Once More With Feeling: A Look Back At 2007

Well all, here it is at 11:40 pm December 31 and since I find myself with a few spare moments on my hands and Copacabana on my iPod, I thought I should reflect back on the year. By month, of course.

January--I don't remember anything, but it was the beginning of a new semester and those are always notable for having paid tuition and health insurance, thereby keeping our kneecaps intact.

February--I remember February well, because it was at the very end of the month that we realized that Paul would not graduate if he couldn't come up with some World Civ credit. Luckily, Independent Study was there to bail us out (for a modest fee, of course). Charisse also got married and Heather flew in from Ohio, so I got to talk to her for a little bit which is always nice.

March--Something probably happened this month, I don't remember. Paul finished his Independent Study course though. Yeah for graduation!

April--I turned 23, which is a singularly unexciting age. The big news came a week later when we officially racked up Bachelor's degrees in History, Russian, and Biochemistry between the two of us and celebrated by not going to graduation.

May--I quit working for BYU and began working on digitizing the back issues of T'ang Studies. It was our 3rd anniversary, so we probably did something for that that. I'm not really sure. Maybe if you remember what we did this year, you could help fill in the gaping holes.

June--June was the granddaddy of all months. We moved out of our beautiful apartment, moved in with Paul's parents, attended my first Muhlestein family reunion, took the GRE, and on the 27th-29th flew half-way around the world to sunny, humid, currently FREEZING Taiwan. (Hey, 62 degrees is really cold when there is no heat, no sun, a lot of wind, and you're not moving around.)

July--Again, no memories, but that was probably a result of the 14 hr time difference and being throw to the hellions. The blog says we went to Bagua Shan. It's probably true.

August--August brought our first experiences with typhoons and squatters (my arch-nemesis). I stand by my original opinions of both fiends.

September--In September, we actually strayed from the work/home/food street intercity triangle to go to Lugang and Taipei. We had quite a good time. We also experienced our first earthquake, which I had flashbacks of on Christmas when a little 5.1 hit in the middle of the night, only it felt much bigger because it was in the next county, not across the island. Heather and Mark had their baby, which they told us about at some point previously. No one died and the emotional trauma seems to have been minimal in the long run.

October--October was a dark time. Morale was low, favorite holidays were undercelebrated, there's no need to dwell on it.

November--Let's see. Paul went to the dentist like every Saturday, I worked fitfully on my grad school applications, we celebrated a nice Thanksgiving with the Colonel, and we sold our souls to the Man.

December--Hopefully, you already remember what we did in December. There's no need to re-hash it all. I finished the graduate school application that had to be finished by January 1st, and the others are complete save that pesky writing sample which will be on its way shortly.

Overall, the highlights of the year would be visiting Taipei, making it through Buffy: Seasons 1-3 straight, and graduating, I guess. It's hard because applying for grad school makes it feel like I never finished college.

Well, midnight is long past, and only tomorrow is a holiday, so I'd better get moving bedward.

If It Ain't Snake's Blood and Vodka, It Ain't Worth Drinking

Dear All,

Well, I finally got around to getting some of those Sun Moon Lake pictures I told you about in days of yore. I'll post them shortly. Anyways, I was moving them off of the camera and stumbled across this picture of Unknown Canadian Boy (UCB) attempting to look manly by knocking back of shot of...something. I'm not actually clear from the photo, but according to Audra who was there, it's a taste-tastic combination of snake's blood and vodka she conned this Canadian boy into drinking. Audra actually had him set up with a triple shot of snake's blood, bile, saliva, and vodka for NT$100 (US$3.00), but I guess bravado can only take one so far. I must say though, it makes Snake Alley look far cleaner and less crowded than I imagined.

BTW, if you're a Canadian guy from Toronto who teaches English in Korea and spent the weekend before Christmas in Taipei in a hostel with a blonde Chinese-speaking American (or you recognize yourself from this photo), please send your pictures of Snake Alley to me, as I am told they are way awesomer.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas Now

Merry Christmas all! I thought I post some pictures of Christmas Eve at El Casa Americano. Here's our lovely little Christmas tree, complete with our presents plus the presents of one of our treeless roomies. The stockings hung above the tree (with care and lots of tape, of course) are ours as well. These are the decorations in the kitchen upstairs and this is our Christmas puzzle, completed in one night by myself and master puzzler Li. (Not coincidentally, that was also the night we finished the third season of Buffy.) For Christmas Eve day, we went to Tiger City in Taizhong (by taxi!) and dined at Chili's, which was glorious because it was the exact same food as in America, unlike that sell-out TGI Fridays. We did a little window shopping before hopping in another taxi and heading over Zhongyou department store to purchase dill and shortening at Jason's. They had neither, but I was eventually able to track down some shortening, so there will be rolls for Christmas dinner, although no dill dip.

Christmas was nice, though subdued. Paul and I got up around 7:45 am to open presents before he had to go to work at 8:30 am. Paul got a lot of books (including TwilightWatch, which he previously only had in Russian, and a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's writings including Annabel Lee), two video games, and Sunshine on DVD. I got a beautiful, wonderful, deliriously pleasant bookshelf and accompanying art/shelves, a very cool clock, a couple of video games, the Simpsons movie, some clothes, the Empresses of Constantinople (after three years of searching!), and Season 1 of Angel. Angel is a spin-off of Buffy starring the male romantic lead. We like to call him the Chest because his main character trait is that he apparently lacks the ability to wear a shirt for more than two consecutive scenes. He also broods a lot. Anyways, Paul went off to work and I got ready and then went to work. We kicked off about 1:30-ish and enjoyed much nappage and our Christmas gifts before commencing our personal Mission: Impossible--Christmas Dinner in Taiwan. It was a highly accurate re-creation, though Ranch had to be substituted for dill dip and the eclairs were from Casa Minierva instead of BYU Catering.

The highlight, of course, was talking to most of you all on phone. We miss you terribly on all special occasions and it was nice to be able to share in Christmas with our families, even if it was just for a few minutes by phone.

Merry Christmas!

Ringing in the New Year in the Western Hemisphere?: Pipe Dream de Jour

The above refers to a notion we've been kicking around El Casa Americano. You see, the replacement teachers don't have visas yet. Why you ask? Because they were denied. Oops! It's not like they're supposed to arrive in 12 days or anything. Anyway, we've all been mulling precisely what would happen if those visas never do come. We can't operate with only three teachers. Secretly, we all confessed that we would be delighted if the school had to close and send us all home. It turned out we had all constructed very elaborate fantasies of how we all could be going home. They all started with us ringing in the New Year atop the 101 in a massive party and leaving Taiwan the next day either for America or Thailand (because when can you see Bangkok if not at 3 am?). It will never, ever happen (except the Bangkok 3 am bit for Audra and Bridget and maybe the 101 party if we get the day off instead of Christmas Eve because the new teachers won't be arriving ontime), but it sure is fun to think about. I feel downright giddy now.

I know I shouldn't feel so gleeful about the new teachers' visas being denied, but it's hard not to because they were denied because of their own stupidity. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if you apply for a tourist visa and check any box that doesn't say "tourism" in the purpose of visit section, you're not going to get a visa. Also, one of them is Belgian and I despise all Belgians on the grounds that our apartment is El Casa Americano, not El Casa Americano es Belga. It just doesn't roll off the tongue. Also, I'm not sure Belgians should be abroad at this time of national crisis. (That part is true--the crisis anyway--although I have difficulty taking it seriously. If Belgium were to disappear tomorrow, I feel civilization would somehow find the strength to bravely soldier on.)

Well, I should go rouse Paul. Someone must go to the water station. We've been out for two days now, but Paul stands firm on the idea that it cannot be our turn again until the roommate before us takes a single turn. I argee, but I would rather get the water ourselves and have it, and then mentally curse the slacking roommate for the next week. Thank goodness we have a private supply of water.

Prince Comes to Asia

Greetings, all. I've posted a picture of my lovely new glasses here. (The picture was taken on the fly by me, so it's not great. I took another one, but it was much worse. Available only to discreet family members upon request.) But we're here to talk about the glasses, people. They're purple, perhaps you've noticed. I find them very pleasing. Also, I think my picking them out greatly amused the other people in the store. When I went back to pick them up, the proprietor's child hid behind a counter before being dragged out by her mother. Would not say so much as a word to me, much to her mother's consternation. She was mightly interrogated in Chinese as to why she would not speak to me. Did she not study today? I felt bad for her. It's not like she was chattering away in Chinese either. Anyway, her father told me the glasses were great for college. Evidently there are, for Dad tells me all of his Asian students wear purple glasses.

Not Going Gentle Into That Good Night: The Swan Song of Zombie Shakespeare

Dear All,
I've come to call my laptop "Zombie Shakespeare" of late. I feel this captures its true spirit. Alas, Zombie Shakespeare appears to be not long for this world. It had been acting most peculiar--to the point that I downloaded Norton Antivirus to slay the apparent viral demons. Alack, Alack, 'twas not to be, for Zombie Shakespeare was not being cruelly tortured by the malicious creation of a bored sixteen-year-old, but by the mere ravages of age and underwhelming craftsmanship of Windows.
It began with a series of strokes three days ago. I would turn it on and it would take obscene lengths of time to load Windows, as opposed to the previously abominable time. Then, it would run every thing in staccato for the first, I don't know, hour. But if I stuck with it, Zombie Shakespeare would eventually shake off the dust and carry on.
Yesterday, however, the viral infection proved non-existence, the battery ceased charging at all, and Paul told me he couldn't get it to turn on. Things looked dark, but Zombie Shakespeare gutted it out with a little hand-holding. I moved all of the really important things, like my grad school stuff, the record of payments, and the Christmas episode of Bones onto my iPod. But in my heart, I felt it would keep going, though need repair.
Today, Zombie Shakespeare will not even load Windows, citing an "unmountable volume error." I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad and very permanent. It is also continuously trying to read the DVD/CD drive, apparently unable to determine there is no disk in the drive.
Oh, Zombie Shakespeare, you will be missed.

Zombie Shakespeare

September 2006-December 2007

Lugang Pictures

Here are a few pictures from yesterday's trip to Lugang. The first is the lovely shoemaker and I.

The second is the Tianhou Temple. It's a major tourist/religious attraction and houses a very famous statute of Matzu.

The third is a detail shot of the top of another temple, the fourth is an old-style house that is both well-preserved and inhabited. Quite a number of the homes are still lived in.

Next is the Nanjing Temple, so-called because it was built by immigrants from Nanjing. To the bottom right is a shot of the historical district. It's a really pretty area and a nice break from the endless monotony of concrete multi-story buildings elsewhere. For those of you who just can't get enough (especially of temples--interiors, exteriors, and detail shots), you can always ask me to e-mail you more pictures. I will also put up a pair of short films from the Mormon-loving fanmaker when I learn how to edit movies. The first is him at work and the second is a rapid tour of his store/studio, including the most awesome painting of the Salt Lake temple EVER. (I told you, he loves Mormons.) Li described as "the temple in the apocalypse, when it's been graffitied." I offered to buy it, but it was US$3000.