Sooooo… I don’t think there even *is* an emotion made for this because I can’t figure out how to feel. Tomorrow when I wake up, I’m going to get dressed and drag my potentially overweight luggage down to the car to go to the airport. In 19 hours and 20 minutes I’m going to be on a plane to Korea. It’s… overwhelming.

It doesn’t feel the same as when I left home. It doesn’t feel quite as surreal. It almost feels as though it has taken me by surprise, because when I was coming here I was planning and dreaming about it for months in advance, but I’ve only recently even acknowledged my return date. I’m happy to be going home to the people I miss and to a house where I can be completely comfortable with myself and my habits. But I’m sad that I have to leave everything I’ve gotten used to here. It’s kind of cruel making us go back just when we were beginning to feel completely at home here. And it’s possibly a little harder to leave Taiwan than it was to leave the States just because when I left home I knew I’d be going back at the end of the year…  Leaving Taiwan, I have no idea when I’ll be able to come back. It’s pretty depressing.

Tomorrow I’m going shopping in Taichung. On Friday I’m going to a goodbye party with my class at school, and then a few of my classmates and I will go to TGI Friday’s for dinner. Saturday I’m heading up to Taipei for one last time. I’ll come home Sunday morning, and then I’ll have the rest of Sunday and Monday to do anything last minute I need to do and say my goodbyes to my families. Tuesday my flight to Korea leaves at 1:25PM.
When I see “6 days” on the countdown, it still seems like a while, but when I go through the above list it seems so short.
It still doesn’t feel real.

The count down til I leave is 6 days, but it’s still one week and 12 hours from now until I’ll be in TC. Because I have 40 hours of travel -_-;; Ugh. I’m really not looking forward to the 12 hour flight from Korea to Chicago…

When I’m sitting at home doing nothing all day and so bored that I want to scream, I can’t wait to go home. I just want to press the fast forward button on life, and it drives me crazy. But when I’m actually out shopping and having fun, I don’t want to go home at all. Like yesterday I spent all day shopping in Taichung with my Chinese teacher and the entire time I just wanted to cry about all the things I would have to say goodbye to. Public transportation, the convenience of having everything so close together, milk tea, Asian food courts, Buddhist monks, my Chinese teacher, etc. Today I went out to eat lunch with my Chinese teacher and her brother, a Buddhist monk. On the way out I noticed a big wooden Buddha statue in the corner and I had this strong urge to rub it’s tummy for good luck >_< but then I noticed my teacher’s brother standing nearby and decided that would probably be really disrespectful. Maybe. I don’t know. Asian religions aren’t quite as strict as Christian religions in that area, and they usually incourage foreigners to take part in their customs whether they believe or not. I’m also the same way with pictures… I always want to take pictures of the temples and the monks and stuff but I feel it would be rude. But most of the time they actually don’t care. I think it’s because Asian culture is so camera crazy… XD lol.

I get on the plane in 13 days. In two weeks and 16 hours, I’ll be in TC.

Mayra is already on her plane. I didn’t get to go to the airport with her, which sucked. I had to say goodbye last night. It was pretty depressing, and now I’m all alone. My only friends left on the island are either two hours north or two hour south of my by train, which means if I want to have fun now, I have to spend money. I would just hang out with the Taiwanese students, but next week is exam week for them which means they are all probably going to be studying every waking moment from now until they’re done.

I still have to go buy last minute souveniers and gifts for people, but it seems more like a chore because there’s no one to go with me and shopping alone isn’t as fun.

I have about 20 mosquito bites that are all itching madly at the same time. I’m very close to losing my mind.

I packed this morning when I woke up because I didn’t want to end up like Mayra rushing to pack at the last minute. I barely have enough room, and I still haven’t attempted to pack my shoes and I know I’m going to need even more room for the last minute gifts I have to buy and the last minute gifts I know people are giving me. It’s crazy… It didn’t seem like I had so much stuff.

I have a lot of pictures and stuff, but at this point I just want to save it all for when I get home.

I’ve already told half of you this story, so it’s a little redundant, but oh well. It’s the only thing interesting that has happened recently.

Yesterday, Mayra and I went to Taichung. I bought shorts, a tshirt, a bowl, some spoons, earrings, cute socks, a cute mouth mask… We had dinner at 7-Eleven cause we spent a lot more money shopping than we’d planned to, and then we went to the cheap theater and saw Letters From Iwo Jima. It was a good movie, sad but definitely worth seeing.

But that’s not the interesting part of my story. After the movie, we walked back to the train station and got a ticket for the local train to Fengyuan at 10:36. However, it being 10:11, we decided it would be more convenient to ride the 10:13 north bound train. In my defense, I didn’t know that there were trains that didn’t stop in my town. The only thing we were worried about was being charged extra when we got there for riding the more expensive train with local train tickets. However, 15 minutes later we were not pulling into the station. We were still moving very fast and the scenery was not of my city. Which is when I began to worry. I didn’t think the problem was all that serious until I realized the next stop was Hsin Chu, two counties north of mine. The train didn’t stop for an hour and a half, half-way to Taipei. Luckily, the train people were very nice and didn’t charge us for the train back. We got to Hsin Chu at 12, and the train home came at 1AM. I got home at 2:30. This story is a lot easier to tell to people who really know Taiwan’s geography and whatnot. Anyway, it was all very amusing except that I didn’t have a key, so my host ba had to open the door for me in the middle of the night. I felt bad about that.

In other news, Nainai got her dentures back. :)

Oh yea, and Rotary was being difficult, so instead of officially quitting school I’m just gonna start showing up late, skipping some days, and not wear my uniform. My school won’t care. My host family doesn’t care. And since Rotary spends all their time ignoring me, I don’t think I’ll have a problem.

Okay, obviously it’s not healthy for me to go so long without writing, because now I can stop. But I just felt it necessary to add that my host grandma visited the dentist a while back and returned in what appeared to be a great deal of pain. I don’t know exactly what they did to her, but I would guess they removed some more teeth. I can’t be sure, because I didn’t know exactly how many teeth she was missing prior to this event. All I know is that she hasn’t been wearing her dentures since the appointment, either because she can’t, or because they’re making new ones, or possibly because she has stopped caring what people think. And well, I’m getting used to it now, but in the beginning I was avoiding looking directly at her.

Also, my host family continues to be surprised that I am so tall even though I eat so little (in their opinions). This surprises them even after having met my dad. Apparently the idea of a relationship between height and genetics has not occured to them.
But seriously, I’m like beyond full right now and they still think I didn’t eat enough for dinner.

I felt the story of my trip deserved an entire post to itself, so I’m doing a second post of things separate from that.

First of all, it’s freaking hot here. And even worse, it’s freaking HUMID here. I’m basically dying. And I’ve developed a passionate love for electric fans.
But anway,  not much interesting has happened since the trip, but I’m hoping to quit school at the end of next week because then I will only have a month left in Taiwan, and I obvi don’t want to spend it in school. That’s reasonable, isn’t it? I think so, especially since I’ve already graduated from high school. I only hope Rotary will understand, because the Taiwanese are pretty obsessed with school and they might not understand that my values are a lot different from theirs.
Originally I had planned to leave immediately after I quit school and go up to Taipei to chill for a while. However, there’s a huge group of exchangers planning a final party in Kenting from the 12-15th, so I’m thinking I’ll meet them there and then head up to Taipei after that for a few days. I can’t really afford to go to Taipei twice. Which means that for the first week and a half of June I’ll just be chilling at home if I can get Rotary to let me quit school. So I’m going to do my best to go out everyday and at least take walks and stuff, just to look busy so my host family won’t think I’m just sitting at home all day and might as well be at school. In reality I’ll probably end up at school a lot during that time to hang out with Mrs. Lu and Mayra, but at least I won’t have to wake up early or wear my uniform. Or go to any of the boring classes. And Mayra and I will probably go into Taichung a lot. I wanted to go up to Taipei before Kenting instead of after, but then I found out my Taiwanese friend from Punghu will visit on the 9th, so I want to be here for that since it will probably be my last chance to hang out with him. Maybe we will go to KTV :).
When I get back from my final trip probably on the 18th, it’ll just be final souvenir buying and packing before I come home. Currently my flight is scheduled to leave the 3rd (arrive the 4th), but I think Mom asked for it to be moved earlier. I really hope I can get it moved up, because when I get back from Taipei I won’t really have much to do. Like, the 23rd or 24th would be perfect cause then I’d just have about a week to sit around before going home.

I know most of that probably isn’t all that interesting, but it’s all that’s really on my mind right now. I’m pretty excited for June. I’m thinking it’ll be the best part of my year.

I know I said I’d write when I got back from my trip, but I’ve been trying to decide how into detail I want to go with my trip, especially now that I’ve already personally told so many people as it is. But I suppose I can’t avoid it forever. I think I’ll just give a quicky version, and if anyone wants more details, they can ask.

So there were five of us, all Americans, that went up on the 9th to Taipei. We arrived mid-day and checked in to the cheapest hotel we could find. And honestly, it wasn’t horrible. Or maybe my standards have just been deeply altered. The service was really nice, even if the room was pretty crappy. But the quality of the room didn’t mater too much since we barely spent any time in it. The first day we met up with a huge group of Taipei exchangers and hung out in a park for a very long time. Now, it is important to note that kids who exchange in Taipei have a completely different experience from kids who end up anywhere else in Taiwan. Even the kids who live in Yilan, the county right next to Taipei, relate to me better than the kids in Taipei. So while I had fun with the Taipei kids, I always enjoy myself more and feel a lot more connected with the kids from outside Taipei. But I had fun, and spent most of the time talking to the French kids which was entertaining because they have very thick accents. We were there until about 10o’clock when most of them had curfews and school the next day. Then just the 5 of us from Taichung went dancing because we didn’t have to go to school in the morning.
Thursday we ate lunch (we didn’t wake up in time for breakfast) at Subway, and then spent most of the day in Ximen Ding, the shopping district. There was a decent sized group that met us in Ximen, but they all wanted to go to an arcade, so Jessica, Emily,  and I went off shopping on our own. Later on that evening we went to an MTV (a place where you can pick out a movie and then watch it in a very comfortable room with a big screen tv). We watched 28 Days Later to prepare to go see the sequel, which we never ended up doing.
Friday we went to the beach. It was on the other side of Taipei in a district called Danshui, and it took 45 minutes on the MRT to get there. We met up with a huge group of Taipei kids. It was a lot of fun, but I got the worst sunburn of my life. Which wasn’t fair, cause I wore just as much sunscreen as I would have in Michigan. A small group of us left early because we could *feel* ourselves burning. All of us ended up really red. My burn didn’t hurt too much, but it was embarrasing how red I was. After the beach, we rested in the hotel for a bit before getting lunch at a Thai place in Ximen and then going dancing again. It was a lot of fun.
Saturnday morning Emily and I checked out of the hotel and headed back to Taichung a day before the others. We had dinner at a nightmarket, but mainly rested as much as we could because the next day her host sister and host sister’s friend took us down to Kenting. It was a 6 hr car drive (we didn’t take the high speed train), so we got there in the afternoon. We checked out the beach a bit, and then went to dinner at Smokey Joe’s. It was the most genuinely American food I’ve had this year, and it was DELICIOUS. Plus it was a really cool restaurant, so Emily and I basically had the time of our lives.
Monday we went snorkeling in the morning. It was cool, but not as cool as it is in Florida. We rested in the hotel a bit through the hottest part of the day before going back to the beach where we got to go for a ride on banana-tube-type-thing, which was crazy. We also got to go jet skiing which was the most exciting for me. And then we just swam for a while. In the evening after we’d showered off and rested more, we had dinner at a Thai restaurant and then shopped around the town a bit. It was a really cool town that reminded me of the Florida Keys. The nightlife was also fairly entertaining. …Around 11, we went to the home of a local tattoo artist, and Emily got 安 (which means peace, and is part of her Chinese name) tattooed on her ankle. He did a really good job, and it turned out really well.
Tuesday we checked out of the hotel and headed home. We stopped on the way to get a ride on the sand dunes in Jeep, which was pretty exciting. Kind of like a rollercoaster, only in a Jeep. On sand. We took a lot of pictures there because it was really pretty.

Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time I got home. And beginning to peel. -_-;;;
But yea, it was probably the best week I’ve had here.

That was a lot longer and more detailed than I’d intended, but there’s still more I could say if anyone wants to hear more… lol XD. Also, I may or may not post pictures. I took around 150 pictures, so it seems overwhelming to post them. Plus I’ll be home in a little more than a month, and if I post all my pictures now I won’t have anything new to show you when I get there.

I am about to having an intense week of fun and travel, after which I will hopefully have something more interesting to say.
Tomorrow I’m going to Spiderman 3 with my first host ma and Mayra. That’s not part of the previously mentioned excitement, but it’s pretty exciting to me…
Anyway, Wed. I’m leaving for Taipei (the northern tip of Taiwan) with three other American exchange students (Emily, Dan, and Kyle). We’re staying until Saturday, and we haven’t any solid plans yet, but it should be pretty awesome. I’m very very excited. And when we get back and I’m beyond exhausted, I’m won’t get a chance to rest because on Sunday Emily’s host sister is taking us to Kenting (the southern tip of Taiwan) for three days. I’m so excited… As far as I know, we will get to ride the high speed train which is capable of going 300km/h (186mph). I’m way excited. Plus, Kenting is famous for its beaches, so yay!

So yea. Basically I’m about to have an amazing time. And then I’ll only have two weeks of school left before I quit for the year. At which point I’ll go up to Taipei *again*. And then I’ll go down to Kenting *again*. And then I’ll have two weeks left before I return to the homeland. Which still hasn’t really phased me. I don’t expect it to until sometime between two days before and when I’m already at the airport, because that’s how it happened when I was leaving America.

I just spent like twenty minutes writing out in detail my school day today. But then I decided it was way too boring to post, so I deleted it. I’ll give you the highlights- I used the computers for 4 periods today, skipping 2 homeroom classes. The only class I went to was my second Chinese lesson, because my teacher didn’t show up for the first. Nobody cared that I skipped. Also, nobody cared when Mayra and I left school for lunch and walked to Napoli for mini pizzas. They were absolutedly delicious. I also napped for about an hour and a half in the afternoon to kill time.

Tomorrow we plan on going into Taichung and buying cheap vendor food and going to the cheap theater, spending as little money as possible. It should be a lot of fun. I intend to spend only 200NT ($6USD) which will I will ride the train to Taichung, buy curry rice from my fav vendor, buy a movie snack, and view two movies at the cheap theater. Honestly, half the fun for me is being able to do all that and have such a good day for so little money.