Welcome to 2010

It's hard to believe a new year has come again, let alone a new decade. But at this time of the year I like to take a look back at the year that just past, then think about my current situation, as well as my life moving forward.

I started 2010 on shaky ground. Facing the fact that, at that time at least, if was unlikely for me to stay in Japan long-term, I was carefully weighing in on my other options. Although I knew success in Japan was far from a sure thing, I bet heavily on it. Now I was running out of time and money. So I had devised a plan to get my TESL certificate in Canada, then go to Taiwan (where I knew I could get a work visa), and try my luck there. This was pretty much an “all-in” bet.

And I can say, with all honesty, that it was the best decision I could have made at that time. I've had many lucky breaks since arriving in Taiwan. Within one week of arriving, I had found a job at an American school that met my criteria (inside Taipei County, full-time day shift hours, no weekends). After 1 month of living in Shi Da, I found a great apartment in downtown Sanxia, just a 20 minute walk from my school, for only $NT5,000 per month.

After about five months of working there and trying to understand how to do my job effectively (they gave me a week of training but even that plus my TESL couldn't exactly prepare me for the stress and challenge of running a classroom. I think it has to be really experienced to be fully understood), I was offered (and I took) a newly-created position of Head Foreign Teacher (which has since been renamed to Coordinator of Academic Dept.)

Now, as we move into 2010, although I have to work very hard (in addition to my managerial duties, I still teach 25 hours a week, which is considered a full-time schedule), I also enjoy a higher standard of living, and can save more money per month than I could in Toronto. Plus the experience I'm earning will give me the option of obtaining a work visa in Japan, come spring 2012. That may seem far away, but honestly the last 10 months since I arrived here in Taiwan have just gone by in a blur.

While there are many good things in my life right now, there are many things I'd like to improve. As I predicted would happen earlier in this blog, my managerial position has resulted in some distance between myself and the other foreign teachers at work. Perhaps I'll talk more about this in a future blog, but suffice to say that I rarely hang out with any of them anymore outside work. I used to be invited to go out with them to various places to do different things, but now those invitations have stopped. In fact, I often hear them making plans with each other while I'm at the school, but they don't extend the offer to me. But this is to be expected – they don't see me as one of their group anymore. They are young. They see the workplace as an “us vs. them” situation. When I was in my 20's, I felt the same way.

I've also gained weight. Taiwan life has been good to me, and in Taiwan cooking food at home is not very cost-effective since restaurants are so inexpensive. Also, although I do a lot of standing and walking around when teaching classes, other than that I don't get much in the way of exercise. It's disheartening because (as noted here) in Japan I had lost a significant amount of weight due to the small Japanese portions, as well my traveling around from one station to another to meet my students. My belly has swelled up and my shirt is tight around the middle. Although I haven't weighed myself, I think I'm heavier now than I've been in my entire life.

My Chinese language acquisition has stalled. I had been making excellent progress with my teacher, but after getting promoted, I simply wasn't able to make it to her classes due to my work schedule. Instead of doing one textbook chapter every two weeks like before, I was still on the same chapter after two months!

I've also much in the line of romantic success since arriving in Taiwan. In Toronto, and also Tokyo, I found it very easy to meet women and there were often beautiful women walking in and out of my life, some on a romantic level and some on a platonic level. But so far in Taiwan it hasn't been nearly the same in this regard, especially since being promoted.

Another thing that has bothered me more and more as I live out in Sanxia, is the lack of a truly urban atmosphere. Although I live right out in the downtown Sanxia area, it still feels very rural to me and I miss the excitement and atmosphere of a big city.

But nothing ever stays the same, and there are some things I plan to do, as well as things I've already started doing, to improve my situation. The single most important thing, I believe, is to get out more. Working long hours during the week, I often feel tired and out of energy come the weekend. But staying at home and watching TV or playing video games isn't going to help anything. So, I've made a commitment to myself that, assuming I have no other plans, I'll come into Taipei at least once on Saturday or Sunday. In fact, I've been writing this blog at various locations in Ximending (which is in downtown Taipei).

Going out more means more exercise, more opportunity to meet new people, more city excitement and more opportunity to practice Chinese. I've also found a great new Chinese teacher that I meet here in Ximending every Monday and Tuesday evening. And when I'm out here on the weekend, I study Chinese at restaurants and coffee shops.

I've also tried to curb the portion sizes of the food I eat. Here in Taiwan the portions are generally quite a bit larger than in Japan, but there are also many 'serve yourself' kind of restaurants and I think it is at these places where I have a tendency to overeat the most. The food just tastes so good I don't want to stop ^_^ But over the last month or so I've been eating about half of what I normally would at the same restaurant. I think for my next phase I will try (once again) to limit the calories I drink. For several years, my main beverages were (black) coffee, tea, and water. I hope to get back to that and stay away from the Coke and sugared coffee. I've also started exercising - 20 minutes of brisk walking to raise my heart rate, and then stair climbing afterwards to build muscle. Right now I'm only going up about 3-4 flights, but I hope to increase that to all 17 floors of my building.

I'm still not sure exactly what I will decide in 2012. Will I move back to Tokyo? Or stay here in Taipei? A lot of it will depend on how I feel about Taipei at that time. But I don't want to dwell on the future, my life is happening right now. And right now, life is good.