chillin in taipei

hey all... just sitting here, its thursday night and i just got back from almost a week traveling around the island of taiwan. im in taipei now at ntu, the main university in the country, finally clean, comfortable, and slightly more mentally present. after the last several days, ive been feeling a little overloaded and on the verge of academic aneurysm. so much info in so little time and constantly surrounded by these professors and researchers who live this stuff... constantly pouring out more knowledge than i can handle. after a point i just reach the nod-and-smile threshold.

talking over the logistics of doing field work here, its becoming more evident that the summer is the worst possible time for that. it now looks like i will come back this january as planned, but then just stay here for the spring semester to do work during the best part of the year. its a little bit of a pain in the ass, because ill need to find someone to sublet my place sooner than i thought, ill have to rush to prepare and generally this requires me to go nuts for the next couple of months, but i think its worth it to beat the heat, and get a real jump on my research. i think a solid 4 months or so here would be worth about two field seasons, and the thought of spending the entire spring (and coldest part of the year in colorado) here in subtropical taiwan, bouncing between the beautiful puli basin and metropolitan taipei is not bad at all.

anyway, i think ill head to bed now.. i have a few meetings tomorrow and need to get up early. i will leave yall with a picture of one of the scenes from my recent trip, looking north along the east coast of the island into the west pacific ocean. i cant believe how cool it is that im doing research in this place.

~t