Getting Settled

Two weeks ago today, I arrived in Taiwan. It has been quite a couple of weeks! Things have been very overwhelming and I am still trying to get settled and used to things. God has been so good to me and has carried me through two very difficult weeks.

I taught a few of my classes last week and will take over all of them this week. It's a lot of work and teaching English is very different from the teaching I am used to. I have a lot of classes and a really wide variety of age and skill levels. I really like my bosses and my co-workers though and I know I will eventually get to know my students and get used to my new job.

As mentioned before, I do have an apartment that I love. I am gradually getting it "set up" and homey. I was in a bit of a financial pinch this week, so I made the horrible decision of cutting my food costs in half and eating only one meal a day. This did save a lot of money, but it also made me quite sick. So, that was not a good idea. There are no laundry facilities in my apartment building, so rather than dry-cleaning everything, I decided to hand wash all my laundry...I'm still trying to decide if that's a good idea too as it was very tiring and quite a mess to deal with.

My biggest blessing this week was getting internet put in my apartment last night and then getting to Skype with my parents and Michael! What an encouragement! It's been really hard being so cut off from everyone, so I am really thankful to have internet now.

So, I'm hanging in there...getting used to my new life here...confident that this is where God wants me for the time being.

Chhhanges...

I think I have officially become an adult: I have my own apartment, a real job, and the weighty responsibility of managing my money wisely.

Here

So, I made it Taiwan and much like my first week in China- I am completely overwhelmed! There are many similarities to China and also many differences- the hardest one being that I am not in the company of Christians here, rather with people VERY different from me. Things are getting better everyday though and I am getting more confident that I can do this for a year. :) My biggest concern right now is finding a good apartment and getting started teaching. This is the scariest thing I've ever done and sometimes I still can't believe that I just totally picked up and moved to Taiwan!? What in the world?!
I'm working for a British run school, so that has been quite different too. American teachers are quite the minority. It's been funny to see the differences in words, pronunciation and other things between the UK and the US. I may pick up a British accent this year!

Here are some differences I've noticed already between China and Taiwan:

-much more modern here and more Westernized
-everything is twice as expensive as China
-more English speakers and signs
-scooters everywhere instead of bicycles
-much warmer and wetter (it only rained once in my 3 mo. in China!)
-more green (50% of Taiwan is covered in forests)
-there's religion here! I never thought it'd be a relief to see Buddha. (it was so eerie to not see any religion in China)
-people are friendlier here and happier (although I realized recently that Filipinos are by far the friendliest, happiest, funniest, and most fun people in the world :))
-there is a lot less poverty ( I've only seen maybe 2 beggars)
-they are obsessed with recylcing here
-lots of convienent things here like 24 hour internet cafes and cool hi-tech hand dryers :)
-there are 7-11's and other covienence stores everywhere!

Here I go

...am I'm off to a new land! My 6th country in the past 5 weeks (China, USA, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan).

It is so hard to say goodbye to my parents again and to say goodbye to Christmas break. It was truely a wonderful Christmas full of great memories. I loved being with almost my whole family again and to be back home in the Philippines. I realized how much I love that country. I also enjoyed being back in Bangkok again. It was all too perfect (except for the part where my mom almost didn't make it for Christmas...)!

But- I guess I'm an adult now and I have to get a life, though I'd love to just hang out in the Philippines or Thailand forever! :)

So, here I go- off on my next adventure with excitement, lots of anxiety, butterflies in my tummy, but also with the confidence and peace that God has lead me to this and I am in His plan.

22

Happy Birthday to me :)

Start of my career...

Today I signed a contract with Shane English Schools of Taiwan. I will be teaching English to a variety of ages at a private Chinese school in a suburb of Taipei called Taoyuan. I am still working on the details such as getting a visa, but I have a ticket to leave Bangkok on January 14th to start my career as a teacher! Exciting and scary!

I will be there for at least a year. I am not sure exactly when I'll be back in the US. That's the sad part. I do have an open-ended return ticket to the US...but I only get 14 vacation days for the entire year, so I don't know yet if that will work out. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what I'm getting myself into, but the Lord has opened the doors for this job and it will give me some good experience in missions, getting out of a Christian bubble, teaching, and being an independent and responsible adult. It will also show me if teaching English as a second language is something I'd like to get into more. Right now, I am pretty nervous about it all and sad to have to say goodbye to my family for a looong while. I'm trusting God though, that he led me to this job for a reason.