Nov. 29 to SF!

and it was a crazy week. Obama won. DPP activists and other protesters clashed with police while Chen wined and dined with Nationalist Party leaders inside hotels. and Sara got her interview -- an anticlimactic few minutes with each of the 3 interviewers. i think they looked at our case file and thought, "this is too absurd to be made up."

the following week was crazy too. we taught that friday night in Hsinchu. saturday sara and i took the 3 pm train to taipei to take in a dance performance with Brian U. and Louise. it was great, especially the abstract, slow-moving first performance. then we got the high speed train back to Hsinchu, and when we found all the trains had left for the south, Brian offered to let us sleep in a lounge of a friend's business. it was curious, sleeping on sofas with rain pelting the tin roof overhead (we were the top floor), but fun in a strange way. then we met sara's uncle and aunt, who were driving back to her grandparents' house in tonghsiao. we spent a lazy day there. monday we taught. tuesday ex president chen was detained, which the media was all over. wednesday we taught again. thursday was windy and clear: i rode with little skin (i riding a bike, she on paw) to a beautiful beach nearby and watched her scamper madly all over the sand dunes. then she continued following me all the way to grandma's house, where i met sara for dinner. she ran with me all the way home: marathon dog. last week we also bought plane tickets and extended my taiwan visa.

i wrote quite a bit that week too, since i was still in limbo dissertation-wise. my lazy advisor is still stringing me along. but this has been good for "Year Two of the Connecticut Republic." one day i wrote on a desolate riverside. another day i wrote out front of a small hospital in Yuanli. yet another day i sat in a pavilion next to an old neighborhood nearby. and last night in Hsinchu i wrote more good stuff in the Costco-like RT Mart food court.

today is Sara's birthday. she is 33. i bought her milk and tea for milk tea, and am still wondering what else to do. . .

maybe i will wait til we are in San Francisco to give her presents. we will land there November 29. then by bus to the east coast.