frustrated... steam is practically coming out of my ears

First we were leaving in March... no

then August... no

then July... no

then June... YES then no

then back to August... then no again...

Currently it's back to June (the 24th ish). For the sake of my sanity I hope it stays that way.

My mom's been in contact with her family in Taiwan and it seems every time she gets off the phone she's more excited and more nervous about the trip. She's worried that I won't get my paper work done and have to come home in three months. She's wondering if she should go to Taiwan with her Taiwanese passport or her American one. She's worried I won't find a job or a place to live.

She has all these questions and most of them can be answered by a phone call or visit to the consulate in SF... but she's just sitting on her thumbs saying she doesn't have time or has too much work. Well I'm gonna make her go with me next week when she has spring break.

As far as not having a place to live or a job those are problems I can't tackle until I get there (and so I've been avoiding them since I don't need the added stress). SInce talking to her family, some of them were nice enough to offer us a place to stay for a day or two. Although it does make me feel a bit better that we will be welcomed by my family in Taiwan I would like to do this mostly on my own. (Although I must admit that I'm very lucky to have my mom with me to help me get acclimated.)

Recently I've been hanging out with my friends Grace and Mel like A LOT... and I love it... even though they're both in denial about me leaving I feel that they're the only ones taking advantage of the time I have left here...

this is not a news flash people--- I broke the news a hot minute ago...

I'M LEAVE THE COUNTRY IN A COUPLE OF MONTHS... I won't be back for a long long long time...

I know that I'm not the center of everyone else's lives... well I'm the center of mine... but thats besides the point. Honestly I'm a little hurt that I have to chase after people to hang out with me before I leave... and I don't think its fair for yall to wait for me to have my goodbye party to see me... because if that's the case I might as well save my money and not have one.

UGH I seriously think my blogs are becoming more and more uninspiring, discouraging, and worst of all... faithless (I don't know if those are quite the right words but thats how I'm feeling)...

li ho...

I've started to learn Mandarin! Yay me =)

I've learned how to say 'hi' and 'my name is...' in Taiwanese. In Mandarin I learned how to say 'how much' and 'how do I get to...'

Ok so I haven't really learned all that much but it's a start! I think my goal is to memorize the traditional radicals... some of them are super easy and some are hard but there are 214 of them so I need to get crackin!

The other thing that I've learned is that I have a man's name! ugh SMH... seriously? My mom gave me my manly name on purpose too!!! *sigh*

She says that my grandfather gave her an ambiguous name too.. and a name with only a single character... weird, right? So she's given me and my sister names that were also ambiguous and very strong... but everyone says that my name is TOO strong. It also doesn't help that I was born in the year of the tiger. I don't think my mom really wants to change my name. I have to decide before I leave what I want my name to be because once I get there thats when I'll start to sign my Chinese name =D.

I guess on a funny note my Grandma told me that while I'm there... I should find myself a husband.

nothings change since yesterday...

Haha so that's pretty much self explanatory... I haven't added a word of Chinese to my vocabulary =/ but I am reading The Rough Guide to Taiwan, by Rough Guides, about my future home. I must say that I have learned some very interesting things (however this book has been written by a Brit or at least someone who says "expats," "flats," and uses shit like Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.)

• We HAD the tallest building in the world, standing at 1,671 ft. tall (or 509m). Yup, until Dubai built one almost twice at tall at effin 2,717 ft. tall... yeah.. that's one tall building.
• Taiwan is bigger than Belgium
• We're bisected by the Tropic of Cancer
• Half of Taiwan is covered by mountains
• We are not a communist country... we've got a president and everything!
• Our main exports are electronics (is that really a surprise??? well actually you'd think it would be clothes or something coming out of a sweatshop.) 75% of the world's laptops and 40% of its LCD screens... yup =)
• Unless you're in a mixed gender hot spring... you are EXPECTED to be naked... um not this expat, that's for damn sure.
• When the weather is just right... surfing can be pretty AWESOME!

I'm still reading a learning a lot about Taiwan... I'm just going to pretend that that counts for something... amidst my other attempts.

Time for bed... it's been a long day.

tears...

I don't know if I was just remembering a dream that I had last night but the first thought I had when I woke up this morning was the thought of having to say goodbye to my dad at the airport come this summer. I just couldn't help it... I curled myself into a ball and cried my little eyes out.

My mom is coming with me and my sisters are already in another state but my dad... sigh... I feel like I'm leaving him behind. Thinking about it makes me sad and I can already feel the tears welling up my eyes. He's my favorite guy in the whole world. Never a discouraging word about the adventure that lies ahead of me. Hopeful that this will be the point in my life when everything changes for the better. And the saddest thing is is that he wont be near me when any of it happens. Everyone has been saying that I'm brave and strong for attempting to do this big move but I really draw my strength from him because he's literally my Superman, I've seen his fingers get closed in a car door and he didn't even scream... just say calmly, "Alicia, will you please open the door." There is not one person I know who wouldn't call me a Daddy's Girl.

as for any other progress towards my departure... I feel kind of stalled...

• We have yet to purchase our tickets or even set a date

• My mom has not renewed her passport (she's waiting till her Spring Break)

• I've bought my Chinese dictionary and a Rough Guide to Taiwan and graph notebooks to start doing writing drills... but have yet to start

SMH... and encouragement seems to be in short supply... it's always "It's going to be tough" "You don't know the language and culture" "You'll get taken advantage of" "You're going to be ALL alone"... haha "You might have to prostitute yourself" (that one made me laugh)

I understand all of this... I do. Believe me when I say that those things are very present in my mind. I have faith in myself, conviction and courage to know that I can do this but hearing it from a friend doesn't hurt either. (This is NOT a solicitation of praise or encouragement esp. those of which are feigned and/or insincere)


that is all for today...