...to spit in Sightblinder's eye...

//Till shade is gone, till water is gone,
into the Shadow with teeth bared,
screaming defiance with the last breath,
to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the last Day.//

Some of you may recognize the above quote, but the incompleteness of the title of this post suggests the latter part of the line: 'on the last day.' And I'm not talking about any apocalyptic or religious sense of the word, merely in the sense that there will indeed be a last day, and there wasn't before. In other words, I have a confirmed flight date and should be departing Taiwan & returning to Canada on July 15th of this year.

It's weird to know that I have less than 5 months remaining here. Though I am looking forward to seeing you again, long-suffering Canadian / other overseas readers, I already dread in my head parting from this country. Needless to say, on the other hand, there are electric jam sessions with at least one individual that are long overdue.

Personally, the thing irking me most right now is needing to say I have been here six months, instead of 5 months. I'm not ready for that, though once again I have busted off a plateau & am improving. I still don't have skills to my satisfaction; the level I am going for is functional literacy (i.e. newspaper w/ the help of a dictionary) & the ability to continue through self study. This means I need to get better so I can learn to read an idiom book. As it is I need people to explain them to me (in Chinese of course) & give examples of proper usage.

One problem I might run into is that right now it looks like the 5-day Taiwan tour overlaps the choir competition; however, I am still confirming this. If so, I am going to have to cancel one & you can guess which that will be. In fact, though it should be obvious, I indeed invite you to guess--you even have a 50/50 chance. This new semester of school is looking better, I have shifted things around a bit. I cannot believe how the time flies though.

Today in culture class, we made shuijiao (水餃) which I was somehow able to eat without vomiting. I shall explore this phenomenon further as apparently the fried ones actually taste good. Talked with Scott at Starbucks for a few hours waiting for Chinese class (without buying anything at the time--stealing atmosphere!) though we'd both bought coffees earlier in the morning.

I know I don't normally drink coffee & nor does Scott. But due to the sudden hot snap, there are loud, buzzing insects inside. It's also freakin' hot, but the insects kept flying by my head and breaking my peace of mind. So I slept for about a third of the time I was in bed & Scott looked even more haggard (but that's probably because he needs to shave all the time and I don't).

After class we went back to Nanshijiao & talked some more, mostly about his RP world & the mechanics thereof, and the history thereof. He wrote a book about just the world, no statistics or numbers in it all all (the system he made up w/ his friends doesn't use numbers or writing stuff down anyway) so it can be adapted to any system. It continues to be very interesting, though I have only read part... right now my home on computer time is partly devoted to studying Chinese. and blogging :p

Anyway, enjoy yourselves, and please comment if you feel the need. Rock on, K out [20 minutes]