Many problems can be solved by throwing money at them. It's a strategy Ted and I use too often, just because at the moment, we're OK on money but horribly short on time, and we often don't have access to (or don't know how to access) other solutions, because we're Not From Around Here.

With the Macmillan thing (and the pattern it's part of) I was reluctant to use that solution on the Kindle problem just now, but, well, I need Amazon more than they need me. Also, when I posted about my problem on the Ravelry Kindle group, someone made a cogent point: "Just noticed: for as many Kindles that have been sold and how many are owned by Ravellers…when one of them goes bad it merits a new thread on this list. That’s pretty good reliability. :o)" And finally, the Macmillan books including Kindle books are back on Amazon.

(Ted and I had a whole discussion on this last night, on what of all of this is a moral issue and what's a business issue. His view is that it's all a business issue; when I finally said, "It's a moral issue because they're getting between me and my ability to buy books!" he paused and then said, carefully, "OK, I can see how that's true in your world.")

As of this morning, I'd abaout decided to go order a Kindle 2 - since I have the funds to do so, getting a reconditioned K1 didn't make sense for me. But Amazon's checkout page says they use a courier service to ship them internationally, and it would get here in only 2-4 days. I don't want it sitting on the apartment guard's desk that long, so it makes sense for me to wait until I get back to order it. And that gives me more time to think about what I want to do.

My Kindle just broke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Currently it's still readable-on; there's an area on the upper right about half an inch wide and 3 inches long where the screen is displaying .... well, sort of boxes with smudges in them. Not test, anyway. This happened because I was charging my backup battery for our trip - when I put the better battery back in and turned it back on, this had happened.

I called Amazon, but since my Kindle is over a year old the warranty has run out. So my options are:
- buy a refurbed Kindle 1, $99. And they are back-ordered so it won't be shipped for at least three weeks.
- buy a new Kindle 2, $259, could be shipped today.
- buy an iPad when those go on sale, $459, shipping in late March.
- don't buy anything and hope none of my books have important information in the upper half of the rightmost 1/2".

This is the worst time for this to happen, as I head out for almost two weeks tomorrow and am then only back for a week before leaving again. I'd probably go with the Kindle 2 option tonight .... but then there's the Macmillan thing. How can I drop that much money on the Kindle when I don't even know if I'll be able to get the books I want?

So I guess my best choice for the moment is option 4, coupled with hoping that the problem doesn't expand and if it does, the lodge where we're staying has a good library. And while I'm gone, I will debate between the K2 and iPad options. I guess. And see what the news is when we return.

Fuck.

(I'm actually feeling a foolish tendency to descend into full-blown panic over this - How will I survive without a functional Kindle if it goes bad? I am reminding myself hard that anxiety is a side effect of the malaria drug I'm on, and that the Kindle 2 option does at least exist.)

Any and all advice is welcome. I don't promise to take it but would be reassured by hearing others' views, even if they're "You're being an idiot. Go order a bunch of dead-tree books from Powell's. Or reread the ones you have."

ETA: I realized there is another option, which I am now implementing: upload a bunch of Kindle books on the iPod for backup. Not ideal for reading, but better nor nowt.

I am way beyond "thrilled" and almost into "speechless" (seriously - it took me three days to even figure out how to say this) that I have been nominated for a Rhysling Award for Clotho Visits the Local Yarn Store, originally published in Twist Collective. That's amazing company to be in.


(I wonder if this is the first poem ever published in a knitting magazine to be nominated?)

The Toastmasters "guess the accent" thing went really well last night. At least, I had a geat time and I think everyone else did :-) Huge thanks to everyone who recorded (or wrote) a greeting for me - I didn't use them all but got a good sampling. I think Billy from Wales really threw them; I'm not sure anyone there really knew where Wales was. (Not unreasonable: how many Americans or Brits can locate Guangzhou on a map?) I heard that one guy said he'd never really gotten a sense of how US accents vary until now, so I think that means it was a big success.

• I just finished my big huge meeting with me presenting to the big huge management guys (well, not personally huge, or at least not all of them, just high up in the company). I wouldn't call it a raving tearing success but it wasn't too painful either, which is really all you hope for. And the VP at whose bequest we were all meeting pledged full support (and pushed us to do stuff faster than we think possible, but that's what VPs do. (Not VIP, VP, as in Vice President of my company. Waaay up in management.) When I say "just finished", it is now 20 minutes after my bedtime. They all stayed an hour for what was scheduled to be a half hour meeting, so they took it seriously. But the timing is another reason I wasn't looking forward to it. Glad that's done - tomorrow for the mopping up.


• First thing this morning I got an extremely nice and totally unnecessary email from someone who is definitely a VIP in my little world.


• Right before the meeting I finished knitting my Rogue sweater, and though I couldn't knit during it (because I was running the meeting) I figured out how to do the tricky hood grafting. I'd never realized the knit-purl-purl-knit only works for stockinette, and I haven't seen instructions anywhere, but I figured it out structurally.


• My Toastmasters guess-the-accent game seemed to be a big success. I owe more detailed thanks to a lot of people in a lot of venues, so I will do those tomorrow.

Bed now.

Hey, cool! Listening to Crosby, Still, and Nash, I just realized: I will get to see the Southern Cross twice this year - last October in Tasmania, and next week in South Africa. It's the rainy season, but hopefully the skies will cooperate enough to let us get in some star-watching.

My arm hurts. Also, my underarm hurts, and it's slightly swollen (though less than yesterday). Unless I had really bad form in my squat/push presses Sunday, I can only assume it's an effect of the yellow fever vaccination we had Friday. That's odd, because the lists of side effects do mention sore arms but don't say anything about swollen lymph nodes. Mefloquine, the malarial prophylactic drug we started taking yesterday, has an even more fun list of possible side effects, including insomnia, headache, paranoia, and vivid dreams. I'd wonder if I had some of those Sunday night, but waking up in the middle of the night and taking a while to go back to sleep isn't uncommon for me, and if I'm up at 2AM and anything hurts, I have such a strong tendency to decide it's probably cancer / tuberculosis leprosy / flesh-eating alien diseases that I've learned to push the worry off until morning (when it generally turns out that what I have is a minor bruise or a slight cold).

Still hurts, though, and I've felt slightly feverish, queasy, or achy on and off all weekend - all common side effects of either the vaccine or the mefloquine. Actually, I was feeling a bit off all week - the reason I suggested going out Friday was that I felt up to it for once. On Saturday, we ended up coming home early from a wedding ("early" being about 8 courses into a 10-course banquet). Still, over the weekend I managed to erg, lift, establish that the local mall doesn't have any of the things I wanted to buy before our trip, buy a cheap duffle bag, go food-shopping, and make a big batch of jambalaya so I guess it counts as productive. Hopefully this comng weekend before we fly out, I'll be up to getting a sturdier duffle bag and a smaller camera bag. (If not, we have Plan B: the cheap duffle we got yesterday and an enormous bag we took to Antarctica - both are big enough to fit the camera bags we have, but might be a bit large for a small charter plane.)

All that said, though, the week started out well: some good news yesterday and some more this morning, and the knowledge that it's my last work week before vacation! Then it's back here for a week, to the Netherlands for house-hunting, back here for two weeks, and off for good. (Where "good" means "until my first business trip back to Taiwan".)

Last night was great! We decided to go out to a pizza place a few stops down the MRT. It's right near where a bunch of people from work live, so we called one of them to join us and he promised to call another. The other guy couldn't come and the first guy's wife is back in the US, so it was the three of us. Then one of the Dutch guys who works for Ted came in, complete with wife, visiting in-laws .... and month-old baby we hadn't yet gotten to see. So I got baby-snuggling time (and got spit up on, thoroughly. Oops. My own fault for burping him after feeding without a burpcloth - I don't have good baby-handling skills any more.)

Decent wine, a place that wasn't crowded on a Friday night, good company, the best pizza in Taipei (that's not faint praise; it compares with the best I've had in the US, though it's a thin-crust style I don't often see there), homemade tiramisu, and a baby ... the only thing that could have made it better would have been getting to pet the cat who's been there other times we went to that restaurant.

(It's called Alley Cats. It's on an alley and they have a cat.)

This sweater is just going to be touch and go all the way though, I see. I currently have about 2 balls of yarn left, with half a sleeve and half the hood to go. I'd feel a lot better about it if I'd managed to find more than one more ball of yarn last week - clearly I wouldn't have had enough without it. I've worked on other sweaters that miraculously took much less yarn than I'd expected; this one is the opposite, just eating yarn. I have a few possibilities if I do run out:

• snip a stitch and unravel the hem facing of the sweater body, then pick up the remaining stitches and reknit it in a contrasting yarn (which I did use for the sleeve hem facings).


• re-knit the sleeves a little narrower. I think my gauge is off just a hair, so everything is a bit bigger than expected, which is why I'm so short on yarn. I do like the easy fit, though.


• unravel until I have just a few inches of the hood, then turn it under and sew it to make a stand-up collar.


• unravel the hood and then reknit some length of it but backwards, with the cables on top and let that flap sit on my back in sort of a sailor collar.


• go back to the yarn store (but when??) and see if another ball of this yarn has magically appeared.

Actually, the stand-up collar idea would involve the least amount of rework and be very wearable - I'd be unlikely to ever wear the hood up anyway. But I'll go on knitting just in case I have enough yarn to do it as planned, and if it's very close to enough, maybe try that idea with the hem facings - they'd lie flatter in a finer yarn anyway.

I am definitely looking forward to the Apple announcements and rumored Mac Table on Thursday (Wednesday for most of you) though it's more out of curiosity - I don't expect to actually buy one any time soon or anything. The best possible scenario for me would be an unlikely one: a table with an e-ink screen on one side to read books, and a regular screen on the other side to do everything else, with a persistent wireless connection. I'd totally buy that. (The only problematic point would be if I couldn't read my Kindle books on it, though if the other screen could handle the iPhone Kindle app at least I could read them there. And I'd want a replaceable memory card and battery, as long as I'm wishing, and a size not much larger than a Kindle. (The reported 10" screen is too big for most of my purses.)


Another good thing I've just realized is that we will be in South Africa during much of the Winter Olympics. We'll be going out in early mornings and late afternoons, so during midday I can be in front of the TV. Uh, if our lodge has TV - I didn't check because I normally don't care. Oops. Just checked - so much for that idea! No problem for me, since I can read and knit, but I'd better warn the boy. Also: less than two more weeks until we go on "safari"!

Oh, and I'm feeling much better since this morning, thanks.

Yesterday I had another of those weird ocular migraines - only minor headache afterward, but for a while there I couldn't see due to pre-migraine 'aura'. (It's a lot like the afterimage you'd get from looking into a very bright light, and obscures one side of my vision.) I have an annual health checkup on Friday, so I will mention this if there's a doctor who speaks English well enough, just to verify that's what it is. Normally I can tie it to stuffed-up or drippy sinuses, but this time I didn't notice any though Ted did say I'd been snoring the night before. However, this was either the first time I'd had an ocular migraine caused by drinking coffee or else it was caused by something else but came along with a reaction to coffee. Normally these days I can have a very occasional cup of joe with no ill effects, but yesterday was one of those that reminded me why I don't usually drink it. Maybe it's because I was trying not to snack too much, maybe it was random chance.

Back before I figured out coffee was the trigger, I used to feel crappy after lunch every day - often queasy, generally running to the restroom. Now that doesn't happen any more, I've got less and less tolerance for it. I didn't actually feel as bad yesterday as I used to routinely, on an absolute scale, but it seems like it's more annoying now. And yesterday the migraine and coffee issues either caused or exacerbated each other, which made it worse - first I couldn't see much then I couldn't focus my eyes together, and meanwhile my gut was all unsettled.

It's one of those things - I can come up with all sorts of possible causes, but there's no way of really knowing. Just general unspecified idiopathic yuck. I still don't feel all that great today and am wishing I'd stayed home. Unfortunately I can't just drive home, because we carpooled together and only have one car. I could take a taxi - it would cost about $20US, but we figured that an occasional cab ride home is a lot cheaper than owning a second car - but it just seems to unnecessarily dramatic for something which has no real cause that I can tell, and that experience says will probably eventually go away on its own.

Another reason I don't want to flake out is because I'm running out of time in this office; I have this week and next, before we go away on vacation for two weeks. Then I'm back for one week before going off on a business trip (I timed this trip with one of Ted's for both personal and practical reasons - having him there on my birthday so I won't spend it alone for the third year in a row but also saving the company money on hotel rooms) and then I'm back for another two weeks before I'm gone for good. Five weeks. Eek!

Native English speakers: Would you be willing to write out a short greeting for my Toastmasters people here in Taiwan? Or even better, record one if you have the ability to do it. I'd like for them to hear a lot of the different varieties of English - anything from Down-East Maine to Cajun gumbo to North Philly black or South Philly Italian, to Boston to Bombay to Cardiff to Singapore to London to North Dakooota to Melbourne to Cali surfer dude - just write or say it however you speak. (Feel free to have fun with it - exaggerate the accent and throw in lots of local phrases.)

I want to use this for a "Variety Session", which is supposed to be both entertaining and educational - unless I can think of a better way to do it, I'll probably divide them into teams and let them guess where each one is from. I can give out hints and decrease the points they get depending on how many hints I have to throw out.

Thanks in advance!

ETA: I forgot to say, I'd like to do this at the next meeting, which is Feb 2.

Erged this morning, yay. Funny thing, considering how often I feel like I am goofing off: I just noticed I have erged over a million meters so far this year - not bad since Concept II's "year" starts May 1.

Question: Since I just looked at my watch and there are about four hours until I can leave work, why does it feel like I've been here forever? Answer: probably because I've been here six hours and left the office less than 12 hours before that (#(*&%$ Toastmasters.)

The to-do list below is mostly for my own reference, but it robably helps explain yesterday's entry.


To do:

• For S. Africa trip (mid-Feb):
  
  • Fill out trip information and medical forms (Mountain Travel-Sobek is thorough about trips they arrange.)
  
  
  • Figure out what clothing I need on trip.
  
  
  • Get vaccines for yellow fever and typhoid and pills for malaria.
  
  
  • Buy new camera body (and spare general-purpose lens) and figure out how to use it, despite high probability of instructions being in Chinese
  
  
  
  
• For trip to Netherlands (first week of March)
  
  • Figure out who I want to meet with and let them know
  
  
  • Fill out trip request
  
  
  • Tell coordinator when I want to look at apartment
  
  
  • Schedule dinners with friends? (I didn't last time and felt guilty about that)
  
  
  
• For move: (tentatively scheduled for April 5, with packing in the week before)
  
  • Meet with coordinator and tell him what I'm taking (scheduled for tomorrow)
  
  
  • Decide what I'm taking in fine detail
  
  
  • Purchase things I can get here but not there (e.g. large packages of Q-Tips and Glad-Lock bags from Costco, because I find brand-name makes a difference in those)
  
  
  • Retrieve my boat from Yi-lan and get it near my apartment for the movers
  
  
  • Move as much as possible of what I'm taking into my craft room (and what I'm not taking </i>out</i> of it) to simplify for movers and reduce risk of mistakes

Of course these are all on top of all the work to-dos and other normal life stuff everyone has, plus staying fit enough so I don't embarass myself when I get back to rowing on actual water.

Erged this morning, yay. Funny thing, considering how often I feel like I am goofing off: I just noticed I have erged over a million meters so far this year – not bad since Concept II’s “year” starts May 1.

Question: Since I just looked at my watch and there are about four hours until I can leave work, why does it feel like I’ve been here forever? Answer: probably because I’ve been here six hours and left the office less than 12 hours before that (#(*&%$ Toastmasters.)

The to-do list below is mostly for my own reference, but it robably helps explain yesterday’s entry.

To do:

• For S. Africa trip (mid-Feb):</p>
  • Fill out trip information and medical forms (Mountain Travel-Sobek is thorough about trips they arrange.)
  • Figure out what clothing I need on trip.
  • Get vaccines for yellow fever and typhoid and pills for malaria.
  • Buy new camera body (and spare general-purpose lens) and figure out how to use it, despite high probability of instructions being in Chinese
• For trip to Netherlands (first week of March)
  • Figure out who I want to meet with and let them know
  • Fill out trip request
  • Tell coordinator when I want to look at apartment
  • Schedule dinners with friends? (I didn’t last time and felt guilty about that)
• For move: (tentatively scheduled for April 5, with packing in the week before)
  • Meet with coordinator and tell him what I’m taking (scheduled for tomorrow)
  • Decide what I’m taking in fine detail
  • Purchase things I can get here but not there (e.g. large packages of Q-Tips and Glad-Lock bags from Costco, because I find brand-name makes a difference in those)
  • Retrieve my boat from Yi-lan and get it near my apartment for the movers
  • Move as much as possible of what I’m taking into my craft room (and what I’m not taking </i>out</i> of it) to simplify for movers and reduce risk of mistakes

Of course these are all on top of all the work to-dos and other normal life stuff everyone has, plus staying fit enough so I don’t embarass myself when I get back to rowing on actual water.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

This is expanded from a comment I wrote elsewhere, because as usual other people’s writings were needed to prompt me to realize what’s going on with me.

Today for at least the third week in a row, Ted and I have been bad and skipped two workout days in a row (one planned day off, one “can’t face this, set the alarm later” day). He’s grossly overworked, and I’m running out of cope myself; reporting to not one but two company VPs with sometimes conflicting goals, preparing for an international move that’s coming up very fast and not one but two other intercontinental trips before then…. (one of which I still need to write a trip request for). It’s getting to that point where 6AM workouts just feel like yet another burden and I’m rapidly running out of cope.

Another reason we’re so tired, though, is because we skipped two days in a row last week, then as a result worked out four days in a row. One thing we’re both finding as we get older is that age doesn’t necessarily mean less intense workouts, but it does mean more need to recover. Those four workouts in a row are also what made us too tired to have any fun last weekend, which is a ridiculous waste. So right now, just for the moment, I’m giving myself permission to go easy on me when I need it. I will need to give myself another day off after a couple on, just to break that vicious cycle.

I’m not all that happy with the shape I’m in at the moment (notable pudge around the middle, too many clothes not fitting, erg distance is feeling very long again) but I’m hoping that geting back in shape will happen more or less naturally after I move: more walking, getting back on actual water, food that seems to suit my body better.

I also haven't been writing any poetry lately, and I'm not going to try to force it; since that sort of writing is not the main thing or one of the major things I do I don't want to make it into a 'should' or another burden - that seems like a bad idea for me. I don't think I have the brainwidth to be creative at the moment - I'm knitting, but that's following a pattern. (The next project will be creating my own pattern, but that's working out a simple idea I had long ago.) Whatever, if something is supposed to be for fun and doesn't sound enjoyable just now, I'm not going to foist it on myself.

(Brilliant, just brilliant - wrote another post a few days ago and forgot to mirror it here. Which is still better than the one I wrote yesterday and lost entirely when my computer wouldn't hibernate and I had to shut it down by pulling out the battery. Sigh.)

I don’t mean work; I’m sure I’ll have plenty of projects to keep me busy there. But outside work, I need something to distract me from living alone – or rather, something to take advantage of all the extra time I seem to have when I’m on my own.

1. wine (because good wine is comparatively cheap there). I need some kind of constraint; I estimate I could go through a full-sized bottle in a week or so, because I don’t want wine every night and I don’t like to go through more than half a bottle max at once). Organic wines? French ‘garage wines’? It might be best to ask the guy at the wine store, and that way I can base my choice on what they have.

2. Perfect my New Orleans shrimp. Ted always thinks mine is too sweet – I’ve concluded I should probably leave out the Worcestershire sauce entirely. I’ve still never gotten it as good as a few restaurant versions I’ve tasted.

3. Perfect something involving beef chunks, like beef stew or boeuf bourguignon. We didn’t like the beef there all that much – the steaks weren’t cuts we’re used to (or weren’t great, but it may well be us not knowing how to deal with them properly) and we didn’t like the texture of Dutch ground beer, so the obvious solution seems to be a dish that involves cooking small chunks of beef for long enough to soften them. Or I could adapt my chili from ground beef to beef cubes.

4. Knitting: I could do something like knitting everything in the Favorite Socks book, but really I learn something from each individual project; not sure I need an overarching theme.

5. Travel? Given how much I saw of the Netherlands last time, I probably won’t worry about it.

6. Shopping: need to learn to shop a bit more like a Dutch person. If I can’t go to the local Eindhoven market (Tuesdays, and I’m at work) I need to check out the Woensel market north of me (on Saturdays, and not an unreasonable bike ride). The markets are the best place for fish and produce and probably also cheese. Also, I need to find a real butcher; I bet that would get me much better mean than buying it in the grocery store.

7. Rowing: I should really pick something specific, like an upcoming race, and plan my training to prepare for that. Also, I need to get in better shape in general so my clothes fit, but I'm sort of hoping that will come naturally with more walking and better eating, as well as continued exercise.



I suppose I could do a reading challenge, like reading fifty books by writers of color, but reading is my necessity and my refuge; I don’t want to make it into work. And I hardly have a need to push myself to read more! Though I’d be very happy to broaden my outlook and my reading; if people have suggestions for authors you think I’d like, particularly ones that might broaden my horizons, I’d love to hear those.

I’d appreciate suggestions for other projects that might be fun to work on during my time of living alone. Last time I lived alone (the three winter months in Worcester, MA, during which I started my first blog) I did far too much shopping, and that’s not really either desirable or even really possible, thanks to more limited store hours and lack of storage space.

This is expanded from a comment I wrote elsewhere, because as usual other people’s writings were needed to prompt me to realize what’s going on with me.

Today for at least the third week in a row, Ted and I have been bad and skipped two workout days in a row (one planned day off, one “can’t face this, set the alarm later” day). He’s grossly overworked, and I’m running out of cope myself; reporting to not one but two company VPs with sometimes conflicting goals, preparing for an international move that’s coming up very fast and not one but two other intercontinental trips before then…. (one of which I still need to write a trip request for). It’s getting to that point where 6AM workouts just feel like yet another burden and I’m rapidly running out of cope.

Another reason we’re so tired, though, is because we skipped two days in a row last week, then as a result worked out four days in a row. One thing we’re both finding as we get older is that age doesn’t necessarily mean less intense workouts, but it does mean more need to recover. Those four workouts in a row are also what made us too tired to have any fun last weekend, which is a ridiculous waste. So right now, just for the moment, I’m giving myself permission to go easy on me when I need it. I will need to give myself another day off after a couple on, just to break that vicious cycle.

I’m not all that happy with the shape I’m in at the moment (notable pudge around the middle, too many clothes not fitting, erg distance is feeling very long again) but I’m hoping that geting back in shape will happen more or less naturally after I move: more walking, getting back on actual water, food that seems to suit my body better.

I also haven’t been writing any poetry lately, and I’m not going to try to force it; since that sort of writing is not the main thing or one of the major things I do I don’t want to make it into a ’should’ or another burden – that seems like a bad idea for me. I don’t think I have the brainwidth to be creative at the moment – I’m knitting, but that’s following a pattern. (The next project will be creating my own pattern, but that’s working out a simple idea I had long ago.) Whatever, if something is supposed to be for fun and doesn’t sound enjoyable just now, I’m not going to foist it on myself.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

I’ve been really, really bad at recording workouts, so here’s the latest and an attempt to remember ones from last week.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

The following entry was originally posted at my main blog on January 13 - apparently JournalPress, which is a plugin I use to mirror entries to Dreamwidth and LiveJournal, isn't working with the latest version of WordPress. It's kind of a relief to know why I wasn't getting any comments on those sites - I was beginning to think no one liked me! So I will be posting three past entries here, then I guess I'll just mirror them manually until I can get the plugin fixed. Sorry for the barrage of entries.


This is at least the second big moving comparison post I've written; this one is more comprehensive but it's still not definitive. I'm pretty sure there will be more stuff. (The first post is here.) I'll probably cross-post this to the travel blog, too. These are in no particular order.

Things I am looking forward to in the Netherlands:

cleaner air: People keep telling me that Eindhoven has some of the worst air in Europe. But at least you can see through it, which is not always true in Taiwan.
colder air:I just don't like hot weather much. It's chilly now, but by Sunday, the high temperature here is predicted to match Eindhoven's average high for July.
language: - This is a big one, with lots of facets: first of all, a lot more people speak English, and the ones who do speak it better than here. (Chinese and English are so thoroughly different that each is very hard for native speakers of the other - even people who are comparatively fluent here have heavy accents, and even with my small knowledge of Chinese I can often hear the difference between a native speaker and an English speaker who has learned Chinese.) Second, Dutch is much easier for me - I can pretty much handle menus, for instance, which means I can eat at any restaurant rather than just ones with pictures or English menus. Third, I'll have Dutch lessons and the teachers and facilities were much better than the ones here.
walking around more at work: I don't like sitting still all day, as I mostly do here. There, it's a much larger campus and I'll have meetings all over.
getting out on the water: rowing, not just erg. Yay!
better social life: because of the rowing club and the local Stitch'n'Bitch group.
bread that isn't sweet: They don't really "get" bread here. Dutch bread is great. Even better, restaurants often serve it with herb butter. Pastries are also excellent. (Another two-way street - people from here complain about the Dutch serving bread at every meal, and aren't thrilled with the amount or quality of rice there.)
vacation time: Another big one. US: 2-3 weeks vacation plus about 8 national holidays and three days floating holiday. Taiwan, 112 hours (= 14 days) vacation time, 7 holidays, and 8 floating holidays. (This is my fourth year with this company - you get one extra day per year.) Netherlands: forty-one days vacation time - actually, 28 days (27 plus one for being over forty) and thirteen of what they call ADV days, which if I understand them right are compensation for working 40 instead of 32 hours per week.
drinkable tap water: something we didn't have in Arizona either, so I really appreciated it. In AZ it was safe but tasted awful; in Taiwan it tastes OK but we were told it's bad for you, though no one was clear on details.
more choices in the cafeteria: Here there are two plates, and can be some very weird combinations. I keep PB & J on hand. There it's a much bigger site, so bigger cafeteria with a lot more choices.
cheap and good wine: Wine is expensive here, due to taxes.

Things I will miss from Taiwan:
customer service: Not a Dutch core competency, very much a Taiwanese one.
quick restaurant meals: partly related to the above (servers work hard not to catch your eye!) but more because lots of people eat out or do take out all the time here, while for the Dutch eating out is an occasion and they don't want to be rushed. (It's much faster in Amsterdam than in the south where I'll be - maybe the tourist influence? But possibly also because there is a culture difference between the north and south Netherlands.)
Taipei taxis: cheap, safe (well, other than the crazy driving) and everywhere.
kindness: This is not at all meant as a slur on Dutch people, who were very nice to us. I'd be proud if a foreigner in the US was welcomed as we were. But the Taiwanese take kindness to a new level - it's practically a national sport.
cheaper electronics: Electronics, food, and clothing are much more expensive in the Netherlands. Clothes don't bother me because at least I can find more to fit. I can deal with paying more for food when someone else covers the housing. But electronics are very expensive!
Mexican food: Surprisingly there is some decent Mexican food in Taipei. Not in Eindhoven!
milky pearl tea: But I know it's getting more popular in the US, so maybe the Netherlands has it as well. The good coffee there is famous and would more than make up for it, but I can't drink real coffee, not more than a small cup very occasionally.
Costco, Carrefour, and A.Mart: I'll miss being able to get American brands and US-style cuts of meat at Costco. Carrefour and A.Mart are hypermarkets only a short walk from our apartment.
shopping on Sundays: And until nine or ten at night. In Eindhoven, grocery stores are open until 8 or 9, but otherwise shops close at 6 except for one night a week, and they are closed on Sunday except for the first weekend of the month.
my American fridge, washer and dryer: The one is big and the other two get clothing clean and dry, quickly and without ruining it. None of those could be said of the appliances we had in the Netherlands.
our apartment guard: who translates Chinese for us (though the current one has more limited English) and can accept packages. In the Netherlands, getting a package meant waiting for the mail carrier to try delivering it twice (when we were at home) and then picking it up on Saturday at the post office.

A few other things I won't miss from Taiwan::
guys making horking noises in the men's room No, I have no idea why, but it's all the time can hear them all too clearly from the women's toilet and the pantry at work.
our doorbell: which is very loud and plays inane versions of American songs like Yankee Doodle and Merrily We Roll Along.
an uninsulated apartment: which means not only is it cold in winter, but we can hear next door's annoying doorbell too - and their screaming kid, not to mention every time the people upstairs run the shower or flush.
having to be home for the cleaning people: I find it embarrassing to have someone else cleaning my home while I sit on my butt (working on the computer, knitting or beading usually). The only reason we keep them is that we'd hate doing the cleaning ourselves even more. (They do really do a great job, except that they keep finding new and unusual places to put things every time.)

The following entry was originally posted at my main blog on January 12 - apparently JournalPress, which is a plugin I use to mirror entries to Dreamwidth and LiveJournal, isn't working with the latest version of WordPress. It's kind of a relief to know why I wasn't getting any comments on those sites - I was beginning to think no one liked me! So I will be posting three past entries here, then I guess I'll just mirror them manually until I can get the plugin fixed. Sorry for the barrag eof entries.

We were a bit tardy in planning this year (because our initial plans fell through) but it looks like we’ll be spending Chinese New Years in South Africa, shooting big game (with cameras only). We'll be spending time in the Kruger national Park and the Madikwe Game Reserve; I’m not sure I would call this trip a "safari" since we'll be sleeping in the same place for a few nights in a row in each place, but that's the general idea.

There are only two problems with the trip: first, one of my bosses (from the Netherlands) will be on holiday in South Africa at the same time, and I think might even be in Kruger NP at the same time! Oops. However, he's a good guy and being Dutch, I think he will be able to leave work-talk behind if we do happen to run into him and his family. (Dutch cultural thing: they are very often better about not taking work into non-work contexts.)

And second, there's the point Ted raised: what do we do next? An African safari was always one of those things we wanted to do, and so was the Ice Hotel we went to last year. And the visit to the Pyramids, and the one to Antarctica. We need to put more adventures on our bucket list! Yes, I realize that as problems go, this is somewhere beyond "first-world problem" and on into "highly privileged". And there is one major thing I want to do - the traveling around the US in an RV bit. But that first step (quitting the job) is a lulu, especially when they keep trying to get you to stay or even to take on new challenges. On the other hand, the one thing that scares me more than quitting and having no income, is putting off the big trip until retirement and then ending up like my grandfather, who retired and then promptly got a heart condition that prevented all the travel he and my grandmother had wanted to do. Or like my uncle, who did get a couple good years in after early retirement but then died of cancer at 61.

After we get back, I'll only have a bit over a month before starting work in the Netherlands. Planning that transition is tricky. What I'd like to do is to have a week off here before leaving for packing and a week off there after arriving. However, that's not working out well; for one thing I may not have any vacation time left to take here, since they've prorated my available time. Second, I'm supposed to start there on April 1 – but April 2 is Good Friday, and we have April 5 off for Easter Monday. That means all the stores will be closed there, which is not helpful for settling in! This is tricky… I think what I'll have to do is take a week off here and then only two days there. After all, the place will already be furnished and it's not like I need to learn my way around. The most difficult part of the move will be that I don't think I get any airfreight so I'll be living out of one suitcase for a couple of *months* until the rest of my stuff gets there by ship. Thank God and Amazon for the Kindle!