Adaptability

My good friend Jonno has an extremely well-written blog that is known as Jonno's Adaptability Blog.  In it, he has ruminated over many many subjects (from Hipsters to American Politics as Understood Through Madden '04).  He's a good thinker, that Jonno, and he just keeps getting better.  That is because is is--that's right!--adaptable.  And so must we all be, lest we want to die, our Orlando Magoc Shaq jersies over our muffin tops and our browser history full of Napster torrents and MySpace bookmarks.  Adaptability...that's where it's at.

So I'm taking it in stride that things I thought and things I thought I thought will be challenged and tested and rewarded and questioned over and over again, especially if I continually throw myself at the mercy of a country where I speak 0% of the language and a culture where I'm of the dim-witted minority.  But you know what, Babies?  I'm adaptable.  Ya gotta be.  I gotta be.

Like the job I got.  It's earily like my last job at Little Fox in Korea, but with a few ever important differences:

• Less than half the hours.  I work 19 hours/week.  I make less money, but pound for pound it's pretty all right.  They have to be 19 well spent hours, though.  No phoning it in like many of my contemporaries are (and soon-to-be contemporaries).  Nope.  Dude wants his teachers to care.  Or at least do their job well.  I can do the second part no problem.  It'll just take some work, which-though I'd rather not-I will do.
• No homework.  This is big.  At least 10 hours/week at Little Fox was devoted to grading the homework assignments which were purely a formality.  I hated it as much as the students did, and you can quote me on that, mother fucker.
• Western boss.  Does that wound racist?  Well it aint.  It helps to have a boss who speaks the same native language as you do.  And furthermore, you can operate under some of the same understood points, like how to go about teaching children.  Sure, it's not a given, but the gap between what I think and what he thinks is greatly sutured because of our likened background.
• Fun is encouraged.  That's awesome.

But it's not all great.  I have a boatload of "homework" to study before I'm ready to teach(I guess you never can escape it).  This flew in the face of the easy road I thought I'd be on, but it's only to start.  Soon I'll get good, then get great, then get paid, then repeat that shit ad nauseam until I puke in English.  It's a long bus ride and more work than I figured I'd be putting in, but I'm adaptable.  I can take it.  I'll probably come out studlier for it, too.

And another thing: I never thought I'd be living with roommates here.  I just assumed I'd be living alone again.  My bad.  I just got an apartment today where I'll be living with a chill gentleman named Dave (who gardens), a gorgeous young woman named Marta (who smiles) and another mystery woman named Amanda (who I have yet to meet).  It's a great place, great people, all that, but...I just figured I'd be living alone in Taiwan.  I guess I also thought I'd be making more money.  Overall, this will be a lesson in culture and experience and less of a lucrative endeavor.  I hope I keep liking it.

So be adaptable.  I understand I haven't exactly nailed this point to the wall, but forgive me, I'm listening to Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, which doesn't exactly make it easier to concentrate on my words.  So I'll end it there, 'cause Cole (my current roommate) is making dinner, and I wanna keep him company while he does so.

Forgive my scatter mindedness, but I can't concentrate right now.  I just can't.  Too much I am convinced I need to do.

Lucas,
LS^2

PS Sorry for the lack of pictures, but the only instrument of photography I've been carrying around is this loaner iPhone, which doesn't play nice with my computer.  Soon, y'all...