Change

Bye bye

'A change is as good as a holiday', right? a cliche, but true. after all my recent, deep and thoughtful posts i thought i would include some news, some happy news. colin and i have finally found a new flat. it is in the mountains (elephant mountain actually - how very african!) it is very quiet (noise) and beautiful. the worst noise is the chanting from the temple in the mountains and once a month a young taiwanese man goes into the mountains to play his bagpipes beautifully. it is an eccentric neighbourhood - perfect for me and colin! we are on a rooftop so we have tonnes of space to just sit outside, enjoy the view and braai (south african bbq). what a fantastic change from staring at buildings and construction sites all day! and it just gets better, the apartment is also much cheaper and much closer to both our schools.

i have already found tenants for our current apartment. that took all of one day. we will miss the old apartment, we have lived here for two years after all, but i think we will miss mr. fuping the most (landlord). we plan to buy him a bottle of johnnie walker blue as a good-bye present, but we have to give it to him at the last moment otherwise he will do the typical, taiwanese 'dance of the gifts'. he will give us a bigger, better gift; we will be embarrassed and try and give him something else and then he will 'up the ante again' - and it will just never end! this is a typical part of taiwanese culture that makes many foreigners uncomfortable. when you form a relationship with a taiwanese person then you immediately have guanxi, which is very complicated and i don't pretend to understand it all. but, one of the principles of guanxi is gift-giving and that one must never owe one's friend a favour. this tends to degenerate into your taiwanese friend giving you more and more outrageous gifts without provocation and serious fights over the paying of bills at restaurants ;-). luckily, taiwanese people are very understanding of the stupid westerners who don't fully understand the custom and often make terrible faux pas.

anyway, back to the news ... colin and i are planning to start buying furniture this weekend (we need everything from a bed to a fridge) and then we will find a moving truck to transport the mounds of stuff we have accumulated over the last two years. yes, our two year anniversary was on May 14, but we both forgot - we're perfect for each other ;-). the big move is scheduled to take place over two days, july 31 - august 1 (which also happens to be my birthday!). and then on august 6 i will be going to taipei veteran's hospital for my 6 month, check-up MRI.

i am very excited for all of these happenings. i feel that finally, my life has taken on some form of movement ... i am not just sitting around in the same apartment, waiting for things to happen. i have been making things happen by actively taking part in our move to 'a better place'. the 6 month bench-mark is also approaching and i am starting to feel that i am really making progress. the MRI is a symbol of the future, of hope and a return to the 'world of the living', a return to normality (god, i miss it!). i know that the MRI itself won't magically make me 'all better'. i still suffer from at least two seizures a week, i am still on the same medication and i still struggle to cope with the hectic world outside my glass case (depression). but the MRI is an important psychological milestone for me and i am dying to know how much the 'little bugger' on my brain stem has shrunk!

so, august is the month, the auspicious month. i can't wait ...