anticipatory anxiety

it seems sometimes no matter how much we prepare for something, there will always be an underlying feeling of anxiousness attached to it. i start my new job in 2 days and i am feeling more and more anxious as the day draws nigh. i can't really pinpoint what the problem is...i've had a year and a half of teaching abroad under my belt and seeing as how the job is still teaching, it's really just a matter of geography. i've finished preparing for the first, few days but still feel this unease about things to come. i think, more with this line of work than with any other's previous, i really have to put more of myself into the job. what if i'm not up to the challenge? i guess i will find out soon enough. most of the anxiety comes from the fear of not knowing what lies ahead...the best remedy will be just to get there and get it over with when i'm sure soon after that my fears will fade. i am looking forward to the new job, new students and staff, etc but i also think some part of me will miss working @ peers. don't get me wrong, i was getting bored with my job @ peers and it was definetely time to move on. on the flipside of the teaching getting boring it was also easy-breezy, nearly formulaic teaching. guess it always takes a while to get into a groove @ a new job....seems to get harder the older i get.

aside from the occassional bout with anxiety, everything else is a'ight. got to see naughty by nature this past friday...it was nineteen naughty three all over again....it was enjoyable, but not a great show. the rest of the weekend was wasted watching movies.

today, i spent preparing for the new job. now, i'm sitting in my private students' house, waiting for them to get home from class. as i write his fossilized grandmother is staring at me with her shrunken eyes, attempting to burn holes into my chest no doubt. this woman hates me for some reason. we're having a lovely chat....she keeps firing questions @ me in heavily taiwanese-accented mandarin, then all of a sudden tries to trip me up by speaking some taiwanese. then after i say politely "sorry, i don't understand" she cackles and retorts "thought you could speak chinese." withered old dinosaur...and here i thought the cretaceous period had ended some 80 million years ago yet i'm the target of its' remaining remnant. seriously, she's a hundred years old if she's a day....excellent, now she's praying so looks like the inquistion is ended. she must have been alive during the japanese occupation...many taiwanese who are still around from that period in history still have a general dislike of wai guo ren. feel like shouting out "HEY! taiwanasaurus rex, the war's over and we liberated your country from the japanese, so lay off!" sorry, but she's a real witchy-poo. i'll try and take her picture @ some future date to show you what form true evil takes.

enough about the anti-christ...i have a special birthday shoutout for the one and only, the man, the myth, the legend...chuck falkingham. sorry we didn't call you on bday chuckie, but we were in thailand again....the same story as last year, i know, i know. anyway, hope you had a great time and would you get an email address already? Yeesh! alright, that's all i wrote for this edish...check y'all later.