Thursday night I thought I would try a different exercise class. Also, by the time my Taiwanese class was over, I had only one choice: �pop dance� taught by a fellow named Sonic. I could put up with one rather silly dance move involving hopping around on one foot than another, a move that ended with wagging our fingers at our partners and shaking our butts. But what put me over the top was when Sonic put on �Can�t Get You Out of My Mind,� by Kylie Minogue. Apparently, many of the students had learned a dance routine to the song at a previous class. So those of us who didn�t know the routine had to stand aside and watch the performance. This is an exercise class, darn it, not a dance audition! I left to actually get my heart rate up on a treadmill and do some weight training. Ridiculous.

Responding to Angela�s comments on Thursday�s entry, yes, there are times�Taiwan�s small sewage pipes be damned�when paper must be thrown into the toilet. Although if the rationale for the wastebaskets is that Taiwan�s sewage system is not designed to handle the paper volume that American systems are designed to accommodate, one could logically conclude then that the system is especially taxed when, uh, a certain mass that requires the paper to be thrown into the toilet is deposited.

Moving on, Saturday night I went with Flora and John to hear Wall Tiger, a ska band, play at Riverside Caf�. I met Tim, the leader of the band, at Christine and Benicio�s stand-up comedy night last Monday at Witch�s House. Tim mentioned that he was a ska musician. My friend Jim Berry, a PKT Mass Eta chapter brother, was a ska fan, and the former cook at the PKT house was a member of a popular Boston ska band, Babaloo. I�ve always wanted to hear ska, but had not.

Wall Tiger was great! The band�s songs have both Chinese and English lyrics (and even a little Taiwanese thrown in!). One song that I really enjoyed was about a monkey who had his eye on a female monkey. The refrain goes: got no money / got nothing to give / but if you come up to my treehouse / I will share my banana with you. There was another hilarious song entitled, �Beetlenut Girl.� Wall Tiger will come out with it�s first album in July. Their next performance in Taipei is on May 11 at Witch�s House.

Talking with Linda at our Sunday brunch, I found out that Linda is also a fan of ska. Beyond our discussion of music, Linda got Jen and I excited about the prospect of visiting her in Puerto Rico this summer.

There was quite a crowd at United Mix yesterday. Besides our usual group, Patty, James, Mike, and Barbara were there. Andrew walked in with a friend at the same time as Augie arrived to join our group. Later, Jeff stopped by for lunch with another friend.

Afterwards, I went swimming with Wayne, James, and my cousin, Jay. I am compelled to let you all know that Wayne, besides being the proud owner of a very nice BMW, is also an excellent driver.* However, while Wayne was driving me back to Angela�s home and we were enjoying the lovely weather through his sunroof, a bird pooped�and the bird poop fell through the sunroof opening and landed on the center panel! Of course, Wayne just had his car washed that day.

That�s when I realized that car commercials will show images of people driving their convertibles, with the wind blowing through their hair. But these commercials will never show the inherent dangers of driving without a roof�wayward bird poop!

* This message has in no way been paid for by the Fans of Wayne Sun Club. ;-)

I'm one for three - yay! Three of what, might you ask? Well, I got bitten four times by a mosquito within five minutes after I got home last night. I was bitten four more times before I went to bed, despite the fact that Angela and I had two electronic mosquito repellent devices going on. I am certain that mosquito followed me to work today. Carol said that she had never seen a mosquito in the office in the year and a half she has worked here. This mosquito delighted in stopping by my cube, and I was unable to kill it in two attempts. Richard was zero for two, as well. Then, while meeting Alex (my boss) in his office, the mosquito landed on his desk. Ha ha! Sweet victory at last!

In Taiwan, toilet paper is not flushed down the toilet after the paper is, uh, used. Instead, one is expected to toss the toilet paper into a bin adjacent to the toilet. Another feature I appreciate while working at UMC is the design of our restrooms. Instead of an open wastebasket (which can be quite disgusting, both visually and olfactory), each stall has its own covered wastebasket with a convenient step-on pedal for hands-free access. The wastebasket is ergonomically located so that you do not have to twist your body in odd positions to open the lid. I have not seen a better system in Taiwan, even in Taipei's best hotels (some of them have covered wastebaskets, but the flip-top lid kind, which in its own way is even more gross than the uncovered ones). I applaud whoever thought up of this system. I really do appreciate the little details.

In unrelated and more appealing news, I went climbing again yesterday. This time, I only went up once, to 8 meters, before getting pooped. I spent the rest of the time learning how to belay from Flora, Benson, and James. I am establishing a trend; I go climbing every time I return from Hsinchu. Yesterday's meetings in Hsinchu were rather dull. In one, I felt like I was surrounded by my parents' friends: a gaggle of senior engineering types chortling at what I assume were engineering jokes.

One of the benefits here at UMC is our subsidized lunch program. The employees who work in Hsinchu can eat in the company cafeteria for only NT$25, so the kind folks in upper management have extended that same benefit to their Taipei employees. Since the company does not have its own cafeteria in Taipei, they order biandang (lunchboxes) from local vendors. Every day, I get my choice of about eleven options, equally divided between vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals. I enter my selection in a shared Excel spreadsheet every morning by 10:30a.m., and by noon, my lunch has been delivered to the office. I appreciate this program not only because the US$0.71 lunch fits into my poor cash flow budget, but also because the lunch options are written in Chinese characters. Every morning presents a learning opportunity and a guessing game. I am partial to the vegetarian option that comes with the fruit plate, because not only do I get a filling lunch entree, I also get a good amount and variety of cut up fruit.

A bit of cross-promotion: may I recommend you check out my latest entry in electronic paths? I have featured some references on writing. Additionally, I posted to beauty salon yesterday, with an entry on Maggie's beauty routine. That is as sophisticated as my comments feature is going to be for now -- email me and I'll incorporate comments at my discretion.

In other news, last night was Benicio's (aka James) first time as a stand-up comedian, with Christine as his foil. The event, held at a bar called Witch House, was well attended by friends with kind intentions, despite the occasional (playful) heckling from the crowd. Mike tried to teach Benecio how to stand in the horse position of the martial arts style that Mike studies (the name of which Benecio translated as "Buddha's hand coming out of the cabbage"), Barbara regaled us with horror stories about blind dates in Taiwan, and I discovered -- long after the rest of the patrons did -- that Witch House's decor includes hanging bras off of chair backs. I do hope that Benicio will have another go at stand-up comedy.

People keep asking me about what my new job is like and what I do. Well, I am in the Corporate Communications division of UMC, which means that I work on the look and feel of our communications with our clients. My current projects include editing our quarterly newsletter which is sent out to clients, redesigning our corporate brochure, and my favorite, designing a notebook (the spiral-bound kind) that we are making to give away at an upcoming conference. I ponder such weighty issues like picking the right color and texture cardstock, and whether rounded corners are preferable to sharp corners.

I told my mom that I feel like I am back working on the yearbook in high school and college, except that this time I am getting paid to make sure that things look nice and are produced well! My experiences at Technique, the yearbook of MIT, have been particularly helpful, because Technique has always maintained a high standard for quality, especially in content and production. Though I am not doing anything world-changing, I am pleased by the fact that I am getting paid to do something I did for fun before.

On the other hand, I've only been here for a week, so my cousins are theorizing that the really hard work will kick in after awhile.

Another lovely, peaceful Sunday...

Sundays are my favorite days, because it lends itself to leisurely brunches with close friends, which means good food, the Sunday paper, and interesting conversation. As usual, Angela, Jen, Eugenio, Linda, and I met up for brunch at United Mix. Joaquin and Mate were unable to join us because they had company, and their presence was sorely missed. Maria, Seth, and Jeff joined us today as well.

Speaking of Sundays, TC recently wrote this in his blog:

Eventually I became conversant in many different kinds of church ceremonies, i.e., when to kneel, when to sing, when when I could get away with doodling on the program notes for lengthy periods of time during the sermon. I didn't pay much attention to the sermons because if I had I would just have wanted to respond to the pastor's claims, but I knew from confirmation class that discussion was frowned upon. We were God's Flock, dammit. Sheep don't discuss things. Shut up, TC. Nobody wants to hear your theories on why the Philistines might not have been so bad after all.

I laughed out loud when I read it! Thankfully, my co-workers didn't seem to notice. And on another thankful note, in the religious experiences that I've had, people have always been willing to discuss with me my responses to various religious tenets. I do feel like God is always watching over me, which provides reassurance, though...I have not resolved the differences between my political views and views on the way people should live their lives, and the way the average devout Christian in the U.S. lives his or her life.

Something which I do keep in mind is what I once read in The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey. In the book, Yancey points out that Jesus was a guy who hung out with the unpopular crowd, and was perfectly comfortable with them. Jesus was a guy whom "those in authority..regarded him as a troublemaker, a disturber of the peace. He spoke and acted like a revolutionary, scorning fame, family, property, and other traditional measures of success." I'd like to have that compassion for others that he had.

I think I am entering a philosophical realm in which I'm not going to be able to express myself as clearly as I'd like to right now, so I'll just leave it at that.