1 year on.

So Devin and I got here a year ago today.
Sure I've had some ups and some downs, but now I'm quite content. Life is pretty good...
At first it was a struggle to adjust to the Business English teacher's life here (odd hours, like this month I literally have one day off but only work an average of 3 hours per day; major fluctuations in salary; traveling all over the damn city; relearning English grammar well enough to describe it to someone else, etc.), and it was tough to find a group of people we could relate to. To be honest, a lot of foreigners here HATE their lives and I really don't understand why they're here if all they do is complain about how terrible they think Taiwan is. But eventually we started to find more positive minded people and have some pretty cool people around us right now.
We just got a swanky (in the old, 1970s kind of way) new place in the middle of the city, which makes our lives MUCH easier. For one, our average commute just got cut down by at least 30 minutes and a lot less transfers and motion sickness from the creaky old buses that I swear have square, concrete tires. Oh, have I mentioned that our apartment has an electric organ?! That's pretty cool too...

I've come to terms with my ridiculous boss and have decided that I can take it for one more year, as long as I can minimize my interaction with him. Now that they're desperate for teachers, I got bumped up in status a bit. Plus I'm actually kinda good at this teaching thing now.
I do miss my old job a lot and hope to get back to trade and logistics one of these days, but for now with such a volatile market I think I should just stay put and appreciate the stability that I have, at least until those credit cards are paid off...
Future plans? who knows. Both Devin and I have a few options so we'll figure it out when we know that it's time to move on from here. For now, Taipei can have me for at least one more year, especially if people keep pumping out those hilarious t-shirts.