Deodorants.
A simple invention to keep our BO from other people. In science-fiction novels like Dune, deodorants do not exist anymore. They say that deodorants are used to mask our emotions from others, emotions that are communicated through pheromones.
Deodorants.
For some reason, I have trouble finding the new Gillette shavers. There is no 5 bladed shavers here. The best I saw was Mach 3 Turbo Extreme, same I have right now. Ah well, I guess I will have to wait until the product is launched in Asia.
For some reason, I got about 500 hits a day whilst I was absent. This is surprising. At the best, this blog has received about 1000 hits a day. Total views are close to 100000. The blog has been operating since last May.
Mr Angry is all busy doing his angry vlogs. Char is gone into subscription syndication. Jessica Doyle is still there as well as Sandra and K, but others are absent. I no longer have the time to watch either ZeFrank or Rocketboom. I mean, I could find a few minutes each day to do so, but what would be the purpose. I find that before I left Canada, I didn’t really have a purpose; I simply existed and suffered my way through life.
Now back to deodorants. Within a few weeks, I had run out of my deodorant. I have come to use Gillette products for shaving. I find that the Schick blades do not shave close enough. The Gillette deodorants and after-shave gel do a good job too. Ideally, I’d probably use Christian Dior’s Eau Sauvage Extreme products, but I never really bothered getting the whole line. I only get the cologne, which I am out of right now, so I will have to get some new bottles. Don’t worry; Range won’t be stinking up anytime soon, I have some Gucci cologne that I will use in the meantime. I have read and heard that cologne suits you if you do not smell it on yourself after a few minutes. I know that Eau Sauvage Extreme suits me well, because I can no longer smell it, even if other still do. It has become part of my scent.
Deodorants.
I ran out of mine and tried to find one. At the time, we didn’t have a scooter, so we were limited to what we affectionally call Hill #2. By now, we do have a scooter, but we still have not ventured very far to do our grocery shopping. Finally, I found some deodorant at a pharmacy. It was German and cost 300 NT, which was about 10USD. Crazy.
Weeks later, after we finally were able to go to Watsons, a chain drugstore in Taiwan, we found all our regular products. Speaking of Watsons, they have these small keychain thingies that they give you if you spend more than 399NT (about 13 USD). I have become a bit obsessed about them. First, I had to figure out how to obtain them. In the beginning, I thought they would make great prizes for my kids. But then, I kind of started liking them a lot. Would you believe that the first two I got were the same? I now have 3 out of 7 or 8 and I am looking forward to getting them all.
The terabyte workstation is settling in quite nicely. I am watching Spiderman 2 after having cleaned our place with the wife. My dog Spike is still in Vancouver and the situation is getting a bit problematic. Let me explain. On our way to Taiwan on the 6th of September, whilst on layover in Vancouver, we learned that we could not bring our dog with us. This is because he didn’t have the rabies titles and not enough time had passed since his last rabies shot. Thankfully, my wife’s family lives in Vancouver. A great friend of ours picked Spike up at the airport within 10 minutes and took him. Two months later, Spike has to find a new home for the next four months. I am trying to contact my breeder and ask her if she could care for him for the next few months. The only other option is to have him in a kennel. I would not like doing that. But at least he would be safe.
Anyways, hopefully this situation will resolve itself in the next few days. I can’t wait to get him over her. I miss him dearly. It is very hard for me, because I used to be with him every single day and we spent a lot of time together. I think I will also post an ad on craigslist Vancouver.
Other than that, we met two of our colleagues that are rapidly becoming our friends for dinner. They are South Africans. They are both leaving to go back to South Africa in January. We will miss them a lot, they are very nice. We met her sister who has lived in Taiwan for 6 years. She is a multidisciplinary artist/journalist. We ate some sushi at Sushi Express. Since my wife is doing better on the scooter, our friends forced us to meet them downtown next to the East Gate in Hsinchu. We managed to get there without any problems. We then were driven to Junan to meet a traditional potter. He is quite the artist and heats his pottery up to 1400°C, which is unusual. The pottery gets these nice patterns because of the way they are cured.
We came back and cleaned our place after having another bite to eat. We saw their place, and it was about 5 times the size of ours, even though they lived with their cousins, it must have been at least 2000 sqf. But hey, we found this place, or it was found for us within a few hours of our arrival in Taiwan, so we didn’t do too badly. We also have an idea for a business and will keep everyone posted on that. It involves photography. They mentioned to us that the first three months are incredible because everything seems so new. Now I understand why some people constantly travel all over the world; to experience new things all the time. I hope that these feelings stay with us for a while.
I have optimized my morning routine. My wife gets up at 6 AM. I now get up at 6:45 AM, shower and get ready and leave by 7:10 AM. We arrive at the school at 7:20. I drink some coffee and start preparing for my lessons. Our school uses the McGraw-Hill books, which I find quite useful, though they do not offer a lot of help for ESL students. My French students that I tutor are doing quite well, well enough for me to have them read a story and answer questions about it.
We will not be getting a car anytime soon. The motorcycle will have to wait a few more months whilst we both get our Canadian affairs in order, especially our debts. This was one of the main reasons of our leaving Canada; to save money and to pay off our debts. We don’t have that much in debts, but it was enough for us to worry about them a lot. Here in Taiwan, you can not live off credit. All forms of credit are illegal for foreigners. So everything is paid for completely. My wife makes the same pay as in Canada. But here, she doesn’t pay any income tax. And our money goes a lot further than in Canada.
Things are supposed to be even cheaper in Thailand. The new airport has just opened in Bangkok and I have heard incredible things about KL, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, especially about the Petronas towers.
I am testing out the Viewsonic 22” LCD panel right now, it rocks. It has a maximum resolution of 1650×1050 or something like that. It is larger than the TV that came with this place. I can’t wait to hook up my XBOX360 to it. Our computer is in a sleek brushed aluminum Lan Li case, which I haggled down from the vendors.
We got our terabyte workstation for a shop called nova. Let me explain the concept. The place is actually rented out to smaller vendors where they compete for your business. So you might actually have 15 computer shops in there or even more. This is quite overwhelming. You have Sony shops there, Acer shops, Toshiba shops and shops that assemble machines for you. I took a look around. I had already been in a Nova in Taipei. The Nova in Hsinchu has got some different wares, it actually has a pro photography shops that will sell me my next camera, a Nikon D200. Let me just say that I will be paying a fraction of the price that I would be in Canada or the US.
So there I was walking around, checking out the prices. When I finally found some specs that made sense to me, Dual Athlon X2 3800+ chips, I started looking closer. So I had found the type of computer that I wanted. I went around and saw who gave me the best deal. Somebody beat the price of the initial offer by 2000NT, which is about 70 USD. I was able to make them include a Lan Li brushed aluminum case because in Canada, I used to have a full tower. These processors, especially if they are running 24/7, can generate a lot of heat. Nothing is worse than a poor case and a poor fan with a high performance machine. So I got the case. We had left my notebook which needed to have its HD replaces. The thing had completely shut down on us two weeks into our stay, mainly because I was downloading 24/7 on it and my guess is that notebooks, even desktop replacement notebooks like my 17” widescreen Compaq, aren’t made to be on all the time. This would cost another 3500NT (just under 120USD) for a 100GB drive. I also wanted to change the DVD drive on the laptop and get a DVD-RW DL. They said they had to order it in. I had them add my HDs that I had brought from Canada.
I then went on to find the LCD screen guy. I had shopped around and found that 11600 for the 22” screen was a great deal. Actually, the guy selling me this had initially told me that the price was 11900NT (about 400USD). I checked out a Chimei 22” and found out that it was 12000NT. The great thing was that it was a Viewsonic. I have always bought Viewsonic and have never been disappointed in the quality. Most of the time, I buy Western Digital for HDs, because of the great service and warranty on it.
The last thing I got was a Logitech cordless keyboard to go with my MX1000 Laser mouse and some Logitech speakers. I almost splurged and got the diNovo cordlesss desktop from Logitech, but it was about 3500NT (just under 120 USD) but decided that it was just a bit too much. The Logitech Z4 speakers look and sound great, but they were 2800NT. I got the X130 for 1800NT, (about 60 USD).
We took a taxi home and got some food. I started setting up the computer that same night and was pleasantly surprised by it. I think I will have to take my laptop to work. My computer at work sucks pretty badly, an old Pentium III, and after having experienced this killer of a machine, it seems ridiculous to go back to that. My 17” Compaq will do the trick, especially with the new HD.
This week, the kids have their midterm exams. Which means that I loose two teaching days. The last time I lost teaching days, during the Moon Festival, it took me until last week to catch up with the curriculum. I will be doing some reviewing with 402 on Monday. Midterms for 401 and 402 on Tuesday and Wednesday and then back to teaching regularly on Thursday. Next week, there is a field trip and we will loose another day of teaching. Ah well, the concerns of a teacher. I have also modified the way that I introduce the stories. I take a lot more time and follow the Teacher’s Edition advice on how to make the students understand what is exactly happening in the story. BTW, for those of you unaware, the books that we use in class make us cover a story every two weeks. Grammar and reading practice books are used in parallel with this to make every exercise familiar to the students.
I think I will now get back to my movie.
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memoirs on a rainy day 
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