Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Jun 14 2002

The office is very quiet today. A large portion of…

The office is very quiet today. A large portion of our staff have departed for Prague. This includes the Vampires, who are probably off visiting their ancestral homes in the area, but not, unfortunately, Ally McNoying. In any case, the office has been relatively well-lit and quiet today. To celebrate, we had Peking Duck, cookies and Champagne for lunch on the basketball court one floor down, and I got a chance to talk with our Apple guy about the feasibility of getting a Mac. The mood here is becoming a little festive as we get closer to the company trip, which I am not taking. Kirk and I might take the opportunity to go visit Green Island and/or Orchid Island, or, barring that, I might to go Kending or someplace like that, since I’m not particularly interested in kicking around Taipei for five days.

Tui-shou practice last night was rather grueling. I went from partner to partner, and each person had a different style and different knowledge to impart. The teacher was teaching a certain technique that ideally resulted in one’s opponent being thrust backward into the wall, and the result was a contant BOMP….BOMP of bodies hitting the padded walls. “Sounds like Jurassic Park in here,” one of my fellow students remarked. It was a good workout.

I was halfway through my shower last night, after just lathering up with “Ice Blue” soap that feels really cold after being left on for a few seconds, when the water cut off. No, it wasn’t our turn for water rationing; it was one of my clueless roomies using the other shower, which automatically cuts off my water, leaving me dripping wet, soapy and verbally abusive for the next ten minutes. It turned out that it was the fellow from Japan who is over here studying Chinese. I sat in the living room waiting for him to finish his shower. When he came out, I explained the situation to him. “Didn’t you hear me cursing?” I asked, since there’s a vent between the two bathrooms and you can hear everything.

“Oh, I thought maybe you were rehearsing for a play,” he said. Brilliant. All of this got me thinking of moving again, of course. Maoman, who is planning on moving out to Xizhi, has said I can move into his place out near the Wanlung MRT station. It’s a nice place, a walk-up rooftop deal, partially cement, and he’s done a great job rennovating it. It’s also a bit expensive for me, though. One of the points of moving a bit out of the city would be cheaper rent, and his rent is half again as much as what I’m paying now, and doesn’t even include an elevator. I’m also not terribly confident that there’s many places to eat in the vicinity, but I can deal with that. The bathroom and kitchen are in the same room, which is kind of wierd, and you have to walk in an outside walkway to get to it. This shouldn’t be a problem unless the neighbors would call the police if they saw me walking around nekkid on the balcony.

Since the 4th floor, aka the “Foreigner Floor” is also for rent, Dean, Kay and I plan to go out and have a look some time this weekend. It would be cool to live near friends but not with them. In many ways it’s ideal, close to nature but not too far out of the city. I don’t know if I need that much space, though, and paying more for rent would make me even more dependent on a job I dislike. It’s a tough decision.

We might go see the place on Saturday, but I have a Dragonboat party out in Nangang later in the day, and there’s a group interested in putting on a stage version of Casablanca on Sunday, followed by Tai-chi practice that evening. And Little P just called; He is coming to town and wants to get together. Since I’m once again wearing my waterproof shoes, the chances of another being busy yet not terribly productive are higher than that of getting any rain this weekend.

I should be able to decide on a publisher for the Damn Book soon, at least for the Chinese version. I also need to get busy working US publishers/agents as well, since the New York Times, amazingly enough, hasn’t been knocking on my door demanding an interview.

posted by Poagao at 7:46 am  

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