January 13, 2019 Taking on Taiwan: How to Be Happy When I arrived in Taiwan in 2016 the second time, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I was all dimples at training when they explained the more tedious details of our duties as teachers. I grinned as we drove around Taipei, checking out the sights, getting our medical tests done so we could get health insurance, and I even cracked a smile when I moved into my apartment and ran some numbers to budget.
January 9, 2019 Taking on Taiwan: The Buzz About Buxibans Not less than twenty-four hours after touching down in Taipei the second time, I was sitting in a lecture hall among forty other men and women. Some of them were the same age as I was, while others were older with far more teaching credentials than I had. Exhaustion filled me, mostly because I’d spent much of the night chatting with my roommate and one of my now good friends, Rona, after she arrived as well. We awaited our training leaders to start what would be a week’s worth of learning how to teach and more about the HESS curriculum.
December 30, 2018 New Year, Same Me 2018 flew by in the blink of an eye. It honestly feels like I woke up and it was January, blinked a couple of times, and here we are in December, right before New Years’ Eve. I’m so grateful for all that has happened in the last year. I started a fitness routine and kept up with it, I wrote three books and published two of them before the end of the year, I visited home and saw most of my family and friends, decided to move home, and now, as you are reading this, I will be preparing for my NYE celebration in Hsinchu with two of my best friends.
December 26, 2018 In the Spirit of Giving Christmas time is one of my favorite times of year, right after Thanksgiving which is equally as thrilling for me. Both holidays embody what I love most: family and friends. It’s all about giving and spending time with those you love, no matter how far and wide your circle of comrades spreads. And while the idea of spending Christmas in Chicago next year is exciting, I couldn’t help but get a little nostalgic thinking that this was my third and final Christmas spent on the island of Taiwan.
December 23, 2018 What Happens After Your Last Game I remember the first time I stepped foot on the ice in hockey skates. At nine years old, I had donned figure skates for six years leading up to that, but nothing could prepare me for the dozens of bruises and bumps I had all over my body as I got used to life without toe picks. But yet, despite every fall and a few stifled laughs from my teammates that summer, I kept on trying. Thirteen years later, I would step on the ice for the last time, wearing my collegiate uniform and equipment way larger than the first set of pads I wore way back when.
December 9, 2018 Culture Kids Recently, a coworker of mine lent me the book Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. For those of you who don’t know, it was on the U.S. Bestseller list and it’s a highly acclaimed book, and rightfully so. Without giving too much away, the contents of the story are pretty simple: it’s about a teacher reconnecting with his student and their very last class together: a class all about life, and how to be a good human. And as you may guess, it only took place on Tuesdays.
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.
November 7, 2018 The Not-So-Snow Day in September It was a Tuesday morning in September. Third grade had just started barely two weeks earlier and I was getting used to my new teacher, Mrs. Crowe. She had long red curls and big brown eyes. When she talked, any topic she brought up was bright and cheery. She made math sound like the happiest thing in the world. Walking around as we worked on our workbooks, enthusing about how “math was the key to everything” and telling us if “we could multiply and divide, you could do anything” in that happy, cheery voice of hers. Some days, I believed what she said to be true.
November 4, 2018 A Twist in the Tail “Dude, what are we even doing out here? The party is back that way,” the taller of the two boys said. He placed a hand on the shorter boy’s right shoulder. The short boy shuddered and turned around to his companion with stiff eyes.
October 28, 2018 Solitary Today is the day he loses his daughter. He could tell by the silence—stronger than usual and more prominent—and the quiet packing in her room she conducted that morning, trying to be as invisible as possible. He has no idea why she would decide to leave. He has given her everything, in his eyes, and she just refuses to see it.
