why am I here?!?!"

Then it hit me. I remembered that fortune I got from the Buddhist Temple in Amsterdam about how I was to feel welcome in Buddha's land and etc. and how when I got that fortune it was my destiny to come to Taiwan. Some higher force has directed me here so that I CAN help and make a difference!

These people emulate and worship Guanyin, but they don't seem to see that she was the Goddess of Mercy. She helped and saved people and I assume other living things. They talk the talk, but do they walk the walk?

So maybe I am here for selfish reasons: Learn Chinese, settle down, get my Masters, etc... But being an English teacher and a Taichung PAWS volunteer gives me that chance to teach appreciation of other things and living creatures in this world. I may not be good at it, but I need to try!

I can't give up!! Jiayo!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

My Apartment Blues

Maybe it's just PMS, but I have had it with my apartment!!

I moved here in September of 2007 and moved into this place because 1. It was cheap and I didn't have enough money at the time. 2. I wanted something cheaper so I could spend my money on traveling and saving. 3. I had just arrived and was just ready to settle in.

My apartment is a TINY studio but is cheap and the landlord is super nice! So I'm not blaming him, I'm just blaming EVERYONE on the quality of materials used to build apartments here!!

Why I'm bitching about it now??

Well..at first my UNwelcome ant visitors only make their treks through my shower drain from September to October so once they leave, I forget about them. And I covered the smoke stained walls with pretty pictures since I knew I wasn't gonna be here long. And the cigarette butts inside my windowsill disgusted me but was still thinking positive.

But now...now I'm fed up. My bathroom ventilator is dripping some brown rust colored liquid and is now SCREECHING everytime I turn it on. Now that it is cold, winter and NO indoor heating my clothes take FOREVER to dry AND my towels in the bathroom don't dry at all! My toothbrush is permanently wet and NOW...there is condensation and mold on my walls that AREN'T in my bathroom!! I'm having enough problem ridding myself of the moldy black tiles in the bathroom that should be sparkling white and now this!!!!

The bed that came with the place is shite and the mattress is like sleeping on top of a wooden coffin. I don't get much sunlight and no matter how WELL I take care of my plants in here they all die.

Everytime I clean it, it never truly looks or feels clean...it always looks dirty. The dark colored stone floors annoy me...Why do Taiwanese people have this?! I would LOVE a nice wood tiled floor...Or a white kitchen tile floor...

Part of it is my fault for not cleaning it. I really should despite the fact that I mentioned above about it never truly feeling clean. My Christmas tree is still up cuz I was so fed up and thought "Screw it!"

I even broke down crying today screaming to Hino that I want to move back to Europe because I had had it with all the shite from the lack of decent quality things here.

But, this Sunday Hino will help me clean the place so that I can make it liveable till I move out in a few months. Like I said...it's not my landlord. He's actually been soooooo helpful!! It's just the quality of materials used to make apartments here.


Ok, that's my rant for the day. I have temporarily lost my positivity but REALLY hope to get it back soon.

I'm off to read "The Good German" and try not to stress so much...I'm a teensy bit stressed and am trying to follow through with all my plans that I'm making. I am so glad for Chinese New Year!!! The sad thing is...I just had a vacation...a LONG one but need yet ANOTHER one....not healthy :(