Back home

Well, I am certainly the worst blogger in the world, and I'm not sure anyone is still even reading this, but I figured I would make another effort this summer and into next year to try and keep this updated on a more regular basis.

I've been back in Minnesota for just over a week now, and the jet lag is finally starting to ease, though I did conk out for a good hour or two this afternoon without even realizing it. The key has been to simply stay out of my bedroom at all costs until the evening. That, plus lots of coffee and other caffeinated drinks.

It's hard to reflect on nine months living abroad. I'm glad to be home, I missed the quiet, Midwestern lifestyle pretty much the whole time I was in Taiwan. But my life in Taiwan was good, great even, and the life skills I learned during my time there are invaluable, as are the friends I gained from the experience. I'll be the first to admit that going to Taiwan for nine months to study Chinese after graduation was not my first choice, but in retrospect, it was probably a better path than going straight to graduate school. I gained some clarity about myself and where my interests lie, clarity that graduate school in the States wouldn't likely have given me.

At the moment, I'm facing a jobless summer in Minnesota, which is a little daunting, but a position as an English conversation assistant awaits me in Cebolla, Spain come October, and while the stipend for the position is hardly worth mentioning, it can't be worse than my first two months in Taiwan, when I was living on 50NT a day or less because the scholarship money was delayed in coming through. And with the economy the way it is right now, I'm just grateful to have something lined up for the future.