We went to a party at a friend and former co-worker of Marie's last weekend. Emma and Grant have this amazing apartment with a ridiculous view. They'd been working here as teachers, like Marie and I (Marie worked with Emma for a couple of weeks before she got her great job) and we'd met them just after we arrived. They're a couple of very friendly, helpful, and generally agreeable people. I wish I were more like them.
This's Emma. Any necessary apologies to her. I was taking pictures without a flash, so I wouldn't seem so obvious and a little more candid. But I did get a lot of blur.
We had a great time talking with people Marie works with and eating food everyone brought. Notably, someone brought these sandwiches that were a little like pizza, with spicy meat and cheese, and I asked where they came from, thinking it was one of the more homey tastes I'd had in a while. The answer was, "Costco." Oh. Figures.
This's Marie (center) with (left to right) Jenn, Lee-Anne, and Rowan in Grant and Emma's huge and well lighted living room.
Every place here has tile floors. No carpet. At first we were assuming it was for easier cleaning and we were marveling at how much difference carpeting made, and how dirty our carpets must've been. But I'm rethinking that. A local I'm tutoring noted it was because of the pollution. And there is a lot of dust or dirt or soot that seems to collect in a few days. So maybe it is more about the city than just not having carpets. I'll have to find a way to test that theory.
Isn't Marie cute.
This's Katie taking a picture off the balcony of the seventh floor apartment, which has no building opposite it. This's far north of the core of Taipei (and where Marie and I live) so there are still open spaces. You can just see the field, of maybe rice, opposite the building. They have a very long view, at least when the pollution and clouds aren't bad. But it was amazing to see the view and their apartment. They even have an entire half of the apartment they don't even use. At the risk of divulging details, Emma said she gets paid more than Marie does (which is enough to support the two of us on a frugal budget) to just be on call in case her employer has time to work on learning English. And the apartment comes with Grant's job.
It was at this party Marie and I had a really odd conversation about recognizing people. I thought I saw someone I recognized from work on the street below, which I do almost every day on the metro, but then I think, "that's absurd, what're the odds in a city of 2.5 million you're seeing one of the twelve people you know?" And I look again, and it's never them. I mentioned this to Marie who said it's the other way for her. She's probably not recognizing people she does know, for the same reason of similarity. But for the height of irony, the guy I saw from seven floors up, was in fact one of my co-workers coming to that party. I don't know what any of that means, but it was an interesting occurrence.
And Marie and I have begun Chinese lessons. Marie's been taking lessons for a couple of weeks now. I'm only just starting, so she's got an advantage, but I'm remembering that I'm really bad in the early stages of language acquisition. I can't hear a word and understand it. I have to read it and think about it before I can actually use it. So I'm ridiculously slow in classroom conversations. Marie kills me when we play games in class that involve answering questions in Chinese.
But I've got more hours at my school now. It's not what I was expecting. I thought I'd be more tired, but I'm not tired from working or standing for hours or being energetic and controlling 20 seven-year-olds, or energizing 20 fifteen-year-olds. I'm just run down from thinking about the next thing I have to do, what do I have to do at school and when does that mean I have to be there so I have to leave at what time? My schedule is different every day; I can't count on going to work at a certain time every day, so it's a little tough to keep track of.
But it's not boring, and the money is beginning to be what we'd expected, so we're both pleased with that. And it is getting just a bit easier every time. There are still set backs and mistakes, but I don't seem to be making the same mistakes, so things are getting easier, I think.
Next week Marie and I and a bunch of people are going on a rafting trip on our one day off, so we'll have some really good photos and tales to tell, provided my camera's waterproof, otherwise one of the tales will be about the photos that got away.
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