Word came back today that all employees' internet activity will now be monitored, and personal email sites (i.e. Yahoo and Hotmail) will be inaccessible. That's motivation to get internet access at home. We'll see how things develop.

There is nothing particularly interesting to report from the beautiful island. Today was our earnings release for the second quarter, so our department was quite busy helping Investor Relations host the event, while also issuing a simultaneous press release.

I'm trying to lay low outside of work: I enjoyed taking time for myself this past weekend to workout a lot. Friday night I finally made it to the top of the climbing wall. The last meter took several attempts, as my brain finally figured out the holds (obviously, my minimal brute force method could only get me so far). Benson has lent me a book on climbing, so hopefully I'll know more the next time I go climbing, probably on Friday.

My head hurts, so it's time for me to leave the office and head home.

I need more web skills. It's frustrating not being able to create what I want to create.

Last night was Oriented Happy Hour. Good fun seeing many folks. I am off now to meet Barbara to look at climbing equipment.

A gripe and some warm fuzzy feelings. I really do not understand the Taiwanese practice of not separating the bathing area from the rest of the bathroom. I find it really disgusting to go into the bathroom merely to use the toilet or to wash my hands and step into a puddle of water. Hello!?! Especially if the shower is enclosed, close the damn door while showering! There's no need to play waterworks! Save that for the interpretive dance in a water fountain outside some building!

TC says I'm railing against something that cannot be changed. Taiwanese people, he says, are renowned for not understanding the concept of an enclosed shower. Taiwanese tourists have been known to flood the bathrooms (and thus, the carpeting in the main room) of hotel rooms, as they--for reasons not comprehended by me--prefer to bathe outside the tub. This is one case when I say, stay inside the lines!

On the warm and fuzzy note, I've noticed in Taipei older men driving mopeds with attached carts or little blue trucks around the neighboorhoods, collecting trash. "Newspapers! Bring your old newspapers!" "Bring out your old windows! Bring out the glass!" a recorded voice calls out in sing-song Taiwanese. The rythmic Taiwanese always sounds so musical to me, evoking memories of my parents chatting animatedly with our relatives, of my grandparents' voices, and I smile.

I had a very productive day at work. And now I am leaving at a reasonable hour to go climbing. Now, all I need to work on is getting to bed earlier, waking up earlier, working out more often, cleaning my room, organizing my finances, studying Chinese, practicing Taiwanese, dancing salsa, and...

A non-cultural moment, but gosh darn it, I'm tired and frustrated. With just a few simple keystrokes while trying to sync my financial records from the Pocket Quicken software on my PDA to the Quicken software on my laptop, I managed to lose a whole month's worth of my cash spending records. This is something that just doesn't happen when you record things the old-fashioned way, on paper. Although, of course, if I had to record everything on paper, I wouldn't be recording my daily spending.

Of course, being that I was tired and not thinking right, my attempts to recover the data only resulted in me staying up late, not recovering anything, and being short on sleep and cranky today. I can reconstruct the data, as I have saved all my receipts, but I won't be able to have things as accurate as before, since cabs and sidewalk food stands don't give out receipts, and how am I supposed to remember all those amounts for the past month? Grrr. I know it's not a big deal, but the graphs of my spending just won't be as accurate. And since I can be anal, I am going to be irked for awhile knowing that I no longer have all my spending tracked down to the last New Taiwan Dollar. Grrr.

I went to the beach at Jinshan yesterday with Angela, Maria (who is six months pregnant, looking fabulous, and barely showing), and George (Maria's husband, expectant father, and intrigued by our girl talk). Now I look like a cooked shrimp. Despite putting on sunscreen. *sigh* I should have reapplied after going the water (cleaner than I expected). Yeow!