A few notes

• Weather: Hot, humid, and full of thunderstorms and cicadas.

• Another Facebook success story: Posted my Taiwan cell phone number on Facebook and the next morning a friend from high school called me up and we had lunch. We haven't talked since he graduated from Torrey Pines four years ago and caught up on life, love, work, and school as if we'd been pals for years. We weren't even close to close in high school, but we acknowledged things frankly and I realized that the twenty-somethings and the years preceding them really level out all sorts of social inequities. Later that evening we went out with some of his friends--workerbees from McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, and Imperial Tobacco, ah, the young professionals scene. My friend Mr. Wu, once unabashedly introverted, a history buff with a penchant for trivia, tennis, and not much else as far as I could tell, has learned to entertain and be entertained, to smoke "socially" and pretend that he is not addicted, to party hard from Friday till the wee hours of Monday before his flight out at 7 am to HK, Singapore, Beijing, Korea... and, of course, to make sure a girl gets home safely at the end of the evening. Never mind that he dreads waking up in the morning and looks forward mostly to the cigarette at the end of the workday--I think he'll come out of the funk soon.

• Academia: Today is gallery day. With my three maps in purse (one of the Taipei Metro Rapid Transit system, one detailed map of the business district of Taipei, and one map of art galleries), a camera, a steno, and as much courage and street smarts as I can muster, I'm going to try to visit every art gallery in Taipei. Next week, I meet with a professor and some of his graduate students at the Institute for Taiwan History of the Academica Sinica. I will have to figure out how to speak in Chinese about my topic before then. I have a friend here who had a year at Tulane before Katrina hit, and he's just finished his exams so we're going to climb mountains, climb walls (there is bouldering here!), shoot arrows, and, perhaps, navigate the bowels of Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.

• And of course, the Ultimate report: Have opportunities to play a tournament in Singapore at the end of August and possibly Vancouver (for the World Flying Disc Federation's Championships, representing Chinese Taipei) at the beginning of August. Of course, I have a habit of getting far too excited about eggs in Ultimate baskets that never seem to hatch, so I am just holding my breath, keeping my fingers crossed, and maybe trying to get some research done in the meantime.