"A Stranger"

Summer classes are officially starting tomorrow. One has already gone for two weeks since the professor will be gone for a bit during the semester. I’m not really excited about the idea of going to six three hour classes in one week but I’m looking forward to putting my car back into drive. These last two weeks have been lazy.

The semester ended with something due in each day Monday through Thursday. Overall it wasn’t anything to sweat about though for my Technology Management class I ended up doing half of the 90 minute presentation by myself. I was lucky though because my classes ended a week before everyone else. It just so happened that my gym membership expired on the same week so I opted to take a few days off and travel a bit before getting back into the rhythm of a normal schedule.

Logan left on the same day I moved into his apartment. He was the first of many people who have left some forever and others just for a few months. I would be upset that he’s gone but I have an apartment to remember him by which is a huge upgrade from living in the dorms if you ask me. The days leading to his departure were spent trying out foods from Europe. Marcin, my friend from Poland, made polish pancakes one morning with bananas, jam, and yogurt. Likewise, Sander, my friend from Estonia, made a desert called Kama which to me tasted tangy but the others didn’t think so. Tonight I actually had authentic Mexican food to add to my list… and come to think of it I’ve also had authentic food from Pakistan as well. The only thing I’ve really found so far that I don’t like to eat is anything that tastes like seaweed.

As for a vacation I went down to Kenting for a third time… I probably would have gone elsewhere but a friend who was leaving to go home asked me to come down. My trip was split into two different parts: Toastmasters and IMBA. In the Toastmasters part I was following around a group of Taiwanese students not really knowing what was going on because they were all speaking in Chinese. Every so often one would come up to talk to me but the questions were generally the same: Where are you from? What was your major? What school did you go to? Some of the conversations were unique though, I had one person talk to me about sports, another about western girls, and another about their desire to be a famous writer. I’m kind of sad because we went to the beach at one point and I had packed my swimsuit but the night before I had heard nothing about swimming. After about nine hours of this I was ready to meet up with people who I could actually speak with so I figured out where the IMBA people were and met with them. We spent the night wandering around Kenting having a good ol’ time and the following morning going to an out of season waterfall. The hike made the trip to the waterfall worth it to me though, at one point we were scaling a cliff.

A few days ago I fulfilled a promise to a close friend I have here who will be leaving in August. I promised them that when they passed their final thesis defense we would go down to Kaohsiung and eat ice cream at Coldstone. When we finished eating at Coldstone, we met up with another friend who lives in Kaohsiung and ate Bolivian food. It was definitely more authentic than any of the Mexican restaurants here in Tainan and quite possibly Boone and Raleigh as well. I was glad to have been able to spend a half day with my friend since it’s probably the last time I’ll ever have the chance to.

On a final note, I’ve been setting up a Mac for a friend. It makes me want to switch because the laptops are definitely better than any windows laptop I’ve had a chance to cross. Maybe in a year or two I’ll have the money.