Taiwan: ISEP Exchange: Pre-Departure: “Hey Taiwan” by Molly O’Meara

 

Hey Taiwan

this is me, my thoughts, my experiences during my year abroad in Taiwan

  1. The First Entry

    I started packing to move across the world at midnight last night. That gave me approximately nine hours to pack up my entire life to move from Iowa to Taiwan for this next school year. Needless to say, I was under-prepared. Why would I wait until the last minute to get my life together? The simple answer (aside from being a notorious procrastinator) is I was scared. I thought moving across the country to go to WWU was a big step, but moving across the world is maybe a little bit bigger. I don’t know anyone in my program, I don’t know what my room will look like when I get there, I don’t know how hard classes will be, I don’t know Mandarin. This is scary. Even more than that though, I am monumentally excited. I get to live on my own in a foreign country for an entire year. I get to immerse myself into a brand new culture that I know virtually nothing about. I get to meet new people and experience things unique to Taiwan. I am fully prepared to come out of this program a completely different person than who I am right now, with new experiences under my belt and a new outlook on life and the world as a whole. I’ve been writing this little post during my layovers in various different airports and all I have to say is I keep getting even more excited with each plane I get on taking me closer to my final destination of Taichung.