I've started moving my stuff to my new apartment. I'm going to make this a long, slow move, taking a few things everyday, aiming to be done maybe next weekend after this semester ends.

After the semester ends there are still some things related to moving that I have to do, mostly address change things, and I also have to extend my visa. After that, depending on when Hyun Ae leaves, I'm considering going to Kaohsiung for my entire break.

I dunno. I'm keeping the whole Hyun Ae thing in perspective, but maybe it's old habit – some feeling about her leaving and me needing to cleanse her being in my life from my Taipei experience. Leaving for an extended period is supposed to accomplish that.

Last night, riding the bus home after bringing over a small load of stuff and doing cursory cleaning of my new apartment, I watched Taipei out the window. The lights, the stores, the people, the traffic. What am I doing moving to Hsindian? Aside from getting away from allergies, I mean.

I suddenly felt really isolated. Like I don't know the city, that I don't belong in the city, that the city doesn't want me. I have no "memory" of this city, and without a memory, it can't be real.

I've been having trouble sleeping. Actually, no, I get to sleep fine, but I wake up early and then can't fall back to sleep to get the amount of sleep I need. The strange thing is also that I haven't been crashing midday and requiring a nap. I get to the end of my usual days just fine.

It caught up last night, and I got a little more sleep than I have been. I almost got to when my alarm clock was to go off. I had such a vivid dream, and it was all about isolation, cutting off from people completely, ignoring them, rejecting them.

I woke up and I wondered what I was doing moving. I didn't want to move, I didn't want to mock the little stability I've carved out for myself. But I have to move, my stupid unconscious is forcing me to.

But morning is the worst time for me, the time when I feel things that I don't normally feel. Like in San Francisco when I would wake up and get desperate feeling I didn't want to die. The feeling would be gone by the time I was taking a shower. The feeling washed away this time, too.

The isolation, however, is real. It's becoming the theme.