A strange habit has ingrained itself on me over the past month or two and I’m rather loathe to admit to it: on occasions I’ve found it necessary to carry what I’ll term delicately, a “man bag”. Now, prior to this epiphany, I would have found it anathema to carry anything more than a wallet in my back pocket. However, recently I’ve found it more than annoying to carry a camera (to record photos for this blog), an extra outer garment in case it gets cold, an umbrella (if weather looks threatening) and a hat (to contain my ever growing flowing locks if even a minor zephyr appears). How could I carry this equipment?I bought the bag down at the night market and it is actually one of these trendy numbers with the long strap, so you can sling it across the shoulders and have it hang down below the hip at the back. Ostensibly bought for school after my more staid work bag broke, it is seeing service now on the weekends. What I really need is a utility belt; an upmarket version of the one that Batman had…now that would be great. I could ditch the Batterang and the aerosol can of shark repellant and get some really useful stuff like the aforementioned in there. The metrosexual Taiwanese young male, of whom there are seemingly endless hordes, did provide the inspiration as it doesn’t seem to be a problem for them to be toting all manner of bags in any situation. I must admit I have a love/hate relationship with the “man bag”: I don’t particularly like the look, but I have to admit it’s very convenient!
Cassy and I met up at Pizza Rialto on Friday evening and enjoyed a delicious dinner and Cass had some Chianti to go along with the food. I had been at a “beach party” on the deck of one of the buildings at school so had already partaken of numerous Coronas. We were keen to have an enjoyable night as we’d signed up to do the dreaded admissions exams the following day. Saturday saw us administer and then sort and grade vocabulary and reading exams, a grammar test and a writing sample for some 93 kids applying to gain entry to the school. These are high stakes test and can sometimes mean the difference to a family coming to Taiwan to take up positions or not. The kids need to meet certain criteria to enter the school in various categories, or else they are denied completely, or go on to a waiting list. It is a very, very tiring day. We proctor and invigilate for about 3 hours, before bundling everything up to bring home to grade. We usually make the best of it through the afternoon and the evening, listening to the rugby league chat over the internet while keeping half an eye on the AFL on TV with the sound turned down (at least I do!). After burning the midnight oil (not quite literally) we managed to get them all done…we’re a well oiled machine with this now and we both get two extra days pay, so we think it’s worth it. We’ve brokered a deal with school to come back early in August to do the same thing, and this, along with yesterday’s work and one more spot in December is going to pay for a trip we have planned for next year’s June which will be really decadent…more later on that!
We got out and enjoyed the absolutely glorious weather today and took a walk around, ending up at the Miramar cinema to see “Street Kings” which was quite superb. Keanu Reeves has certainly come of age as an actor in this: I always thought he was a bit washed out and lacking in conviction, but he and Forest Whitaker were superb as LA vice cops with a flawless cameo from the extremely talented Hugh Lawry as an internal affairs detective. By the way, my bag was extremely useful to carry all of our paraphernalia but I did notice that Cassy brought nothing and in fact used my bag to carry her jumper…something’s not right here! Photos: Cassy with her new specs talks to Mary, a butterfly amongst flowers, a tea menu, shots from our last scooter trip and a very strange collection of wiped out “futuristic” houses: nicknamed “Jetsons”, out near the coast, this is one of those projects that probably looked really good in some planning office 30 years ago…until the first typhoon hit.