highlights from taiwan

taiwan highlight:

meeting with rebecca chao:

rebecca is one of the funniest people in any language, and i highly recommend seeking her out if you havent had your fill of crazy recently. soon after i got in the car with her and her fiancee, weber, i asked her how their respective trips to vancouver to study english had gone. she says "oohhhhh, i loved it sooo much, i want to move to canada, and i have a plan, and maybe this is ..."(feifa, what is feifa, she asks weber, "illegal" he says) she resumes "maybe this is illegal, but i think i will get pregnant and fly to canada and have the baby so the baby will be canadian and can help me move" and of course i am like "wow, what a great plan!" because i am always an advocate of bringing life into the world to selfishly help one achieve one's goals. anyway, later, after we had picked up jade and were relating this car convo to her, rebecca comes up with a better plan: "andrea! she is canadian! i will just marry her and then divorce her and bring weber over to canada, julie, do you think andrea would be willing to marry me?" "oh. abosultekly, who wouldn't?" i say. to which weber says "you cant marry a woman" and rebecca says "yeah, in canada same sex can get married...right, julie?" "yes, that's true," i say..."and it's not even illegal like the baby plan." needless to say, when i returned home to andrea's apartment i informed her that rebecca had some big plans for andrea's life. rebecca is also pressuring weber to go to new zealand for a year of working vacation, which you can do if you are under 30 apparently, and is life changing. i need to do more research but if it's just a year of farming, i don't know.

local news:
my car totally died on thursday in spectatcular fashion as i was cruising in the fast lane down the 805. when i finally managed to get to the right hand side to pull off i was on a patch of triangular ground between the 805 and the 52, two large highways. even the AAA roadside assistance guy was scared for me. "ma'am, the cars I hear in the background don't seem to be slowing down..." anyway, i had been hoping the daewoo would hold up for another 6 months so i could get my debt paid off before, you know, acquiring lots more debt, but alas, the woo is not to be driven...actually in super ghetto fashion, i wanted to just deal with it and drive it until it really stops running and is a pile of molten metal, but my family appears to be willing to go to extreme measures to make sure i don't do that...it just has a leaking heater core, it cant be that bad, right? i just need to drive it 100 miles a day for the next 6 months...ahem. anyway. so that is a pile of sadness. i mean, it shouldn't be a surprise that the woo died. the company is defunct and really i probably should have used the 3 grand i spent 5 years ago to buy a used toyota. but still, i had a completely illogical optimism that hoped the stupid thing would defy the odds. my little underdog daewoo. so i cry for myself. i'm trying to look at the bright side, which is the fact that i am getting a new car. a car with a working radio and air conditioning. so that's awesome.