Maintenance Problems

Holler,

Been a while! I'm not gonna lie about that! So the site has been playing up for a while and I haven't been able to access it to update it. I said I'd turned over a new leaf, and I really had. All gung-ho about updating everyday and then suddenly the site collapsed. Then when it was finally up and running, I forgot my password so I couldn't log in. Once I remembered my password, I raced home to update the blog and just as I sat down to write my latest update, a Russian spy plane crashed through my apartment window and smashed my mac. THANKFULLY no one was hurt. And nothing was damaged in my place except for the computer.

Are you a simple white liar or a dramatic, over-compensating, ridiculous one? I'm the latter unfortunately. The weird thing about my kind is that we know that we should stick to simple stories, but we can't help it. The minute we're faced with the prospect of telling a white lie, we go for it. I can't take the morning off work because I just have a cold. It always turns out a little something like this:

*Sick voice, no sorry, dying voice. Ok more like a whimper with moans intermittently dispersed*

"Hi, it's me. I'm really, really, really, really sorry, I can't come in today. I mean I can barely breathe let alone leave the house. I went to bed early last night. Actually it was more like the afternoon. I went to bed as soon as I got home at 5:30pm. I slept through until 12:20am when I woke up with a fever of 58C. I was so sick I couldn't go to the hospital. My friend rang the hospital and they said I was so hot that I should definitely not go to the hospital because my body heat might burn the place down." *cough, cough, cough to the point of wretching*

"So anyway, I tried to go back to sleep, but I was washed out of the bed with the tide caused by my waves of sweat. I passed out and woke up 3 hours later, covered in blood from where a bobcat broke into my apartment and maimed me while I was in my vulnerable, unconscious state. I crawled around for half an hour looking for my left hand, before I finally ended up passing out on the couch. I woke up this morning and I feel a lot better, but unfortunately I'm too tired to come into work."

"Ok. You rest up and feel better tomorrow. And there are no bobcats in Taipei. So I don't know what it was that attacked you.

"Thanks a lot. I'll look into that. I'll see you tomorrow."

I was too busy to write my blog ;)

Holler.
xx

Happy Monday

Yet another weekend has whirled into oblivion, and another crackin' week full of opportunities to make fun has arisen. HOLLER! 

So I have but a few weekend winners. I was disdainfully surrounded by all sorts of tedious situations over the weekend, all of which gave me some good giggles later. I had obviously been branded with the "please state the obvious at her" stamp yet again, which made for some infuriating situations. Like sands through the hour glass...without further adieu...

*******************WEEKEND WINNERS*****************************

1. The local acquaintance we had lunch with yesterday who ever so kindly translated the English menu for us...into English! We are foreigners...we aren't ILLITERATE!!! Weekend Winner! 

2. The girl who fell asleep across the aisle on the bus. I'm sorry, but you were a Weekend Winner until I had to brush my bum past your face to get to my seat. Weekend Loser.

3. Mother Nature for suddenly cranking the heating down 10 degrees. It's cold!!! Weekend Winner! 

4. The three men in the kitchen in the Indian restaurant yesterday for making the world's most awkward lunch even more awkward by staring through the window at my girlfriend and I for approximately 45 minutes while we ate lunch. You guys didn't even blink. And I'm sure you've seen some Westerners before. Weekend Winners. 

That's about all I got for this week for the Weekend Winners. I guess everyone was on their best behavior all over the island. 

To compensate for my lack of Weekend Winners, I have a couple of excellent quotes (well I think they're excellent anyway, but let's face it, I'm not the best judge). They weren't all said by me, either ;) Also, excuse the sensitive nature of one of the quotes. I think we should all be able to talk about this topic, but if you're not into reading a quote from a (*whispers* gynaecologist) then skip number 2.

1. *Looking at girl walking into doctor's surgery* "Gee, nice skirt. It's so daunting walking into this clinic, isn't it?" (Unfortunately this one was me, and I wasn't trying to be funny, and I did feel everyone staring at me as I walked through the door before I sat down upon the throne of judgement).

2. "This isn't the most pleasant procedure, but there's also worse...like...(mutters under breath)...oh no that probably isn't as bad...but there are worse ones...now let's get on with it" (Hahahhahahahahha what a legend! I love that woman, but I still think we could have gotten to know each other a bit more, first).

3. "It is important to protect people from unjust discrimination but it is ridiculous to claim discrimination every time we show a preference for some people over others." Archbishop George Pell. Wow! I've already massacred the quote all over Facebook, but REALLY what was he thinking?! I'll bet he's a champion of the "I'm not racist but..." school of thought! Out of control! 

4. "Can you please stop talking." My boss and many other people. Usually aimed at me. Harsh but fair. 

Have an awesome week. If you're in Taiwan, try to stick to the sane ex-pats or the others might rub off on ya. If you're in Oz, keep it warm for me - I'll be back soon baby! If you're anywhere else in the world, keep it real! 

Until next time. Adios amigos y amigas! 

xxxxxx

Loves and Hates of the Week to Date

Hola muchachas/muchachos and everyone still undecided,

Presenting to you Loves and Hates of the Week to Date!

Loves

- All the emails and comments I got about my Tuesday morning blogpost. Gracias! (Especially my mum and dad)
- The beautiful weather Taipei is flaunting this week.
- That I have proper calluses on my fingers now so that every time I play the guitar my fingers aren’t paralysed for a week after.
- Birthday broccoli.
- My landlady who sees no sense of urgency when it comes to floods. How would she handle other disasters in her house?
- The fact I left the stove on the kettle for a whole afternoon on Monday and my apartment didn’t burn to the ground.
- Franklin and Roosevelt, the rescued turtles living on my rooftop. You guys are so cute and cool. - The restaurant woman for putting a bit of beef in my vegetarian soup. “It’s OK for vegetarians to eat a bit of meat.” I must have accidentally given her power-of-attorney over my vegetarian diet. My bad.
- That time I sprayed water out of my nose in the office kitchen. Classy. Graceful. Professional. All at the same time!


Hates

- The wild sex parties that the local stray cats are having every night in my lane. Waking up to cat mating calls every night is not ideal.
- My neighbors, I haven’t seen them for ages, I’m not even sure if they still live in the building, but it’s still an ongoing feeling.
- The fact that everywhere I go people tell me that my black toenail looks dirty.
- That I’ve gradually turned my whole wardrobe pink by repeatedly putting the same red shirt in with all my lights and whites.
- People shouting, “Hello, how are you?” off their motorcycles when I walk to work. This place is teeming in foreigners, I can’t believe the novelty hasn’t worn off yet.
- The fact I have the messiest desk in my entire company.
- My brain.

That just about concludes it for this week! Stay tuned for my new format. I’ll be kickin’ off tomorrow with my first edition of Stop Press! I’ll be reviewing an issue from either the local media or the international media depending on what happens in the next 24 hours.

Adios amigas/amigos and those sitting on the fence.

xx

The Taiwan Weekly

*****HOT OFF THE PRESS*****

I have no idea why but The Taiwan Weekly has been released early. Here is the main article for this week's edition. 

大安區 (Daan Area) Foreign Resident In Tone Uproar

Wednesday 0ctober 28th, 2009

In an unprecedented incident, Daan foreign resident, Mika Bertram, humiliated himself and scores of other people by using the wrong tone while ordering his lunch. The incident happened today at around 1:32pm after Mika approached a typical local noodle stand and made his request. Unfortunately while specifying his dietary requirements, he came unstuck and left the queue of customers and the staff all red-faced and unsure of where to look. 

"I just wanted to let the man know that I'm a vegetarian. I had no intention of offending everyone. I usually get my tones perfect. I just can't believe that no one put two and two together and helped me. The woman behind me even pinched her nose in disgust as if I suddenly smelled too," a visibly shaken Mr Bertram told our reporter. 

"He just went for it. I had no idea he was just going to dive in there and say it, otherwise I could have helped him. I don't know what he's going to do from here, he lives in the area, man he won't bounce back from this. I mean, he just walked straight up to the counter, with his head held high, shoulders back and said, 'I want to eat poo,' reported eyewitness Huang Lin-Chen, his friend and classmate at the local university. 

It took a lot of convincing to get the noodle shop owner Wang Chien-An to speak to us, but eventually he agreed to make a comment. "It's bad for business, bad for the community, and most importantly bad for international relations. Who says they want to eat poo in this day and age? I don't believe the young man for a second when he says he got his tones confused. The tones are the easiest part of the language!" 

According to Mr. Bertram, the most perplexing part of the incident was the fact that no one came to his defense and no one could work out that he was trying to say he was a vegetarian rather than he had a desire to eat faeces. 

"Everyone sort of clutched their stomaches and looked at me with these pained expressions on their faces. I've never been so embarrassed in all of my life. I went straight to my apartment and booked a ticket back home. I'm hoping I can transfer my credit points from the university and everything."

Asked if he'd learned anything from the incident, Mr. Bertram replied, "No, I'm still not sure what the correct tone is."  

By: Lipsty 

Movin' On Up

Hello Lovers,

Thank you for all the positive feedback about my last post. I’m glad to hear that everyone else feels the need for love and unity rather than hatred and segregation. Let’s keep spreading the messages!

But now, back by popular demand, I present to you the Weekend Winners.

- Far-far the waiter for kindly acknowledging my girlfriend’s birthday at his restaurant with…drum roll please…keep the drums rolling…and for a bit longer, this needs a worthy introduction…FREE BIRTHDAY BROCCOLI! That’s right, you heard it here first. Far-far went Far-far beyond the call of duty to make this birthday a special one. After watching the staff embarrass another Birthday Bandit on Saturday night I mentioned my girlfriend’s birthday with this enthusiastic response, “Great, no problem, I’ll write it down and there’ll be a birthday special for you.” Little did we know just how special it would be. We were presented with a massive side order of broccoli, all for FREE! Special - indeed, unconventional - most definitely, unnecessary - totally. Next time I’m stuck on a birthday surprise for a friend, I’ll throw a super-food their way.

- As mentioned in the last post, the local religious groups for taking time out of the Lord’s day to spread messages of hate and persecution. May you all one day need help, only to notice that there’s no one else around other than the whole cast of Homos: The Musical.

- The small group of people who got together near Taipei 101 to take the 350 photo to raise awareness for Climate Change. A much worthier cause! Nice work.

- The singing group from Melbourne who we met on Sunday night, thanks for keeping my homesickness at bay for a bit longer with your very Aussie humour.

- The turtles we rescued from the inhumanely small tank in my girlfriend’s school, Franklin and Roosevelt. They adapted quickly to their new environment and have been providing hours of entertainment as they basically move from the water to the rock then back to the water. I wonder how much longer our fascination will last? They must think we are idiots!

Mid-Week Winners
- All you awesome people who sent me positive feedback on my blog and on my Facebook page about my last entry. Thanks again.

- Hands On Disaster Response – my favorite NGO, they have set up a new project in Indonesia. They’re awesome, they’re honest, and they’re effecting change all over the world. Check them out. www.hodr.org

- The man who gave me a huge smile on my way to work this morning and VERY luckily caught his dentures just before they hit the ground. Thanks for the Morning Blues' giggle.

I don't really have any Mid-week Munters this week! I'm very glad to report it. My previous blog was wnough said I think!

On that note, back to the grind!

Keep smilin’, keep laughin' and most importantly keep lovin’.

xx

Letter To The Editor

Weekend Winners will be back with a vengeance and tied in with Mid-week Munters tomorrow! This is a letter that I would love to write to an editor somewhere hahha. But actually, it's futile so there's no point! So I hope you don't mind reading a more serious post on The Way It Is.

Taipei Gay Pride Parade is coming up this weekend and I wasn't shocked to hear that a number of Christian denominations had banded together on Sunday to protest against gays. What exactly does it mean to protest against gays? This is how it was phrased in the local press and I am so curious to know how to protest against a group of people. I suppose it means that they were protesting the mere existence of gays. 

I still fail to understand how in a world like ours, where horrific crimes are committed on a daily basis, (people are murdered, people go missing, children are abused and abandoned, countries are bombed by other countries...the list goes on) we can still have groups banding together to complain about gays. 

OK, sequins were so 1985, those of us with lithpth wish we didn't have them while others are putting them on, and sometimes we're all up half the night trying to work out the gender of the person who pumped our petrol in the morning BUT WHO CARES? Seriously, how does it affect anyone else who one chooses to love? 

On the weekend I was talking to my girlfriend about how sometimes I purposely avoid the subject with people to spare the awkwardness and to avoid making them feel uncomfortable, but the thing is that it's my life and they don't reserve the right to feel uncomfortable about what I do in my free time or who I choose to be with. 

If a person can be wholly defined by their sexuality then they don't have much substance to them. If sexuality was all there was to a person maybe it would make more sense marginalising people. But all my straight friends, my gay friends, and my bisexual friends, are more to me than walking representations of sexuality. In fact, their sexualities really have no bearing on our relationships at all. And why should they? 

The thing I find most ironic about these protests denouncing anyone who isn't a heterosexual is that for some reason, in my experience, I have dealt with huge numbers of homosexual people in community development contexts. I'm sure I'm not alone in making this sweeping generalisation, but the community sector is powered by people of all different sexual orientations (and a large amount of them aren't heterosexual). I've never heard any of my friends refuse to help a drug user in their support center because they're straight, not one of my friends has turned away a teenage runaway because they're straight, none of them have refused a straight person sexual health advice. Simply, because they don't care. Sexuality is such a small piece of the puzzle that makes us human. 

Why can't people learn to put their time and money to better use. Why waste time marching around complaining about gay people when there are more productive things to be done? Protest about the murderer who is being released after 5 years in jail, protest about the corporations releasing pollutants into our waterways and our air, protest about taxes being increased. Whatever, but leave the feather-boa wearing boys and the tuxedo wearing girls out of it. 

After all of these years of hearing people complain about gays I've reached the conclusion that it just comes down to jealousy. No one can throw a party like the gays. 

xx

Weekend Winners

Everyone's a winner in one way or another, but this weekend I got to choose a few Weekend Winners who really stood out from the crowd with their outstanding performances. In the spirit of my love of lists, here goes, and while you're reading it be sure to give each Weekend Winner a small round of applause:

1. The little girl in the park feeding hot dogs to the turtles. A career in animal nutrition is blatantly on the cards. WEEKEND WINNER!
2. The man walking through the park vomiting up his lunch without breaking step. WEEKEND WINNER! (please note that the name of the said park is the Peace Park - who said vomiting can't be peaceful?)
3. The turtles in the park (powered by hot dogs) for breaking through the wooden barrier between them and some succulent water plants, then leap frogging over the top of each other to try to get in to munch on the delights within. WEEKEND WINNERS!
4. My student for standing me up, therefore allowing me to witness the aforementioned festivities in the park. WEEKEND WINNER!
5. The woman in Starbucks for asking me how I'm from Australia, yet not black. WEEKEND WINNER! Maybe this prize should go to the geography and social studies department of her school instead?

Although I'm sure there were many more WEEKEND WINNERS all over the world, these are the ones that caught my eye. Stayed tuned for the weekly list coming at ya each Monday.

Let me know if you caught wind of anyone worthy of a WEEKEND WINNER accolade.

This week is sponsored by the POR FAVOR song by Emily Menuzo and The Chismoso. So to quote the famous band, "No mas trabajando por favor, mas cerveza por favor."

Have a crackin' week.

xxx