The Inevitable

The big events of  today were always likely to happen, though they were never thing I hoped would.

Please note: this does not apply to my school day, which was great as always.

Let's begin with my last night's sleep--an odd topic, I know, but wait for it to make sense. Sometime early this morning (who knows how early), I had a dream that I had finally heard back on the Marshall scholarship (the mysterious application I've referenced on here before), and that I had gotten it. But, it being a dream and all, and dreams being utterly screwy and nonsensical, the Marshall somehow involved me going to India, rather than Britain. Odd, and the excitement of the dream was enough to wake me up and keep me from falling back asleep for a while, or from forgetting those details.

Then I went to school. And taught. And ate. And chatted. And left. And found a great new tea place on the way home. And got home. And sat down to open my email.

And, lo and behold, in my inbox, the long-awaited results from the British Consulate!--but not of the positive variety. Nope, my suspicions of late notification held, and I learned that I will not have to scramble to find and purchase a plane ticket and hotel room before the interviews next week. This part I had begun to regard as inevitable towards the end of last week.

In most respects, the email was identical to the one I received last year, but it differed in three respects: the date (later than last year by about a week), and it was actually addressed to me individually, rather than sent in un-concealed mass format (which, together with the previous difference, made me wonder if perhaps I made it further in the consideration process this year, though I doubt it). The third difference was the name of the British Consulate General, since they recently appointed a new one: and her name is Indian in origin. A glance at the time stamp showed that it was sent at 1:28am Taiwanese time, meaning that it is entirely possible and/or likely that I got a rejection letter from the kind British Consulate of Indian extraction at the same time that I dreamed I was going to India for the Marshall scholarship.

Proof that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. I may have to ponder this coincidence for a while.

The other point of inevitability came after Chinese class tonight.

See, in Taiwan, they say that if you ride a scooter, it's not "if" you get in a scooter accident, it's "when." Well, tonight was my when.

Heading home from class, I was turning left from Zihciang to Mincyuan, waiting patiently in my little scooters-turn-left-here box until the light turned green. I was actually thinking about driving in Taiwan; how much I've learned about it since I got here, etc. Ah, irony. The light turned, and I went--without looking around first to see if people were actually stopping.

And, as it turned out, they weren't. I made it no more than a few feet outside of my box before I heard a horn coming at me from outside my peripheral vision; I hit the brakes and came to a quick stop, but not before a scooter entirely failed to avoid me and hit my front tire, continuing unphased as my wheel turned sharply and made my scooter, suddenly stationary and without a solid base, fall over. I jumped free, accidentally revving the engine as I did so, in time to watch a small truck and several more scooters passing in front of me through the now very red, very stale light.

Ah, Taiwan.

I got back on my scooter and pulled over in the next block to check damages: essentially, none. An almost invisible scuff mark on my tire cover where it got hit; an odd twist in my left foot. Later, I noticed a new bruise on my arm. All in all, I got away scot-free, which is a good thing considering that the other scooter didn't so much as slow down.

So there it is, I have now had my unavoidable Taiwanese traffic accident and it was painless; I should be good for the rest of the year now, right? Knock on wood, I guess, but at least it's no longer inevitable.