Saturday, Aug. 07, 2004 - 6:37 p.m.

It was 35C/95F in my apartment today when I woke up. Whew. I really think I am getting used to this heat. Finally. I still wish I could use my AC at home, but my eyes feel so good without it. Last night was hell at work with the AC in the classrooms. There was nuttin I could do to make my eyes feel like anything BUT sandpaper by the end of my last class. I bought a bigger tube of eye gel today, with secret wishes that I wont need to finish it.

Its common to have this dryness for about a month after surgery. But the more info I try to find out if there are any dangers to this dryness (cause there are times when I am too busy to apply this shit to my eyes), the more I find nightmare stories of Lasik patients. May stop the research until my own one month mark hits. Reading these horror stories searching for bits of my own experience is just feeding my own fear. Not good.

Its been a good week overall. I sold my first MEINTAIWAN merchandise, walked to work a few days, and found eye meds in Tainan (so I dont have to make the trek down to Kaoshung every time I run out).

Was watching some weird Hollywood spoofy alien movie last night. It was really bad, not even funny. I kept waiting to "get it." I didnt. It was just bad. ewwwwwwww. One thing that stuck out at me was this. There was a female character that was very new agey. She chanted, wore Indian type robey things and said very Buddhaish phrases.

I find myself dissing the locals here for their fascination for ANYTHING western. With no discrimination at all. I have mentioned before that they seem to want all things western but us westerners. I still believe that. But what I did not talk about is the flip side of a lot of westerners wanting some things eastern. Mostly spiritually eastern.

I must admit I have a soft spot for Buddhism. Always said that if I had to pick an organized religion, it would be Buddhism. Of all the religions I know about, it is the ONE that makes you think and connect with the spiritual world yourself. No reliance on someone else telling you what to do. And, have you seen the glow of a lot of Buddhist monks. Now thats contentment if I ever saw it.

BUT daily life in Asia is NOT like this. IF anything, I have found the same lack of spirituality in the younger generation here in Taiwan that exists in the US and Europe. The symbols of those eastern religions we are so dreamy about in the west are here in abundance, but they are not all important the way I thought they woudl be. I hear locals my age and younger talking about going to temple to pray for good grades on a test, sucess on a project, or money for blah blah blah. Surprised? I was!

So its different than I thought. Big deal. Daily life in the west is not like the movies and material goods commercials we produce eeither. So both cultures have images of themselves that they project to the world that ARE NOT accurate. Geesh. Sometimes I wonder if this adds to culture shock.

Truth is that the grass is NOT greener in either place. Its just a different color.