Shu Mei and I recently went through a period of emotional turmoil. It wasn’t due to our relationship problems, which still have yet to be resolved, but from the decision we had to make of whether to move to America this year or next. I won’t bore you with the pros and cons of the two options, but just state that we decided on staying in Taiwan for another year.

In this “extra” year, I have some very important goals I want to obtain. First, I want to learn to speak Chinese to the point where I can hold my own in basic conversations. Second, I want to lose 55 pounds, which would put me at my ideal weight. Third, I want to come to a conclusion on what it is that I will do, once we return to America.

That third goal looks the most daunting to me, which in no way means that the first two will be a piece of cake. It’s just that there are numerous paths I could pursue. As I have stated before, I love being a teacher. If I were to die today, I would love “Teacher” to be engraved on my headstone. I can’t think of a more meaningful job for me. I am in daily service to others, working to help them become self-motivated to the point where they desire to learn things that will help further their advancement in life. What other job can claim such a worthwhile objective?

The dichotomy is that, while the job of a teacher is of paramount importance in furthering the progression of the human race, the monetary rewards are meager. I have always wanted to make a lot of money in my life. This desire is more for my family than myself. I would love for my wife and children to experience some of the things I did, growing up in a middleclass family. As of yet, I haven’t been able to give them anything beyond the bare essentials. If I were to continue being a teacher, I would undoubtedly never make enough money to buy them things.

I understand that happiness doesn’t come from money, but there were certainly a lot of happy times I shared with my parents and siblings that involved things that cost money. To date, my wife and I have had to make due with what we have, and try to find other ways to make life more enjoyable for our children. We take our sons to the park, to go kite flying, or to the ocean, to go wading, or to a local amusement park that isn’t too pricey. Doing things like that keeps us living within our means and helps Billy and Tyley experience the joy of doing things as a family. Still, it is difficult to have come from such a privileged youth, as I did, and not be able to provide the same things to your children.

So, do I opt for a path that could lead to making more money, throwing myself back into the corporate world that stressed me out to no end? Or, do I continue working at the job that has given me the greatest satisfaction I could have ever imagined? If I go for the latter course, I would have to return to college and pursue a teaching degree, something I’ve been without as a teacher here in Taiwan for over seven years. It hasn’t been an issue here, as my experience has gotten me to where I wanted to be. However, teaching jobs in the U.S. are more about what’s on paper than what is in your head. I don’t know how many credits they would accept from my years in college before, toward the teaching degree, but I imagine it wouldn’t be many. Just off the top of my head, I’m guessing I’d have about two years of schooling to go in order to get the degree.
So, I have a lot of thinking to do about what my future direction should be. I’ve been praying about this every night, along with asking for the motivation to follow-through with my goals. With Our Heavenly Father’s help, I hope to steer the course of my family’s future in the right direction. Without His help, I’m lost. Personally, I am way in over my head with this whole life thing. I wonder if in the pre-mortal life I really knew what I was getting myself into.

I can’t understand why people still read this weblog. I mean, it is so full of doom-and-gloom that I don’t believe it would be interesting to anyone. However, there are some diehard readers that have sent me email, letting me know that they’re still reading my entries here. It isn’t my goal, but this entry should be the final nail in the coffin and serve to lose all of them. I appreciate all the words of encouragement that I’ve received, and I think that through reading my weblog entries, some people have come to understand me better than some of family members and closest friends.  However, a lot of things have been brewing up inside of me for a while, and I am set to make the mother of all negative weblog entries now.  Obviously, nobody has the desire to read about a lot of depressing notions. Besides, I am certain that this will turn out to be an extremely lengthy entry and will undoubtedly bore the pants off of anyone attempting to read it.

As I stated, I’ve had a lot of inner angst lately. I use the word “lately” liberally here, for this pervasive sadness has accompanied me for several years. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I was happy for very long. Certainly, there were moments, like when my sons were born, but no long drawn-out periods of great bliss. For the most part, each day has been worse than the day preceding it. I have a lot to be thankful for certainly.  I just tend to lood at the cup as being half empty rather than half full.

Last summer’s happening is a perfect example of this. That is when I found myself without a job. I had been working as a high school teacher for five years at Chih-yung High School in Dajia. The high school is a mere 15-minute drive from my home in Cingshuei. Although the high school is at the lowest-possible academic level (i.e., anyone can enter, irregardless of their high school entrance test scores), I tolerated it, choosing to focus on improving my techno-skills in presenting multimedia lessons to the students with the latest gadgetry. I was fortunate to have a fairly modern listening lab as my classroom, complete with headsets, monitors, and testing consoles for all the students. I strived to use the latest electronic presentation means I could get my hands on to incorporate in my teaching.  As time went on, I learned a lot about the various media I was using and felt at ease using it in my classroom.  I felt very positive about the things I was doing.  It came as a big surprise at the end of last school year, when I was notified that my contract would not be renewed for the next school year.  The shock of that news stressed me out immensely.

Friends and family members tried to convince me that it was a good thing.  I can’t tell you how many times people told me the “one door closes, another door opens” line. However, I couldn’t get past the unfairness of the whole thing. In my mind, I had been a very good teacher there. The school administration had never had a problem with me. On the contrary, I was given high-praise various times during my time there. No reason was provided to me as to why I wasn’t welcome there for a sixth year of teaching. It was just told to me that the Principal (and part-owner of the school) ordered it to be that way. At the time, there was one other foreign teacher there. He did not return the next school year, either. However, it was by choice that he didn’t return, opting instead to return to his homeland of New Zealand. In the next school year, only one foreign teacher worked there. I don’t know how the school felt about him, but suspect he was probably treated equally as bad, too.

The things I had to deal with at Chih-yung were troubling. Much of it led to my belief that there is racism in Taiwan. I could find no other answer to the questions that arose as to why that school mistreated me like that. From the beginning, the administration there treated us as inferior employees, choosing to not involve us in every teacher meeting and social event. We were not monitored in the least. I could have been teaching Portuguese, instead of English, for all they knew. I never once had a review. Despite that, I endeavored to be the best English teacher I could be. I tried everything to reach those under-achieving students that attended Chih-yung. My actions ran the gamut from severe punishments to over-the-top praise in order to get results from the students there. It was all to no avail, though. They had already been burned out to the point of not caring far before I began teaching them. Sadly, the system made them only worse. The best teacher in the world couldn’t have ignited a fire under them.

I asked the school administration how I was doing several times. Despite the fact that they really had no idea, they told me I was doing a great job. There was never much communication beyond that. Our classrooms were as far away from the administration’s office as they could be, at the top of a 6-story building in the corner of the campus. We learned about special happenings from the students. Often times, we learned that our classes had been canceled only when students didn’t show up. Rarely was there ever any advance notice of events. We were given a schedule at the beginning of the semester, but changes were common and updates were not. Still, whenever the school needed a teaching demonstration or a picture for their recruiting paraphernalia, they came to us. During my last year at Chih-yung, I gave a teaching demonstration which was attended by all the English department teachers, save one. The head teacher didn’t attend. Neither did anyone else from management. I was later told that it went very well. It was at that time when I began wondering about my future with the school. Why were they praising me from hearsay, instead of actually experiencing my demonstration for themselves? Little did I know that my concerns were not without warrant.

I guess that Chih-yung High School’s administration was tolerating me just like I was tolerating them. Their tolerance was a bit less than mine, though, as
those who readily gave me praise, before it was decided that my contract would not be renewed, gave me the cold shoulder, after. I don’t know what had been going on behind closed doors, only what I saw – an abrupt change in how I was treated. Those who I thought were supportive of me there treated me as their worst enemy, once the decision came down that I was no longer welcome. Needless to say, it wasn’t a pleasant farewell. I still harbor bitter feelings for how I was treated there.

My wife, Shu Mei, was not supportive during that point. The truth is that she has never been supportive when I really needed it. (I hesitated to use the word “never” but couldn’t think of one instance where sought-after support was received from Shu Mei.) This is a very cold, harsh fact, because I feel confident that I have given her the support she wants during times of turmoil. For example, I encouraged her to have faith in our marriage repeatedly during our first year of marriage. I needed to. Otherwise, we would have been divorced. It was during that first year that Shu Mei asked for a divorce six different times, because I voiced disagreement with her. Four of those six times weren’t even what could be classified arguments, just disagreements. To Shu Mei, a simple disagreement by me was cause for divorce. With Shu Mei, it is either her way or the highway.

Shu Mei possesses an over-abundance of stubbornness and selfishness. As long as I agree with her, everything is fine. The second I utter a word contrary to what she is saying, things get very messy. Typically, Shu Mei will get very upset and shut down. She has gone four or five days without saying a thing to me. When I try to break her silent treatment, with encouraging words, she goes into a very hating tirade, verbally assaulting me with a barrage of put-downs, followed by a demand for a divorce. With Shu Mei, there is no gray area, only black or white. The last time we had a disagreement, she told me that I am an ugly man and she hated everything about me. This kind of mistreatment has been going on for seven years. All the while, I have hoped that she could see that all is not so terrible, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to continue doing that.

Much of the difficulty I continue to face with Shu Mei stems from our background differences. A lot of our background comes from culture, but the brunt of it comes from how we were raised. Shu Mei seems to be continuing in the same manner as her parents did, while I am venturing away from some of the things mine did. Shu Mei was raised in a bizarre family, from my perspective. Her father is the quintessential man’s man. He has the demeanor of a prideful king, choosing to socialize with those on his same economic level and no one else. According to Shu Mei, he only spoke to his wife and two sons, ignoring his two daughters altogether. That condition remains to this day. If my wife calls his house and he answers the phone, he simply hands the phone to his wife and doesn’t speak to Shu Mei. When we attend social functions at his house, it is the same. He literally disavows the existence of his two daughters. Shu Mei says that he shows his acceptance and love for them in other ways. He has given them material things in their life. Shu Mei claims that she has had no problem with that situation. At first, I didn’t believe she could feel that way, but now I’m inclined to think she’s being honest. In fact, she has assimilated that atmosphere into our family, with her taking the role and temperament of her father.

It is after 2 a.m. that I write this entry. I am unable to sleep for a multitude of reasons. I lay down tonight and began to drift off. I even had the beginning of a dream, the details of which I cannot remember. I only remember waking up shortly after falling asleep and having a strong feeling of loneliness. That is a feeling that is no stranger to me lately, for I have no friends here. Actually, I have no friends anywhere, at least not the kind that are understanding of my plight and encouraging me to look ahead to bigger and better things. My dream must have had something to do with the stark reality of my desperate situation.

I didn’t want yet another entry full of doom and gloom. I’ve tried to avoid writing in my weblog altogether, striving to live by the “if you haven’t got anything good to say, don’t say anything” credo. The trouble is that this is supposed to be an account of my happenings, not a sugarcoated reflection upon how good things come to those who wait or some other such optimistic cliché. Frankly, I am still very much in the pits of despair. I find little happiness in my life now. Nearly all aspects of it give me great concern.

When I woke up with that uneasy feeling, I found it impossible to get back to sleep. That wasn’t because I couldn’t shake the feeling, because I am able to file those negative thoughts away when I need to, but because of the noisy environment I found myself waking up to. My wife lay beside me, snoring very loudly. Normally, I am asleep before she is, and remain that way until morning, so I don’t have to hear her snoring. There have been times when it has been so loud that it wakes me up, though. Tonight, the volume was moderate. If it weren’t for additional distractions, I might have been able to fall asleep again.

My next-door neighbor has chickens. There is a rooster there that has no sense of time and spontaneously cock-a-doodle-do’s at random hours during random nights. After I woke up happened to be one of those random times. He’s not a very good crower, either. He emits more of a shrieking than a crowing sound. It is the sound I imagine the mythical harpy made when stealing Phineas’ food. I’ve been wondering since living here just how would be the best way to approach my neighbor about the prospect of having his rooster castrated. Castration makes it so it wouldn’t crow. I’m fairly certain that he does not need the rooster to help produce more chickens, so he might not have a problem with the idea. I’m just not sure.

So, I went into the boys’ room and lay down beside Tyley. In that room, there are three beds, two single ones and one double. The two single ones are for the boys and the double is for a guest. (My parents sleep there when they visit.) However, we are too poor right now to buy a mattress for Tyley’s bed, so he has been sleeping on the “guest bed”. I lay down beside him there, pulling his thumb from his mouth. That woke him up momentarily. He rolled over close to me and I patted his back. I feel a great amount of love for that little guy. I wish he had better parents than his mother and me, though. We are not raising him in the right manner. Currently, my wife and I work a lot of hours. So, both Tyley and Billy are basically left alone for long periods of the day. I wish either my wife or I could spend more time with them, but our desperate financial situation prohibits that from happening.

As I lay beside Tyley, I could hear Billy grinding his teeth from his bed. Then, I heard Billy mutter, “stop!” and some other incoherent words. He was obviously having a nightmare. So, I got up and sat beside him and patted his back, in order to calm him down. He turned toward me and rubbed my arm. This is something he’s had a habit of doing ever since he was born, rubbing someone’s arm. He’s done it many times to me, his mother, and his grandmother (my mother). He’s always been a very affectionate boy. I hope he can maintain that characteristic throughout his life.

Then there were the cars rushing by outside. Because I live across the street from a police station, it is quite noisy at times during the night. What happens is that young people love to rev up their car and motorcycle engines, as they speed by the police station. I guess it gives them a thrill, but I have no idea why. Perhaps it is some power-thing with them. I haven’t understood young people since I was one of them, and even then I didn’t understand them!

Because of all the various noises, I simply couldn’t get back to sleep. I went back to my bedroom, but my wife’s snoring volume had increased. A few months ago, my parents sent some Breathe-EZ strips at my request. I’ve asked my wife to use them. She said she would, but hasn’t done so to date. My parent also sent some earplugs at my request, because I thought my wife might not use the strips. The sad thing is that the earplugs, the type I used when I worked outside on the tarmac at the airport (with all the jet engines blasting), don’t cut out the sound of my wife’s snoring enough for me to fall asleep. Frankly, I’d have an easier time sleeping behind Boeing 757 as it roars away toward the runway.

I realize that this entry has been one negative comment after another. Such is the state of mind I am in now. I don’t foresee that it will change any time soon, but I’m trying. I am grasping onto every tiny little positive thought I can, in order to keep from being depressed. Each day is a struggle, as I still haven’t even reached the point where I’m taking each day at a time. The best I can manage is to take each step at a time. At the end of the day, I thank Heavenly Father for making it possible for me to have made it through yet another day. I feel that He, for reasons unknown to me, has been helping make life bearable for me. Although I am on the brink of being overwhelmed, I manage to stay on the positive side of that brink. I hope I can continue on the right side. No, I actually hope that I can make some progress toward being more positive and putting some distance between myself and that brink. Yet, I wonder if that is asking for too much. I guess I’ll find out.