3 Month Report 我愛台灣!

So I have officially completed three months in Taiwan! This past month has been absolutely crazy. For the most part it has consisted of school and well, more school. However at school I participated in a class cheerleading competition! It was fantastic, and a little bit weird. Being the only tall, blonde girl out there made me stick out quite a bit. I'm also in the interact club here at school. On Kinmen Sports Day we danced Gangnam style in front of half the island! It certainly has been an interesting month for me! This month was also the second culture class in Taipei with all the other exchange students. I was really happy to see everyone again. They're all so nice, and always include us exchange students from Kinmen. It was really nice to get off the island for a few days. We had to set up a table at a culture fair where we would present our country to the 2012/2013 outbounds. We had a great time with it, and I made some friends! (I got to present Australia a couple times!) In addition to the culture fair with the other exchange students, I also went on a trip with the other exchange student living on Kinmen with me. We travelled with her host family for a day trip in Neiwan, a Hakka Village about and hour and a half outside of Taipei. It was beautiful! We were about to eat traditional Hakka food and see a famous cartoonists' old house. It had been turned into a museum. This town is actually up in the mountains so we had an amazing view! Mainland Taiwan was awesome, and I am really glad we were able to go after Thanksgiving when everyone is a bit homesick. Being around so many other foreigners was really comforting. For me Thanksgiving on Kinmen was actually very nice. The American teachers here invited me to celebrate with them and all the other foreigners on the island. We ended up having an actual Thanksgiving. It was wonderful but I still greatly missed my family. I haven't actually had much homesickness during my exchange, but the holidays really brought it out. Overall this month has been awesome. Chinese is still hard, but I actually feel like i'm understanding more and more. The real trouble is with the tones, I have really hard time identifying them when others are speaking to me. When I incorrectly use them it can change the entire meaning of the sentence! However, I have learned a lot since i've been here and the more I listen to the language around me the more familiar it becomes. I'm also changing my host family this week! I have mixed feeling about this. Right when I really feel comfortable in a place, it's time to move. But it's another exciting adventure! I'm loving my time here in Taiwan. I have learned so much about myself in the past three months and I hope to continue growing. Heres to seven or eight more wonderful months!