Wow I've been here a long time...almost 5 months...pretty crazy

Everything's been good, had a little fiesta at my apartment the other day, between me and my roommate we were able to get about 35 people to show up, it was pretty fun. Surprised by how many people showed up, a lot of Expats, random foreigners, a bunch of Taiwanese friends....it was quite the montley crue. Planning another one around Thanksgiving or Christmas time...

Found out my Dad and sister and brother are gonna come to visit. I'm excited it'll be awesome to see people I'm so close to...I really want to show them a good time.

In other news, I've got the marathon coming up on November 1st, in Taroko Gorge. The one I ran last year was painful, brutal, absolutely challenging; but that was also after intense training. This one I'm not feeling too confident. I've been lazy in my training and to be honest Taipei's weather and unfriendly (to pedestrians) sidewalks make training and those long runs really tough to deal with. I'm skeptical about how well I'll do in the race, plus it's in a gorge so the course will be much more hilly than Philly....anyway I'll see how it goes, but I'm not feeling too optimistic about finishing in a respectable time.

Gonna sign up for Chinese classes next week. Enough is enough, knowing how to say "eat shit" and "f--- you mother" in Chinese can only get a person so far here...