Clean Eyes

A couple of months ago, there was this ten year challenge going around on various social media, mostly Instagram and Facebook.  I remember looking through photos (and yes, I did post one just for fun) and thinking to myself that I literally look the exact same.  My hair was more or less the same length, color, and I was more or less happy to the same extent, at least upon first glance at the image.  But if you dug beneath the surface, Marie of 2009 and Marie of 2019 are very different.

Taking on Taiwan: Ch-Ch-Changes

Recently, I explored some old posts of mine, just to see if I think the same way I did back then about things.  It was rather interesting, reading it and remembering exactly how I felt.  At the same time, however, I have to admit, I have trouble associating with who I was back then.  Just remembering the things I used to see daily in university and back home compared to the things that I am used to now makes me realize how truthfully different my life has become.  If you want a glimpse of it, check out this post.  Contrasting them is trippy.

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.

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.