11月15日
How’s everyone doing on this fine…November…afternoon
Ahhaha…yee…
To be completely honest, time got the better of me. Which is why I have not updated this blog since August.
I’ve written a couple of drafts of things I’ve done since, but they just felt like I had written them out of necessity.
This is me giving a quick update as to what has been going on in my life.
Uh. I’m really only in Taiwan for another month. I have finals at the end of this month and then I stay in Taipei for another two weeks for field trips and whatnot. The boy Jon and I might hit up Okinawa for a weekend, we haven’t decided yet. But other than that, I’ve pretty much run the majority of my time here in Taiwan (for now).
I’ve been taking Chinese courses here at NCCU or 政大 for the past few months now and I think my Chinese has gotten better…? I’m not sure. I feel like sometimes I spend too much time with other English speakers in my program so that I don’t practice to my full potential. Obviously, having roughly 20 hours of Chinese classes a week helps, but I feel I’m not using enough of it outside of class. I’m gonna try meeting with more native speakers during my last month here to really solidify everything I’ve been learning so far.
Everyone wants to read that it’s been a fantastic life adventure filled with twists and turns and new experiences every day, but to be quite honest, I’ve fallen into a bit of a rut here (as I tend to do). So not only is it really not that exciting, but it has also been one of the hardest times in my life.
I think I’ve become a chronic procrastinator and have gradually become nocturnal. As I realize this, though, I hope to fix that. Due to my poor sleeping habits, I’ve missed two day trips in a row and I intend on not missing any future ones.
Along with this struggle has been an identity crisis and a mental breakdown or two. I think it was the worst at the beginning of the semester. To make a long story short, my self-esteem got the better (or in this case, perhaps worst) of me one late evening after going clubbing. It was 4 in the morning, in my dorm’s lounge, where I was trying to stifle the sounds of my crying. That’s when I started fb chatting a friend back home, and they were really able to help me out. I don’t know if this comes as a surprise to anyone, but I’ve had severe issues with low self-esteem for pretty much my entire life.
I could spit a lot about how it stems from my physical appearance in regards to my weight and skin color, ethnic background, perceived sexual orientation, experiences with childhood bullying and molestation etc. etc. But that’s not the important part really.
I think if there’s anything I’ve learned while being here is that it’s okay.
It’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay if you’re imperfect, it’s okay to be by yourself once in a while.
I think before this, I always tried to surround myself with people and activities to silence my demons. I have this terrible habit of comparing myself to others, and although I still do it (I’m still human), I think I’ve began to really critically think about why I do things the way that I do them.
So yeah, I know a lot of people spit a lot of game about how they “found” themselves while on study abroad, but in all honesty, I don’t think I’ve really “found” anything.
If anything, I feel like I’ve simply taken the initiative to strip myself of all of the bullshit that’s been accumulating in front of me for the past twenty or so years.
It’s been tough. Being in East Asia has been tough. Especially since people read me, phenotypically, as Taiwanese/Chinese (which, in this case, obviously means fluent in Chinese which like! nah!)
It’s been tough trying to learn how to read sheet music and learn songs in Chinese.
If I thought wanting to be thin and light-skinned back home was troublesome, boy, is it more tempting here.
But it’s that struggle that keeps me going. I know that at the end of this, I’m going emerge a better person for it.
Beyond that, I’m still the same person. I think I’ve lost a bit of weight, but as I’ve stated before, that really doesn’t matter. I’ll probably try to update this more when I leave Taipei and start traveling in the motherland during Christmas. I think I never really intended for this to be a ~*~study abroad~*~ blog so much as a travel one, to begin with.
But since I know y’all wouldn’t read this without some photos documenting my time in Taipei, here you go.
How’s everyone doing on this fine…November…afternoon
Ahhaha…yee…
To be completely honest, time got the better of me. Which is why I have not updated this blog since August.
I’ve written a couple of drafts of things I’ve done since, but they just felt like I had written them out of necessity.
This is me giving a quick update as to what has been going on in my life.
Uh. I’m really only in Taiwan for another month. I have finals at the end of this month and then I stay in Taipei for another two weeks for field trips and whatnot. The boy Jon and I might hit up Okinawa for a weekend, we haven’t decided yet. But other than that, I’ve pretty much run the majority of my time here in Taiwan (for now).
I’ve been taking Chinese courses here at NCCU or 政大 for the past few months now and I think my Chinese has gotten better…? I’m not sure. I feel like sometimes I spend too much time with other English speakers in my program so that I don’t practice to my full potential. Obviously, having roughly 20 hours of Chinese classes a week helps, but I feel I’m not using enough of it outside of class. I’m gonna try meeting with more native speakers during my last month here to really solidify everything I’ve been learning so far.
Everyone wants to read that it’s been a fantastic life adventure filled with twists and turns and new experiences every day, but to be quite honest, I’ve fallen into a bit of a rut here (as I tend to do). So not only is it really not that exciting, but it has also been one of the hardest times in my life.
I think I’ve become a chronic procrastinator and have gradually become nocturnal. As I realize this, though, I hope to fix that. Due to my poor sleeping habits, I’ve missed two day trips in a row and I intend on not missing any future ones.
Along with this struggle has been an identity crisis and a mental breakdown or two. I think it was the worst at the beginning of the semester. To make a long story short, my self-esteem got the better (or in this case, perhaps worst) of me one late evening after going clubbing. It was 4 in the morning, in my dorm’s lounge, where I was trying to stifle the sounds of my crying. That’s when I started fb chatting a friend back home, and they were really able to help me out. I don’t know if this comes as a surprise to anyone, but I’ve had severe issues with low self-esteem for pretty much my entire life.
I could spit a lot about how it stems from my physical appearance in regards to my weight and skin color, ethnic background, perceived sexual orientation, experiences with childhood bullying and molestation etc. etc. But that’s not the important part really.
I think if there’s anything I’ve learned while being here is that it’s okay.
It’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay if you’re imperfect, it’s okay to be by yourself once in a while.
I think before this, I always tried to surround myself with people and activities to silence my demons. I have this terrible habit of comparing myself to others, and although I still do it (I’m still human), I think I’ve began to really critically think about why I do things the way that I do them.
So yeah, I know a lot of people spit a lot of game about how they “found” themselves while on study abroad, but in all honesty, I don’t think I’ve really “found” anything.
If anything, I feel like I’ve simply taken the initiative to strip myself of all of the bullshit that’s been accumulating in front of me for the past twenty or so years.
It’s been tough. Being in East Asia has been tough. Especially since people read me, phenotypically, as Taiwanese/Chinese (which, in this case, obviously means fluent in Chinese which like! nah!)
It’s been tough trying to learn how to read sheet music and learn songs in Chinese.
If I thought wanting to be thin and light-skinned back home was troublesome, boy, is it more tempting here.
But it’s that struggle that keeps me going. I know that at the end of this, I’m going emerge a better person for it.
Beyond that, I’m still the same person. I think I’ve lost a bit of weight, but as I’ve stated before, that really doesn’t matter. I’ll probably try to update this more when I leave Taipei and start traveling in the motherland during Christmas. I think I never really intended for this to be a ~*~study abroad~*~ blog so much as a travel one, to begin with.
But since I know y’all wouldn’t read this without some photos documenting my time in Taipei, here you go.