I Shall Return

Dear Diary-

Remember how I used to write to you? There used to be times when things happened to me and I didn't sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day. I'd tell you stories and once in a blue moon the stories were interesting and made you smile just a tiny bit? Yeah, I vaguely recall those times. Well, Diary, I promise that I'll pay attention to you again real soon. Things do happen to me. I went to Vermont, had a wonderful time at a real, small town celebration, with a big fire and everything, and realized that I may be real adaptable anywhere, but I'm certainly not cut out for farm life. It's mostly because I've grown up spoiled. I'm not used to physical labor or cows who try to eat me (it was afraid of Becca's touch but somehow felt it was OK to try to swallow my hand). Mostly though, it's because I really don't get country music. Except that one Megan showed me with the 14 year old girl all bitter about her man's truck. That little girl had spunk.

And even at work, something interesting happens once in awhile. This week, I held a hand turkey contest called The Epic Epi Turkey Challenge 2007 (you can't call it first annual, because Gak said so). But I have to go to bed now, so I'll bottle all these stories inside and not share them with you the way emotionally stunted people do. Good night.

(more on making boring phone calls to big pharmas)

Whitecastle: Did you give anyone my name? Should I be expecting any bombs in the mail?

Moi: Only once. This place would only give me an application if I said it was for a doctor, so I said that you were the doctor.

Doctor Whitecastle: Well, I am a doctor.

Moi: That's right, a real doctor. Two times a doctor, even. (he's got an MD and PhD. sickening)

Doctor Whitecastle: I'm two times the doctor they'll ever be! Ha!

Sometimes he gets carried away and forgets that I'm talking to customer representatives, representatives who are of no threat to him...

Walrus Among Us

Is this not the goofiest animal you have ever seen (ok, maybe tied with the sea lion)? It boggles me how the God who created brilliant foliages and birds who could make their own hooks and avocadoes would also create an animal like the walrus. What do they do again?

Good Work

There was a costume themed lunch at work today, so I went in ninja outfit. Ninja outfit just means wearing all black plus a mask and shades, a mask I only put on for the first few minutes of lunch and a brief meeting with my supervisor (who called me a "nut" yesterday, affectionately, I hope), whose idea it was to have the costumes. Of course, as God would have it, I put my mask on right when our division chief entered the office and made his greeting rounds. There are very few contexts in which chief actually knows me in. Dropping my pen loudly as he made a speech would be one. And wearing inappropriate work clothes on not-Halloween would be another. The man has been in Japan for two weeks, came into work late today, and it just so happens that the moment he enters would be the moment I put my mask on?

As I may have mentioned, the past week and a half has been spent calling pharmaceutical companies and talking to their customer service reps. It's tedious, soul-draining work and today, I talked to the doc in charge about it...

Moi: ... has to be one of the worst tasks ever.

Doc Whitecastle: Really? The paper is going to be interesting.

Moi: Yeah, it'll be interesting for you, but the calling is terrible.

Doc Whitecastle: Don't you know that what's good for me is good for you?

When I grow up, I want kids to boss around, too.

Conditional Love

These are the good people that raised me, standing in front of some gorgeous sunset clouds in Taiwan.

Mother called today and left a message in my voicemail, it began, as always, with "This is your birth mother calling," drifted into how she missed me (Sesame: "It's not because you're a good kid, they're obligated to say such things") and ended with my mother telling me to take care of myself, to dress warmly and eat well... which all sounded nice and loving until she mentioned that I shouldn't forget to eat vegetables, "but if you do have vegetables, you should try to steam/boil it [as opposed to stir fry], because you don't want to grow chubbier than you already are."

Miss you, too, Mother.

Three Random Thoughts

1. Crisp fall days are colder than I remembered.

2. Things I Am Allergic To:
  Llama, not ginkgo biloba, dust, unknown seafood substance, my grandfather's house, and most recently: farm life.  Or EB's cat.  Or EB's house.  Or EB's blankets/sheets/pillows.  Or just Vermont itself.  There was something on that farm that made me sneeze so much that I'm not sure if I still have a soul.

3. Dear 5-7 Pounds:
  Yes, we had a great time meeting each other in Taiwan.  But it's been a little over a week now and I'm not eating as much crap as I did then.  So please, leave me.  Leave me now.

Bitterly,
Fleshy and Confused

Ice Caps Melting

This has been the most Bo'-intense hour I've had outside of the Bo' itself.  I just bumped into two Bo' alums en route to my lunch with Lisa (another alum).  Zvi apparently works in my building.  Now, this kind of stuff might fly in Cambridge, or around MGH, where Bo' alums abound, but it never happens in this neck of the woods.  I can go whole months without running into Bo' folks and then suddenly, two separate encounters within ten minutes and a lunch with Lisa to boot.  And whilst I was just riding up in the elevator, pondering these things, a gentleman noticed my fleece and asked if I went to the Bo'.  He was interested because, you see, he had grown up in Brunswick.  I don't think what remains of this hour can get any more Bo'-intense, though I'm half expecting a polar bear to come charging into my cubicle, just to join in the fun.

In His Court

Every time Pastor Paul speaks, I like going to this new church a little more. The past Sunday, he talked about how people ask him if it's fair to pray over sports outcomes. And how he prays for the players more so than the team, mentioning supporting JD Drew when he was having a hard time earlier in the season. Pastor Paul wants to win spiritual battles and he's concerned that players grow closer to God than anything else. "But just in case," he said at the end, "just in case it matters- keep the Red Sox in your prayers."

Otherwise I'm Fine, What About You?

Why did everyone choose to go crazy today?

Lay of the Land

Note to self: If one does not cook and pack a good lunch the night before, one will not eat a good lunch at noon.  Similarly, if one slacks off and half-asses making a lunch, someone will notice the shift in quality the next day, and that someone is you, you moron.

 

Lunches have stopped appearing magically before my eyes.  Dinners, too.  I miss my wealth of polar points.

Great Expectations

Over the past two weeks, I thought a great deal about things. I pondered death and aging, race relations, the meaning of homeland, Joe Torre's legacy, and other weighty matters I was going to share with you. But my internet was conveniently down during most of that time. And while I could still tell you my views on all these things, the momentum has sort of passed. And new things are coming to my attention. Like all the pregnancy speculations surrounding Jennifer Lopez.

I really hope J. Lo is pregnant. Because it'd really suck if she wasn't and everyone just assumed that she was.

Elephant in the Yard

Went for an afternoon stroll in Hukou's "old town" with my parents last week. We ventured into the courtyard of a Catholic church and made our way up a small hill. This was our first view of the top. For some reason, Mother thought the most interesting things on the hill were the green apples on the tree. Nothing else seemed out of place to her.

Closet Comforts

I hate phone calls.  And having the grunt job of doing nothing all week but calling dozens of pharma companies does not make me like phone calls any better.  In fact, surprisingly, it makes me resent making calls all the more.  There is one perk to making calls all day though- at least for today.  I get to use a closet office of one of our part-time programmers.  The office has no windows and the door locks behind it.  It's not even within our division suite but accessed through the main hallway, right next to the copy room.  Do you see how beautiful this is?  There is no one watching over my shoulders as I type.  There is no one watching over my shoulders as I do anything.  No one is here but me.  When I grow up, I want to have a closet office all to myself.  Until then, I've got two more hours of this to enjoy.  Then for the rest of the week, I'm doing calls in an open space where people can see and hear.  And where I cannot watch videos during my down time, as I can here.  I should strive to be a programmer.  And program things.

Sidelined

Almost back. The internet at home has been down since I've been home and now it's finally back up. I know, whose internet is ever down anymore? It all seems very 90's. And even though I'm late for work, I can't resist checking to see if every site I ever needed was still there. There are videos to be watched, people to gripe about, and pictures to post. Fingers crossed that the good fate continues tonight, when I get home.

Jesus Loves Me This I Know

There are a lot of bad drivers in Taiwan.  Or perhaps they're all really good drivers.  Everyone's is aggressive, no one uses turn signals, and there's a lot of passing in narrow lanes with incoming traffic.  Taiwanese drivers make Boston drivers look like Hello Kitty.  Whenever Father and Mother see an especially atrocious and rude driver, being the sociologically insensitive generalizers that they are, they like to accuse the other sex of the offense.  So riding in the car is a lot of "psh, women drivers."  "I bet that was a guy.  Only a man would drive like that."  "All bad drivers are women."  "No, they're men.  Look at that one."  "Women."  "Men."  "Women."  "Men."  Really, I can't believe I'm leaving all this fun tomorrow to go home to ride in the sanctuary of my own car to my own music.

 

 

(As father tries to pull out of a tight parking space in a tiny garage today...)

 

Moi: Why don't you just hit the car [badly parked in front of us]?  No one will see but us and Jesus and I'm sure Jesus will forgive you.

 

Father: That's great about Jesus, but if I scratch his car, I also scratch my car.  I don't want the car to get scratched.

 

Sometimes, Jesus' grace just doesn't quite cut it.

Farewell My Vacation

Leaving for Boston via Tokyo then San Francisco tomorrow morning, which means that tomorrow, I'll be saying goodbye to my blissful two-weeks off of work.  Don't actually know when I'll have such a carefree stretch of time off again.  Perhaps not for months, or even years.  We'll see. 

 

So I bid adieu tonight to Taiwan.  To street vendor food at every corner (beef balls, salty fried chicken, freshly steamed bread, etc., etc.), 7-11's that can do anything you need it to, from bill paying to DVD pick-ups to child rearing, to grandparents, aunts, family friends, parents, and brother.  Goodbye to mountain climbing, endless shopping and ridiculously cute things, to living among the mentally challenged and smelly dogs who love me.  Goodbye to small cars and reckless driving, to waking up late, and not exercising mind, body, or soul.  To baseball games in the morning, Korean Grey's Anatomy ripoff at 10pm, and snacks all day long.  To people who look like me and also speak Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent.  To being a tourist and discovering rural poverty in my own country, and to so much more I can't remember right now.  I hope I can see all of you again soon.  For the time being, I'm off to the Commonwealth.

Grandfather Clause

Grandfather (dad's side, so not the one I hung out with last summer) seems to be the only person in the world convinced that I can and should become a doctor.  Not that I'm not considering, but he's completely dead set on it.  And have you ever tried to say 'no, let's wait and see how smart I am' to your ninty-year old grandfather?  It's very hard.  You know what else is hard?  Remembering three languages at the age of ninty.  He speaks Taiwanese mostly, Mandarin to me, the youngest grandchild who knows the least Taiwanese, and somewhere in the back of his mind, is Japanese, which he speaks to no one nowadays but still keeps fresh.  I hope I keep my tongues like that when I'm old.  It'd come in especially handy for cross-culture TV watching.

 

I have never seen a Korean soap I haven't shaken my head at (though sometimes I keep watching, and watching) and a Japanese game show I don't enjoy.  I don't like the shows for their zaniness, but there's an earnestness and innocence in the contestants that you don't see in reality TV in the States.  On the game show I watched today, two chefs duked it out over three courses using the finest of ingredients.  In today's case, it was kobe beef against some really, really expensive tuna.  What happens is that the two chefs make their ridiculously luxurious food that normal people could never afford to eat, then a panel of celebrities vote on whose food they'd rather have.  Those that vote for the winning chef get to eat the food and those that vote for the loser don't.  It's very simple yet extremely cruel.  You basically watch two people make equally mouth watering food in front of you, have to somehow choose between the two, and if you make the wrong choice, you end up watching other people eat really good food while you sit there with nothing.  My mom said they once had an episode with kids on the panel.  And a few of the losing kids started crying when the winners started eating.  That ought to teach the kids not to strive for things they may not reach.

Myth of the Model Lush

My extended family does not know me very well.  It has something with my shyness growing up, with the fact that I am the youngest on my dad's side of the family, and that our family never lived close to any other members of the extended family.  They just know me from the occasional visits during the holidays, visits that became more rare as the years went by.  Thus, there are many family myths about me based off of impressions and outdated tidbits and perhaps stories from my parents, because all parents are obligated to share proud stories of their children.  According to family myths, I am good and serious and quiet and above all, an excellent student.  That's pretty much all that they know about me.  Except for one more thing- 

 

there seems to be the mistaken impression that I can handle my alcohol.  It's a myth that both sides of my extended family believe.  I'm not sure how all this happened, but I guess it goes back to my visit before the last (the summer going into my junior year of high school, about six years ago), a visit that has apparently made an impression.  Twice this trip, I've declined offers of beer or drank very little only to have an aunt comment that it was ok and bring up that they remembered I could drink quite a bit.  "No, not really," I replied modestly the first time, but my aunt said, "no, I remember you keeping up with your uncle quite well."  I remember my uncle filling my glass with beer all night to see if I'd loosen up if drunk, and a bit disappointed that nothing much happened.  But it couldn't have been more than two cans of beer.  And some nasty home brewed wine.  I don't know how the myth developed on my mom's side.  I probably drank so much with yet another uncle that I blacked out the whole experience.  Though it's not likely.  Because everyone knows that goody PKs who are short and have an aldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency can down drinks with the best of them. 

 

Go Sox. 

Vacation Vexations

For the past few days, I have been away on a vacation within my vacation, sightseeing in parts of Taiwan that I haven't been before and some I have many moons ago.  It has also been a vacation, I suppose from my sanity, as I somehow got talked into waking up early to go hiking at 5 am yesterday.  I don't exercise regularly, let alone climb things with summits.  Summits and I don't get see eye to eye.  Perhaps because they're so high up.  And yet, yesterday, I was there hiking away for a good 4 hours.  That's one sixth of my day I could have spent not moving.  And making cracks about the Bible. 

 

Brother:  4 am?  That's before either Jesus or the sun gets up.

 

Mother:  Before Jesus gets up?  "Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep."*

 

Brother:  Pretty sure that's talking about his dad and not Jesus.

 

(earlier, trying to convince our family friend to skip her Bible study the next morning to hang out with us- we have lots of friends who are pastors that need to be convinced away from sermon prep and fasting to hang out with the family)

 

Brother:  What's there to study?  Everything in the Bible is truth, that's all they need to know.

 

Moi: Yeah, if they haven't figured out the Bible at this point, there's probably no saving them.

 

 

 

 

*The quote, my heathen friend(s?), is from Psalm 121, one that should be easily recognizable to my Judeo-Christian friends.  Unless they're bad Judeo-Christians.   

Tell Me Where in the World Is...

I swear, if one more person asks me how I'm doing in China...

Reason #21 Why I Love Chinar

(slash why I felt oppressed by its faceless bureaucracy my entire time there)

 

For the easily confused, let me explain that I am not in Chinar right now.  I'm in Taiwan.  Yet this story is about Chinar, not Taiwan.  You got that?  I heard this from one of our greatest family friends.  She was on a ten-hour bus ride to Beijing, and about eight hours into the ride, traffic halted.  For a very long time.  So much so that passengers and drivers alike got out of their vehicles to relieve themselves and chat.  And cuss.  For a very long time.  Our friend said that they had tried to hold the flow in in the hopes of not having to use any public restrooms between lunch and Beijing, but as the afternoon wore on, they started feeling miserable and traffic still wasn't moving.  Her and her friend were teh only two people who didn't get off the bus to pee on teh side of the road so finally, the bus driver turned to her and asked, "Miss, how badly do you have to go?"  And let her use the lavatory in the back of the bus.  Which was apparently locked the entire ride.  All the other passengers had to just find a spot along the highway, our friend inspired special pity.  Soon after, the sun settled down and the toll workers packed up and went home.  That's right.  Buses, cars, and people were all still jammed along the road, but the highway workers, assuming that their work was done (if no one moves, what's there to collect?), left for the night.  Around dinner time, our friend noticed that people all around her were digging into bowls of instant noodles.  "Strange!  How did they all come prepared?" she wondered, "what are the chances that everyone packed noodles?"  She soon found the answer when she heard the call of noodle vendors walking along the highway.  The traffic problem is apparently so regular and prevalent outside of Beijing that there are regular food vendors that walk along the highways, selling nourishment to weary travellers.  These people's livelihood depend on traffic to be so backed up that people literally stand still for hours.  At one point late in the night, amidst much ruckus and complaining and patronizing between passengers, it was announced that everyone should go to sleep because they weren't going anywhere.  And so people got back into their cars and buses and tried to sleep.  Around 1am, traffic started moving inch by inch, and around 4am, which was about 12 hours later than expected, our friend finally arrived in Beijing. Stories like that make me grateful that my ridiculous commute is 'only' an hour and a half long.  And that the very, very worst traffic only adds forty-five minutes to any drive instead of twelve God-forsake and bathroom-less hours.

 

Conversation highlights along the way:

 

Friend: So what happens, say, if a person has a heart attack in this traffic?

Local 1: Sucks to be that person.

 

 

Local 2: Socialist state, my foot!  Look at this mess.  These people ought to be lined up and shot.