Okays, epic blogging shall commence!

Okay, yes, epic blogging needs to take place.

I was going to make further comments to respond to some of the responses I got about my politics post, but it took me a while to calm down and try to gather my thoughts, and by now it's passed and I think everyone wants a break from politics. <3 Suffice it to say that some were quite hurtful, some were very helpful and all were appreciated. At the very least, the uproar drove me to do more research and soul-searching and I know better than before what I believe.

"You've Got The Touch" is my theme song for Taiwan, I think. My iPod "on-the-go" playlist has that song, "Today" by the Smashing Pumpkins, "Tears and Rain" by James Blunt, "Right Now (Na Na)" by Akon and "To Be Alone With You" by Sufjan Stevens." Pretty pensive, most of it, I realize.

I'm moved. To Taipei. I'm comfortably ensconced in my cousin's old room (she's now in Sacramento) in the house of an uncle I never visited much growing up. It's interesting. My uncle and aunt are very sweet to me. They, like my parents, are currently "childless" since their daughters are both in California, so I guess they like having me around too. There's very unreliable Internet here (and I can't connect on their network), so I'm going to be online a lot less in future or something. I'll do a lot more walking instead. My laptop screen is getting much worse, so it's a pain to work with anyway. I will miss the World Wide Web, but I'm pretty sure it'll still be around when I get back to virtual reality.

It's very quiet at home, and I have never been more 乖 (well-behaved) in my life. I eat what I'm told, when I'm told. I say "please" and "thank you!" I contribute a little bit to conversation and pleasantly remove myself from public attention whenever needed. I wake up when told and go to sleep on my own. I even brush my own teeth. How pleasant I am!!

Yes, I'm impressed myself. ^_^

I'm regressing to immature, kiddie talk about myself because people in Taiwan treat me so. I have never been an incredible fan of certain aspects of Taiwanese culture, but I'm having worse and worse culture shock every time I come back. Heh. I threw a mini-tantrum yesterday (and of course ended up very sorry) because I was at the doctor's, and he was asking about my health exam from June. I tried to explain to him and honestly didn't do such a bad job of it, but he just sort of smiled and nodded and called me 妹妹 and told the nurse to get my mom. I was really annoyed for not being treated like an adult, but ah well. What did I expect... It's just not fair. Girls younger than I do get treated older, but I look like a baby and my Chinese is a little rusty, so...? Okay, I'm not going to the doctor with my mom around any more. Poor Mommy. :P <3

Anyway, another thing I'm frustrated with is the sort of "mi business es su business" and vice versa attitude pervasive in attentive Taiwanese culture. I don't handle it very well, and so I get irritated when people are just trying to be thoughtful. I'm so used to doing my own thing by now, heh. It's just... weird. I know that some of it is culture, and some of it is probably well-founded personal irritation, but still. It comes a little hard to remember that I can't just come sweeping in with my notions of culture and try to impose them on others... good reminder for me.

I went to sleep last night around midnight. It was weird, because it's the earliest I've slept in a while (jet lag notwithstanding). I unpacked my few things - I left most of my clothes in Hsinchu because Mom and I took the high-speed rail yesterday - and then lay down and started reading my cousin's collection of One Piece manga. It's good Chinese practice for me. I fell asleep and dreamed of stepping on Joceline Liu's toenail polish in one of the Jester dorm rooms. That was pretty random, I agree. I woke up at 8 this morning and felt incredibly virtuous, because I did it without the help of an alarm clock!

...Yes, I need to get a working cell phone so I at least have an alarm clock.

I went to the OMF prayer meeting thing for the first time this morning. I walked from here to here. That will be great exercise in future. I liked the meeting... we talked about different generational traits from Boomers to "Gen Y" and then how they view missions based on their life outlooks. It was interesting and surprisingly accurate. You have no idea how nice it is to be involved in a ministry where I work with people who speak my native language. Of course my parents don't understand this because they DO work in their native language. I met a lot of cool people and reconnected with a missionary lady I met when I lived in Hsinchu. I loved her. <3 She is awesome. I will stop trying to talk like a high school girl now kthnx.

In the afternoon, we went to an elementary school to take a bunch of kids bowling. I completely forget about this sometimes, but I used to teach elementary school (before I went to college) and we had a lot of kids there with difficult backgrounds/learning disabilities too. I love Taiwanese elementary schools - well, from a perspective of authority, anyway - ;p - so I had a fantastic time. I'm tired as anything, but those kiddies are so adorable. Poor babies. One of the kids has no parents 'cuz his dad's running from the police (I hear) and his mom's already in jail or something. :( He lives with his big brother. Little cutie was such a handful, but he actually bowled two strikes. I have been put to shame. Not hard, but honestly, to a 3rd grader? On his first go? Good thing I'm not proficient enough at anything to still be very competitive. :P The little girls latched onto me. One of them tried to make me give her my shirt (no) and buy her food (no). One little boy screamed in my face. Good thing I have a lot of training with ornery little boys. I think he kind of likes me now. I love him too. <3 I can't resist anyone who says, "You don't love me!" I'm screwed as a parent, because I've also forgotten how to NOT laugh when a kid does something incorrigible. Man, I love kids.

After that, I went off and spent the early evening with Sara, the other visiting OMF Serve Asia volunteer girl. She's from Belgium and fresh out of college as well. She's... quite girly. Sara, I think you'll be good for me. But no being bad influences for each other. ;p I foresee us hanging out if we ever get any spare time.

I personally plan to stay quite busy... I have OMF kidlets on Wed/Sat, 28 hours of BV per week, projects to finish (studying for GRE, revamping resume, writing internship application for Wired, reading a lot of books, getting back to work on memorizing Bible things), sleep to catch up on, and people to meet up with.

I'm back to feeling that "I'm so glad to be alive" sensation... the one I used to experience walking to school most mornings in Austin. I really, really like knowing I have something to wake up to. Ugh, structure is a wonderful thing.

I've had a few down days of late because life doesn't go the way I want it to, and I see no foreseeable change in that in some ways... but I think I'm learning good lessons. It's very hard to see people I deeply love in miserable situations, especially when they got themselves there. I wish I could stop loving them because it hurts me too, but I know people have to do what they must to get where they want to be... if only because I need that exact same freedom.

Back to listening to "You've Got The Touch"... time to walk home. It's a looong way to go. <3 I love walking. I love Taipei. And God is good to me. <-- I still don't feel "spiritual" enough to say this, but I do when I mean it, even if I don't feel it.