The beginning

Two days ago I arrived half-way across the world, in Taiwan, a move which has been both thoroughly planned for years and 'spontaneously' achieved in months.  I've been planning on going abroad to teach English since before I started college, spent my time in college earning my TESOL certificate (among other degrees), and now I've arrived at the culmination of these plans, and I must say, nothing could have prepared me for this.

Let's start with a basic update of my adventure thus far.  I applied to teach English in Taiwan in May of this year and received several job opportunities throughout the following months.  I settled on teaching for the Shane English Schools in late June/early July and had approximately a 1.5 months to complete my reference checks, sign my contracts, apply for my travel Visa (which arrived the day before I left), move out of Milwaukee (which, was an emotionally-wrecking experience), shop, pack, and say all of my 'good-byes'.  Needless to say, I've been busy.

Tuesday, August 14th, 2012: The start of the biggest adventure of my life (thus far).  That was the day I departed Minneapolis, and by 5am on August 16th I had arrived here, in Taiwan.  Note: by the looks of it on a calendar I was in transit for 2 days, however, the flight (according to the pilot) only took about 11 hours (from San Francisco to Taipei), the rest of the time can be attributed to time zone changes.  The flight was not as bad as anticipated, I slept through the majority of it, (I was awake for only 2 hours of it).

After waiting over an hours (because my flight was incredibly early) I was picked up by a mini-bus (cab) and brought Changhua, the city where I live, but not the city where I teach (I teach in the town of Homei, which is about a 15 minutes bus ride away).  I tooled around the city all day on the back of a moped driven by one of the TA's from my school, Sophy.


In my first day I toured about 7 apartments, and settled down in a comfortable little place in Changhua.

This is the outside of my apartment.

My rent is 6200NT, which is about $200 a month and includes this lovely furnished apartment with a desk/chair, dresser, western-style double bed, TV and cable, a fridge and my own bathroom.

This is my private bathroom.  As you can see, it is a little different than an American bathroom because the shower is right next to the toilet.  While showering I have to consciously not soak the entire room (I also need to be conscious not to use up all of my hot water).

I've experienced such a range of emotions over the last few days.  Leaving was not too emotionally taxing, probably because I over did my sadness upon leaving Wisconsin, and at the time of departure I was too overwhelmingly excited to be sad.  It was somewhere after my nap during the international part of my flight that I started to have anxiety about the whole choice (interesting timing if you ask me), but I think that was mainly caused by the fact that the awful plane food was messing with my stomach.  While touring the city and looking for apartments I started to wonder how I really felt about being here, and whether I could survive a year out here, and then I got to the Shane School in Homei (the school I will be teaching at) and suddenly everything was 10x better.  I was greeted at the door with hugs from several of the school's TA's who were excited to see me, and three co-teachers who have been nothing but wonderful since the moment I met them.  That was the moment when I realized how thankful I am for this opportunity.

Cultural note: yesterday was the beginning of ghost month here is Taiwan.  During this time it is believed that a portal between life and after-life is opened and ghosts are free to roam the island.  As an offering to the ghosts, "ghost money" is burnt.  It has been interesting seeing the fires in the streets for this ceremony.

I look forward to many more updates in the near future, but for now it is time to enjoy another wonderful (though incredibly rainy) day.