This is a piece I like to call, "Taiwanese girlfriend at a broken crosswalk."

Life has gotten a little hectic lately. You know what they say, "When it rains, it pours," and sometimes a drenching is a good thing. Over the last month, I've signed a contract to be (one of?) Pajamas Media's correspondents in Taiwan (note the nifty little badge on the right), and I've just gotten another side job translating the entire 2007 archives of a French luxury magazine into English, and if things go well, I'll be doing 2006 and the rest of the new stuff.

So, effectively, I'm working three jobs now (including teaching about 26 hrs a week), and as a result the next couple of months are bound to be a stress-filled, red-eyed haze. I'm banking my sanity on being able to break away from the buxiban system and do some things I love, and focus more on learning about Taiwan and getting better command of Mandarin. If, when Fanfan and I come back in April from four months back home, I can just write about Taiwan and do translations while studying Chinese, I'd be happier than a little Taiwanese girl in a Hello Kitty Neverland.

Just gotta make it through these next couple months of start one thing, stop the first, start another, stop the second to finish the first, start something else, stop to finish the second, and so on.

The worst part, obviously, is that things would be so much easier if I could just quit working at the buxiban, but unfortunately my ARC is through them, so I wouldn't be able to stay here if I did.