December 21, 2019 Ballads and Boys “Abbie, are you coming or not?” I peeked my head out of my bedroom, peering down the hallway. Izzy, my roommate, stood next to the door with her arms crossed, clutching her cell phone tightly in one hand and her dorm keys in the other. Checking my watch, I widened my eyes.
January 6, 2019 Taking on Taiwan: Blank Slate I’ve always loved travel, and my vacation in Taiwan in the spring of 2016 was a game changer. I can still remember the goosebumps I felt across my skin as we descended into Taoyuan Airport in Taipei. The first country I ever visited in Asia, and definitely not the last. Stepping off the plane, it was one of the only times in my life I felt completely anonymous. Everywhere I turned, Mandarin Chinese covered the signs and people spoke words I didn’t understand. Even today, I don’t understand everything entirely.
January 2, 2019 Taking on Taiwan: The Start It’s a new year, and it’s officially (when you read this, not as I type this) 58 days until I step onto the plane bound for North America. Believe me, I find it hard to believe that my time in Taiwan is coming to an end. It seems that it was only yesterday that I stepped onto the plane to move here, to start working as an English teacher. Honestly, I had no idea of the places and people I would encounter along the way. That is precisely why in honor of my time in Taiwan and all the memories I have collected along the way, this blog post serves as the first in a series I am releasing, titled “Taking on Taiwan”. And there’s no better place to start than right at the beginning, in October of 2015.
December 5, 2018 Tattooed Back in May 2013, I went in for my first tattoo ever. I was terrified, but I spent a lot of my days back then in a constant state of anxiety. So, in an effort to push myself past my comfort zone, I sat under the needle for about an hour. I got my first tattoo, and one that would cause me a lot of controversy for a couple of years: a girl breaking out of chains.
October 3, 2018 That Time We Hid a Kitten In Our Apartment During university, I’ll admit: I did a lot of weird, out of character things. One time, I stole Santa Claus and hid him on campus. I’d go lay out on Chapel Hill and watch the stars when I couldn’t sleep, sometimes till the wee hours of the night. I often tried new things and much to my dismay, liking them was a hit of a miss. And a lot of the time, it didn’t take too long before I realized how much I really disliked something. But the time my roommate and I adopted a kitten and hid it from residence life for a week was definitely not something I regret doing.
September 4, 2018 That Time I Helped Steal Santa Claus College in America tends to have this reputation for being quite scandalous: raging parties, crazy stories, plenty of laughs and ample tears, and the…
February 14, 2017 To Hockey, My Lost Love I remember first stepping foot on the ice in hockey skates. Two emotions come to mind: fear and excitement. The way the adrenaline pulsed…
November 17, 2016 Bright November has rendered me speechless, but after taking some time to reflect and process, I have more than the “wow” I uttered at least…
July 14, 2016 7 Things That Happen When You Graduate From College Four years ago, the class of 2016 was preparing for their first year away at college. Now, we are off in the gigantic world…
July 14, 2016 My Next Big Adventure: Taiwan About a month and a half ago, I was sitting on a high speed rail (called the HSR) from Taipei to Taichung amongst my…
