Mind the Curve and Jiufen

The Light Fellowship gave me a small notebook to write down new vocabulary that I learn in daily life. On the front of it is a curve above which is written "Mind the Curve". The curve symbolizes one's experience while studying abroad, though I think it applies aptly to doing anything in life. At first you have a lot of enthusiasm and are enjoying what you are doing and where you are. After a while you get burned out, tired, and begin to loose enthusiasm. After some more time, you begin to get a better appreciation of the pros and cons of the place you are in and what you are doing and you begin to both enjoy your experience on a deeper level and to learn deeper lessons from your experience. Right now I feel somewhat burned out and tired, both because of the workload and because of the endless rain and grey skies. But when I wrote down some new words Friday I saw the picture and remembered to mind the curve.

Thursday night, ICLP did a screening of "City of Sadness" which follows Taiwan's history during the late 1940's and is set in the northern town of Jiufen. The movie was fascinating and very good though it was all in Taiwanese and Japanese and the only subtitles were in Chinese. It made a lot of sense to screen the film as our Saturday class trip was to Jiufen and neighboring Jingua. The trip was a lot of fun. I sprinted to the top of Keelung mountain in addition to picking up good street food on Jiufen's old street during the 3 hours we were given to browse the town. From the top of the mountain one could see Jiufen, Keelung, the mountains, and the sea, though the cloud cover made it hard to get any clear views. From above Jiufen and the neighboring cemetery looked like two twin cities. One of the living and one of the dead. It was beautiful and quite surreal.

The weather's getting chilly now and I had to buy a blanket to keep warm at night.