Today was fun. No work today. Drinking, friends, nice food. Workmen shouting outside my window VERY a.m. was not good.
My daily routine is: wake up at 8-ish after having slept on average 5 hours (insomnia). Often rudely awoken by some pointlessly noisy neighbourhood activity such as some dumb temple thing or election truck with loudspeakers or that devil who sells pineapple in the market and uses a speaker system to shout ‘FENG LI- HAO CHI!’ every 20 seconds.
Realise there is no milk or it has rained all over my laundry or some petty annoyance. Eat. My current breakfast of choice is plain yogurt with sliced bananas, cinnamon, honey and instant coffee powder on it to wake me up. Look to see who’s on MSN. Check email. Delete anything from family members. Read threads about scooter emmissions or ‘what’s up with Taiwanese girls’ or something equally mind-fortifying on forumosa. Brush. Floss. Wash and scrub, clothes, fashion crisis. Weigh self. Consider going to gym. Change into one of the 2 black outfits I wear every day. Watch rerun of CSI, while feeling guilty about not going to the gym, not doing my writing or not practising my characters.
With an increasing sense of impending doom, I decide on heel height for the day and shuffle off into a taxi, while trying to avoid the mad guy who plays the accordion outside the beef noodle shop. Have the same conversation I have had with the taxi driver every day for the past eight years in Asia.
Get to work. Get Starbucks latte if feeling rich (adding some coffee granules to soup it up a bit, at desk). Go through reception where the girl asks me if I’ve eaten yet for the 900th time. Realise I have forgotten either my security pass, my desk key or my diary. Boss grunts/ignores me/says something ominous. Someone cheerful gets in my face and becomes today’s object of malice. Slump into desk which looks like a recycling depot. Read 796 pointless emails. Delete all from boss. Fantasize about boys/being rich/telling the man where to stick his job/dying in a plane crash.
Prepare yet another series of exciting educational experiences for my dear students. Mark a heap of bizzare essays on worthy topics. Attempt to be helpful and encouraging and give them tips to work on next time. Fail. Steal some change from boss’s desk drawer for the coffee machine.
Note with irritation that key stationery items are missing from my desk drawer and that Hartley has stolen my scissors.
Teach classes. Realise that many of my students are actually pretty cool and I like teaching. I just hate schools. 7-11/Jasons run made at some point in the day to make sure sugar and caffeine levels do not dip below ADHD level.
Walk home, ipodding all the way. Probably dining on nutritious AND delicious fare from the 7-11. Get home. Fall over doorstep fro the 615th time because the light is broken. Watch more CSI Miami and fantasize about Horatio Caine. Fail to take the rubbish out. Swear to go to the gym/write/practice characters tomorrow.
Feed my fish. Post some pointless stuff about self on forumosa. Recharge ipod. Free-floating anxiety about whatever drama du jour i have created.
Bed. Toss and turn, get up to investigate scrabbling noises from the roof rats. Fall asleep at 2 or 3.
Would also love to find a nice Taiwanese girl to share my life with, but I guess that kind of thing cannot be planned 
