Thank You, My Sweat Friend

As part of my new year resolution to practice being grateful, I wrote a thank you email to my best friend for the help and support I got over the past 24 years. Soon I received a one line reply: "wow, thank you, it's very sweat".

"What do you mean it's sweat?" I got alarmed and immediately called her.
"Oh, typo, I meant sweet, you know."
"Am I detecting some Freudian slip here?" Somehow she sounded a bit sheepish and I got suspicious.
"Well, you know how difficult you can be sometimes, it's not easy to be your best friend, so it can be a lot of sweat too."
"Haha, I knew it's a slip!" I felt happy and claimed victory.

So thank you, my "sweat" friend, for always being there for me and for always believing in me (even when I didn't believe in myself). What can I say? "O dar-vos quanto tenbo e quanto posso, Que quanto mais vos pago, mais vos devo".

How to Cure Insomnia (from My Silver Linings Playbook*)

After watching the very inspiring TED video by David Kelley, I got interested in Albert Bandura's work. I picked up Bandura's book "Self Efficacy". I wanted to see if I could distill any insights from this magnum opus which would be used to improve my (some people claimed "very faulty") self knowledge. 

Last night I started reading. Alas, after only half a page, I fell asleep. I woke up 2 hours later and decided to give it another try. I fell asleep again before I even finished one page. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed (and not very happy) with myself after I woke up the second time. "When am I able to finish even one chapter, if my progress is like this? This is crazy", I thought. Then it occurred to me, I might not be able to improve my self knowledge or self efficacy but at least now I know how to cure my (jet lag induced) insomnia. Who knows? Maybe after enough time I may even be able to finish one chapter.

P.S. 1/21/2013, I managed to read a few more pages of Bandura's book and it's indeed great. It summarizes a lot of researches and is full of insights, now if only somebody can rewrite it in a less academic language...

* I love the movie "Silver Linings Playbook" and decide to keep a list of my own "silver linings".

The Unexpected Benefit of Having Jet Lag

I thought I was done with my jet lag, but I woke up at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep no matter how hard I tried. At 7am, I gave up and decided to go to gym. The light outside my living room window caught my eyes. I took my X100 out (fully charged since I planned to drive to the seaside but didn't due to my sore throat) and shoot. The light was unbelievable for about half an hour. The it was gone. (Sorry there was nothing photogenic around my neighborhood so these were all I could make do.)

In the Air (Somewhere above the Pacific)

I love window seat.

When I saw this, I thought "my God, it's just like the Georgia O'Keeffe painting" (below). Now is that art imitates life or life imitates art?

Little Adventure in Taipei

I went shopping with my best friend at the famous Di Hwa Street and noticed this local temple. I was quite amused when I read the "12 steps to pray properly for the matchmaking god". Then it occurred to me, does it work for LGBT?

One of the two guardians on the door. 

Money seems to be the universal theme in many temples.

One of the local deities. There are a couple of them and I can't tell who's who.

The other guardian. Looking at their expressions, I cannot but think they are playing good cop/ bad cop.

The 12-step process somehow reminds me AA.

What are people praying for? Love? Fortune? Good health?

The panorama feature of my cell phone worked relatively well.

My Elementary School Teacher

My 5th grade teacher had a huge impact on my life. I hadn't seen her for 20 years, but thanks to the recent class reunion I got her contact info and managed to have a nice lunch chat with her today. She's just as smart and funny as I remembered (if not more so). We talked and talked, like two good friends. My teacher was my first role model. It felt great to know that I didn't let her down.

Little Adventure around Town (Local High School)

Education is probably the number 1 reason many people in Taiwan emigrate to the US, but many US high schools actually look like military base compared to the open campus high school two blocks from my parents' home. I sneaked in and took a few photos. A teacher got alarmed and asked me what I was doing. I explained and had a nice little chat with her. I wonder if I can teach kids programming here someday.

The junior high two blocks from my parents' home, the only green certified high school I had seen. I was also very surprised to see a Christmas tree on their  hallway 

The bell tower (upper right hand side) looks very nice.

The school court yard.

School gym. The design allows air to come in from the outside, so no air conditioner is needed in summer, very smart.

Kids doing exercise. The PE class can be much improved.

Classroom, very different from the old cramped classroom in my school days.

Classroom door, each window pane has a different poem engraved, nice. 

I caught the teacher's attention after shooting this photo. 

The bike shed, most students bike to school, just like before.

A Little Adventure around Home (Part 3, Going to the Seaside)

Where the Agongdain river meets the sea, the bike lane on the levee is pretty nice but I didn't see any biker.

Typical Taiwanese fishing boats.

Most of the beaches on the west side of Taiwan are covered in grey sands, or wave blockers.

My dad was having a lot of fun.

A local angler. 

The infamous wave blockers, now 60% of Taiwanese coastline looks like this.

Going Down the Memory Lane (Part 2, My Elementary School)

Out of all the schools I have attended, this is the coolest logo. Too bad there is no T-shirt or other souvenir I can buy from the school store.  

Our school was named after this fighter plane pilot, who died when his airplane crashed (out of fuel) after shooting down a couple of enemy planes. Before, when you got really close, you could see the fingerprints of the sculptor on the statue.

Our school court yard. It was not paved when I was there.

The classroom I spent my 5th and 6th grade. I met a wonderful teacher who told us on the first day of class that we could shape our life like a sculptor shaped his/her work. When I heard it, I felt like somebody had woken me up from a dream. I realized at that moment I was not just an elementary school student, but someone who could decide what she would become. That was a life changing event for me. Years later, I found I was the only student who remembered what our teacher said that day.

Behind my 4th grade classroom, the trees were just saplings when I was there, now fully grown.

The air force eagle in the park next to my school. It was made of melted bullets and weighted 4 tons. Somehow it reminds me the iron chair in "Game of Thrones". The hand writing was by Jiang Ka-Shek.