Suddenly

10 September - 16 September 2007

Stars and stripes?!

I was still doing well health wise even after staying up late to take part in the craziness of colin's birthday party, but things were not going so well for colin. strange things had been happening at his school for a while and it had been very stressful for him. colin was working illegally in taiwan through no fault of his own, but had managed to find a lovely school that paid him well and didnt mind that he was illegal. but now it appeared that the school had been SOLD. changes happened overnight and suddenly the school had a new name, the USA american school (vomit!) and a hideous new 'stars and stripes' uniform that both students and teachers were expected to wear (double vomit!). the taiwanese love america and american culture blindly so, claiming that your school has some link to america often gives you more credibility and draws more students. ironically, the schools with USA or america in their name tend to be the worst-run schools with glaring english mistakes on their signs and in their textbooks.

and at colin's school, in true taiwanese style, NOBODY was told ANYTHING! everything is a secret and there are hushed meetings behind closed doors and then last-minute announcements are made that affect your work, your life. this sort of 'management style' (or lack thereof) is typically taiwanese and used to happen at my old school all the time. most of the time you would just try and do your job while all sorts of changes happened around you. you'd carry on until you arrived at work one day to find that your entire classroom had moved to a new building and that there was a strange taiwanese woman in there because your old taiwanese co-teacher had quit?! most taiwanese managers dont seem to think that their staff has any right to know what is really happening within the company or school until the very last minute. a bit like the current (Bush/Cheney) american government actually - maybe that is why they like america so much ;-).

My ARC

anyway, all the secrecy was driving colin crazy, especially as his status in the country was so questionable, even dangerous. we had agreed to leave taiwan at the end of november purely because that was the end of his contract with his school, but now everything was unsure. the new owner of the school finally showed her true colours in a meeting with the parents on the evening of friday, 7 september (colin's birthday!) where she announced to the parents that colin was illegal and that she planned to fire him. colin only found out about this on monday, 10 september because his manager (who liked him so much) told him. this same manager told him that the parents had revolted against the new owners pronouncement and many had threatened to pull their children out of the school if colin was fired, obviously the new owner had quickly changed her mind on that issue. but the damage had already been done and colin arrived on monday, 10 september to a school empty of staff and students. he had 8 students in total, where he had had close to 30 before and there was 1 taiwanese co-teacher left at the school that his much-loved manager was also leaving.

there was much discussion between colin and i as to whether he should even go into work on tuesday, 11 september. i voted NO as i didnt believe that the school would pay him what he was owed, let alone stay open! but colin decided to do the honourable thing and continue to go to work even after he had been stabbed in the back. i was so angry for him and couldnt understand how he could do it, especially after the terrible treatment that he had had at the school before this one where they had been so incompetent as to not organise his ARC for him in time, thereby rendering him illegal, a second-class citizen. but colin was right in the end. he was paid the full amount that he was owed, but the school closed on friday, september 14 and colin was without his lovely, well-paid job that had made staying in taiwan worthwhile.

personally, i was just astounded at how quickly and how thoroughly the new owner had run the once-successful school into the ground. within the space of two weeks she had managed to alienate both parents and staff and according to colin she didnt seem to understand why! apparently the last week she spent burning incense in little shrines outside the school and saying prayers in all the classrooms in a last ditch attempt to save the school. desperation had definitely brought out the religious side of her, but by then it was far too late. so, colin and my cosy little plan had, once again, been trampled by fate. how much BAD LUCK can two people have?! seriously! the one thing that made us feel better was knowing that this crazy woman who had destroyed colin's school, his job and his financial plans also had a whole lotta egg on her face!

Colin

8 September 2007

Birthday boy

colin's 26th birthday was on a friday, lucky boy! i knew that he was still feeling lonely and desperately wanted/needed to have some fun with a nice group of people. he needed to relax and be carefree for a change, he needed to escape the seriousness, the tragedy, the stress of our situation. so i invited everybody that we knew in taipei to a party on our rooftop and most of them came. the organisation of the party was part of my birthday present to him, that and me stuffing myself full of xanax so as to avoid having spasms and ruining his fun.

the party was a definite success. we moved our door-sized coffee table outside onto our roof, hooked up speakers to my laptop outside and even moved a standing lamp outside to provide some lighting. it was a beautiful night and people came and went from about 6 pm until 5 am. colin bought mescal tequila (with WORMS - of course!) for the party and i gave everybody gift packs of xanax (my doctor always gave me far too much and our friends were more than happy to take the excess off my hands ;-). i stayed up pretty late talking to people, videoing and taking photos, but i took no responsibility for colin's drunkenness. he ended up puking tequila worms off our rooftop onto the veranda roof of our landlord below us. luckily we had some good friends who looked after him and even cleaned the offended veranda roof below us. since i have stopped drinking i find drunk people incredibly irritating, loud and embarrassing and that is normally the point in the night's proceeding's where i go to bed.

colin and the rest of the party planned to take drugs that night, but it was agreed that colin could not take anymore intoxicants until he had drunk sufficient water and recovered from his battle with the mescal worms. i could feel i was getting tired and irritated so i went to bed at about 12 pm, well, i tried to anyway. i lay in bed for ages, but i couldn't sleep knowing that all my friends were just outside having fun. after a few hours my curiosity and jealousy got the better of me and i got up to see what was going on. people were all over the rooftop and in our neighbour's flat, fucked on ecstasy. i actually had a bit of fun with them as they were all extra loving, caring and fun (as people on E tend to be ;-).

I ended up only going back to bed at 5 am when everyone went to an early morning party at someone elses house. colin arrived back home at about 10 am and passed out, but our neighbour and a whole lot of his friends stayed up the whole of sunday, semptember 9 partying on our rooftop. it was a beautiful sunny day and i chatted to the partiers for a while who all seemed to be really nice people. i was happy that colin had had a fun night and i didn't mind that there was a whole lot of fucked people on my rooftop, listening to loud music and partying all sunday. in fact, i was quite proud of how accepting i was of the whole situation. "i am a cool sick person" i thought. i didn't really feel bitter, angry, jealous or left-out and i wasnt pissed off that a quiet sunday was being torn apart by my neighbour and his friends. but then ... that was the first time it had happened.