Just to Start This Off...

Oh gosh, I already have enough online blogs as it is...why in the world am I creating another one?

Anyways...I noticed that Sherry made a blog for our semester abroad and I figured I might as well too. This shall be interesting...I'm curious myself about how often I will update this. But anyhoo...

Three weeks in China with the family is coming to an end. Berkeley already started a week ago and facebook has never stopped reminding me of it with all the recruitment event invitations and fb statuses. Is it weird to be sad about missing the beginning of school?

But it's ok. The beginning of Berkeley has ended. And the beginning of NTU, MY school for the semester will be starting very soon. Tomorrow I fly off to Taiwan. The next day is dorm move-in day. And the day after that is orientation. And the day after that is Chinese testing. Busy schedule I got there. But it's okay. After three weeks of not having a busy schedule I'm ready to start getting busy again.

One complaint though. Packing. Packing is such a biatch. No...scratch that. REpacking is a biatch. Especially when one airline allows two checked baggage and two carryons and another only allows two checked baggage and ONE carryon. So imagine me trying to fit a carryon into a checked. It's quite bothersome. But I guess it's to start getting my brain working again...haha.

Throughout the whole summer and even during last semester people would often ask me if I was excited about studying abroad. And I could never really answer the question. For most people (I think) studying abroad is new and exciting because they are going somewhere they've never been before or haven't really been to in a while. For them, it's a chance to explore a new place and culture. Well...in my case it's a little different. I go to Taiwan like at least once every year. It's my home country. So it's not exciting in the sense that I'm exploring a new place or culture since I'm pretty familiar with it already. For me, it's more of a developing my own identity kind of thing. Yes, Taiwan is my home country, only because I was born there. But I grew up in the US. I don't know what it's like growing up in Taiwan. So, to better understand this place I call my home country, I go back to experience life the way the natives do. I've already gone back and worked for a summer. I've gone back for culture camps. And now I'm going back as a student. So am I excited? Probably not as much as other people. But as time gets closer I'm starting to feel the excitement build. So we shall see...

This entry is really long. Anyways, I shall end this entry with one last thought.

Studying abroad will mark a new chapter is this thing they call life. Three years of college already and while OASES has made a big impact, I can't really say much about college being all that great. I'm really hoping this semester will be able to show me the greatness of college. This new chapter is a new beginning. And a new beginning means starting over again. So I'm starting over again. I'm going to enter Taiwan a "new" person. These three weeks in China have been spent making this new person. I got my first manicure, got my hands waxed, new hairstyle...hell I even got a PINK cell phone [of all colors..@@]. Life is all about taking risks and I'm doing it right now. Now it's time to see how this new me handles this new life....加油!! ^^