~ in Taiwan.... (from dec. 18th to jan. 8th) ~

  i hate to sound ungrateful for my 3-week vacation b/c such a long vacation is unheard of for a working person.  but let me just complain a little about the happenings over the past few days. 
  first, the unpleasant start to my trip: my plane from tokyo was delayed by more than two hours due to "mechanical problems." we land in taipei at midnight and i waited another 50 mins for my bag... now this was a bag that i COULD'VE just carried on. but the guy at the counter was like, "well, with your backpack and purse, i suggest that you check this one in..." urgh, back to the story, with only 3 hrs of sleep the previous night, i just wanted to get home.. 
  as everyone around me started leaving the carousel, i fnally see my bag coming down the conveyer belt.  i grab it and heads towards the bus counters so that i can catch a bus towards tainan. to my pleasant surprise, all the buses had already stopped for the night!! a nice airport staff told me that if i go to terminal 1, that buses run 24/7 there.  i quickly hop on a shuttle, get to terminal 1, dash to the counter and ask for a bus to tainan.  the lady goes outside for a sec, comes back and says, "oh sorry, the bus just left. you'll have to catch the next one in another hour. but hey, the sun'll be up when you get there!" by then, the idea of waiting was really nothing new.  i just sat there, pretty much dazed for an hour or so.  at the end of a 4 hr bus ride, i finally reached my home at 6:30am, FOUR hours later than anticipated.

   alrighty, now here for something that ticked me off completely.  last night, i went to the night market w/ nelson.  i stopped at a particular table and was surveying everything quite closely b/c everything was really pretty n sparkly.  i had noticed that the guy manning the table totally didn't acknowledge my existence, but i let it go.  a woman comes along a little later and i hear the guy saying, "welcome, please take your time looking at my products." strange, he didn't say anything to me... 
    as he was still pulling more stuff out to set on the table, i reached across to look at the new stuff he was taking out and he says to me, "lady, you dont' have to look at what i have on my hands if you can't find anything you like that's already there.... everything i have out are all the latest styles, i find it quite unbelievable that you don't seem to like anything." i was a little offended but replied w/ a mild "well, excuse me..."
    i returned to looking at some more stuff on his table and he goes, " if you don't see anything you like, dont' look anymore..." to which i thought, "............ !@#$%^&* !!!!!!!"  he was basically telling me to go away if i wasn't gonna buy anything.  excuse me but what an ASS!!!!!   

      that really ruined my night.... but on the bright side, it's been more than 10 years since i've been in taiwan with nelson so it's been fun just hanging out in our motherland.

~ cooler air and very early sunsets... ~

         apparently my loyal readers are yearning for more so here is an update for ya'll

       last weekend, the president of our sister city's int'l relations association, mr. perk foster, dropped by kamogawa and i realized just how much my english had deteriorated.  all the vocabs i once memorized for the SAT have all gone out the window.  the following are truely what came out of my mouth. 
 ex. 1 -- talking about a benefit concert: "This year, we're just going as guests but next year,  we will do a more formal....... helping out....."
 ex. 2 -- in interpretating for a Japanese person: "She kindly invited me to stay over at her house but I reclined....... I mean, declined."
 ex. 3 -- two weeks ago, i was trying to write "st. louis" on the blackboard for a group of students and here's how it went: "st. loius......st. lious......st. louis....." the saddest part is that i think i ended up sticking with "st. loius".......

       but on a different note, mr. foster is the owner of Foster Needles USA and though i knew that he had clients all over the world, i never knew the extent of the impact of his needles.  he was educating me and here are all the different things that his needles are used for:
    - all the cloth interior of almost all cars
    - the yellow stuff on tennis balls
    - newly paved roads (apparently properly paved roads are suppose to have a thin layer of cloth below the tar)
    - the inner-lining of ALL your sneakers
    and lastly, get this... the outer panels of space shuttles!!!!!!  

    oh oh , and i went to world expo 2005!! here are just a few photos.  it was pretty interesting and now i can say that i've been to at least one world expo ; )

                 ~by the entrance of the expo~

~a building that is designed to reflect the five elements of nature~

~i found the man of my dreams standing right outside the polynesian pavillion~

He knows my name...

He knows my every thought...

He sees each tear that falls...

And hears me when I call...

          He'll never leave me, no matter where I go...

~ let's see...~

     since the last time i updated...

• i lost all the data on my laptop at work
• i started driving 
• went to Korea for the first time (for a weekend but got to hang out with Sharon and her sister) 
• my parents dropped by for a weekend and my mom finally got to see what my life was like here.  (my dad came once last november)
• got all the wheels on my car changed b/c my dad noticed that my tires were basically smooth, w/ zero traction left.  (of course papa Liu took care of the cost : P....BUT i treated my parents for lunch )
• drove to the airport for the first time and got lost in the small, mountain roads with my parents in the car...  
• went to a prefecture-wide city hall v-ball tournament with my city hall team (but they only let me play 3/4 of a set... i was on the scrub team in h.s. and still a bench-warmer in japan...)
• started looking for grad schools in Japan that have dual degree programs with schools in the states... there are two good choices in Tokyo and Kyoto...
• killed two more cockaroaches in my apt
• while surfing the web searching for something else, i came across a website that belonged to the community orchestra of the city next door!! they're still looking for more members AND they have a cello to lend out.  i can't believe i spent a whole year here and didn't know that there was a orchestra 40 mins away from me.

  so a lot has happened and and i've been really confused about many things... things such as if this society will ever learn to accept foreigners and if I'll ever be able to feel like I'm part of this society, as to whether or not I want to stay for a third year or just go to grad school next year... a friend of mine told me to really pray about it where God is guiding me and I realized that it's been such a long time since I last asked for God's opinion on anything. 

   to the wash u folks, hope you guys have another great school year... to those in grad school, hang in there... to those working, you hang in there as well...

~ frustrated....~

      yesterday i came into work, turned on my laptop and noticed something funny. most of the icons that were on desktop were gone and all my files disappeared from in "my document." <my supervisor quickly explained that she used my comp to find something yesterday while i was gone...now i don't wanna say that she is the culprit but she is SOOO bad with computers that she might have something to do with the mess that i'm in now.>

     continuing with the story, i did a search and found that all my work files had been moved to some other folder in C drive.  i did my best to move the files back and thought that comp was acting a bit fishy so decided that i should probably put everything onto a cd before it crashes.  UNFORTUNATELY, i didn't get around to doing that and guess what happens this morning... turn on the comp and some little warning comes up saying that files cannot be found b/c they might be corrupt.  files were gone from "my documents" again but this time, i did a search and nothing came up.  nothing nothing nothing... if i look on the bright side, i have about half a year's worth on a back-up disk but all my work from the past 6 months may just be gone forever....

      dang it... if i had only moved everything onto a disk yesterday...