Back as an Expatriate

So I left the US again, after living a year of ordinary college life in the (I assure you) incredibly exciting town of River Falls, Wisconsin. I definitely missed being abroad and the many things that come with it. This time, despite the fact that I really, really miss Japan in a way that I never thought I would, I chose to go to Taiwan. There were definitely times when I wasn't sure I was making the right choice, when the option of returning to Japan was so tantalizingly close. But, I'm definitely glad I ended up going to Taiwan. I've been here for less than a week and already I'm enamored.

My first few days were exhausting. We went to see some of the most famous places in Taipei, like the Beitou River (imagine an asian Coney Island, fish heads not included) and the Taipei 101. Taipei 101 was gorgeous inside- all high-end designer shops and glass and marble architecture. Oh, and an amazing bookstore with a huge selection of foreign language books, priced closely to what they would be in America.


But, with all this running around, it's made me exhausted. Classes began today, and the one class I had is going to be the easiest class I've ever taken. Our final? 400 words on what we learned in class. I could do that in fifteen minutes. Don't let it get out though, I'm getting legitimate credit for this class at UWRF (for free). I think this entry may even be getting close to 200 words, and it's only taken me five minutes.

The dorms are eh, but that's pretty much what I expected. There's four people to a room in what normally would be smaller than a single person's bedroom. My River Falls apartment is seeming a lot less small now. My roommates are nice, one of them speaks pretty good English, so we're able to communicate. Even though they're really nice, I have the feeling I may get a bit tired of dorm life very quickly. I hate having to wear shoes when I shower. This is a fact I pretty much already knew about myself. It does not surprise me to have it come true. I'll live. And if I stay for a second semester, it's completely doable to move out into an apartment. There's an exchange student who is doing that exact same thing and he's paying roughly $260 a month in rent. If Mark and I split that...that is very cheap.

That's another thing. Taiwan is very inexpensive. The food is amazing and is made even more amazing by how inexpensive it is. A meal is roughly $3 USD - and it is so delicious! Even the "expensive" places are still cheap.

There's a lot more to say, but I am exhausted. It's only 11 PM here, but after going out to KTV (Taiwan's version of karaoke) tonight, I need to go to sleep.

Schadenfreude

Today, it feels good to be where I am. A difficult feat for someone with an outlook bleaker than a terminally ill absurdist. Even though my life is far from perfect, even though my bank account rarely sees more than a hundred bucks, even though I'm a sysadmin without the pay or the privileges, even though my love life isn't perfect and frequently wrought with chaos, I've still managed to make something of myself for someone just on the brink of being a 20-something.

Perhaps I will actually make something of myself, I keep forgetting that most people had to start somewhere. I may not a a full-fledged, un-questioned, root-access, everything-entailed system administrator, but at least I'm on my way and pretty damn good at what I am doing. And trust me, if I was, I'd have an idea or two about this Patchlink and McAfee on Macs bullshit. I live on my own, in my very own place with my very own dishes and my very own bills. I make curries and casseroles all of my own volition, even if sometimes the volition is lacking.

Minor details.

The Fleetcrashed

I've begun playing ogame again and I already regret doing so. It takes up so much of my time and I constantly have to watch it, to make sure some idiot doesn't attack me just for fun. I am in the unfortunate position of being ranked just below 500, which means I'm weak enough for roughly half of the active players in my universe to pick on me, and weak enough for half of that number to come by and completely destroy all of my defenses whenever they feel like it. I don't have the time nor the desire to always be watching my fleet, and my meager defenses keep getting destroyed with enough regularity that it's impossible for me to build up enough defenses to stop being a target. To be honest though, I probably would be just fine if it wasn't for stupid players who think they're proving something by picking on players half their rank for no profit or even losses (in the tune of 1,300,000 in total resources lost). For most, needing 90 IPMs to take out most of their defenses, to get at less than half a million in resources is enough to dissaude other players.


On the other had, it's kind of boring when no one is attacking me. And honestly, I'm even getting bored with being attacked. It's always the same kind of routine. It doesn't really make a difference, as long as I'm not being profited from. I drop down a few ranks, they stay exactly where they are, oh well. My mines are good enough now that it only takes a few days to build everything back up again, and I rise back up in rank. It's boring.

Also, the more I play, the more I understand that there are complexities to the game, but, there are also a lot of flaws. It's a very flawed game. I can see where a player could just amass a large fleet of deathstars and then not have to do anything ever again. Also, players can never have a guarantee, even when they don't make any mistakes in strategy. If a high enough player decides they don't like another player, well, there's no stopping them. It makes the game feel futile. No matter how I play, I am always at the mercy of everyone higher ranked than me. Some may say that it simulates warfare and the need to create alliances. But, it's different in that the attacking side need not feel any moral twinges. It's a game, which makes it easy for people to be cruel and grief, without any repercussions. In real life, there are war crimes. In a game, not so much. You can get banned for sending lewd messages or attacking a single planet more than six times in a day (which is actually a lot, you could attack a player a total of 54 times in a single day), which doesn't include IPM attacks.

Addionally, it's really just the players who have the most time that are truly successful. You don't really need too much strategy beyond knowing how to fleetsave if you have time. I think that makes for an ill-designed game. Reminds me of when I briefly played Ragnarok. There wasn't any strategy involved, find an appropriately leveled monster, attack it till it's dead, move on to the next one, repeat. Getting to a high level wasn't difficult, just very very time consuming. It's lazy game design.

I think I might quit.

First Post

I hope this first post won't end up being as embarrassing as the one from my previous journal, which I kept throughout high school. I won't post the url for fear someone I actually know may go through to trouble of looking it up. I think for most, high school is a generally embarrassing time of life, although it seems for most it just takes much longer for them to realize it's something for them to be embarrassed about. Perhaps I've become more suave in the college life, or perhaps more self-confident. But in general feel like I'm making an ass of myself a lesser portion of the time.

Right now, there's nothing really wrong with my life in a few words. It's a life anybody could make something out of, really, even if at the moment I'm giving into slovenly tendencies more often than not. There are things I hate about it, like my small apartment, lack of money, low-paying job, and non-voluntary existence in a very small town at a very small college meant mainly for farming and cows. I escape the doldrums from time to time and I dream of far off lands. I love to travel and am currently trying to get in as much as possible before I have to face reality and get a real job and a real life instead of aimlessly meandering wherever the wind happens to blow me. Last year was Japan, this fall is Taiwan. Japan had its share of bad moments, but other than that, it was one of the best things I think I've ever decided to do. Lord only knows what I'd be doing now if I hadn't. Taiwan seems promising and I'm trying not to hold it up to Japan, but it's difficult not to do. Right now, as I spend days sitting around the apartment, working nine hour days fixing technology, I can't help but think to myself that I really need to get out of here. At this point, I need to go somewhere. Luckily, Taiwan seems like a fabulous place.

I am the kind of person who needs to move and change. I get bored. I'm not a crazy, happy-go-lucky, spontaneous kind of person, but a person who needs to learn and see new things every once in a while, put things into perspective and have a reason to change. I don't want to get stuck in one place for too long.

Mark (my lovely live-in boyfriend) has been gone for the last few weeks so I've had the apartment all to myself. Naked sandwiches all for me. Bastard should have taken me with on his trip. When he comes back it'll be a struggle between being completely miffed and happy to see him again. The troubles of being a good girlfriend.

Work bright and early tomorrow, again for a change of pace. Hopefully this week will hurry itself along right into the 4th.