My new conclusion is that it is possible to love aspects of a person without thinking that I've fallen in love with the person when too many "red flags" have popped up in the course of knowing the person. I can enjoy their company and love those defined aspects, and not fool myself thinking I'm in love with that person.

New term starts this Friday. The old group of classmates is totally dissolved as far as I'm concerned. I have no desire to try to maintain that social group. It's possible for Hyun Ae and I to continue having lunch because my class ends at 12:10 and her class starts at 2:10, but I don't expect anything.

I traveled to the south of Taiwan for a few days with Pierre, Hyun Ae, and Takako. It's good for me to travel with other people every once in a while to remind myself why I prefer to travel alone. We stayed at my uncle's place in Kaohsiung, and it was tiring trying to bridge my relationship with my extended family and the type of relationship I have with classmates.

As for this blog, I'll blog until I'm bored and then stop until I can get better motivation/inspiration, and I'm bored now.

Wednesday, August 30, 3:25 p.m. - Back in Taipei, back to normal and shaved ice (shaved ice is better in Kaohsiung).

August 31, 1:25 p.m. - Mandarin Training Center study room on the first floor.

5:40 p.m. - At Starbucks at the corner of Heping E. Rd. and Jianguo S. Rd.

Southern Taiwan day 4: last day in Kaohsiung

We took the bus back to Kaohsiung in the morning and my aunt and uncle took as out to lunch and then we didn't do anything special for the rest of the day. The evidence suggests we took an overnight train back to Taipei.

12:10 p.m. - With my aunt and uncle.

The nothing special for the rest of the day:

Southern Taiwan day 3: Kenting

Kenting is at the southern tip of Taiwan and is a beach resort destination as well as a national park. Hyun Ae, Takako and I took the bus from Kaohsiung, departing in the afternoon and planning to stay one night. We knew the cool Japanese guy from their class was there, traveling on his own, and we would meet him there.

Nothing well-planned, if we were going to Kenting for Kenting, we would have left first thing in the morning. We would have done research on things to do and where to go. We were going just because it was there a couple hours south from Kaohsiung and we could say that we went. But really it seems that we were just going to hang out and wander and take a ridiculous amount of digital photos of each other. 

I didn't take a single frame of black & white. Here is the single (silly) shot I took that identifies our location geographically with Hyun Ae shooting the Dajianshan rock formation:

4:40 p.m.

The rest of the photos are just us taking pictures of each other, leaving the next day none the wiser about what Kenting has to offer.

Southern Taiwan day 2: Tainan

We took the train 45 minutes to Tainan, the city to the north of Kaohsiung. It was a Dutch colonial settlement hundreds of years ago and then was the capital of Taiwan for hundreds of years after Chinese forces (not to be confused with modern Communist China forces) took it back, expelling the Dutch in a true feel-good story (depending what side you're on).

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super:

Statue of Zheng Chenggong (known in the west as Koxinga), who kicked the Dutch out, at Anping Old Fort with a Matsu temple in the background.

Looking down and up at Anping Old Fort. This looking up photo is the only scan, the rest are from CD-R.

Navigating our way through markets, probably looking for a convenient store.

Incense burning at a temple.

Kaohsiung. Two images of construction around Kaohsiung Main Station to integrate the KMRT and improve the train station.

12:27 p.m. - Anping Old Fort. The first line of the English introduction is "Fort Taiwan Ruins is the fort in Taiwan".

12:40 p.m. - From an upper level of Anping Old Fort with a Matsu Temple next door.

12:59 p.m. - Walled defenses.

3:25 p.m. - Chihkan Tower, formerly a Dutch fort that was later destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt not quite looking like a fort.

3:38 p.m. - Outside and inside the upper level of Chihkan Tower.

4:17 p.m. - outside Tainan Main Station, going back to Kaohsiung.

supplemental shots (photo dump):

Southern Taiwan day 1: Kaohsiung

Three former classmates, Hyun Ae, Japanese goth chick (Takako), French dude (Pierre) and I traveled south during our week off between classes.

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super:

All of these are at the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas on Lotus Lake, Kaohsiung. The third image is from CD-R, the rest are home scans.

Aug. 24-25

I got a new digital camera to replace my Sony Cyber-shot P9, a Ricoh Caplio R4. The selling point for me is the 28-200mm equivalent zoom lens. That's the same as the zoom lens for my Pentax ZX-5n! But my first day using it was a social occasion celebrating the end of the semester with my old classmates. Even though I was in a different class, I pretty much exclusively hung out with them all semester, making no new friends in my own class.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 6:00 p.m. - Coffee shop in Taipei Main Station where a few us were meeting before going to dinner. Classes were over but the Japanese goth chick was still scribbling out her last assignment.

6:03 p.m. - Somehow my brand new camera got into Hyun Ae's hands. I was having some intense (not) discussion with the cool Japanese guy.

7:58 p.m. - We're already at dinner but the Japanese goth chick finally finished her assignment. This is that moment.

9:15 p.m. - Barbecue restaurant. The woman in pink was new to their class and I don't remember her at all. She didn't hang out with us.

9:17 p.m. - Cute teacher on the left and the cool Japanese guy, someone else's flash.

The problem with digital cameras is you can shoot as many pictures as you want and just delete them if you don't like them. Indeed, these are a select few pics out of several dozen images I (and Hyun Ae) shot on my first day with the camera. With film photography, you have to be selective in the shooting.

On Friday, Hyun Ae seemed eager to re-establish(?) our tie(?), our closeness(?). She came looking for me and made an effort to be enthusiastic and glad to see me.

I'm not saying it means anything on her part. We are, in fact, friends, and maybe she felt we were, in fact, drifting apart, so she made the extra effort to let me know that she still feels we're friends. A good thing.

I responded, because that's what I do. I respond to people. Doesn't mean anything on my part. I don't know what the hell was going on before, I don't need to know. I have my facts now, and I'm sticking to them.

Yesterday, we went to Danshui because the school library ended up being closed.

I read Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind every once in a while. Every time I read it, it feels like I've never read it before; that I'm reading a completely different book.

I think that's the nature of reading Dharma Talks by accomplished teachers and practitioners. It's different from reading people's blog entries, purportedly expounding on the dharma. Those are mostly ego driven; that they've got something and they need to share it. Good intentioned. Past entries of my own included.

Suzuki's text is so sublime and multi-faceted that every time I read it, I get something new out of it. What I get out of it might move my practice forward a little and allows me to get a little more out of it the next time I read it.

It's brilliant, it's all there. But in my practice, I'm still piecing it together.

I think I'm totally bored with this blog. I am totally bored with my life, but that's old news. I don't know how much longer I can put up with it. Probably only another 30, 40 years. Great.

I'm trying to think up ways to revitalize my interest, but I'm not sure I can be bothered. I'm sick of talking about feelings, when all they do is stay the same.

So what's been news lately:
- I had another bike stolen. This time it was definitely stolen since I did actually lock it. During the last hurricane, I decided I wanted to keep it out of the rain, so I locked it under the Jian Guo freeway a block away. That was the mistake, since there's no one around there overnight, and decent looking bikes with cheap locks are easy pickings.

I wasn't upset at all, not only because I'm feeling less and less attached to personal property, but because the bike only cost me NT$300 (less than US$10). It was in excellent condition, the seller could have gotten a lot more for it, but she was leaving really soon and had to get rid of it fast. It was, however, several sizes too small for me to take it seriously. It also came with a purple cable lock, which I'm sure bike thieves have trouble taking seriously.

- I then bought another bike a few days later for NT$500 (about US$15). This one is also in excellent condition, although it has definitely been ridden more than the previous bike. It's more my size, a tad too big, but so is my Cannondale in the U.S., and came with a more substantial D-lock and, believe it or not, a helmet which I still don't plan to use. This bike I'm taking more seriously, and aside from the D-lock, which is probably deterrent enough, I also got a cable lock for half the price of the bike to lock it to something solid overnight.

August 25, 12:23 p.m.

- That unpleasant and uncharacteristic distraction of Hyun Ae is completely settled, and that whole incident seems silly now. I would never trust her with my heart, and I questioned her loyalty from the start. In the end, she also lost interest in hanging out with me, too. We're back to just being classmates.

- This term is coming to an end soon. I had wanted to fly to New Jersey for a visit, but I was waitlisted on the flight this Sunday, and now I'm thinking it is too late to prepare everything I need to leave school a few days before the term ends. I'm enrolled for another term at this shit school, the Mandarin Training Center at Shida University, and I'm thinking it will be my last term at that (shit) school. I really don't know why it's considered to be so prestigious.

At the end of next term in November, if my Mandarin doesn't feel like it's improving any, I'll probably leave the term early and fly back to the U.S. to visit my family and two new nieces (born a month apart) for several weeks. If I haven't decided to bag this whole idea of learning Mandarin, I'll come back to Taiwan, but transfer to another school in Kaohsiung, where I'll have extended family around me to practice speaking. Sounds like a plan.

Now I'm even more bored with this blog.

Living in the material world is hard and full of suffering. That's not negative. I take it as objective fact. The world is also filled with good things, and daily life can be wonderful and fulfilling, at the same time as being hard and full of suffering.

I wonder why I left the monastery without committing and ordaining. I yearn for the environment the monastery offered. In the material world, I'm supposed to be figuring out what I really want to do, either go back and ordain, or stay out here and deal.

I really have no idea.

But at times I yearn for the environment of the monastery; to be immersed in the dharma, the investigation of life and how we should act as human beings without dogma or righteousness or judgment, but with compassion and wisdom, being able to get into the shoes of the people we are trying to help.

I idealize the environment of practicing and spreading dharma. But I also realize that in the material world, where there isn't an assumption of specifically Buddhist dharma, that my dharma must be maintained in my actions, in what I can offer my environment.

It's not walking around carrying a banner of Dharma. It's living true to myself recognizing what I've learned as dharma. The dharma practice is in how I walk, in practicing kind words, in cultivating compassion to all sentient beings around me (not doing a good job, but OK, keep trying).

Kaohsiung Aug. 11-13

FRIDAY, AUGUST 11 - Taichung, Taiwan. Rest stop on the bus ride to Kaohsiung. About a five and a half hour trip. Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super. CD-R.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 12 - Kaohsiung, I think this is from the 7th fl. of my uncle's building where I stay when I visit. This would be looking southeast since the silhouette of the 85 Robot Building is just visible. CD-R.

10:01-10:14 a.m. - National Kaohsiung Normal University. I told my aunt and uncle I was thinking of moving to Kaohsiung to continue my language studies and they took me to Kaohsiung's equivalent of Shida (whose official name is National Taiwan Normal University) to inquire about their Mandarin language program. 

10:29 a.m. - Bridge on Wufu Rd. crossing the Love River to my uncle's neighborhood. Advertising genius on display. They used the contour of the building for the art!

Surreality gets so sublime when you're balancing between generating joy with meditation and negotiating self-destruction by nature.

Da'an Park footbridge. Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super. Image not flipped because . . . I don't know why.

Xinsheng South Rd. north from the footbridge. Image not flipped because of the words on the ground. Both CD-R with chroma tint remaining.

In the end the feelings are my own. This is what I didn't learn with Josephine. I felt my feelings were too inextricably tied with hers, and it got to the point that I kept trying to pry something out of her to save the relationship, and she was basically telling me to leave her alone. Even though in the end it was she who was shocked that it was really over.

Before, I pursued my obsession, my needs, my desire, my suffering. This time, I feel it's just about being happy with myself, and being able to generate a happiness without someone else responding how I want them to.

In this recent case study, I might not be happy now not "being with" her (not that I could've been, this is all hypothetical at this point), but to pursue being with her is not the pursuit of happiness anymore. If it's a struggle, it's something else. It's pursuing suffering, thinking I'm pursuing happiness.

So yes, now I have to start over, now I have to be alone again, now I have to disconnect from the entire group, but I can be happy, since I've learned that I can be happy by myself, and can generate happiness just by myself. It feels good to not be flailed around by my feelings.

That happiness generation meditation I mentioned last month works. It takes too much energy for me to apply it all the time, but the times I've tried it, it achieved making me feel lighter, and brighter and kinder to the people around me, and simply better about myself. So for me it turns out not to be a load of hooey.

I still have a problem with existence, though. And the worst feeling in the world for me, every day, is waking up in the morning and realizing I'm still me here.

OK, enough of that. I'm sick of writing about that. It was status quo from the beginning, and it was just stupidity that I even made it something to write about. Even now I feel the fear of losing something, failing to maintain some connection, contemplating what-if's.

But no, if nothing is lost, there is still nothing. If I maintain all connections, there's still nothing. And there are no what-if's. If nothing.

We're good, but it freezes here and nothing more shall be made of it. I don't care what she thinks about me, I don't care about how she reacts to anything I do, and if anything gets lost between us, there was nothing to lose in the end.

She's a friend, she's a classmate, but there is nothing special between us, even through all that traipsing around Taipei bike shops. It could have been any of us who were willing, and there's at least one other I know who would have been willing. It was only me because ultimately I know something about bikes – that much she knows because the point was hammered home in class last term.

OK, that's the final word on that. She will be mentioned no more.

Saturday August 5, 2:58 p.m. - Construction of the Xinyi MRT line.

The Xinyi MRT line will go to Taipei 101.

Sculpture reminiscent of Don Quixote on Civic Boulevard near Dunhua South Rd. Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super.

Taipei 101 poking up in the distance. Guangfu South Rd., lane 32.