Its finally comfortable in Taipei

Well it's December in Taipei and as the title states, I am finally comfortable. The skies are clear, the winds blow and generally its cold and crisp. I love this weather. It's not cold enough to have to wear jackets yet but soon I will be able to. Lately the Taiwanese in my neighborhood are dressed as if they are living in the arctic, wearing large North Fleece jackets, beanies and scarves.

It feels like it has been a lot longer than two weeks since I updated my blog. So much has happened since then. Work is the same. Every day I get up, get my coffee and start typing. I've taken to listening to podcasts while I type, but my mornings are typing or editing and drinking coffee. I get lunch, or eat veggies that I bought from the store, and then work in the afternoon. Workout with Ryan and then get a small dinner and go home. Sometimes hang out with Felicity, sometimes not.

This last weekend Ryan finally went home. Natalie left the week before Thanksgiving and Ryan the week after. Now I'm here by myself in Taipei with Felicity. As luck would have it, last Sunday Felicity and I were shopping at the Eslite bookstore near Taipei 101 when I ran into an old classmate of mine from three years ago. Kevin has been working and studying here and so his Chinese has become almost fluent. We exchanged numbers and so now I should have someone else to hang out with, but I'll need to start making more new friends and acquaintances here.

I went for a job interview this week at a chain of afternoon English cram schools. The location is great, less than 10 minutes by bus north of me, and the hours looked good too. No working on Saturday, afternoon and evening work, and they provide a curriculum. When I arrived they had me fill out a form with all my information on it, which took 15 minutes. I was a little peeved at that, given that they could have emailed it to me and I would have shown up with it printed. Then came the "interview"

I was expecting an actual interview. They were expecting a teaching demonstration. I was given 5 minutes to prepare and then explain how I would teach the students a section on new vocabulary and grammar. I did fine on the vocabulary, but not the grammar. I didn't prepare to do a demo, just what kind of questions they would ask me about my resume. They didn't even ask if I had a degree, just if I had teaching experience or not. I told them I didn't and they looked surprised. They thought I was responding because I had experience, but I responded to an ad for "1st time teachers wanted!".

I'm still looking for work that is in Taipei, not horrendously far from my apartment, and provides a work visa to stay. As I am unlikely to finish that process in the next two weeks, it looks like I will have to fly somewhere. flights to Manila seemed to be the cheapest route, but they only have one flight per day. I would have to stay the night there. Given that Manila has so many attractions, I want to have a bit more time to see things than one day. To renew my visa, I'll just fly to Macau and back and plan to go to Manila in a few months.