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So it’s now the end of April and I just remembered how long it’s been
since I sent in a report. I absolutely love Taiwan and find it hard to
believe that in a little over 2 months, I’ll be on another 24 hour plane
ride home. Time is just flying by and it feels like there’s no way that
the last time I reported in was 3 months ago. I have so much to talk about
but I don’t know how I’m going to tell it all. Don’t worry, I’ll try not
to make it too boring….however, I like to talk about too much tiny little
detail, so I’m sorry :D
February
So, as I wrote in my last report, schools in Taiwan got most of the
February off for the Chinese New Year. Unfortunately, my first week was
spent packing and moving. I wasn’t switching houses yet, I was moving with
my host family into their new mansion, completely designed by my dad.
Moving here is a lot of work and but in the end was worth the effort. The
house looks amazing and I’m so glad I got to stay there for a little. Then
three of the exchange students here went on their Taiwan tour. It sounded
like it was a lot of fun and I hope that ours is as good. The end of next
week was our family switch, just in time for New Year’s eve Saturday
night. The first thing that happened, was I had to go out and buy red
underwear, because it’s good luck to wear red underwear on the first day
of the New Year :D The week was fun, spent with family and friends. My
host sisters who are both in college out of the area came home, so it was
a full house here. There was so much food, no one could eat it all, and
after dinner, everyone would gather in the biggest room of whoever’s house
we were in, and play cards and mahjong, or sing karaoke. A lot of the
family I met here were those from other parts of Taiwan so I was really
lucky to be living here at this time, or else I might never have met them.
Unfortunately, the next week was school again. It’s the first day of a new
semester, so the first day was just a half day and was all cleaning and
assemblies. Tuesday was a regular day and then they tricked us! We had
Wednesday for the last day of the New Year and lucky us, we get to make it
up on Saturday L What a way to end the month…..
March
So March started off cold!! I don’t know why since I was getting excited
that the weather was getting hot again. This month was definitely crazy. I
don’t think I spent a full weekend in my own home once. The week’s here
are all just school and stuff so I’ll just talk about weekends. The first
one was started Saturday after school, when we learned about some kids
from another district who got sent home. Apparently there where two
exchange students who got caught doing stuff in a train bathroom,
disgusting, and now our families our freaking out about us having
sleepovers. Let me remind you there are 6 of us here, 5 girls and 1 boy,
so when we have sleepovers, everyone’s invited, including the boy, but he
has to sleep in a different room. Now, he can’t even sleep in the same
house!! Crazy people….so that night, was a lot of complaining kids. Then
the next weekend, I went on a trip with my rotary club which was a lot of
fun. We went to a bunch of museums in Taipei, Xinzu, and Nantou and saw a
lot a really pretty places, something Taiwan’s full of. However, the last
dinner was terrible. I had some of the freshest lobster I’ve ever had in
my life. You wanna know how fresh? They cut the thing in half and gave us
the bottom half raw, which wasn’t bad. The head was used as decoration,
which wouldn’t have been bad at all, except it was STILL MOVING!!!!!!!!!
No fun, not fun at all….. The next weekend was Priscilla’s birthday, so we
had a party for her, and then I spent the night at my second host family’s
house and found out that they actually miss me, especially the little
sister, who I shared a room with until they moved into the big house.
Finally the last weekend, my family went to Taipei to pick up my host
brother, who was coming home from the States. He was on exchange in
Michigan, but busted his knee skiing and gets to come home early for
surgery. How fun….So I spent another weekend with my first host family and
had a not so great time. I think it was kinda, sorta my first real bout of
homesickness. I don’t exactly miss home itself, just every once in awhile,
I miss a person or food and if I’ve had a long week, like that one, I just
start to break down. Plus I fell down the stairs an hurt myself so that
didn’t help L
April
The month of April started of pretty good. We went to the Farglory Ocean
Park, which turned out to be a lot like Miami Seaquarium. They don’t have
as many animals but they have some rides so that was a lot of fun. Paan,
the exchange student from Thailand, had her sister in for a week, so it
was cool to meet them. One had been an exchange student to South Africa
and the other wants to got to France in a few years. There was also
testing that week so first three days were just us spent in the library
and then we had a four day weekend!! Thursday was a holiday, in which
families go back to their hometowns to visits their ancestors graves or
something of the sort. I actually stayed with my first host family while
mine went to Nantou. We had a good old time hanging out with the exchange
students who came to visit from Yilan. Sunday was Easter and my brother’s
birthday, so Monday morning I called home in time for Easter dinner and
got to talk to everybody. It’s hard to believe that in less than three
months I’ll be on my way home. I’m still not really homesick, as far as I
can tell, but there are certain things that I miss, including Taco Bell :D
The rest of the week was boring especially since Saturday we had to go to
school to make up for last Friday that we had off. Sunday’s the start of
my 2 weeks of traveling around Taiwan!! Since I’m writing this beforehand,
I’ll just send in the rest with a different report even though they’ll
probably come in together or at least within a couple days of each other.
Thank you so much, Rotary, for this amazing experience. Sometimes we don’t
appreciate you enough, for everything you do for us, but thank you, thank
you so much. These past 8 months have been wonderful, and I would do
anything, just to do it again.
To all of the future exchange students, a little advice. Live this year to
the fullest, because before you know it, it’ll be over, and you’ll be
wishing you could have all that time back. Make friends with the exchange
students near you and those far away. You‘ll more than likely be closer to
the one‘s in you‘re area, but the ones farther away are probably the ones
you fight less with :D Also, you might be hearing this a lot, but don’t
pack too much. One suitcase is probably more than enough, especially if
your school has uniforms. And don’t, no matter what happens, let anyone
tell you things aren’t going to be as good as you hope. Things are only
what you make of them.
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