Good to be Alive

My producer liked my Birdgirl stunt! Yay!

What a relief.

I was working on ideas for stories most of the day. I'll find out which ones will work, hopefully tomorrow.

Here's an excerpt of an email I wrote earlier:

I got into a car accident today. I stopped, but the guy behind me didn't and he hit me from behind. It wasn't very bad and we're both OK. My CRV looks a little scratched up, but his hood was completely bent. I was so busy at work, I didn't have time to think about it, but after we finished taping tonight, it came back to me. Being ill at the same time, driving home was a little hard. I'm just glad everyone is OK and that it was a decent-looking professor who hit me. I got his card, matched his ID and took pictures of both our cars.

Still a little shaken up. Looking forward to work tomorrow.

I'm interviewing a man whose two sons have a rare, degenerative disease called ALD (Adreno Leukodystrophy) or Lorenzo's. The parents spend every waking moment taking care of their children suffering from ALD. In due time, the children with ALD will become deaf, blind, paralyzed and then die. Somewhere in between all that, the parents have to work, stay strong, research about the disease, find sources of treatment and find money for that treatment. Treatment is very expensive and unavailable in many cases. A bone marrow transplant is a possible treatment for patients in the early stages and is not that difficult to receive once a matching donor is found, but all four ALD patients who received bone marrow transplants in Taiwan failed to recover and have died. This man I'm interviewing tomorrow, his two sons have ALD. The youngest son, who is only in kindergarten, is too far into the disease that he cannot receive a transplant. But the oldest son was a candidate, and the parents chose to have the surgery in Taiwan. They did this because the patient needs to be happy and receive a lot of encouragement before, during and long after the transplant to increase the chances of survival. If they went to the US like the previous ALD case who chose to do so because the success rate there is higher, then they wouldn't have the support of family, friends and classmates like they do in Taiwan.

I can only hope that I will never have to make a decision like this. Telling the story is enough.

It's good to be alive and to be healthy and to have healthy family.


Michella

Birdgirl

I was at the Taiwan Birdman rally (http://www.tw-birdman.org/birdman/index.aspx) today. Originally, I had planned to do just a stand-up and then jump in the water, but ended up finding a couple of international competitors, so I got some English soundbytes, which made my day. Now I have a real story, instead of a translated one with my stand-up in the end. Yay!

After all the teams had finished, I did my stand-up, put on a life jacket and a big orange afro, ran up the stairs to the platform, said some stupid things to the show hosts up there in very strange Chinese, because I was nervous and was just speaking English two seconds ago, ran down the 20 meter long ramp and then realizing how crazy I am when I saw how high three meters was right before I plunged in, screamed, lost my wig on the way down, and the next thing I knew, I was being fished out of the canal by the rescue boat.

All in a day's work. The Chinese news, however, ended up not broadcasting my jump, so I think that it may not have been a great idea. My editor thought it was good when we talked about it last night. Well, we'll see if I get called in for a lecture. I'm fine with that as long as they are reasonable and tell me why it's wrong.

On the way back to the news van, though, a little boy on a bicycle slammed into me, leaving a very nasty looking multi-colored bruise the size of Lucky's paw.

After the SNG director showed me how silly I looked, we all headed back to the station. I was still soaking wet by the time we got in and my left ear was feeling a little strange. After drying up and changing, the adrenaline wore off and it started to hurt. For the next few hours, I couldn't hear very well. It's much better now, but I should probably keep an eye (an ear?) on it.

After I wrote my story and left it for my editor to check tomorrow, I met Tinna for dinner. We had some nice Thai food for a reasonable price at New Bangkok. Afterwards, we walked over to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall to see O-Getsu-Ryu (http://www.o-getsu.com/). It was pretty good, but it helps if you know the story beforehand and the ideologies of Bushido. It seems to be a fusion of chambara with dance and modern theater with some interesting, artistic swordfights. The shoes the performers wore really bothered me, though. I don't understand why they chose to wear trainers. They didn't seem to go with the rest of the costume and they made the performers look like children dressed up in anime characters. I give the show a seven out of ten, and if you like Bushido, kendo and/or dance, I recommend you see it.

I decided to walk the 20 minutes back to my office, where my car was, so I saw Tinna off at the train station, then swung by for a tapioca snack at Dongqu Fenyuan 東區粉圓. I couldn't finish it, but it sure gave me a fix. Now I can stop thinking about tapioca for another month or so.

It was a nice day off. I'm officially on tomorrow, as translator.

Does anyone know where I can find a good tomato-based pasta?

Art Classes

I'm still going to my drawing classes, although drawing sculptures are not terribly fun because it is so excruciatingly difficult.

Guess who this is.


I just started print making class at the National Taiwan University of Arts. When I showed up at class, the professor, knowing who I am and what I do for my job, asked me "you have time for this?" Now I kind of understand what my godmother must have felt when her woodcut print teacher said that to her on their first meeting. Of course, I replied, yes, I do. When he found out I've travelled all the way from Danshui (nearly two hours away), I think I saw him smile a little. Ganbarimasu.