wooooww

I spent the last hour or so going through the blog. It's amazing - almost like going back in time!! I couldn't help laughing at some of the nutty things I wrote :p

An update is in order, no?!! It has been a couple of years after all.

Let's ignore the last whiny post and start from September '07! So in short, I worked at UofT for year (remember it was supposed to be a temporary gig, but they asked me to stay on longer..) It was a good job, I learned a lot. The pay was really good and the people were great.

After my year at UofT was over, I applied to go back to school. Shocking, I know! But sometimes I think it's the best decision I've made in the last few years.

As of Sep '08, I've been studying Fundraising and Volunteer Management at Humber College. It's a 1-year program, so I will be finishing my second semester in just under 2 months. In the third semester I have to take on an internship to complete my studies...that is what's keeping me preoccupied at the moment.

So in a nutshell: last year I was working, and this year I've been studying to become a fundraiser =) It's amazing, life is unpredictable sometimes. I never would have imagined myself being in this position..being in such an amazing program and receiving invaluable training from industry leaders. The future is bright, I'm excited by the possibilities.

Now the blog is all caught up! see you in about two years...

Life goes on

I think I'm going through a quarter life crisis. It sounds lame but it's true :)

...

I don't know what to do..

Since finishing school exactly two years ago I haven't stayed in Canada for more than two months at a time - not because I hate it here but because there have always been better opportunities elsewhere. Now I'm coming to the end of month 2 and I'm kind of freaking out!

I have a stable job...and a plan (I plan to apply to go back to school next Aug.) but here's my dilemma...what do I do in the meantime?? I have two options:

Option 1: Stay put, live at home with the family and work and volunteer. And maybe take a course or two at UofT.

Option 2: Go to Seoul for the year and save money for school.

Both have their own pros and cons...and I'm really struggling with making the right choice. BTW, I'm turning 26 this week - could that have anything to do with my restlessness?? :p

Update!

My Taiwan adventure has come to an end! I don't know which was more difficult...saying goodbye to my friends and students or coming back to a city with virtually no prospects for meaningful employment...(by that I mean something that would make use of the years I spent studying International freaking Development)

Anyway, as of June/07 I'm no longer in Taichung, Taiwan... what an amazing experience that was! I met great people and had so many fantastic adventures (and some misadventures too :p). I got to travel a bit which was EXCELLENT! I visited friends in South Korea and went to Singapore and Malaysia for a long weekend. And I know a bit of mandarin now... if I want to keep it though I should study here too.

For now, I'm doing temp work at the University of Toronto (Accessibility Services). So all I'm sure of at this moment is that I'll be in Toronto until Oct/07 working and volunteering. After that, the sky's the limit!

You know the best thing about Chinese New Year? We get a week off work!! Alhamdulillah, I need a break.

hello year of the Pig! I wonder what the year holds for me as a Rooster =)

I'm posting this to say that i had a break thru moment yesterday when I realized WHY I had been severely underutilizing this thing for the past year...school.

yeah, if you look back a couple of years it just so happens that a majority of my posts are about school! mostly about how it's been a pain in my ass day in day out. now that I'm out of school it's like I don't have anything to complain about. in reality I do, but those annoyances don't bother me to the extent that I feel i have to write about them.. hm. yea so that's why I haven't been posting. I'm not making excuses, I'm just saying...

anyway, everything is great here in the R.O.C. (and by great I mean tolerable). I'm doing more work to fill in the huge amounts of free time I have. In addition to the classes, I do private tutoring. Two of my students are a dentist couple who work from 9am to 10pm, five days a week! why they choose to spend their lunch break talking with me is beyond me...

so just to recap since that last spastic post (there really was an earthquake, first time I've been in one), I haven't been up to much. For new years while everyone was partying and drinking and maybe experimenting with drugs, I was on a vow of silence. Yep for four days not a word came out of my mouth. Why I did that I don't know but I felt like it was something I had to do. I went paintballing this weekend. I have the bruises to prove it :p it was fun. very different. there was a mishap when I kept shooting at the ref (gave him a nice whack on the neck) but that was the only blemish on the whole day.

that's about it for now =)

EARTHQUAAAAAAAAAKE!

EVERYONE RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

My housemate is going to Korea next month, she'll be staying with a friend who came to visit me in October. I won't be able to go for a couple of reasons, that's OK though. I have a plan brewing, hoping to visit indonesia or malaysia before I go home in June - we'll see how it goes!

other than that, everything is going fine. I really need to start eating better tho. yea yea we could all use a better diet, but mine's pretty damn messed up. I eat crap most of the day and after work (9:00) I'll get a pang of hunger that I can't ignore - and in a frenzy of intense need, I'll grab and eat the nearest…edible…thing, which, when I'm lucky, is not a human. Next thing I know, thirty minutes will have passed and I'll be lying on a pile of 150NT worth of 'food' from McDonald's. It is at these times when I am at my weakest, and I hang my head in shame - knowing that all I need to complete the scene would be a huge pot belly covered with condiments from my spoils.

I've heard eating small meals is the best way to go. and I'm going to work on eating big breakfasts...first tho, I'll work on getting up early enough to eat breakfast in the first place. after that the sky's the limit! I figure I'll be fine if I just keep eating little healthy things before I get too hungry to resist that damn McDonalds.

My friend in Korea is damn hillarious..

From time to time i have some elderly person push me in a shocking way (for no reason) in subways or in busy streets and not say sorry. "Sorry"?? what's that? Especially when people are trying to get off from elevators or trains, the "normal" thing to do would be to step aside and let them off first before you enter, right?!! *beep* wrong!! the way we mostly do it here is, as soon as you see the sliding doors opening, just PUSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH push your way in, baby!! push, kick if you have to, damn it!! Just find yourself in the train or elevator before those suckers from behind you find the good warm seats that these suckers who're getting off the trains or elevators left.

A while back, I got pushed by this old man who was carrying a big load on his back. He pushed me with his hands and i remember going "excuse you, sir!" and quickly glanced at those hands he pushed me with ('cause it kindda hurt). And ya i remember thinking where the hellllll is he going with clenched fists like that? a boxing match. a boxing match with a poor ethiopian who wanders the streets of seoul and mind her own business? :))))) ya sometimes, seriously, seoul subways and crowded areas are just big boxing rings. And darn it, you definitely have to put on your boxing gloves!! Quite frankly, i'm starting to push a little myself. When i'm in a crowded place or i'm in a hurry and don't feel like waiting for people to get off trains or elevators, i pushhhh. i push and i push. when in korea, do as the koreans do, baby!!

hehe, no pushing in Taiwan fortunately :)

the power of the blog

After reading the last post I was like "wait a minute?!" and I got off my ass and did something...

As of this Monday, I started subbing for a kindergarten in Taiping and I started doing more regular private tutoring...I work at kindy from 930 to 1130 so I don't have much free time ANYMORE! that's good and bad. good because I make more money (way more money!), bad because I don't HAVE FREE TIME ANYMORE!! I miss my free time but thankfully I'll get it back after two weeks when the regular teacher comes back..

I tell you this thing is better than therapy...

how exciting?

change is good, no? =)

well everything is still going smoothly here. getting better and better at this thing they call teaching. I'm getting a little restless though...seems like everyday is like the day before. and the day before was like the day before that, and so on and so on.

so to illustrate my litte predicament here's a quick rundown of an average day (which is to say EVERYDAY)

9:00 - Wake up

9:00 to 3:00 - Kill time running errands, shopping, watching tv, picking my nose, staring into space, etc.. if i'm lucky I'll spend a couple of hours tutoring uni students here and there.

3:30 - leave for work

4:00 to 10:00 - At work, preparing, teaching, marking homework

10:30 - come home, eat dinner (and by dinner I mean candy)/watch movie

?? - sleep whenever

THEN I GET TO START ALL OVER AGAIN THE NEXT DAY! EXCITING STUFF OR WHAT?!

yea so the irony of Taiwan is neverending...every day it's something new. The other day I was at a night market with a friend (african american from chicago) and we were approached by a group of hardcore goth teens - head to toe in black and metal studs - they asked if they could take pictures with us....and here i was thinking THEY were the odd ones. If my Ethio friend from Korea was still here she would've shouted something like "nigga please! I should be taking a picture of your ass. Freak!"

I guess it's all about perspective lol!

Chinese class was interesting today, our teacher asked me to say "The teacher wants to take a cup" so I did, or I thought I did. instead I said, "the teacher wants to take the child." Taken literally that shouldn't mean much right?? Haha but noo, lucky for me there's a special meaning to that - abortion. The teacher laughed for a good minute and finally topped long enough to explain why she was laughing. heh, good times! we say some crazy things in that class.

it's pretty cool though to be almost, kinda, semi-functional in a new language. I'm getting better each day and even though I know I'll never master the writing or anything it's still cool to understand words here and there!

zai chien =)