Taipei for a short stay.

Well, the Round Island Tour went by at least as fast as the trip with my schoolmates, if not faster.

So now I'm back in Taipei for the next eleven days. Tina Mama is down in Kaosiung until the 31st, so I'm back next to Taipei 101 at Ellen's house.

I'm very eager to get back home, but I don't know what I'll find there. I know it will be the same as it was when I left, but I'll be looking at it with a very different perspective. I'm sure I will even revert to how I was pre-flight, in some sense, even though I would really like to hold on to my current state of mind.

I think that the most difficult thing to adjust to will be the way that most people will look at me and talk to me as the same person that left a little over nine months ago, and I can't be sure of what will happen when they see what I've come back as. Not that I've completely transformed into something that can't be recognized as Nigel Ulysses Hieronymus, it's just Nigel Ulysses Hieronymus as filtered through nine months of Taiwan and all of the circumstances he encountered there.

Another sort of scary thing is that this whole exchange was the start of a life of movement. The summer brings a sort of distant job, and then I'll be starting a life at school out close to Philidelphia, and after that I don't see myself sticking around for too long as I want to see the rest of America at some point and head over to Europe to visit all my friends over there. I want to sail a sea and climb a mountain, and if none of these things ever happen, I want to be okay with that.

There's not much left for me to say anymore here. I think that these next days before I leave will be either really slow or really fast, but either way I'm probably not going to blog at all, we'll see.

If I don't write again, thanks for supporting me over here. I love you all and I'll see everyone soon enough.
Good luck,
Love,
Nigel

Big Trip

I'll be gone for 10 days starting next Monday. Not sure how I feel about it just cause of some of the random regulations we're supposed to stick. I think everyone will be more relaxed when we're finally on the trip, though.

Different Style

So, I just changed families last Sunday for the final time. I feel pretty good about the move, I think that I'll have a pleasant last month here. Actually, there are a couple things that have made this host family a little better to adapt to, like the place is smaller, Tina MaMa moms me a lot more (she's even an insurance agent like my Mom), the room I'm in is about the size of my room in our house in Dallastown (except my actual "space" is much smaller due to big plastic boxes, bookshelves, and a computer on a big desk. So, I'm sending three little boxes back sometime soon).

I actually have some of the wonder I had when I first arrived, except now I am a little more able to use that wonder instead of getting lost in how much I don't know. I've been writing in my journal lately about the way that my experience has turned out, how even when I thought nothing was going on I ended up learning and being involved wih things that other exchange students didn't have an opportunity or interest to pursue. I feel pretty lucky in that respect, that out of all the randomness of life and the trivial anxieties and seemigly wasted days I've had here something good would come out of it.

I've decided to be more like water for the rest of my time here and perhaps in the future. I'll just go where I'm taken and see what happens. This Thursday I'm performing some songs on my mandolin in a Mother's Day concert at school. "Tree Hugger" by Kimya Dawson and "You're My Mom" which I have yet to write, but it's going to be about how, after calling four other people "Mama" this year, I still really only have one Mom.

Anyway, I'll be back soon, starting n some more domestic adventures. Ths summer camp job will be fun, although I won't have a lot of time for anything else which is a bummer (The summer bummer). After that, I'll be headed off to Near-Phillie to work on my future. I really just want to jam for the rest of my life. People do that, right?

Obvious Improvement

Here's some classmates.

This is my art teacher's home. He's sitting next to me and his two daughter's are on either side. I think that's Samantha on his right and Cassie on my left.

Now his wife is sitting on his right and Cassie's got her Gundam flying around.

Today was my weekly "Chinese painting day". I worked it out so that Wednesdays I can just sit in one of the empty art rooms and paint all day. Lately, I've been perfecting my Chinese dragon. I've made five attempts and with each successive attempt I've made obvious improvent on the previous. The fifth on is the best one yet, although I've just started, so there's still time to screw it up.

My first attempt was big and cute, like the luck dragon from the Never Ending Story movie. Attempt two was something similar to a dragon, but all the important details were off, like the antlers were backwards and he was too fat. I think that was because I painted it from memory. Attempt three was better, but too big and the ink wasn't faded out very well. This is attempt four:

Still too big, but otherwise okay. The ink needs to fade more where parts of the dragon are hidden by clouds. This next one is attempt five, which I had to run over and show my teacher in the next room. I was pretty excited. My control of the brush has been improving with every painting and so that's one of the major reasons this one is so much better. The fading of the ink is really good with this one too.

Oh, that robot in the last post is the Gundam model I put together two days ago. Gundams are suits of robotic battle armor. Some of them transform into planes or starships. Mine's Gundam Throne Drei, which I don't know anything about. Some girl named Nena pilots the thing, but I just picked it cause it's red. I went with Cohen, my art teacher, today to a hobby shop and bought some paint pens so I can make the details stand out more. We were there for almost an hour looking through the model planes and figures. Question for Dad: What's the name of that plane that can take off and land vertically? It was at that one airshow we went to one or two years ago.

5

My Robot

"Your dragon looks American!" he said. Well, hmph!

So, there's my fat dragon. Next time I'll have to remember to make him lean and mean instead. I'm doing okay lately. Last night, my friends 呂淑珍 and 周文翔, a woman and her son who I met on the bus when I was staying at Joy媽媽's house, found me at my school (luckily, I had stayed after) and so we played basketball until about 6:30 and then they invited me for dinner at this sushi place in 臺北101. Then we went to the toy store and looked around. I had a good time.

I would like to start staying after school every day because I haven't had many opportunities to hang around with my classmates in a less studious atmosphere. I think that if I had stayed after I'm allowed to leave (4:00) this whole time I might now be a little closer to my class. I still have time though!

I going to have to send another box of things home before I leave. I just seem to be a magnet for things like books and toys and trinkets, and I'll have to pay extra for my luggage if I try to get it all home that way. This 二胡 probably won't be able to ride with me on the plane either and it doesn't really fit in my luggage anywhere either.

Blugga, blugga, blugga..

Hakuna Matata

It means no worries for the rest of your days.

We just watched some of the songs from The Lion King in music class last period, and I was in the back getting all emotional. I used to watch that movie every day, along with Aladdin, Toy Story, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I just want to have a marathon and watch all of those movies one after the other and relive my early childhood.