clory’s blog

I'm beginning to see a pattern in my life, of running from train station to train station in order to make it in time. So far, I've always made it, with usually just a few seconds or minutes to spare. I wonder if this is the natural pattern my life follows, or if it's something I've caused, something unnatural.

I know it's strange for me to think so superstitiously, fate and all, but the more time I spend here, the more I tend toward something spiritual. Something greater than human will. I wish I could take comfort in it, but questioning its existence just makes me question, more deeply, my own choices.

I'm beginning to feel like I'm not in a good place in life. I feel like the struggle has just begun. I don't feel peaceful inside anymore.

Taichung was good. Seeing family is good, and being with people that care and love and all that other unconditional stuff. That's good. That makes me feel safe. But I have to create my own safety, don't I?

I used to consider myself a lucky person. Everything I've tried for, I've gotten, through luck and hard work. But I think that's changing now. I have all these skills, but I feel as if hardly any of them are being used. How can I funnel all this energy into something useful? Create something that has meaning?

So here I am, sitting at home, watching the sky get darker and darker. Yes, its' a typhoon and it's soooo cool! There's thunder and lighting right outside my balcony. I'm only on the 9th floor, but it's so noisy. It's only 2 pm, but the sky is as dark as if it were 9 pm.

I really want a coffee, but I'm too lazy to venture out in that downpour for one.

I hope we don't have to go to work today, but I have a feeling we still do.

So here's some news as to my future. I applied for a full-time writing and editing and part-time teaching job in taipei for next year, but I haven't heard back from them in a week, so I have a feeling I'm not what they wanted. And I guess it's not such a great loss, because there are still other choices. If I go home, I can go back to school and do more co-op work before I really get a full-time job in the area of my choice.

But I don't know if I want to go back home just yet. I like it here in Taiwan. I like the life. I like being able to save so much money. :) I like learning more and more of the language every day, just by hearing it, and hearing myself being able to speak it. It's pretty awesome.

That being said, I still miss everyone back home like a bitch. It's hurts not to be able to see the people I want to see and talk to them, and see how things are. But I know I'll probably feel that way too, when I leave here and go home.

I feel as if I'm sort of waking up out of a strange dream, vacation thing where I haven't been doing anything. I need someone to shake me awake, and ask me wtf I'm really doing with my life. Yes, it's ok to waste a year in a foreign country and do nothing but have fun and work, but at some point you gotta go back to what you've been doing before that. By this very confusing statement, I mean a career. Well, maybe not a career as such, but something that relates to, or puts to use the skills that, you've gained in the years preceding. Ok, to put it simply.... Why aren't I writing anymore? I've spent so much of my life writing, doing things related to writing, reading, studying, for what? To be an English teacher? No no no no no! It's been so easy, just killing the time, like this, but it's not right.

I'm not the type that lives life with no personal goals and personal dreams.

Yes, this is an awesome experience, but it doesn't mean that I can stop writing!! Argh. I make myself mad.

Ok, mad and in need of a coffee. I'm going to brave this typhoon and grab some. Write more later.

Not an easy question. But there are no easy questions in life. Every moment, we make choices and those choices stick. Sometimes there's no going back, and we've got to live with what we chose, with what we thought we wanted.

Lately, my mind has been going backwards. Back, trying to remember how life used to be, how I used to be. My memory can't be that short, can it? I want my emotions to remember, to tell me exactly what I want. I want to be sure of everything, every choice, every second. I want to be sure of myself.

But nothing in life is certain, because we cannot know the future. We can only do our best and muddle, muddle, muddle. Trying to keep it all together.

Muddling.

That's all good and well if you're on your own, but I'm not. I'm surrounded by people that I'm loyal to, and who are loyal to me. Every moment, the people you are close to get pulled closer and closer, and you lose your ability to muddle. You lose your ability to make choices for yourself and yourself only. You lose the freedom to be selfish.

That's not to say you don't gain something. There is so much to gain. Hell, forget gain. Exist. You live life the way you do to exist, emotionally. Otherwise you'd break apart, and there'd be nothing to live for. We do everything to avoid that, to stay in one piece, naturally, because it is our instinct to self-preserve.

Self-preservation. To keep body, soul, mind, heart, in one piece, as they are, as a whole. I stay alive like this. No other way. And I need to accept that, don't I, no matter how much I disdain, how much I disapprove, how much I look at myself in disgust at my own lack of strength.

There is only settling for.

I don't want to be alone. I don't want to do things alone. I don't want to travel alone. I don't want to listen to music alone. I don't want to think only of myself. I don't want my life to be...only for myself. I thought that's what I wanted, I thought that's what I needed, I thought that would give my life some meaning, but it's not like that. It's not true. It's shocking. I'm not the girl I thought I was. I'm not strong enough to be alone. And I find this so hard to accept. I must be stronger than this, mustn't I?

So itchy! Damn mosquitoes attacked me again last night. I have... an uncountable number of bites and they ALL itch badly! BLARGH. Death to all mosquitoes. Horrible, torturous, painful mosquito death!

So with the ache and itch of mosquito bites in the background, I begin to question my life. Again. What am I really doing over here? And now that I am over here, what am I DOING? Is my life right here and right now a huge departure from what I used to be? What's truer? What I used to be or what I am now?

But if I lived my life just catering to the happiness of others and sacrificing my own, then... well, it wouldn't be worth it either, would it?

There needs to be compromise. In everything. So I'll think of one. I'll come up with compromise. I'm a smart girl right?

The one-year time frame of this life is so convenient sometimes. When things are tough, you can say "oh it's only gonna last one year anyway." And when things are good, you can say "I'm so glad i have a year to enjoy this life."

I guess there are ups and downs to everything. Just ride out the 'downs' with the prospect of an 'up' coming soon, right?

peace.

Life's plateau-ing. Sweet every-day boringness is settling in. Routine. Life's becoming predictable, and it's comfortable. It's sweet.

Every morning I wake up with a smile, and I know I'm not alone. I'm here, and I'm independent, and I'm capable, but there are people holding my hand, guiding me, helping me, opening their hearts and saying "Come on in. Nothing to be afraid of." No matter what language it's in, you can recognize that kind of thing, and you can appreciate it.

I'm a lucky, lucky girl, to have the life I do, to have the people I do. Is it wrong to find it hard, so hard, so impossible, to let go? I want to cling on, I want to hold on, I never want to let go, of anyone, anyone, that ventures into my heart.

There's nothing like it, the feeling that your own two hands can create, can make, an entire life for yourself. The work you do, the decisions you make, the hours you spend, are all yours and no one else's. How you change other people's lives. How you make them smile. How you.... make them miserable. I guess this is growing up, isn't it? Every coin has 2 sides.

Ten years down the road, I'll look at my life and see all the moments of leave-taking. People leaving me. Myself leaving others. And then there are those moments of returning, of meeting, of reunion. The pain, the fear, the longing, but the sweetness, the happiness, the elation. They let me know I'm alive, and I'm not numb. I'm not numb to life.

Hey guys.

Muddling through life. No straight paths, no easy retreat. It's all a big muddle, a confused puddle, and I think I'm happy.

Went on a road trip this past weekend. I drove the cargo while all the rest zoom-zoomed by in their motorcycles. We had a convoy of maybe, 7 motorcycles and scooters, and me, in the little red car, stuck at the red light like a Canadian noob that doesn't know how to run red lights.

Taiwan is beautiful, and I'm happy to be here.

I refuse to think past that beautiful open road.

I have a deadly shopping illness, and I blame Taiwan. Things are too cheap, and the price makes you want to buy them. Things are too nice, and the niceness makes you want to buy them. The people are too nice, and that makes you want to buy the things they sell. There are too many cheap stores everywhere, and too many beautiful department stores everywhere. I NEED TO STOP SHOPPING!

And everything, EVERYTHING here (shopping-related) reminds me of Ruby. "Oh, Ruby would love that scarf. Oh, Ruby would look soo good in that hoodie. Oh Ruby would love that design." RUBY GET OUT OF MY HEAD. I NEED TO STOP SPENDING MONEY ON YOU AND SPEND MORE MONEY ON FOOD. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!

But yeah, I have presents, and one of these days, I'm going to box them up and send them over. But one of yous is gonna have to help me deliver them all. Some to Adrienne, some to shelley, some to cath, some to kevin, some to my sister. Whew. lots of stuff.

Anyway, that's my shopping rant. What can I do to make myself spend less money?

Hey all,

short post. miss you guys. doing ok here in taiwan. feels like things are finally coming together. feels like life's finally coming together.

but am lonely. would love to hear how you all are doing. email me! :)

Hey all,

short post. miss you guys. doing ok here in taiwan. feels like things are finally coming together. feels like life's finally coming together.

but am lonely. would love to hear how you all are doing. email me! :)

I guess it's that time of day again. Hangover time, I mean.

But we'll get through this, tylenol and me, we'll get through this.

Yes, we went partying last night. Predrinking at the hotel, and then out to a club called plush. It was GREAT. I had a complete blast. Clubbing in North America is totally different. THIS is how clubs should work.

Basically, it was all you could drink with a 350 cover. I got pretty wasted. :)

Mostly hip hop music, but some pretty old stuff. Otherwise awesome. There are no vultures that rub up against you except for the people in my Hess group (that I went with). And I got told, in very stilted and cute English that "You are so hot." And then the guy ran away.

And there was this other guy I was dancing with who just put his hand on his chest and bobbed side to side everytime I danced with him. Lol. I tried to ask him what that was about but he didn't answer. Overall a great time. No really hardcore dancers. I don't think guys really know how to move to music. Ok, let me revise that, a LOT of people don't really know how to move to music. They look very uncomfortable and jerky. Weird. Probably need more drinks. I wonder what the hell I looked like.

Oh, and then I was dancing with this girl, and she kept putting her arms all around me, and I started wondering wtf it was all about so I ran away.

I've got serious blisters on my feet.

Really wonderful time though. I think I'm going to really enjoy Taiwan.

Oh, and the other funny thing that happened to me was my cheapness. The coin laundry in the area of the hotel is actually kind of expensive, so I got cheap and decided to do laundry in my bathtub. My roomate thinks I'm INSANE now, and she has these pics of me in my undergarments stomping on my wet laundry in the bathtub.

And then I realized I had to think of a place to hang the damn things dry! They're just randomly all over hte place now and our friends are complaining that our room is like a frikking laundromat. Still good though. Now I can say that I've done laundry in a bathtub. Not very many people can in this day and age.

Generally, life is good. Training, however, is 9am - 6:30 pm and it's TOUGH. But I think I'm going to learn a lot of this stuff in the classroom. When I see how teachers with teaching experience do things, it's like, "WOW... That's what experience gives you." They just have a wonderful ability to teach anything and make it make sense. It's quite a difficult skill to learn, but I'm up to the challenge!

Ok, so the time right now is 9AM and I'm sitting at Golden China Hotel in Taipei and I'm hungover. I'm going to go take a shower and a tylenol and see what there is to eat downstairs. 

WORD.