Since last time, I was able to get to the ministry, and my Alien Residence Card (ARC) was extended through October. Although I was only expecting to be able to extend it through May so that I could stay until it was time to catch my flight, it turns out that there are provisions to extend one’s work visa for the purpose of finding work.
My job ended on April 20, and I have been looking for work, mostly online. While I have gotten a few nibbles here and there, I have gotten nothing solid. It already is beginning to worry me. I have had a few online interviews, and at least one is a recruiting company that only last week helped me to put together a teaching demo video for use in job-hunting. I don’t think it was very good. But more on that later.
One of the more important things I am trying to do is keep a regular schedule. This was difficult to do, and really sapped my energy back home when I was unemployed. Fortunately, I have my weekly pill caddy to help remind me what the heck day it is.
I need to reach out to Delta Airlines and see about rescheduling my return flight again. I will try to move it back to October, to synch up with the time I have left on my visa. So then, there are two more concerns, one being finding a good parcel delivery company through which I can send home a couple of suitcases so that I don’t have too much to schlep with me on the plane. The other concern is how much this is going to cost me. Every time I postpone or reschedule my flight—even though it has already been paid for—I get charged fees for the rescheduling. Sometimes exorbitantly.
Currently, there are three solid nibbles, and a couple of more-solidly possibles if I can hang on until the beginning of the 2026/27 school year (Taiwan arranges its school schedules like we do in North America). One is a buxiban (cram school) down the street from my old place of work. In fact, on the day I stopped by in person, they had just hired someone, but was offered the sop of possible employment in the fall. So of course, I will check in again.
Another interview online is coming up this week. Yet another company has online classes in how to be an English teacher in Taiwan. If the price is right, I will probably take some, on the assumption that I am a team player and willing to put some effort into finding work (Usually I dismiss such offers out of hand; I am not here to find new ways to spend money before even having remunerative work. I don’t take kindly to scams.).
I also may still have a chance at packing up and leaving for Tashkent. I mentioned previously (I think) that the Ministry of Education in Uzbekistan was hiring teachers for ESL and ELA classes around the country. I did pass the initial interviews last year, however I did not accept the offer because I was waiting for my cataract surgery to be scheduled. While they understood, it was a time-sensitive offer, and I had to let it go. That said, the agent who initially found that opportunity said that I could reapply for the Fall 2026 term. So, there’s that.
Right now, my biggest concern is income. My final paycheck and supposed “contract completion bonus” did not even amount to a full month’s pay. Possibly because I did miss a week of work after my second surgery. But it does seem an awfully big bite to have been taken out of my pay. At least the rent for my little “suicide box” is quite low. All I need to do is survive through October—or until I get my next job. Whichever comes first.
Now, regarding my cataract surgery. All went well, and over the course of two months, I was able to have both eyes done. Astoundingly, the surgery was absolutely free under the National Health plan of the ROC. For this I am eternally grateful; I would never have been able to afford surgery back home in the United States. The only real expense I had was that I needed to purchase the prosthetic lenses that were to be implanted myself. I cashed out the small amount I had invested in a brokerage account at my bank, and a close family member also contributed, and the lenses I had to purchase were only about USD$3,000.00 for the pair. Again, expensive when you don’t have it, but this was eminently affordable as compared to the costs I would have incurred back home.
Surgery was a simple walk-in appointment. It took an hour or two for the actual operation. There was no general anesthetic, only a local numbing of the eye being worked on. The hardest thing really was to keep my eye focused in the right direction, under the glare of the light. There was some pressure, but no pain (though there was significant discomfort during the second operation—the new lens had trouble properly ‘deploying’ and had to be adjusted in situ).
I have always had bad vision. A combination of bad genes and incessant reading, without taking breaks. I was wearing bifocals by the time I was nineteen, and my last contact lens Rx was rated at -12. So imagine my shock when, after my first surgery, my bandages were removed, and I could actually see the nurse standing beside me!
It used to be that I could not see past the end of my nose without glasses. But now? I can see quite clearly up to about a meter. I think that when I told the doctor that I was a teacher and a writer, and that I spent a lot of time reading and writing, he decided on the type and strength of the artificial lenses he wanted to use. In any case, despite having been warned about not getting my hopes up as to how my vision would be after surgery, I was absolutely floored. I could see!
Same thing after the second operation. I could see quite clearly for about a meter in front of me. And there was no more mist or fog to try to squint through.
After about a month, I had new glasses made up that allow me to see as well as I ever did. And they are so thin! I am used to glasses with lenses like Coke bottles. But my new ones? They look like windowpanes. And when I sit down to write, I often dispense with them entirely.
I will forever be grateful for the health system here in Taiwan. And if I can stay for another couple of years, I hope to have my knees repaired (torn lateral meniscuses and ligaments). And, from all I have seen and experienced, both recently and from thirty years ago when I first came to Taiwan, I will say that they have some of the best surgeons and physicians in the world here. Really, a world-class medical care system.
I hope, by my next update, I will be able to report that I have a job. A job that will allow me to maintain myself…pay my storage bills back home…and occasionally help out friends or family as I can—paying it forward, as they say.
Nudnik Online 