A little slice of Taipei heaven

Oh how to begin.  Beasts.  We have been working like beasts.  Here is a typical day:  Wake up at 7am.  Fail.  Try again at 7:30am. Almost succeed.  Finally emerge at 8am. Stumble to the bathroom/shower (the shower is actually just a hose and drain in the floor - economical, or sketchy?  You decide.)  Abulations performed, I depart in a shamefully cheap cab at 8:15am.  I purchase various rice-y breakfasts, then stumble into SAT class, where I proceed to make self-deprecating jokes until my students laugh at me with a mixture of affection and pity.  I smile, confident in the scientifically proven correlation between adorable SAT teachers and SAT score improvements.  Suddenly realize that I may not be as adorable as I think I am.  And correlation still doesn't equal causation, dammit.  Smile falters. 

12pm.  Lunchtime.  Preptime.  Naptime.  Our midday meal is usually purchased from the food truck lady or the 7-Eleven.  Just for the record, 7-Eleven is the healthy option, but food truck lady is the delightful option.  Also, our colleague Connie translated the food cart menu so now we can knowledgably order such dishes as "fatty awesome pork noodles", "trouty rice", and "magical makes you skinny soup".  Coniferous, we miss you dearly, but bau-bau lives on. 

1:30pm.  TLA class.  Aka, a bunch of teenagers practicing English in between their packed flirting schedules.  It's a rough life, kids.  Early on I expressed my devotion to dumplings.  Now, everytime they have a free writing assignment, guess what it's about?  Dumplings.  Always, dumplings.  I don't mind, but I feel that I'm getting a reputation.  Seriously, there's more to me than dumplings.  Like cheese.  And wine.  And wine and cheese.  Why does no one appreciate me for the complex glutton that I am?! 

5pm.  Dumpling dinner, because those damn kids brainwashed me into dumplings agian.  I never would have done it otherwise.  Really.  I swear.  It doesn't help matters that we have an amazing underground dumpling/potsticker place right outside our door.  5 kimchi, 5 garden vegetable, roughly a $1.50 USD.  But the heart disease?  Priceless.

Next up?  Tutoring.  At this point, I'm delirious.  I start holding up signs that say, "Read the question.  No, I wasn't kidding.  Read it again.  Really."  But I also liberally reference comic book movies, so our tutor-student bond remains in tact.

8pm/9:30pm.  Work is done.  Andi is tired. Andi says she's going to go home and sleep.  Or veg.  Or grade essays.  Or take over the world.  But definitely not go out.  Because that would just be crazy.  Crazy, I tell you.  Crazy.

I won't do it. I won't go out.  You can't make me.

No, I will not wear sunglasses at swanky bar at night.  That would just be ridiculous. 

Friends, this will all be over in a week.  Then my posts might start to make a bit more sense.  At the very least, they will be more food-oriented.  And the word on the street is, trips out of Taipei will happen.  For now, I leave you with the emblem of my month of July:  money, essays, and dorm beds.

  Mo' money, mo' problems.  Or mo' essays.  Or mo' dumplings.  Christ, I'm tired.