Interesting times

The past days have been really hectic. I wanted to write something about what we did Sunday and it’s now Friday. Time has been flying by so quickly as we've been quite busy. L and I have no doubt that this year is going to be an interesting year, both personally and in our business.

On Sunday, I had to drive to Taipei early in the morning for my interview. L also had a similar interview later in the afternoon and I had to go get her when she got off the bus in Taipei.

The interview that I had was for a position in a graduate program in Taiwan studies. The program is called the International Master's program in Taiwan Studies (IMTS) and details on the program is here. L's interview was for a similar program with a focus on China (IMCS}.

I was attracted to the IMTS program because it will give me a deeper understanding of Taiwan. The fact that it is held entirely in English is also a major attraction. In any case, I think I'm a shoo in to the program and I'll know by mid May whether I’ve been accepted into the program. The reason for my confidence is as follows – there are 12 places reserved for Taiwanese and only 8 of us took the test. L might have a bit of a harder time but then there were only 41 people (with a few no shows in the interview) who took the test for 30 places in the IMCS program.

A trip to the bookstore

Early Saturday morning, Maita told L that she wanted to go to the bookstore.  Right then and there our schedule for the day was set.  As the two young girls woke up early, we had enough time to do our marketing in the traditional wet market in the city then walk to the nearby bookstore, Eslite.

At the bookstore, it was not so easy to pick out books for Maita and Erika.  They both had their own ideas on what book they wanted to buy.  Originally, we looked for a Peter Pan book.  Failing to find this, I asked the two girls to find a suitable replacement that I would “approve” first before buying.  I tried to steer them to some books that I selected but they had their eyes on some other items.  I ended up buying a Disney book for Erika and a kind of pop-out book for Maita.  On book buying trips like these, I prefer to buy English books and I think both my girls know this.

On hindsight, the Disney book was a good buy.  It was a collection of four stories plus a CD.  The stories were: Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White.  Erika and Maita identify with the four heroines in the stories and they each had a favorite character.

Jusco closing!

Last night we went to Jusco to do some grocery shopping.  Jusco is the big grocery store located in the nearby Windance shopping mall.  We learned recently that they were closing down the whole operation, department store and grocery store, by the end of the month.  This made going there somewhat urgent.  Just last week I brought back a defective hair dryer so that they could repair it.  At that time, I was told that it would take three working weeks to get it back – this would make it May before I got it back.  I therefore wanted to check whether we can expect to have our hair dryer fixed before the whole operation packs up and leave.  The lady at the appliance section assured me that there will still be some people left in May to tie up loose ends and that I can expect some news on my defective air dryer next week.

It’s just too bad that they’re closing down Jusco.  We enjoy doing doing our grocery shopping there as it is nice and big with a nice selection of items.  I suppose the big Japanese community in Hsinchu will also miss Jusco once it finally leaves.  Being a Japanese owned chain, Jusco had a good selection of Japanese products.

After announcing the closing date, Jusco started to have sales on a lot of items.  We were told that there would be a lot of people looking for bargains and this was indeed true.  I did take a look and many shelves have been emptied of sale items.  The items left were not really on sale or did not have a big discount.  I told L that I spotted some down pillows that nobody seemed to be buying.  They were marked down as well but I have no idea if the price is good or not.  In any case, we might pick up some down pillows next time we go to Jusco – one week left before everything closes!

Some pics of Erika

On the way to Hualien.

At Hualien watching the dolphin show.

Various Pics of Maita

At the train station.

In the van.

At the ice cream shop.

Esmeralda, the gypsy

In one of our conversations before going to sleep.

Erika: Papaa.
Me: Yes?
Erika: Papa, I want to be Esmeralda when I grow up.
Me: Esmeralda, the gypsy?
Erika: Yes, Esmeralda the gypsy.
Me: Why do you want to be Esmeralda the gypsy?
Erika: Papa, I want to be Esmeralda when I grow up.
Me: Why do you want to be a gypsy when you grow up?
Erika: I want to be Esmeralda, the gypsy with the long black hair.

Esmeralda is one of the characters in the story, Hunchback of Notre Dame. We have some books with this story and some pages would have pictures of the characters. Erika is drawn to any pretty looking characters, especially those with long hair.

3G mobile phone death!

My six month old Nokia 6021 3G phone suddenly decided to die on me last week.  There were no symptoms of the impending death.  I just discovered one morning that it had no power and it was not possible to turn it on regardless of whether it was attached to the charger or not.  Even the startup screen wouldn’t come up.  The only thing that seemed to work intermittently was the backlights on the screen – it would light up for a while then nothing.

As there was a two year warranty on the phone, I brought it to the service center.  I had it back in a day after they reloaded the software (or firmware) for the phone.

I’m now wondering whether there was a software bug in the original operating system of the phone or whether I got a phone virus from somewhere.

These new phones are getting to be more and more like computers.  There are more functions and the software gets more complicated.  Consequently, crashes should become more common.

Despite the sudden death of the phone, I’m really happy with this Nokia phone.  It has bluetooth, an infrared connection, and a nice color screen for viewing photos.  The Bluetooth connection allows me to use the Bluetooth handsfree system on my car and the IR connection allows me to connect the phone to my laptop.  I could also use the phone as a modem to connect my laptop to the internet – this comes in handy when I don’t have a ready internet connection and would need to send out an email quickly.

Thank goodness for health insurance

This is a photo of the hospital bill that we got for that Sunday trip to the emergency room. The total bill is for NT$ 3511 broken down as follows:

Registration Fee 250
Medical Fee 641
Supplies 3
Medical Procedure Fee 2,617

Total 3,511

The actual amount that I paid was NT$ 553, which is the sum of the NT$ 250 registration fee and a NT$ 300 self pay amount. The entire visit with the doctor lasted only about 5 minutes at the most. All the doctor did was to straighten Erika’s elbow.

This bill reminds me of a bigger bill that we got when Erika was born. As Erika was born premature by about two weeks, she had to stay in the hospital for about 3 weeks. The entire stay included time in the 24 hour intensive care unit and the incubator. The bill that we ran up was in the NT$ 100,000 range but we only paid about NT$ 5000 plus some change. It is times like this that remind me to be thankful for Taiwan’s universal health insurance.

A nervous nurse

L told me that the nurse who was working with the emergency room doctor was a little nervous when she saw us.  It turns out that she thought that we were bringing in an abused child.  If this was the case, she needed to ask very detailed questions which would then be reported to either the police or some government department for social services.  I guess this type of situation is very stressful for medical workers.  They are obligated under law to report such situations and they would be faced with a lot of pressures from all sides.  The nurse was a bit relieved to find out that Erika just had an accident.  When we took Erika back to show them how much her arm and hand had improved, the nurse looked happy to see her and Erika was also happy to show them her new pin.

A bit of a scare ...

We had a bit of a scare late yesterday afternoon.  Erika was crying hard because her left elbow was really hurting.  She had it crocked and kept it in one position as it hurt very badly if she moved it.  L took Erika and Maita down for a walk and came back immediately saying that we should take Erika to the hospital.  So we carried a crying Erika to the hospital emergency room to wait for a doctor.

The doctor asked what happened and we explained how Erika was holding Nehriza’s hand when she decided to hang herself from Nehriza’s outstretched hand.  It seems that this had given her a slight dislocation on her elbow and it hurt so much that she cried and would not move her arm and hand.

The doctor proceeded to take Erika’s hand and gently pulled it straight at the elbow.  He then asked a crying Erika to try to move her hand.  Erika was crying a lot and refused to follow the doctor.  The doctor then suggested that we go get her a toy to play with then come back.  He said that children frequently continue to imagine that they still hurt even if the pain is gone.  We went to the 7-11 near the hospital to pick out a toy.  Erika picked a pin and Maita also got a pin for herself.  This was a special treat for them as we usually don’t buy toys from our convenience store trips.  I asked Erika to put the pin on the counter using her left hand.  It was then that we saw that her hand and arm was OK.  We promptly went back to the doctor to show him.  He showed us the arm movement that we should check to see if Erika’s arm and hand are indeed OK.  We asked Erika to show us when we got home and she could move her hand and arm properly and without pain.  To be sure we’ll probably go see an orthopedic doctor in the coming days.