Sometimes you just want to run away screaming!

I had to go to Watson’s tonight to get something.  Sometimes going there is a bit of a crap shoot since it is a drug store, and they have almost everything you need, but almost everything is in Chinese packaging, so pictures and pre-preparation is key.  95% of the time I can walk in, find what I need and get out without much of a problem.  Of course that’s for the easy stuff.  Tonight… very different.

It’s hot here.  And I have been working out a lot as well as rollerblading.  Sweat… heat… sports activities… breeds fungus.  And where is that fungus usually?  Well, you have the choice of one of two places, and this time, it isn’t on my feet!  I’m itchy, irritated and all I need is some kind of cream to make it go away.  I know I’ve seen the creams here before and from the pictures on the boxes I know you can put it here… or there.  But, tonight all the boxes were for here… not there.  I’m pretty sure if it’s good for here… it’s good for there, but do you really want to put a medicated cream somewhere you’re not sure of?

So, I’m looking.  It’s restocking night at Watson’s so they have a larger crew on.  To make it even more fun, it was one of those nights where the workers were interested in watching the foreigner.  I caught the attention of the two stock girls (and I’m not being cocky, I just know when I’m being looked at in a certain way) and one of them came over to ask if I needed help.  I explained to her I didn’t speak Chinese, but like many here, they figure if you can say ‘I don’t speak Chinese’ perfectly in Chinese, then they think you are just being modest and really can.  She asked another question and I repeated myself.  After a few more seconds and a smile, she left. 

I started to look at the boxes again, hoping for one of them to have more than a picture of an inflamed foot.  No luck.  But, to my luck, they brought over a male worker who had been watching me since I came in the store as well.  he proceeded to ask me questions… in Chinese.  I politely replied that I can’t speak Chinese and he pointed at my foot and asked ‘itch’.  I laughed and said, ‘foot… may-yo’.  I hoped maybe he would understand why I was looking at these creams, but not needing them for my foot, but he continued to point to the feet on the pictures.  Of course by this time there were at least four other customers looking over to see why all the workers were around me.  The two girls were talking and giggling to each other as I tried to figure out how to get the cream I needed and get out.

Once he gave up, the two girls disappeared and I thought I was safe.  Suddenly they returned with a customer who spoke a little English.  he spoke well enough to talk to me, but not really well enough to understand what the problem was.  Everyone kept looking at my feet and wanting to know what was wrong.  I tried to delicatly explin to this guy I needed the cream, but not for my feet and he didn’t seem to understand.  Of course he looked more like the most exercise he gets is in a Worlds of Warcraft battle scene, so I was lost.  I didn’t want to give up and I wanted some kind of cream and the staff (especially the girls) realy wanted to help the foreigner.  The guy kept asking questions about how long I had ‘this sick’ and is it ‘hurt or scratch’.  Now, I can see all the athlete’s foot creams and sprays and I see other creams off to the side that are plain and say ‘anti-fungal’ on them.  No picture, just the English words ‘antifungal agents’.  I pick it up and ask him if it is good for a rash.  He asks the girl and both girls look confused and start to ask more questions.  By this time I want to bolt, but I really (see: REALLY) need the cream.

The girl points to the cream and then sctatches her arm making a face like her arm is irritated.  Then she points at the athlete’s foot spray and points to her foot and makes an ‘ouch’ sound.  The she looks at me with a look like which one is it.  I stood up with both in my hand infront of the two female workers, the make worker, the customer and his girlfriend and two other customers who I know were looking over trying to figure out if they can help.  I pointed at my foot and shook my head no.  The girls looked confused, but I think the male worker clued in at just the same time as I pointed straight at my shorts and made the irritated face the girl made as I gave a good (and very well needed) scratch. 

The other customers went back to their purchaces trying not to make it look like they saw.  The male worker burst out laughing, the customer who was helping me went red and pointed at the one cream and said ‘yes, this one’ and the two female workers stood like deer on a highway at night about to be hit by a transport truck.  One went red and the other went white, but both couldn’t even look me in the eye… they seemed a little trasnfixed by exactly what (and where) I needed the cream for.  I was beyond embarassed, but I think they were just a little more than me.

Everyone scattered once I had my cream, but I could hear the giggling and talking.  I went to get some toothpaste (much easier to find) and some candy for my kids and proceeded downstairs.  Each worker said goodbye to me, but one of the girls was missing.  As I got to the bottom of the stairs I saw her at the checkout counter telling a story to the worker.  I walked up behind her to pay for my purchace and the poor countergirl looked like she was about to die.  Of course the girl in front of me is telling her the story not knowing I was behind her.  The worker told her something (I guess to turn around) and when she turned around, she looked at me, when white… looked down (as if I was going to scratch again) and then went red as she looked back up at me.  The with the biggest embarassed smile, she ran… fast.

I’m still not sure if the cream I got is right.  The only English words are ‘antifungal agents’, but it seems to be doing a little bit of good now.  I don’t think there have been many times I have been as embarassed as I was at first tonight, but the embarassment went away pretty fast as I transferred it over to those two poor girls with one well placed scratch… not here… but there!

It’s 32 degrees right now and it’s one in the morning.  It’s hot, humid and really sticky and I just finished about four hours of cleaning in my apartment.  Gilligan (Not My Cat) has an appointment with a family tomorrow who were impressed by the write up I did on him for Animals Taiwan and may adopt him.  I still have the flu, and although the fever is gone I’m still sweating more than usual from all factors tonight, so what have I done to alleviate the heat and sweat?  I brewed five large pots of tea! 

I now have a nice Darjeeling Green Tea, a very strong Darjeeling with lemon, a Chai Soy Tea in the freezer, a lemon Green Tea in my water bottle and a nice big blender (I ran out of containers) full of Green Tea ready to be mixed into a nice big jug of Grapefruit Juice tomorrow morning when I go get some.  The last one is my favorite! 

At the drink stands here where you get all the different teas and juice teas (kind of like those Bubble Tea stands back home, but so much better), there is one place called CoCo that makes the greatest Poo Tao Yo Loo Cha (Grapefruit Green Tea).  Everyone makes it, but most are a green tea that has had about a quarter of a cup of grapefruit flavored drink into it.  It’s a nice, kind of fruity Green Tea, but CoCo… oh how I love CoCo.  They make it the opposite.  Three quarters of a cup full of real grapefruit juice with a quarter shot of Green Tea into it and it’s just perfect!  Even a third of it being Green Tea is great as well.  I may be the only person who gets it this way (according to the one guy there I am), but I get it with these small coconut jelly pieces in the bottom… Yeh Gwa.  If someone else orders it, they always ask them if they are buying it for the big foreigner.  I guess it’s my signature drink now.

I buy a lot of the teas at the stands since they are everywhere, but it’s pretty easy to make it at home.  The drinks are actually pretty cheap at the stands, only 40nt ($1.30 CAN) for the large Grapefruit Green Tea with Coconut, but I can get a box of 50 bags of Green Tea at the store and brew a hell of a lot more here.  The blender I barely use is coming in handy as a giant carafe to brew the tea in before pouring it into one of the containers I have for drinks.  I think my kettle may melt tonight if I use it one more time.

Off to bed… I have a cat to get a home for and a Yellow Submarine to build tomorrow…

And if you think I’m Green Tea Crazy, check these ones out…

(I’ve had two of the three…)

Just this past year I finally read Catcher in the Rye.  It was a pretty good book in my opinion.  I know it is touted as one of the great American novels, and for standing the test of time so far, maybe it is.  The character JD Salinger created in Holden Caufield is brilliant and it would be hard for any writer to create a character as good as that nowadays.  But I guess you don’t have to anymore…

Some inept, unoriginal, non-creative thief decided he would steal the character of Holden Caufield and write a book that places the character back in New York, sixty years later.  Really?  Where the hell does this guy get off taking a character created by a great writer and known worldwide and making it his own?  I know there is such a thing out there as Fan Fiction where fans write stories based on their favorite characters, but I don’t think they get major book deals out of it.

The writer in question named himself JD California… (hidden identity, admission of guilt #1) and calls the book 60 Years Later: coming Through the Rye.  Now if you had read the book and understand the significance to the Rye, even this title doesn’t make sense when it comes to the character of Holden. 

Authors write books in order to create a universe and set of characters that is their own.  They chose what you see and what you know and what time frame in the lives of the characters you will see.  If you don’t like how something ended, too bad.  It’s their book.  I was at a reading with Douglas Coupland a few years back and a fan asked him what happened to one of the characters in his book Hey Nostradamus.  The character had disappeared and there was no clean cut solution to what happened to him.  It was left to us to imagine and wonder, just as the characters in the novel had to do.  But, this girl begged to know what happened to him after the last page of the book because she felt so connected to him.  Coupland told her that yes, he does know what happened to the character and no he wasn’t going to tell her.  She begged and he laughed a little more.  He said the character was his and that it was up to her to come up with her own conclusion.  I found her attempt to gain more of the story to be a little pathetic, but this whole Holden Caufield thing is even worse.

Writers nowadays have to be careful that something they write is not too close in resemblance to something else out there or they run the chance of being sued.  Even being inspired by another authors works can get you in trouble, so how the hell does someone open a book, say ‘I like this character’ and take it for himself?  It shouldn’t ever happen.

If theft is all it takes to become a famous writer then I should be able to steal the character of I.M. Fletcher from the Fletch novels and take him on more than the 11 adventures that Gregory McDonald did before passing away.  Why not?  I like the character.  Patricia Highsmith made a really cool character out of Tom Ripley, but the later novels weren’t so hot, maybe I could steal him and make him cool and evil the way he should be in my opinion.  And what about Rick Deckard in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  What an amazing character that could go on for so many new adventures that Philip K Dyck never thought of?  I know I can do that!  Why not bring back Pennywise the clown since I feel his reign of terror was too short lived?  25 Years Later: Coming Through the Sewer… I know I could make a fortune!

You can’t take a famous painting like Starry Night and add more colors to it because you think it needs more earth tones.  You can’t take a song like American Pie and add a forty seventh verse to it to include the death of Kurt Cobain because you feel it is important to you to hear that part sung, and you can’t… I meant CAN NOT take a character from someone else’s book and write your own sequel to it just because you loved the original and thought there was more to tell.  JD Salinger is the only person who knows where Holden Caufield is sixty years after the first novel ended and unless he wants to tell us where that is, then we are left with one bound copy of a glimpse into the life of a character, created by a man who wanted to tell us a story.  It’s as simple as that. 

Salinger is suing the author and publishers to block it’s release and I hope to every God there is that he succeeds.  Maybe a lot of people will think it could be an interesting read, but even in thinking that, it tarnishes the hard work done by Salinger in the first place.  The only way I will ever read a sequel to Catcher in the Rye is if the name JD Salinger is on it… but even then, I like where we left Holden the last time, so why change the view of the character now?

Dear Mat…

You live in Taiwan.  Hard drives grow on trees on every corner.  They are even available at 7-11.  I think there may be a special right now where if you buy two bags of M&Ms, you get a free hard drive upgrade for your computer. 

Wake up!!!

The laptop is dead.  The hard drive is fried!  I find out tomorrow if I actually still have my back-ups on the external drive I borrowed from a friend or not.  If I don’t, everything from July 2007 up is lost… that includes Cambodia, Vietnam and The Philippines as well as a lot of writing and every picture I hold dear.  I don’t usually get too pissed off about losing stuff, but it’s my fault… I held on to the idea of the Mighty Macintosh and learned that although virus free, a hard drive can still die and not backing it up is stupid!

So the scooter died a a month ago and I spent money I didn’t want to spend on that, but I did.  I got the cat adopted to what I thought was a good home and they brought him back because they couldn’t handle a second cat… so I have to spend money on him.  I booked the trip which is most of my saving at the moment, so I am working on less than a good amount in the bank right now.

A new hard drive or just a new laptop.  I guess I have to decide, but from what I understand, the little bit more money may be worth it for the new laptop… and I will definitely get the extended AppleCare package this time so if (and when) the new one dies, Mac can pay for it!

I can easily use the credit card and buy a new laptop tomorrow, but I don’t like to use my credit cards here.  The exchange rates from Visa and MC are not that great compared to what I get for transferring money back home, so I would rather not use them for this.  Plus, it is Taiwanese practice to charge the credit fee the company incurs to the purchacer here, so paying extra to use the card, then paying a higher exchange rate does not make sense at all. 

I have a tax return coming in August which is the same amount as a new MacBook, so I have to see if I should wait or not.  I can use this old G3 for now, but I get no Skype to talk to anyone anymore (which I need to keep my phone bills down) and it is really slow.  I got the computer the last year as the Editor in Chief of the newspaper in university so it is over six years old now.  I also have the very first Mac iBook (the blue clam-shell ones) at home in Canada and it still works fine.  So why did my new, top of the line MacBook die but my classic ones still live on?  Who knows.

So, I’m doing everything I can to get this laptop to do something for me until I at least get paid.  Of course a new laptop takes away money I expected to use on our month long trek through Southeast Asia… wonderful!

Oh, and to top it all off tonight… I have the flu.  Aching muscles, headache, cough and a temperature that could probably fry and egg right now on my chest.  Wonderful since the graduation show is this week and we need all the practice we can get.  A day off to recover… I lose time on a play they are not that happy with and I lose money which is needed for fixing the computer.  Looks like I wear a SARS mask to work tomorrow and gut it out.

I just got home from the night market where I had a great night of flaw machines and food.  When I got home my computer was making some strange sounds, so I re-booted it.  All of a sudden, I had no hard drive.  WHAT THE F**K???

So, I am basically screwed.  I had backed up all my files a few weeks back when I had the first problems, but that was on a borrowed external drive.  I think it’s all still on there, but the laptop I am using now is so old it doesn.t even recognize the HD when I put it in.  So, I may have lost all my writing, pictures and everything else for the last two years. 

I have my old laptop back, but other than the fact that the hard drive works this thing is in poor condition.  I loaned it to a friend who kept it a long time and basically killed it.  Keys are falling off (some she put back on, but in the wrong place) and it’s such an old operating system that I can’t do much with it.  It will have to get me by for now since most of my money went to the tickets for the trip a few days ago… and the new motorcycle (when the old one died) and the tattoo (which I wanted to I am not complaining about that).

I really want to scream right now.  Looks like I’m going to the MAC shop tomorrow and hope there is something I can do… but I know m luck lately and the answer will be to buy a new one… which I can’t afford.

F***!!!

One Week To Go…

Been really busy lately.  When it gets time for the graduation show at our kindergarten everything goes out the window and all we are supposed to do is get them ready.  The school wants the parents to see performances that make them think the kids can speak perfect English.  My kids are good, but it’s hard to get 16 five and six year olds to pull off a 10-15 minute play with songs, dances and lots of lines.  I’ve been stressed beyond belief over this and it’s only one week to go. 

We do get to write our own plays, so mine is a mix of the Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood and The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine (also including music from Manfred Mann, Kermit the Frog, Warren Zevon and AC/DC).  It’s a big mess and I can’t wait to see it finished.  I have no voice from yelling (especially at Danny) and I just want it to be over and done with NOW! 

The kids are bored with the play already so I brought in the video camera to get them excited over performing for other people.  They did well (except for the wolves and Danny forgetting the cues) and I know they will do well (I hope).

So, since I have to be tortured by these two songs every day, five times a day, you can be too.  So here they are, Eagle Class practicing for what could be a great show or a disaster…

I think I’m going to Katmandu.  Thats really, really where I’m going to.
If I ever get out of here, thats what I’m gonna do…

Well, after a few schedule changes, a quick airline switch and about 20 emails back and forth between me and my Taiwanese travel agent… we’re booked!  I’m out of here on August 2nd and I don’t return until August 29th.  It’s going to be five countries, four weeks, three travel guides, two people and one hell of a trip!  Were are we ending up?  Well…

I know it’s a lot to pack into one month, but I love it!  I’ve done the one country thing and I like the idea of seeing the differences and traveling through the different places without a stop.  Cambodia and Vietnam are going to be cool since I can go back to the places I loved and see the things I missed the first time.  There are far temples I want to see this time in Siem Reap, I want more time in Phnom Penh and there are day trips in Vietnam including a trip down the Mekong Delta that I do not want to miss this time. 

India and Nepal are going to be a brand new adventure.  All I know is I want Indian food, Darjeeling Tea and to see Everest!  That and sing a certain Bob Seger tune as our plane lands.  India is going to be a real adventure as it is going to be the most different place I have ever entered.  Thailand was not part of the original plan, but Thai Airlines is the cheapest and best way to do this trip… it will only cost us 2/3 of what it would if we went on Singapore Airlines and we get the free stopover in Bangkok on the way back.  They even give us a day room for our 7 hour layover on th way to India as well. 

We had planned on going to Singapore for a weekend in the middle, but maybe I will save tat trip for my birthday this year.  Hell, by October I’ll want to be traveling again! 

So, that’s it… booked and ready.  We need to get our entry visas ready for India and Vietnam beforehand and the other three are just on landing.  The total cost for the visas will be less than just one visa for entering China.  I’m shocked at the cost of entering China.  I’d rather see these other countries anyway!

Oh… the total cost for all the flights on this trip (we are going to use the bus between Siem Reap – Phnom Penh – Saigon) is just a little more than $1000 Canadian.  It’s actually cheaper for us to do a one month, three country tour instead of flying home to Canada for two weeks.  I’m exicted!  I keep re-reading the itinerary to make sure it’s real.  these are the kinds of trips I never thought I would ever get to go on.  I’m glad I made the decision to come here…

Pumba and Domo are already packing…

 

I Told the Witch Doctor I Was In Love With You…

We have been practicing our graduation play for about a month now.  The kids are bored and I am ready to start throwing some of them out he window.  We needed a break from it, so today we did one of our old songs to have some fun at the end of the day.  Of course, once on camera the little monsters forgot half the song…

Lazy Day…