So today: woke up at 10, after Mark left, dithered over suburi and such for quite some time, hungry but ate some sriracha peas, furious because no laundry card, condensing observation protocol, hope there are still backup dress shirts, played bushido blade, cheered up as always by suburi and then some pecs work too, ran for beer, made a pajeon, made a sidecar, passed out reading an old book, woke up, martini, blogging, writing at last.

So I was tutoring the senior son of the waitress where I had breakfast four years every Thursday, and it was difficult, because it was the SAT “Critical Reading”, which even without the analogies of old are challenging because although there is a great deal of reasoning that you can do and strategies you can de/employ to fill in all the blanks, there is a certain base line of vocabulary which you need to acquire, which I realized was no anomaly if you’ve been watching ST:TNG and prevents the needs for any sort of specious reasoning if you are up to date with the Simpsons circa, oh, 1995, but the problem is that habitus is transmitted along family lines and so when you won’t even read flashcards, I don’t think I can bump you up .7 standard deviations no matter how much you pay me, because after all there is no such things as free breakfast with rye toast.

So I realized that one major reason for the fall-off in terms of posts is that I no longer log in regularly to do the daily food blog and so there is less cross-posting, while the adjustments to the new routine are also far from settled enough to allow for any sort of routine in posting, which is what is necessary.

I realized how much Rob and I have a certain habitus the other day when two consecutive features in GQ were things that we have talked about extensively (brussels sprouts and martinis) and another page featured a former classmate getting a makeover. Small world.

Orlando right now really does feel like another world. Not the least because of the Disney thing and because of being immersed in this other academic subworld, but also because it’s only Wednesday and feels like a perpetual weekend down here, which I suppose for Mark it is, and on Monday I was working on some other project. I don’t suppose having taken a fifth job for the Spring it’s going to get any easier–Brooklyn here I come again!

So I’m unclear why there’s been such a hiatus, but part of it is that I’ve been writing so much that this has fallen off what I’m used to, and there are only so many words you have. Now that this first push for my dissertation is largely over, I feel there will be more to say, or rather more energy to say it. I still owe a habitus-of-Taiwan post and plenty of commentary on trips and culture.

So I’ve been complaining and eating way too much the past few days, since we’ve been rained in with no internet or anything, but at least the younger cousin has been around which means that we get out as a group more than not, with plenty of eating out at higher-end restaurants than I would even patronize in the States, though of course everything is half as much as otherwise.

The main wound to habitus and delay to the long-awaiated post is particularly the issue of internet access, although I have been accumulating lots of little bric-a-brac in the interim, which is not a bad thing at all, with just one more round of post-cards and most of the shopping done. I wonder if there’s any great variety of indigenous Taiwanese liquor I should sample…

So it’s been a real bore, sitting around the house and waiting for this typhoon to pass over, especially since there’s not much rain or wind to speak of yet, but in all likelihood I’ll miss keiko for a couple days and am too lazy to do any homebound exercises to make up for it. At least there’s the internet, but I can’t help but feel that I could be making better use of my time somehow else than purging my reader files. I suppose I should be working on the papers that are long overdue, but I excuse myself because the source materials are elsewhere, and it’s not as if I haven’t done my Chinese lessons for the day. I suppose this is the hump, and it would have been better if I had fallen sick about now rather than when travel to Taipei were still possible. But I suppose it could be worse and there’s plenty of electricity and wifi for the moment. I should write, at least.

So soon the post on habituses, but for now just catching my breath and the record heat and relaxing after a weekend of running around town with family and for kendo. It’s halfway through the trip and feels a little later than that, I suppose, but in a good way: that I’ve settled in but realize the limitations of making a living here, not without a great deal more book-learning and language–the local dialect I’m only beginning to pick up stray consonant substitutions and nouns in, and it would take ages to be comfortable. The best expression to describe the insufferable heat however, is, translated into English, “It’s so hot that when people get into scooter accidents they jump up from the asphalt, it’s so hot!”

So I lost the last post thanks to the sporadic nature of my email, but I guess that’s not the end of the world. Day by day I’ve been slowly expanding what it is familiar to me, although the mental maps are rather more difficult. The bootstrapping in terms of my language abilities has also been a little encouraging: one word unlocks so many others, and the reinforcement in multiple contexts is also a great help. I have been copying newspaper articles and reading the dictionary, but also engaging in daily tasks such as buying cloth. The main issue is how to maintain these skills when I get back to the States: that’s a lot less certain, I think.

So wireless, and therefore a part of my brain, has been restored, although the torpidity of afternoon naps and reading the dictionary (!) will perhaps be missed, but with a whole month to spend here, I should take my time and enjoy everything rather than rush into it all. It’s been nice the mixture of the local with the superurban as expressed in the supermodern supercity of Taipei with the superoutofdate orthography for the Chiang Kai Shek memorial, with a whole lot of medals, I must admit, but not even a one picture of him with Mao or any other communist, I suppose. The food has been of course phenomenal and cheap–if it weren’t for all the of home-cooking of course it would be cheap, even though the conversions are not quite yet second-hand to me just yet. Settling in well and starting to think about getting serious about the work, as there are still relatively few distractions compared to New York.

So sitting in a hotel lobby in Japan before breakfast is not quite what I had expected I’d be doing right now, but that’s okay. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about travel, it’s that you need to provide yourself with at least a 20% cushion for expected expenses and delays. At least we made curfew at Narita. A shame that the window isn’t big enough for me to make it to any local bogu-ya: I am really tempted to buy a new doh, not because the old one is all scratchy, but because it’s a little big on me.

On the other hand, leaving New York was a pain: 7 train down, a cab, an unfinished huitlacoche quesadilla, an F train, a desperate attempt to catch a cab, and then early to JFK for a plane that was delayed twice for six hours. At least because it was mechanical we got comped shit. Otherwise…

Now to do this last led, before my legs fully collapse for good.

So the odometer-turning post comes from Evanston, out of town for a conference and some good networking among another large group of people that I don’t know but will soon. It’s been helpful to push me outside of my customary languor and to actually do some good writing for it all. The weather is perfect, and the food is free. But I really need to figure out a better way to have Mark travel with me to some of these events, even if the interest int he work isn’t there, there are plenty of sights.

So I don’t quite remember the last time I really cooked, but today was certainly back in the saddle: breakfast was steak and eggs and home fries, and then dinner involved roasting beets and making a garlic-bacon stuffing.

So there are definite advantages to being all retired-like, I suppose: just need to get writing on some other projects!

So last night was somewhat of a haze, but an at home haze, which is always better–somehow my circadian rhythms have become reattuned to allow both for late night dinners at the local Mexican as well as drunken geocoding. I’m getting damn good at this geocoding business and will need to bill my other boss for some of the work I’m about to do. Time to get a real desktop, though.

So this would be the last week that I’m at the office, and there are lots of things still to clean, somehow. It’s odd too to think of the deliveries that I’ve had at the office over the last five years: most of my kendo gear, innumerable books, contact lenses, and of course the actual office supplies that one should actually have delivered, ever. I guess there was also the small matter of a stolen computer. Hrm. The losses we just write off to ourselves, which even Amex can’t help with.

So I been a New Yorker long enough that when they (and of course this pronoun needs no antecedent) started brawling on the downtown 5 yesterday, I did not join the white people running as fast as I’ve ever seen a group of white people ever run out of the subway. Perhaps I would have changed cars too if I had seen the arc of blood splatter, but hey–I just wanted to get to practice on time.

So I meant to say goodbye to my kids today but the moment was somehow lost and so it’s Monday where I will be doing my best to not make explicit the class divisions (the ones who can afford it will have ice cream cake, but reest will have cupcakes) which pervade this thing we call education, if education means telling immigrant kids that Sotomayor is one of them.

So my fury this morning was misplaced.

All was well when I ended up at Centro again.

Then Rob for dinner what he made without flaming at all.

Markery and Justinery Ktownery

Not bad for a Wednesday

So the fury that welled up in me being forced to club with Mark et al. Friday subsided catching up with Brian despite the difficulties which evaporated, if only for the weekend, with the rising sun.

This week is my last as a teacher, proper. We’ll see how it goes. Also as a writer of useless papers, perhaps.

So as much as my coworkers say, “What will we do without you?” I think to myself, “What will I do without you?” Actually make a difference?

So there are farewells. To Rob’s roof mostly, where I unduly passed out but made it home, somehow.

So today was unproductive in all the real ways, unable to really get anything done except for a food coma nap and around 400 bicycle crunches, which is not enough, all things considered. I don’t know why I can’t make progress, given that this weekend there won’t be much time between the usual Saturday sloth and Sunday on the roof with Rob. Tonight was the night, reclaimed from classes, to get stuff done, but there wasn’t even cooking, somehow. Something to work on.

So the malaise has meant a paper undone, and a vacation too undone by too many manhattans in the middle of the day, and then nappery and way too much bsg for any one person on any one day, especially since it meant watching episodes backwards from the ending, which is unsatisfying in its resolution of problems that took so long to slowly make. I need to get grounded again in schools, but don’t really feel like going to work, somehow. One of those binds and lost exchanges. I really can’t fall back into this summertime trap, though, of putting work off because I can. Finish and be done with it, or else!

So sublime:

Liza, Rob, Mark, Michael.

So the last party at Alric’s, leading to:

Asianboi roundup
Alric is engaged.
Andy is applying himself.
Brian is gradumatated.
Justin is out west.
Mark is asleep.
Patrick be grudging.
Rob is breaking fast.
Troy is holding on long.

So I had meant to write a poem a day, these songs of teaching, as it all winds down, but that’s okay. The shift is pretty big: I found myself the other day with a few minutes to go and read in the park and I couldn’t bring myself to pick anything up except some Tyack (1974) and Ferguson (2001). It’s the sort of thing where I feel like it’s all over (perhaps this is just post-examination depression). Nothing a manhattan and some reading can’t cure, though.