2024.02.29
> Dance class in the morning again, though I'm able to talk to the RYE lady about my plane ticket, which is for July 1st but Rotary told us they want us gone by June 30th. She says it's fine.
> I, feeling nostalgic, decide to do something I haven't done in a while: eat instant noodles on the roof for lunch. After I finish, I end up walking down to the cafeteria to get boba anyway, and I also find the two kiwis I need to buy for my cooking class tomorrow, which makes my afternoon a lot easier.
> It's Anthy's birthday, so I do a quick drawing of her. Apparently it's also Bittenfeld's, but he's less important to me so I don't get his done.

2024.02.28
> It's the anniversary of the February 28th incident (aptly named), so no school today! I don't learn this until I put in the effort to drag myself out of bed, but it's appreciate nonetheless.
> I realize I need to redownload Bloody Day 2.28: Vampire Martina before I can play it, although I don't actually get around to playing it. It's still my favorite game of all time based on concept alone (Taiwanese visual novel in which you are a Dutch vampire during the February 28th incident).
> I do play some Minecraft, do my Chinese homework (mostly), and finally start reading Boswell's Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe.
> And in the evening, I even have my first ever proper conversation with my host sister (yes I've lived in this house for two months, no we haven't exchanged more than three sentences at a time before. this time we made it to six).

2024.02.27
> Before class I finish Magic's Price, the final book in the Last Herald-Mage series. I usually hate Wiltking's taste in books, but since Wiltking also hated this series I thought it had a chance. I also ended up disliking it, but my reasons are cool and intellectual while his reason was really stupid (he thought the ending was bad. the ending that we've been told we'll get since the very first chapter of the very first book. who could've possibly forseen it). My reasons include the soulmate thing being stupid, which I thought it was actually going to address after killing of the main character's soulmate, but as soon as he finally figured out how to love someone else it pulled a "Surprise! He's actually your soulmate somehow too!", that despite being a book that had a previously said "darkness wasn't the same thing as evil" the final battle was a "light/good vs. dark/evil" battle (also weirdly nationalistic/xenophobic in that all the 'evil' mages were from foreign kingdoms...), and also that the ending was bad but that's because I wanted it to be sadder (the repeated dream that he had since the beginning was very clear on him dying alone but in the actual end his magic horse companion showed up) which I'm pretty sure was the opposite of the problem that Wiltking had with it so I'm still cooler.
> Chinese class is boring as per usual, and I probably failed my quiz because I spent my time before class complaining about the book to my friends instead of paying attention to the homework I was speedrunning. In the afternoon, we graduate to the next set of textbooks though.
> I listen to Janelle Monae's new album (it's not new it came out last year I just didn't hear about it) and end up rewatching Dirty Computer, which was just as good as I remembered if not better because I'm pretty sure I skipped the post-credits scene last time.

2024.02.26
> Back to school. Math is fun (we're onto 3D coordinate systems, and though I still don't have a textbook I get to actually solve more than one problem this time), the library lady gives me a trashy isekai manga that's supposed to teach you about cybersecurity (???) and a bunch of traditional snacks, I barely keep up in Mandarin, and almost enjoy Swim.
> The girl I sit next to in Musical gives me a thing of chocolate, and we spend the break between periods playing piano outside the classroom. Earth Science is also fun, although I've realized the teacher is moving through the book far faster than I expected.
> At home, I finish Dungeon Meshi and read more of the Last Herald-Mage, along with some more MS Paint art.

2024.02.25
> It's my birthday. I start the day off with a Zoom meeting with my family, and we talk for about an hour.
> I was rather hoping my host parents wouldn't remember my birthday, but my host mom brings me some steamed buns for breakfast along with wishing me a happy birthday.
> Most of the day I spend reading the Dungeon Meshi manga, which I was originally trying to keep pace with the anime with, but decided to finally just read the whole thing now.
> In the evening, my host parents took the liberty of organizing a tiny party, which thankfully is just with my first host family, Eli, and Carina (the German student from our class). We make paper lanterns, eat mediocre pizza from Pizza Hut and strawberry cake, and open plenty of presents (I get a scroll case for my art, a fancy pen, several sketchbooks, a set of watercolor pencils, and a little DIY astronomy themed desk decor set.

2024.02.24
> Weekend! I sleep in, read the second book of the Last Herald-Mage series in a single day, and watch an episode of LOGH (Reuenthal is finally dead! Yippe!)
> I try to work a bit on a couple of wips I have going in Krita, but I'm getting nowhere, so I pull up MS Paint and do some LOGH and Rodrigo of Caledon doodles instead.

2024.02.23
> It's Friday, but I have to be in Miaoli by 4:30 PM to prepare for the festival, so Rotary recommended we take half the school day off. My host parents said I could just take the whole day off (the Oingo Boingo song?), so I did that.
> For lunch I want to use the can of tomatoes and chickpeas I got from the grocery ages ago, even though I still haven't gotten the second box of ditallini. I cook half an onion and some pickled garlic (the only kind of garlic I could find in the house) in olive oil, mix in the chickpeas and tomatoes and a lot of garlic pepper salt. I swear I'd seen some plain spaghetti somewhere, but the only noodles I can find are ramen. You do what you must do. Regardless of the fact this definitely is sending me to Italian hell, it actually tasted pretty good.
> My host dad drives me to Miaoli, where we stand around at the largest highschool I've ever been at, eat lunchbox dinners, and then practice the dragon dance a couple of times before lining up with the rest of the parade. There's a dragon dancing team made up of kids next to us, so we talk a bit and I beat them at rock paper scissors a bunch. Originally I was a little disappointed we had to be in the parade instead of getting to watch it, because all the other groups looked really cool from what I was able to see, but as soon as it started, I had the time of my life.
> We were split up into two teams, so one would do two performances before switching to the other to give our arms a break. When not holding the dragon, we could only really wave to people (I lost track of how many 'waiguoren's I heard pretty fast). The German boy from the other class may have gotten more 'shuaige's than me but I got asked by a girl to take a selfie with her! (She later asked the German boy too but he only got a peace sign while I got a heart. so.) Dragon dancing is really fun and I definitely hope I can do it again someday.

2024.02.22
> I laze around before class, though I do finally read Leonid Andreyev's Judas Iscariot and Others, which was quite good.
> Morning class is another dance class, which is more challenging than the previous ones because of the muscles I strained trying to swim like an amphibian yesterday. For lunch the line to my usual place is still too long, so I get a Taiwanese style rice ball from the rice ball place I get my danbing from, which is very good and also $10 cheaper than my usual.
> We have our normal class in the afternoon, though I mayyyy have been trying to read my Earth Science textbook instead of paying attention to the adjective emphasis grammar lesson. Afterwards, me and a couple other classmates participate in an activity with a class of university students, where we get paired off and they try to teach us a sentence. My partners misunderstand what I had asked them to teach me, but I memorize the sentence they give me and we had a nice talk in mostly Chinese.
> Once home, I actually complete the entire index page for my "free school" in one sitting (I've discovered a love for using the built-in Notepad app for editing my html files). I even figure out FTP transfers and upload said index page to the site. Here's the link if you want to see it, though none of the other pages are up and it's not responsive enough to not be a mess on a phone yet.

2024.02.21
> I end up getting the earlier bus I nearly never catch, and find myself at the station early enough to catch the train before my usual one. With my newfound free time before first class, I do my Chinese class homework.
> First period is Gym, and I unfortunately remembered to bring my swimsuit this time, so in the water (comfortable in the already summer weather) I go. Luckily the teacher deigns to relegate two of my classmates to teach me the frog stroke so I don't have to keep up with her breakneck lesson, though I disappoint my poor classmates in my inability to coordinate my limbs and gasps for air.
> Second and third period are Mandarin, which starts with one of my classmates (unintentionally) misleading me and telling me that the teacher will want me to do a presentation in the beginning, but she apparently changed her mind and I just get to write an essay with the rest of them. The only part of the prompt I understand is "your favorite food" (she says it outloud and writes it down on the board, but her handwriting in indicipherable to me), so I write around 250 characters (my previous longest essay for Chinese class was only 100 characters) about soft shell turtle soup and stinky tofu. Luckily she doesn't collect them, so I don't get a chance to be embarrassed by my kindergartener level writing. The second half is spent reading about philosophical debates on flavors from our textbooks (I recieved mine, so I try to follow along, though I still just stand there unhelpfully while my group works on the questions).
> Fourth period is Music, which I never actually witnessed the beginning of because of my late arrival to Taiwan. The teacher gives some sort of presentation on the history of musicals, I think, which featured a slide on Jesus Christ Superstar (she plays a clip from the stage version, though, so no Carl Anderson or Ted Neeley).
> Lunch today is noodles, seasoned cucumber slices, and fried chicken, which I very much enjoy, though my classmate refuses to believe my positive report.
> We have a class meeting during club time, which I mostly read during, and then we go outside for an earthquake drill. My last period is Library, so I talk with my favorite old lady and decide I'm too tired to stick around for the eighth period math class.
> On the train back I finish Magic's Pawn, the first book of the Last Herald-Mage series. The main character reminded a lot of my dear Rodrigo, if he had actually had a tragic childhood but was also an asshole on purpose and not on accident. He has generally better emotional intelligence (the bar is low with Rodrigo, but still), though his ability to accept his feelings actually leads him into making mistakes even Rodrigo wouldn't make and to the (permenant) loss of his Rustin. It continued to be interesting despite the untimely demise of the love interest, though, even if I was a little disappointed that the evil wizard's offer wasn't taken up in the end. (The only comparison ever made between one of Feintuch's works (it was the Seafort Saga, not Rodrigo) and this series was in a post on my favorite early 2000s sci fi forum, where the author lists them as the only two authors he would never read again because they depressed him too much. This worries me a bit for the remaining two books, but press on I shall.)

2024.02.20
> We're back to Chinese class too, which is a little less interesting than school. It turns out advanced class isn't back yet, though, so I end up being 8 minutes late instead of 4.
> Winter break is over for the university students, and the line to my usual place is so long I decide to get danbing instead, which I had forgotten came in such small portions.
> My application for the 'school' site was accepted, so I spend most of my afternoon class planning that out in my notebook, since I need to get at least a base site up within 2 weeks.

2024.02.19
> First day of school. I manage to catch a bus and get to school on time. I even talk to Youren a bit on the walk from the station to school.
> My first period is Math, and for the first time I get to stay in my classroom and don't have to leave to walk somewhere else for it. I don't get a textbook, but if I heard correctly the teacher will get me one for next class? He's pretty much explaining the textbook problems, so one of my classmates sits next to me so we can share her book, though I try and do the calculations on my own notebook (I get the denominator wrong, but close enough). Even though I don't know much math-related vocab, the teacher draws a lot of pictures and I'm able to figure out a couple phrases based on context, like 'line,' 'plane,' and 'parallel.' Once I get the textbook, I'll be able to study the vocab ahead of time too.
> Second period I get to go to the library, where my favorite old lady is there to drink tea and talk with. On the way to my next class, I run into my schedule lady and am able to check where my afternoon classes will be, which I was a bit unsure of.
> Third period is Mandarin, which is as over my head as I expected. Hopefully I'll be getting a textbook for that one too, so I at least have a chance at understanding it. (The passage they were reading had something to do with different foods, which was as much as I got.) After they read and highlighted it, and talked to the teacher a bit, they had to close their books and write out the answers to a long string of incomprehensible questions on whiteboards as groups. I stood around and pretended to know what was happening.
> Fourth period was Gym, though it's swim class again and I didn't know this, so I didn't bring my swimsuit. I got to sit on the side and worked on my shorthand chapter for the day.
> For lunch, since my host dad bought me a traditional metal lunchbox over the break, I was finally able to try Taiwanese school lunch. It was pretty average Taiwanese food, though nowhere close to how bad my classmates tried to convince me it definitely was. I had rice, vegetables, other vegetables, and a disgustingly sweet corn paddy. There was soup too, but I didn't have a lunch box with a second bowl and wasn't sure what the etiquette was for going back for seconds, so I didn't try it (if the lunch dishes were still in our room I probably would've, but this semester we're sharing with the class next door, so they're in the other room).
> Fifth and sixth period is the mysterious "Atron Musical" class, which I'm just going to call Musical. It's with the Acapella teacher I had last semester, though there are a lot more students. I sat in the back, only to be surrounded by a group of girls who were already friends but were so friendly to me for a while I was worried I had met them before and was supposed to remember them. It turned out they were just enthusiastic first years, but we got along well. We were told the class syllabus (incomprehensible to me), had to go up front one by one to do self introductions (my grammar forgets itself under pressure, but I decided it doesn't matter and I won't dwell on it), and played a weird scaled intensity version of charades where each group had to act out a phrase, but each member was assigned a different number and had to act it out with corresponding intensity.
> My friend from the manga class was there too, though she got there after I had already been surrounded by the girls, but I realized during the self introductions she was in the class I have Earth Science with, so I caught up to her on the way out. I followed her back to the first year building while she got her stuff, and then back to the main building to the Earth Science classrooms. This is the one subject I already have a textbook for, but I forgot it at home... The teacher was pretty happy just lecturing us, though she let me borrow her textbook halfway through. The lesson was about the development of the solar system and why Earth was were life developed, I think. Since this is a subject I know better, I was able to figure out a decent amount of vocabulary (X-ray is literally 'X light', gamma rays were pretty idenitfiable because the textbook was using the Greek letter, etc).
> I was trying to decide if I wanted to try walking to the bridge between Zhubei and Hsinchu today, but I ran into my manga class friend again at the school gate, so I walked with her and her friend to the train station. I continue to master the art of getting off the bus, which is always crowded, but it's easier to slip through the aisle if you let someone else go first.

2024.02.18
> Today we go out to lunch with my host mother's family, so I was expecting the grandma I already know, and probably an uncle and cousin or two. Instead, there were at least 20 people there, though it was worth it to meet my incredibly cool host aunt and exchange more than two words with my host sister (I make progress. Slowly).
> It was a steak restaurant, but they had a fish and chicken option that my host mom was able to get for me with just the fish, and the other five courses were pretty good too, even if they put chicken in the pumpkin soup.
> Back home, I decided to go draw on the roof. At one point, I thought I heard something, but figured I was just being paranoid and it was just the wind rustling the hanging clothes; if a person had come up they would shout before closing the already opened door. Eventually, I climbed out from behind the pillar, only to realize that my paranoia had been justified and that the door was shut. I stayed calm, for I had remembered to bring my phone this time, and texted my mom to ask her to come up when she got home. When she finally opened the message, she told me she'd contact one of the guards from the front desk to come help since she'd probably be a while yet, and he showed up to helpfully show that the door, in fact, had not been locked at all. I felt more than a little stupid, but he was the evening shift guard so he's not the one I see often, at least.

2024.02.17
> It's the weekend! Winter break is now over :(
> I decline to go hiking today, but I enjoy the danbing my host mother brought in addition to my usual breakfast. I finish Charlotte Mason's first book, Home Education, and do another chapter of the Shorthand book I'm working through, which was significantly harder than yesterday's.
> I go out to get lunch, consider stopping at the book store but don't, and in exchange the universe has me open the door just as my host parents are about to leave to go hiking on their own. My host father, who hadn't heard my earlier denial, asks if I want to go. I hold up my lunch. He tells me that they'll wait for me to eat. They do indeed wait, so I eat half of it before saying I'm ready to go.
> The mountain is indeed very nice. As hard to climb as any Taiwanese mountain, but there's a cafe at the top with good fruit tea and the walk back down is far easier.
> I came across 'small town' themed webhosting site, so after briefly considering how much free time I'll have once school returns, I submitted an application to create a 'free school' where I could organize educational theory/self education resources.
> Speaking of school, I finally got my schedule for the next semester. I've still got Gym everyday and only one English class, but I have a decent amount of Math and Mandarin classes? Only one Music class this semester but it's with my main class, so I suppose I'll live with taking it a third time. There's also the mysterious 'housekeeping' I have with a third year class on Friday mornings and 'Atron Musical' class? Will report back once I figure out what either of those are. I actually worked up the courage to ask why I didn't get any English classes with my main class, to whom my schedule lady gave me a non-answer that did include the information that she did specifically intend to give me Gym everyday. (I have to walk 3k to school and 3k back, I think my health will be fine if I have one less Gym class!) I do still have two library periods, so that's nice I guess.

2024.02.16
> I read a bit in the morning, but then it's off to Miaoli. We have another Rotary dance practice, but instead of the dance we've been preparing for the Rotary conference, we're learning dragon dancing.
> I end up as a body part, which is what I wanted until I belatedly realized I could've been playing the drums. I think I'm pretty good, but the timing of my classmates behind me is off so the look isn't quite perfect. The dragon dancers from the university who are teaching us are cool (I say as if I talked to them), and I get a free Pocari Sweat so it's pretty good all in all.
> I've had enough of being honest with people for a month, though, so rather than have the courage to be rude enough to Xie An to say I don't want to walk back to the station with him, I simply take off running as soon as we're dismissed. I make it to the station in less than half the time that Google Maps said it would take, and it was a very nice walk (I beat Xie An there too, who took a bike which should've made up for his late start).
> Since the train I'm taking goes past North Hsinchu, I get off at Hsinchu and figure I can try and take the bus I usually take to the station back home instead. I find the stop just as a bus is arriving, but the driver tells me that this is the last stop and to get on to go the other way I have to go somewhere else. I go in the direction he pointed to no luck, wait for my phone to finally connect to my data, and finally figure out the bus station, which I didn't know existed. Since it's the first stop, the usually full bus is actually empty, so when I go back to school I think I'll start getting off my train a stop later so I can actually get on the bus while there's still room (75% of the time at the usual stop I try, it's already so full that the driver doesn't let us on).

2024.02.15
> Another day of mostly reading (amazing how much of that I can get done when I'm not constantly checking my notifications... I gave up Instagram for Lent but since expanded that to Twitter and Tumblr too).
> It's back to work/school for the rest of my family, so I get my usual puff burger (I decide to get apple soda from Family Mart instead of the black tea I usually buy at the puff burger place, which surprises the lady at the checkout). I'm so used to getting both tea and a burger though that I brought the wrong amount of money. It's only $5 (around 15 cents) so she still gives me the burger.

2024.02.14
> This morning is much the same as yesterday's, although I actually do some Latin work and read slightly more serious books.
> We go out with my maternal host grandmother to a Spanish restaurant, which is surpsingly good. I get tomato soup and mushroom croquettes, though I try some of the seafood fideau and bread with spicy oil that almost seems like it has a proper crust.
> Afterwards, my mother, grandma, and I walk around the city park. My grandma gives me a jar of orange juice, which even for a orange juice hater such as I is delicious, if not for the fact that it tastes any different from normal orange juice, but for the fact it's from my grandma and is in a glass jar.
> She gives me a red envelope too, which makes my red envelope total up to $16300 (around 500 USD). I need to come back for the next Lunar New Year.

2024.02.13
> Finally, a day to rest at home again. I get up around 9 to get breakfast, which is fresh soup dumplings my host mother bought that morning. She asks me if I want to go visit a mountain in Taipei, which I do not, so I say goodbye to her and my host father when they leave by themselves.
> I spend most of the day reading, though I also make some Valentine's day cards for my own amusement (half of them are theology jokes and the other half are serious LOGH and Utena quotes). Maybe next year I can print them out and actually give them to people.

2024.02.12
> In the morning we go to Beigang to try local food, visit another temple (larger and better ventilated, thankfully), and walk around buying more food from street vendors.
> Once returned, it's time to pack to leave, and in classic fashion only then do I properly fall in love with watching the garden behind the house. I make my peace with the endless countryside, and rather wish I could stay. Behind the garden is a field of rice, then a field of cabbage, then a field of corn, then a greenhouse, and the only thing tall enough to be seen in the distance is a roof of a temple.
> We get home, I unpack my stuff (all of my clothes smell like incense, so I start a load in the washing machine), and after half an hour we leave again for dinner with my first host family and another Rotary family. It's nice to see Eli and my first host sister again, and we play with the cat and Mario Kart after another dinner of hot pot.

2024.02.11
> This morning we go to the highspeed rail station, though it turns out we're only dropping off my host sister, before driving to the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum, which is nicer than the Northern one because there are less people, they have an animated monkey mascot, and one of the food trucks outside sells decent pizza.
> I hang out with 3/4 of the cousins in the living room until dinner (alcohol of the night was premixed margaritas).

2024.02.10
> It's the New Year, so we go visit more family, go pray at a temple that's so full of incense smoke that I'm so focused on trying to keep my eyes from watering that I don't notice I'm supposed to be bowing before putting the incense sticks in the containers until half way through, visit more family, go see the ocean, and eat shark (like fish with bad texture) at a seafood restaurant.
> I get to rest for about thirty minutes in the afternoon, which I waste doing math work, and then it's back in the car to go see a hand puppetry museum, another museum that I couldn't tell what it was about, and my uncle's house, before it's back home, where it turns out I have two other cousins who are very cool and we eat dinner again.

2024.02.09
> At 4 AM, I wake up after a restless night to get in the car again and drive another two hours to Alishan (Ali Mountain). Driving down the empty highway at night makes me half expect the Utena castle to show up, but it doesn't and I fall back asleep.
> We're there early on a rainy day, so there's barely anyone else on the trails. Actually, the fog lets up pretty soon for a sunny but still damp day. I get to see a lot of frogs on the bottom of a clear pond, and a couple trees that were around before than the Holy Roman Empire.
> We drive back, pick up my host sister, and drive to the actual family house. My general impression of wherever it is that we are is that of a combination of Florida and Kansas. It's pretty similar to the area Lin Renyou's family lives, actually, but they have mountains on either side of the valley, while it seems like you could drive forever and it would still be the same here. I meet more family, lit incense for somebody, and won $100 for being lucky and standing behind the old man who won the round of mahjong.
> It turns out that wasn't actually my host grandma's house though, so we go there next, where it turns out I actually have a host grandfather (thought he was the one we were lighting incense for oops) and also a second cousin who looks uncannily similar to the first. We all eat hotpot together and I drink a cup of wine, which is my least favorite form of alcohol so far.

2024.02.08
> Return to Neiwan! Out of the four people I invited, only Xie An shows up. It's a rainy day, and while my prediction about there being less customers was true, I failed to consider there would also be less shops.
> The basil seed drink stand isn't there, but we get some mochi (+ a nice short conversation with the owner), takoyaki, and settle for drinks from 7-11.
> Once I get back to Hsinchu, my host family picks me up and we drive several hours down to... somewhere in Yunlin County near Beigang to visit family for the Lunar New Year. We meet my host grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousin at a restaurant with good food (soft shell turtle is surprisingly delicious), though we stay in a hotel tonight.

2024.02.07
> Read a humorous mix of Christian homeschooling blogs and Catholic boys school shojou manga today.
> Kaze to Ki no Uta has finally been replaced in my head by Thomas' Heart, which starts off with the aformentioned Thomas dying instead of waiting until the last volume, features no sudden opium addictions, and takes place in Germany instead of France, so it's all around a far superior specimin of this hyperspecific manga genre. (Also, there actually the occasional good theology takes too)

2024.02.06
> Wrote a post on Multiverse for the first time in forever.
> Made plans to visit Neiwan again with some friends on Thursday!

2024.02.05
> It's a Monday. I do very litte.
> I finish a book that I fear has irreversibly impacted my outlook on the world and that I can never properly reread because it was published over such a broad time span that the characters in the beginning are completely unrecognizable when compared to the characters as they are now.
> I also start two Rodrigo of Caledon pieces, one based on the scene when Rodrigo wakes up after successfully reviving Rustin and the other being a redraw of Botticelli's The Lamentation, for what should fanart be if not mildly sacriligeous.

2024.02.04
> I wake up early this morning since I'm going hiking today! At 8, Lin Renyou's (the Spanish exchange student) host parents pick me up. In typical Taiwanese fashion, we walk up the hard side of the mountain and then down the easy side. The very peak is still covered in clouds, so there isn't much of a view, but we buy the most delicious oranges I've ever had from an old lady on the way down, as well as some bread which suffers from the usual Taiwanese lack of a proper crust (the random little shops on the side of a mountain barely accessible by motorized vehicle are always a bit amusing to me).
> When we get back down to where we started, we visit a tiny cafe that's hidden by a very small set of stairs next to a temple and meet up with some family friends. They have a daughter around my age who doesn't talk to me much but gifts me paper and brushes for practicing Chinese calligraphy. I order peach black tea, which was actually extremely good because it was just sweet black tea with peach vinegar in it.
> Somehow Renyou's host parents decided we wanted to go to Neiwan, so instead of taking me home, they take me back to their house. It's an actual house, not an apartment, though the back is a warehouse where they make connectors for plugs. That seems like a thing you'd assume would be done in some fancy factory somewhere and not in a cluttered warehouse, but what do you know. It's a bit weird to wear my shoes inside, but I get to meet their two dogs and I get a brief tour of the road the live on, which has three houses and is otherwise mostly fallow rice fields. I find myself suddenly missing menial warehouse labor and fields of weeds and gardens, so I'm rather bummed out that I can't have them as my host parents.
> Neiwan is pretty nice (we take the train from the station near their house, past the road with the giant industrial complexes so big and old that they remind me of giant stone castles, which is so small that you literally just walk across the rails after looking both ways to a concrete platform in the middle--I really wish I could live here), we get noodle soup at one restaurant and tangyuan at another. I see a stand selling sweet basil seed drinks, so I think I'll have to come back to do some of my own shopping at some point. There's also stands selling calligraphy brushes, metal pans, dehydrated strawberries, pokemon cards, and about everything else you could probably think of.
> I was supposed to go to another Rotary dinner party tonight, but I pretend I'm too sleepy so I get to stay home.

2024.02.03
> Around noon the mother of my host mom visits, and we go out to eat lunch together (I discover the seafood udon is significantly better than the rice bowls I've been getting at the Japanese restaurant we frequent). We rest at home for about an hour, where I leave my room to work on my math on the couch to show off to my host grandmother, but she does not care because she is taking a nap.
> Then, we go to the artists' cafe in the General Village for an art class, where we make paintings with paint we mix ourselves. We're supposed to use the design that the teacher made instead of our own, which bums me out a little, but I think mine turned out decently and I can give it away as a gift.

2024.02.02
> Today I'm still thinking about Charlotte Mason, so I decide to try it on myself. I work through the first chapter and a half of a calculus course I found that does the best job of explaining the concepts out of all the previous textbooks I've found, and I work on learning to type using the Dvorak keyboard. I go to the roof again, properly propping the door open this time, and do some light exercise while appreciating the view with far less anxiety this time. I memorize the next two lines of Catullus 16, before pausing my studies to go get lunch from my favorite puff bun place.
> I ignore the rest of the things I wanted to study and spend my afternoon watching LOGH and talking to my friends, but when that gets boring I compulsively play map quizzes online until I memorize the location of every single country. I have yet to achieve a perfect score because I usually mix up the order of a couple of the islands in Oceania, but I'm getting pretty close.

2024.02.01
> Today is our last Chinese class of the semester. We spend the morning practicing our dance again, and I am forced to promise Caio that I'll actually go to the beach next time I get asked. My first host dad buys us drinks and pizza for lunch, and I am very glad to see he specifically got a single cup of winter melon boba for me.
> In the afternoon, we have a culture class on the Lunar New Year and I spend my time at home starting the next book in the 4 million word series, only to decide that it's kind of boring and skipping to four books later (this is an acceptable thing to do, because each book centers on a different character in a different place, so the order of the books isn't inhereintly linear) and also Charlotte Mason style homeschooling.

2024.01.31
> I finally finish Dragon Wing, which, after a quick check, definitely was not ever recommended by my favorite Rodrigo of Caledon fanartist with the worst taste in literature known to man, which makes sense, because the book was actually good. I also read the Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwhich, which was a nice comic and also recommended to me by a friend months ago. This makes 16 books I read this month!
> I get invited to go to the beach in Zhunan but only after everyone else was already in Zhunan and I'd already decided what I wanted to eat for lunch, so I pass on it, even if I rather wanted to go to the beach at some point. I'm still playing Minecraft semifrequently, and today I find 56 diamonds inside a single cave.
> In the afternoon after I sort my trash in the trash room, I decide that instead of going back to the apartment I want to see the roof. At my last apartment, there was a keypad next to the door that you swiped with your key to unlock it from the outside, but they don't have one here so I figure the doors must not automatically lock. The click when I close the doors corrects my misinterpretation. The view is very nice, though, so I try to enjoy it without freaking out too much. I didn't bring my phone, and there are a couple racks of clothes drying up here so I assume someone will come up for them eventually. There is a button clearly marked 'SOS' next to the door, but it is accompanied by some Chinese text in read that looks like it says "for emergency use only," and I'm unsure if my situation counts yet. I eventually get desperate enough to try and shout down to some of the people walking through the court yard, but they don't hear me. As I hypothesized, someone comes up for the clothes eventually, and we actually have a pretty nice conversation on the elevator down, where he informs me I definitely should've just pressed the button.

2024.01.30
> We have our final exam for this semester today, which I actually take an entire 40 minutes to complete.
> Afterwards, I decide my fanart hasn't been obscure enough lately so I start a drawing of the Warden of the Sands and his attendant, two very minor characters from the second book of Rodrigo of Caledon.

2024.01.29
> The other day I decided not to start reading a LOGH fic I hear a lot about because it was longer than the Bible, at around 900,000 words. Today, I learn that the current series I'm reading totals over 4,000,000 words, which I'm pretty sure puts it in the top 10 longest pieces of English literature. I'm already nearly done with the first book, though, so it's too late to give up now.
> For lunch my host dad comes home to bring me the fish dish that I used to eat a lot at my first host family, which is something I hadn't realized I missed (it also might help that he gets no spice instead of less spice, because even less spice is enough to nearly kill anyone who eats it).

2024.01.28
> I foolishly assumed that since all the Rotary people spent all of yesterday drinking that today we could rest, but there's yet another Rotary gathering at a hotpot/grill place today for lunch. I discover my love of grilled fish and get to win some more at rock-paper-scissors against the girls from last night, so it's not too bad.
> That evening, my host dad finally returns with his friends, but they bring fried rice so I decide I'll be sociable in return. We gamble over a game that was definitely not poker and it takes me an embarrasingly long time to figure out the rules, which are actually incredibly simple (add up your cards and whoever has the highest last digit wins). I get to try proper Taiwanese alcohol this time (Kaoliang liquor) and get to finally fulfill my life long dream of tasting acetone.

2024.01.27
> Not one but two Rotary events today! In the morning we go to a tea place and make Lei Cha, a traditional Hakka drink that I last tried on my first week here. The Rotary Club goes to a nearby restaurant for lunch, which is yummy, and I get to engage in my favorite hobby of chasing small children around the parking lot afterwards.
> I get to rest for a bit at home, and then in the evening I have to go to the monthly Rotary meeting, which is at a different restaurant than usual. Nini's kids don't come, but there are two girls who I only met for the first time this morning that remind me of my sisters when they were younger, so it's probably the most enjoyable Rotary meeting yet.

2024.01.26
> Another day at home. I make a short joke animation about Rodrigo and Rustin and I finish the zine for the Zine Jam. Check it out here.
> Since Xie An is watching LOGH now, I figure it's time for me to finally finish the show, so I watch an episode for the first time in ages (a month and a half).

2024.01.25
> The morning class is not actually Chinese today, but a dance class, in preperation for some Lunar New Year Rotary event next month. We diligently memorize the routine, while Yang Jie watches from the hallway with his broken foot.
> The afternoon class is a culture class on martial arts. The teacher teaches us a style inspired by a praying mantis, so I have fun getting to hit my fellow American with the back of my forearm for the next two hours.

2024.01.24
> Today is a properly lazy day. I wake up around 9, don't get out of bed until 10, and don't leave my room to get breakfast until 11.
> Around 1 I finally feel hungry enough to leave for lunch, so I go to one of the restaurants in the General's Village I remember from the other day, the "puff burger" place. They only have a couple of options, and I choose the "pepper-flavored vegetarian puff burger," which includes lettuce, tomatoes, fermented eggs, and spongey tofu in a flaky but delicious bun. The lady at the counter asks me about myself while I wait, and we do the usual "she asks me a question in English and I answer in Chinese" thing.
> Somehow, I get Xie An into watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes completely unintentionally. The universe is finally rewarding me after everyone else in my life ignores all of my recommendations, apparently.

2024.01.23
> We still have Chinese class for the next two weeks, though. Before leaving in the morning, I finally have the Zoom meeting with my parents (applying for college financial aid again, yippee).
> Since all the students are on winter vacation, the campus buses don't run anymore, which is extra fun in the decently cold weather we're finally getting.
> Today's rabbit hole is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight again, which is, despite the promises of my highschool English teacher, one of those stories that in fact gets more gay when you learn more about the historical context.

2024.01.22
> It's winter vacation, I've learned, so no school for me! Though we don't get any other long breaks, Taiwanese schools make up for quantity with quality: I get the whole month off.
> I plan on going out to get my favorite abalone congee for lunch, but it's so cold that I decide to turn back and just make myself ramen instead. I spend most of the day struggling through my Latin homework--Chinese has spoiled me, and I really hate trying to figure out word endings.
> I've been playing Minecraft a bit recently, usually just half an hour or so at a time, but by not pressuring myself to get diamonds or set up fancy farms, I find I enjoy the game a lot more.

2024.01.21
> I sleep in until nearly 9 today, and decide, for once, that I don't really need to immediately check my emails in the morning and instead eat my breakfast in peace. I miss the Zoom meeting with my parents because of this.
> I spend the rest of the morning working on art and finishing the Matrix (which was... okay? it had some cool theming but the whole "chosen one" thing kinda ruins that. the entire premise is very reminescent of the prologue of the current novel I'm reading, which came out 9 years prior).
> We go out to the hot pot restaurant for lunch and I even eat all the fish this time. Afterwards we walk around the General's Village, which were originally houses built for army generals after they left mainland China, but now house a bunch of small businesses and restaurants. My personal favorite so far is the artist's cafe, but there's also an incredibly homely cake and coffee shop just outside of the village that is so impecably decorated it feels unreal, like you've walked into a movie frame.

2024.01.20
> We have our Zhunan culture trip today, so my host father drives me to the train station in the morning. Xiake (Owen) takes a train in the wrong direction, because he is an American with no appreciation for public transporation and couldn't wait the five seconds it took to wait for the train sign to switch to English. We're an hour late to leave on the bus because of this.
> Our first stop is 獅潭仙山, which Ana's host mother (one of the Brazilian exchange students) said wasn't even a hike, barely even a walk. By the time you're nearly at the top, you have to use ropes to pull yourself up the near vertical stone. It takes a while, but I do make it to the top, and it feels like I could've probably seen all of Taiwan if it weren't for the amount of clouds below us.
> While I wait for the rest of the group to make it down the mountain, I go to the dimly lit store under the temple, which had a sign for my beloved winter melon tea. When I ask the old lady at the counter, she tells me they don't have any, but gives me a bottle of something else of a name I don't recognize. I ask her how much the candied sweet potatoes she's selling are, which she takes as me wanting to buy them. Back on the bus to the restaurant for lunch, I find the strange beverage I've been given is, quite unexpectedly, bissap. I wouldn't have known to order it, so I'm suddenly quite glad for the forceful old lady.
> Lunch is okay (hotel buffet), but afterwards it's hot spring time! Actually, if you told me it was just man-heated water, I'd believe you. It was, nonetheless, hot water, no matter the unclear source, so we enjoy relaxing for an hour or two.
> On the bus back, I finish A Book of Tongues, which closes in a manner as annoyingly as the rest of the book (cliffhanger and with the resurrection of the only enjoyable character... this is not enough to tempt me into the next book). Despite being from 2011, the book manages to be more uncomfortable racist and homophobic than any of the 80s sci fi I've been reading (not in any way the reflects the author's personal opinions, but simply as a fact of the setting, though plenty of books manage just fine not centering it as much... obviously such things shouldn't just be swept under the rug, but I have trouble liking historical fiction that puts such effort into emphasizing the bad parts of the time period without actually having anyone at least somewhat acknowledge that they're bad), and that's before you even learn which side of the Civil War our dear protagonists were fighting on. As much as I wanted to care about the main characters, the POVs get switched in a manner perfect at making it seem like every single character is constantly acting out of character. I was ready to accept the lack of cool theological discussion after the first quarter of the book, despite the fact one of the main character's entire power coming from quoting bible verses, only for the author to give you a hint of really cool theology (the aformentioned only enjoyable character) only to go back to completely ignoring it again. It was enjoyable in the way I enjoy bad movies, and hopefully in the manner that I won't ever think about it again.
> After my host mother picks me up from the train station, we go out to eat at a conveyer-belt sushi restaurant. Once home, I get about 20 minutes into the Matrix before falling into an incredibly restful 10 hours of sleep.

2024.01.19
> No classes again today, so I get another day to myself.
> I do my Chinese homework first again, and spend the rest of the morning doing a small Rodrigo of Caledon animatic.
> For lunch I go down to the 7-Eleven to get a fruit jelly and seafood ramen. I read another 100 pages of A Book of Tongues, and consider just finishing it today, but I get distracted by the correspondences of Marcus Aurelius and his old tutor, Fronto. I've heard of Aurelius' name before (he's the father of stoicism, after all), but in true Roman fashion he just seems entertainingly down bad for a man 20 years his senior who only seems interested in giving him more homework. Maybe I'll have to read The Meditations after all.
> Before dinner I go to the park across from the apartment complex and finish planning the Utena e-shrine in my notebook. I was planning on doing some sketching too, but I only realize I left my sketchbook in my other bag after I'm already on the ground floor.

2024.01.18
> Keeping my streak of being on-time to Chinese class, I do little of interest.
> The wifi isn't working at home, so I work a bit on the art for my zine and finally read through the fic I got from the LOGH New Year's Exchange (so incredibly well written, though I fear I shall definitely have to finish watching LOGH now, given the rather ominous last line that implies my favorite character is going to die... I have seen nothing else to suggest this, but I also have not ever seen anyone talk about this guy unless I actively seek it out, because he has approximately 5 speaking lines in the entire show). I read a bit more of The Book of Tongues, which I am almost starting to enjoy half way through.

2024.01.17
> Today till Friday is the end of semester exams for my highschool, and since I obviously don't have to take any, I get to stay home. I spend most of the day working on the to-do list I put together.
> After doing my laundry and sweeping my room (unlike my last house, this is something I have to do myself, and my habit of shedding hair like a dog is all the more obvious when my floor is white and not carpeted), I do my Chinese homework for tomorrow.
> I use the rest of the box of ditallini to cook pasta fazool again for lunch (I realize the other half of the onion I saved had been used, so I brave the wilds and go to the vegetable stand on the next block over; the old lady is very nice and her onions are far cheaper than supermarket onions), which I eat while watching the first lesson of a latin course I saved last month. In the middle of the lesson I am struck with the urge to procrasinate by reading the article on Digital Gardens which I saved two years ago. My discipline is nonexistent, so I pause the video and read it. I finish the rest of the lesson before reading all the other articles linked by the first, which are just as intriguing. While thinking about this, I pull out my notebook and start brainstorming for my Utena e-shrine, which has had a link on the homepage of this site since it's inception two years ago, but has seen no attention since.
> I play a bit of Skyward Sword, draw Kircheis as a cowboy, and format the text for the zine I'm working on for the January Zine Jam I joined, themed "growth." After dinner I start reading a book that was recommended by my favorite Rodrigo of Caledon fanartist. I am a bit worried, since I tend to disagree with their actual opinions about Rodrigo of Caledon and the only other book we have in common was perhaps my least favorite book of all time, but I need a break from 80s sci-fi novels. As per usual, I'll save my thoughts until I finish it.

2024.01.16
> For once I actually manage to get to Chinese class on time. It's a typically boring day, but as I try to decide watch Rodrigo of Caledon scene to convert to comic format in my notebook today, I have that moment of realization as I go through the scenes in my head where I realized one of them is not like the others. As in, it did not happen. I realize the imposter memory must be from some dream I didn't think about enough to clock as a dream. I draw it anyway so I don't forget it, but I am still torn on whether it was sent to me by Feintuch from beyond the grave or not, because on one hand it seems rather out of character for him, but on the other he is the most unpredicatable author ever so who knows.
> At home, I spend my time doing interesting and productive things, like counting all the times Rodrigo uses the word "love" for Rustin and vice versa. Rustin wins, but the Rodrgio:Rustin proportion goes from 1:2 in the first book to nearly 4:5 in the second... While reading the Wikipedia article about the senator Catulus, who is significantly less interesting than my poet Catullus, I learn that "catulus" also means "puppy," so despite the extra L in Catullus' name, I am left with no choice but to draw the poet with dog ears. I point out he matches catboy Rodrigo and Seafort now to Xie An, who geniusly suggests I draw all three together. There are few times you can say you have drawn something truly original, but I am rather confident in my belief that no one else ever has or ever will draw fanart of ancient Roman poets with characters from obscure Feintuch novels from the 90s.

2024.01.15
> I spend my morning classes talking to Neo about Jesus and Judas, as we often do these days. It's the last day of the semester before the finals, but I manage to finish my spoon!
> The bus home is already full by the time it gets to my stop, but I get to see the world's biggest and fluffiest dog on my walk back, as well as getting to pick up boba (of inditerminate flavor: I had planned my order before getting to the counter, looked down to see warm ginger brown sugar tea on the counter menu, only to learn they didn't have it in stock, and bluescreen until I pointed to something that ended up tasting good but I can't remember the name for the life of me). And best of all, the original congee place is actually open and staffed when I walk by, so I finally get my oyster congee. I finally figure out the difference between oysters and clams too, since I realize it was clams I liked, not oysters.
> Before bed I watch Weird Science.

2024.01.14
> In the afternoon, I get in the car with my host parents and we go to the south of Taoyuan for 石門山: Stone Gate Mountain. My host father checks if I can handle a two hour hike and I scoff, of course I can. It turns out, however, that my long and streneuous hiking experience means very little to a straight hour of mountain climbing at a near-constant 50 degree angle. I take an embarrasing amount of rests and run out of the bottle of honey water I brough far too soon, but I make it to the top.
> The view is beautiful of course, and like a cheesy movie, I can hear traditional music echoing from somewhere else in the mountains. The rest of the hike is a shallow downhill, and far more enjoyable. In true Taiwanese fashion, there's a hut and a canopied sitting section near the top, where an old man in selling everything you could need in the middle of a hike. Water, energy drinks, coffee, beer, and soup. There's a small temple in case the last three you passed weren't to your liking, and another canopy housing a KTV set up, where the music I heard earlier was coming from.
> After we get back, we go to a private restaurant back in Hsinchu, that has shrimp pools you can go fishing in yourself if you want. There were two other Rotary couples hiking with us, but another show up for dinner with their two younger kids. The food is good, especially the non-fried stinky tofu served in a deliciously spicy soup. The kids take a while to warm up to me, but we become fast friends by the end of the night. I drink my first two cans of beer, which is legal by Rotary rules with parental consent at private gatherings, which actually tastes better than expected.

2024.01.13
> I spend the day doing homework, reading scholarly articles on Egyptian eunuchs, and reading Korean webcomics about Egyptian gods.
> For lunch, I make the pasta fazool (luckily, my host mom left some garlic sitting on the counter). This is a recipe I've tried a couple of times before, but I think today was the closest I've gotten to the taste of my grandfather's pasta fazool. With remarkable restraint, I only have two bowls, and leave the last in the fridge for tomorrow.

2024.01.12
> Though I've already gotten decent at the Taiwanese arts of wearing two sweatshirts and sleeping in class, today I dabble in "dozing on public transport," which is somehow more restful than any sleep I've had in the past month and I don't even miss my stop.
> On the walk between the train station and the bus station, I pass by the back of an RT-Mart, the only large grocery store I've been to in Taiwan. Actually, it's the same one I previously visited, although I only figure this out after I walk all the way around and find myself on the otherside of the food court. I grab some Jasmine Honey Tea bottles from the drinks aisle because I feel bad about having an empty basket, but when I finally find the canned food aisle, it's all fish and other canned meats. I haven't come this far to give up, though, so I ask one of the store attendant ladies about canned tomatoes, and she shows me to the foreign foods section, which is confusingly behind the wine section I had obviously walked by. They don't have cannelini beans, but they have another white Italian bean which I figure will work just as well. I assume (correctly) that my host family has olive oil, and I find the garlic and onions without too much trouble. The lady at the check-out confiscates the garlic for reasons beyond me, but I have the rest, so I dash out to save myself further embarrasment.
> Once home (I decide not to make the pasta fazool today), I am dealt a fatal blow by Wikipedia, who introduces me to a historical figure specifically designed for me. Ganymedes, named after Ganymede, was an Egyptian eunuch who wa a direct rival to Julius Caesar. Of course, the only historical source that ever mentions this guy is Julius Caesar's own journal, but doubt me not, because I am still more than capable of being insane about a guy with only one Wikipedia section. Actually, the only time the article uses a source other than Julius Caesar is when it mentions how Ganymedes dies in the final battle, but upon my brief reading of the Julius Caesar text (using ctrl+f for Ganymedes), Julius specifically mentions exiling Ganymedes and the princess he was working for... and I'm fairly certain you don't exile dead people? Regardless, this guy is going to rattle inside my brain for a bit.

2024.01.11
> As a normal and well adjusted member of society, I decide to reread Julius Caesar's wikipedia article while I'm waiting to leave for class. When we get to the section I quote the most (Rumors of Passive Homosexuality), I pause. I remembered the guy with a C name who accused Julius of having a relationship with his engineer, but the C name in question is shocking and unexpected. Catullus? My favorite poet of all time, Catullus? Catullus of Catullus 16? It's the very guy. The fact these guys not only lived at the same time, but actually interacted (after Catullus apologized for his crass poem insinuating the relationship between Julius and the engineer, he was invited over for dinner)... Unfortunately, Catullus dies young and can't leave any comments on Julius' downfall, as it happens 10 years after his death.
> After class, the DnD group comes home with me. We get food from my favorite congee place, although they just get chicken and rice. After loosely retconning one part of the last session, I let them find the person they've been searching for, who they avoid the boss fight with, and let them have it with the king instead.

2024.01.10
> Though the rest of my art class gets to do homework/play on their phones, and I was very into the current book I'm reading, Stranger in a Strange Land (I have a lot of thoughts on this one, but that'll wait until I finish it), the teacher pulls me away to do Chinese ink painting. Unlike the time I did this in the culture class, I have a reference piece to copy, so I can focus on technique instead of also having to think about composition. I get surpsingly into it, missing both of the bells.
> After class, I finish another piece that I did the sketch for last year--I've been thinking a lot about the Castle Country guys recently, especially after Hamlet (although I created these guys to be blatant Rodrigo of Caledon rip offs, somehow they were actually even bigger Hamlet rip offs, though this was my first time reading the play).

2024.01.09
> I leave too late and am subsequently late to class, which is as boring as usual. For lunch, I branch out from my usual boba order and get the 百香果QQ (passionfruit tea with boba and coconut jelly).
> After class, I spend about an hour working on an small animation of Rodrigo and Rustin to a scene from some movie I've never watched. After posting it to Instagram as a Reel, I resign myself to redownloading TikTok to post it there too--my account there still has over 9k followers despite not being used in a year, and if I'm an internet microcelebrity I might as well use that power to proselytize the masses into reading Rodrigo of Caledon.

2024.01.08
> This time, I get off on the right bus stop. In gym we're playing table tennis now, a game I used to be lucky to even hit the ball, but my improved hand-eye cordination from pickleball and badminton carries over and I do quite well, if I say so myself. I finish reading Hamlet today.
> Though I properly catch the bus home, it's still very crowded and I have to force my way through the people who got on after me to be able to escape at my stop.
> Once home, I help myself to the last seafood ramen packet from yesterday. I find a fan translation of the original light novel for one of the manga I read yesterday, which is somehow worse than it's visual counterpart, but the translator's warning in the front about how the author likes unhappy endings fills me with hope, since it seemed like the manga was going in the rather awful romance direction (I enjoy the politics and court intrigue, but the romance is so awful I assumed that it wasn't the point of the manga at all until I caught up to the end of what was currently translated...)

2024.01.07
> There's another wedding today, although I only have to attend as a guest, but luckily Eli's characteristically weak immune system didn't get along with her makeup yesterday, so my host mom offers to let me stay home since Eli won't be there, and I enthusiastically take her up on the offer.
> I spend most of my day reading comics. For lunch I planned to cook one of the delicious seafood ramen packets from the cupboard, but the only one left is already sitting on the counter and I (falsely, as I later learn) assume that means my sister is planning on eating it, so I walk to get my favorite albalone congee again. I finish rendering a scene based on a sketch I did of an excerpt from The Still, making it my first finished piece of the year.
> My sister disappears around dinner time, so it's just me and my host mom, who takes me to the bakery and then to a tiny Taiwanese shop to get noodle soup. Before bed, I watch The Talented Mr. Ripley (while I prefer the aesthetics of Saltburn, I feel it's predeccesor does a much better job of developing the relationship between the main character and the rich guy he leeches off of).

2024.01.06
> Day of the wedding! We go eat brunch with Elsie and Eli first, at a popular Taiwanese coffee chain that has Thai Ice Tea on the menu, but of a quality I should have expected. The corn and tuna wrapinni is passable though, as is the mochi and honey one I split with Eli.
> Next, it's off to the hotel for makeup and hair, and I find I feel a lot less uncomfortable in my dress when I look like a completely different person. I go back with Eli to her house (my old one) and we wait around for the evening. She calls her parents to show off her dress, so I finally get to meet the woman I profess my love for on the daily (her mother).
> The enterance to the wedding venue has a really nice Grecoroman thing going on, and they have decent mocktails. After one short rehersal, it's time for the real thing. I'm so nervous I forget to straighten my shoulders as I walk out, but all I have to do is walk down the aisle (the flowers are in the name only, apparently) before my role is done. The kid in front of us refuses to play rock-paper-scissors with me while we wait, and I'm only a little bit hurt by this. The ceremony is mostly talking, the bride and groom drink the wine, and then it's time for food (of decent quality). There's a slideshow playing of pictures of the happy (and already married, this was their second ceremony) couple, including one on the beach which shows off the groom's full back tattoo. A quick Google between courses informs me that such tattoos don't have the same connotations in Taiwan as they do in Japan, but that fails to make me less suspicious of the four tables only marked "VIP" on the seating chart that exclusively hosts grizzled middle aged to old men smoking, who all leave at the same time.
> The mid-dinner entertainment is good, and I begin to feel rather flattered by my use of a status symbol when I recognize one of the speakers as one of the prominent politicians I see on billboards all the time (when I run into her in the bathroom later, she compliments my dress), and I'm informed the singer is the recent winner of the Taiwanese equivalent of the Grammy's.
> Finally, it's time to go home and I take a very long shower before falling into my long-missed bed.

2024.01.05
> Today, I actually catch the bus to the station (well, a bus. I get on the first one that stops, though it turns out to be only going to Hsinchu station, not North Hsinchu. I also get off on the wrong stop because a crowd of highschoolers also get off, but at least the walk was only 5 minutes today).
> Since my Friday art class is a third year class, it's been disbanded so the third years can focus on studying. I spend the morning in the library instead (I spend my time browsing Amazon to find the cheapest copies of the Seafort saga series. In total, I can get the entire series for $28. I also find a Japanese copy of the first novel, but more on that later). We watch a Taiwanese drama in dance and play table tennis in Gym.
> On the way home, there's a line for the wheel pie shop, so I skip getting my afternoon snack. I wait at the right stop for the bus this time, but its so crowded that me and the girl in front of me can't get on. On my walk home, there actually is a person at the congee shop, but I convince myself that I don't need to buy food since there's a sandwhich in the fridge (there was not, as it later turned out). I fail to convince myself the same when I get to the boba shop near my house, because there's a monk ordering a drink too, and I figure if it's good enough for a monk, it's good enough for me. It turns out monks must be rich, though, because my apple green tea boba costs as much as three cups of my usual order at the university's cafeteria boba shop.
> All things happen for a reason, though, as I walk past a grandfather with three tiny kids in the apartment lobby. It turns out they're going to the same building as me, so while we wait for the elevator the kids try to scare me by roaring, and I play along. It also turns out we're going to the same floor, so I hope I can see them again.
> I spend my afternoon finding every unique cover of the Japanese release of the Seafort Saga, respectively titled 銀河の荒賛シーフォート (Galactic Eagle (?) Seafort). There are only 7 books in the series, but there's more than one cover for most of the books, so I find 12 in total. I've looked for Seafort fanart before to no luck, so seeing the illustrated covers makes me very happy. After a little more digging, I find a couple pieces of individual fanart and some doujinshi from Japanese fans (catboy Seafort real...), along with a six chapter fanfiction that goes through Google Translate decently and a couple of book reviews from fans. The LotGH/Rodrigo of Caledon fandom overlap might not exist, but I find three different cases of LotGH being mentioned in reference to the Seafort Saga!
> I eat Karen's homecooked dinner and watch the first episode of Delicious in the Dungeon before going to bed.

2024.01.04
> I do my laundry and spend most of my morning before class reading mediocre comics. I realize I forgot to take my clothes out of the washing machine right as I'm about to leave, so I resign myself to being late. But my legs once again impress me, and I make it to class with a minute to spare.
> For lunch I even order a rice bowl, which has nothing to do with the fact I've had instant noodles for the past two days now. In my afternoon class, I spend my time making tiny comics of my favorite Rodrigo of Caledon scenes (thinking about reread number 4... it's a new year...)
> After class, I run into some of my classmates on the way to the congee shop I was checking out yesterday. I find what I was looking for on the menu (oyster congee my beloved), but there's no one there to take my order despite the lights being on and the front being open, so I go with said classmates to the tech shops on the next block. The first game shop has LoZ: Skyward Sword for Switch priced at only 890 NTD (roughly 29 USD), so I cave and buy it (buying it in the States would cost around 40 USD, so I think its worth it). The next store we go into (I go back to the congee shop and there is still no one there, so I catch up with them again) is far bigger and fancier, and I decide I can probably find a new battery for my laptop here at a future date (it's been kindly informing me that my battery life is gone and I need to get a new one for about a week now, but of course when I get home to check what kind of battery I need it plays dumb and acts like I'm the crazy one). Here, they're selling Skyward Sword for 990 NTD. I return to the congee shop a final time to no luck, so I buy abalone congee from a shop two doors down instead.
> Once again, after my delicious congee dinner, my host mom returns to make dinner without telling me, so today I have four meals. My original fear of dying of malnutrition here is rapidly seeming very foolish.

2024.01.03
> First day going to school from my new house! I miss the early bus by only a minute or two, so I sit and wait for the normal one. When my bus app tells me its only 3 minutes away, I stand up and watch for it. After seeing no sign for 5 minutes, I look back at my bus app, which helpfully informs me that it's already on the next stop. I could wait for the next one, but I don't want to risk it not showing again, so I decide to just walk to the train station. Google Maps tells me it'll take 45 minutes, and the late train (there's no way I'm making the usual train either way at this point) is coming in 40. It only takes me 25 minutes on a light jog/speed walk, so I get to sit down and rest for a bit.
> School is otherwise uninteresting. I grab a thing of my favorite Shin instant noodles on the way home, along with a black sesame wheel cake. The bus I planned to take back from the train station came four minutes before my train arrived, but the elusive 5608 (the one I failed to catch this morning) is supposed to be coming in 5 minutes. Google Maps tells me it stops at a different stop than my bus app, and I, like a fool, trust my bus app over both Google and the literal sign at the bus stop. I see 5608 this time, but fail to run fast enough to get to the right stop. Instead, I enjoy another 4km walk back home. I see one of the politicians I see on all the billboards waving from the back of the truck (another cultural difference here, less history of political assassination?) and, more importantly, a cool congee shop, so I tell myself it was worth it.
> I have an early dinner/late lunch of my instant ramen, the last green onion pancake, and the last grapefruit jelly. When Karen gets home at 7, it turns out she wants to make dinner too, so I get a whole three meals for once.
> Tonight's movie is Au Revoir Les Enfants, which is the first movie I get through in one sitting in months (something something modern film-making lame).

2024.01.02
> I wait in my room for everyone else to leave this morning (we don't have Chinese class today), and enjoy having the apartment to myself. I finish my homework and finish reading The Man Who Folded Himself, which I enjoyed a lot despite my tendency to nitpick time travel mechanics.
> For lunch, I eat the 7-Eleven sandwhich Karen bought for my last Saturday, seafood instant ramen, grapefruit jelly, and honey water. At some point, I need to remember how to cook, but that time isn't here yet.
> We have another dress fitting this afternoon, so Kelvin and Eli pick me up. While we wait, since the museum he originally wanted to take us to is closed, we go hiking at the place Elsie and I went before. This time, we get all the way to the peak, which is a fair trade-off in my mind for the fact that we have to walk an extra 5 km to get back to the car since we somehow took a horrendously wrong turn. I get incredibly sweet winter melon bubble tea and the dress fitting goes fine.
> For dinner, I figure out how to cook one of the green onion pancakes in the microwave (the package only has instructions for stovetop, but you can cook anything in the microwave) and have some more wax apples.
> My movie tonight is The Green Knight, which I think does a good job of adapting the classic Authurian legend into a new form. I can't nitpick it for its differences from the original story because it clearly shows that it's something new and seperate from its source material.

2024.01.01
> I wake up earlier than I would like to get the hotel breakfast, but it's not very good... We get back on the bus to go to a nice restaurant in the mountains, with unspectacular food but delicious black tea jelly for dessert (the rest of my table doesn't eat much, so I have two bowls there and take two more for the road).
> Then, we head to Shifen for the Lantern Festival. The rest of the exchange students already went to one in August, but since I hadn't arrived then, this is my first time. I'm not really sure what to wish for, so I write down "World Peace" and, in very small text underneath, "Feintuch unpublished manuscript release," and just write "Happy New Year from New York State" in Chinese on the other side. I buy myself winter melon bubble tea (with Yang Jie's money) and spend the rest of my time sketching the scenery. We release the lanterns on the train tracks, and twice a train comes through.
> On the bus back, it turns out the Rotex bought us bubble tea from the same place I got mine from, so I have a cup of milk tea this time, and later a cup of black tea because Yang Jie decides he doesn't want his. We finally reach home, but I'm still full from the tea so I only eat a green onion pancake and some wax apples for dinner.
> Because it gets somehow brought up every other week of my life, I watch Brokeback Mountain before going to bed.

2023.12.31
> I finish rereading one of my favorite zines, Youth Liberation Now (issue 1), and decide it's time to call it quits on books for the year. I spend the rest of the morning compiling the list of the 130 books on my Multiverse (LINK).
> We have our New Year's Rotary trip, so I pack for that (I successfully forget my charger and wallet, but I bring an extra uneccessary change of clothes). After everyone arrives at the meeting spot, we file onto the bus and head to Taipei. They release us at the Sun Yat Sen memorial, so I head to the closest book store (no manga or English novels, though they do have beautifully illustrated Chinese copies of the two sequels to Howl's Moving Castle, unfortuantely too expensive for me to justify buying). We decide on Indian food for dinner, and the website of the closest restaurant promised not only South Indian cuisine but also momos. When we get there, it's only North Indian, but the naan, vegetable masala, and gulab jamun is still so delicious I could cry.
> After a quick trip through the memorial for the bathroom, we walk around a bit (I buy some red bean soup from a nearby stand, and a strawberry tanghulu from another, which betrays me by having the final strawberry not be a strawberry at all but a tomato), before regrouping and finding a place to sit for the countdown. We watch the Taipei 101 fireworks and walk through the streets shouting "Happy New Year" in Chinese to amused passerbys on our way to the bus, and finally get back to the hotel at around 2AM.

2023.12.30
> I sleep in till 7, but I'm still up earlier than the rest of my family, so I grab a melon pan from the kitchen (bought specifically for me, since I'm fairly certain no one else eats breakfast) and return to my room. I get a headstart on my Chinese homework, even though we won't have class next week.
> For lunch, we go to a nearby hot pot restaurant, and I'm struck by how much I've already changed. My first meal out with my first host family was also hot pot, but back then I had no clue how to cook seafood (I get the seafood platter again at this one), and the amount of food I can eat is certainly bigger too. Last time, I couldn't even finish the single platter I ordered. Here, I not only eat the entire seafood platter, but also a vegetable platter that you plate yourself, along with desert soup and a winter melon slushie for dessert. (My new host dad is a snail, apparently, as he fills his vegetable platter with only lettuce. When he finishes the meat he was wrapping with the lettuce, he tries filling the lettuce with ice cream instead. In this way, he reminds me of my own father.)
> After lunch my host sister (like my last house, I have two, but one is off in Europe) and dad leave to visit an elderly relative, while Karen takes me shopping to the 7-Eleven under our apartment. It has half a shelf full of books that I'll need to check out at a later point, but also Swiss Miss and my favorite spicy konjac snacks (ridiciously expensive, though; nearly 1 USD for a single package that you can eat in a bite).
> For dinner, we meet up with the Spanish exchange student's family at a nearby Japanese restaurant. My tuna ricebowl is mediocre, but the pickled ginger here is heavenly.

2023.12.29
> Friday classes are per usual. I finish reading that Catholic memoir, making us up to 129 books this year.
> After dinner, me and Eli switch host families. My new host mom, Karen, shows me my room and the shower, so I spend most of the evening unpacking before going to bed.

2023.12.28
> Before class I finally work up the courage to open Feintuch's website. The only content on it besides links for buying his books are two forwards he wrote for special editions of two of the Seafort Saga novels, but the small insights they give into his life are invaluable to me (it's rather funny to read about his youthful angst at learning all his favorite authors were already dead, when he's now my favorite dead author) and the way this guy talks about his own fictional character never ceases to be one of the most earnest things I've ever read. The fact that he uses the very same pixel book icon I've used repeatedly on my own webpages is only a bittersweet cherry on top.
> After Chinese class, my host dad takes me and Eli to a bridal shop, since we need to pick out dresses for our future career as flower girls at a wedding for someone I don't even know next week. None of the dresses have sleeves or even anything thicker than spaghetti straps, but I suck it up and make do.
> I'm moving to my second host family tomorrow night, so I decide to start packing, and end up barely fitting all my stuff into my two suitcases in barely an hour. I spend the rest of the evening eating dinner and watching Clone High by myself, since my host parents are off at the gym, and then pacing the apartment while talking aloud to myself about Rodrigo of Caledon, like a normal and well adjusted person.

2023.12.27
> The library doesn't have the ebooks for the rest of the Seafort Saga, so I turn to my trust friend Google to find a very legal copy. Though my original goal fails, I find myself down the rabbit hole of an old sci-fi forum that was last active in the early 2000s, which features not only people with many opinions on the Seafort Saga and Rodrigo of Caledon (which is certaintly not sci-fi but is still discussed here because everyone knows Feintuch here), but also David Feintuch himself. It's a bit of the jumpscare when I first scroll down to his name on a discussion thread about a guy trashing Nick Seafort, but it's incredibly interesting to see the author himself speak about his characters (his love of Seafort is so sweet it nearly moves me to tears, while his opinions on Rodrigo and Rustin make me hope they have therapists in the afterlife. hmm.)
> My collection of unintentionally ominous quotes wishing the poor guy a long life continues to grow (shout out to that one guy who said "It would be tragic for [the Seafort Saga] to end in an anticlimax. Lord God grant that doesn't happen," which is perhaps the funniest way a guy could phrase such a thought for a series where the main character's whole thing is that he's convinced God hates him and that does indeed end in anticlimax because Feintuch's family never publish his final manuscript. I also hope dear old T. Terry who joked about Seafort coming alive to take revenge on his author awkwardly remembered such a statement in 2006).
> Armed with new knowledge (Feintuch says he fully intends Rodrigo of Caledon to be a two book series, but he also says every book past the fourth one of the Seafort Saga was going to be the last, so do I really trust him?) and a very large reading list, this makes a very good day indeed.

2023.12.26
> Back to work in Chinese class. (I also have a nice Zoom conversation with my family in the morning, though.)
> I finish Book 4 of the Seafort Saga, Fisherman's Hope, and this is my favorite one yet (I felt the first continued to be better than both of the subsequent sequels, but Feintuch pulls himself back up here). This is probably because it's the most theology heavy by the end and Seafort finally gets to retire and becomes a monk (and then the afterword ruins that by telling us he unretires to become a politician and marries his old bunkie Arlene... this is perhaps a worse moral decision by Seafort's own words than the way he tricks 43 children into killing themselves to save humanity right before he retires.)

2023.12.25
> It's Christmas, but I still have school (I was given the option to skip, but I get the idea that going to class will probably be more relaxing than going to an amusement park, and my host sister wants to hang out with her friends at the mall). It's also Ivan Konev's birthday, so I whip up a quick drawing of him before leaving in the morning.
> This turns out to be a good choice, because I get candy from my classmates and get to start working on my actual spoon in Woodworking class.
> I finish reading Paradiso (didn't meet my quota yesterday, so it ended up taking 10 days instead of 9), but I'll definitely have to actually read it at some point in the future because the app tells me I read all 900 pages in only 4 hours, so I get the feeling I didn't actually read all 900 pages.
> The best Christmas present of all is that I manage to finally find an archived version of David Feintuch's old website, which I once saw referenced in an article and gave up on finding after 30 minutes of searching, while looking for a good photo of him to use in my version of the "Died in X, Born in X, welcome back X" meme, since Feintuch died in the same year as a I was born (rest his soul. no wait wake it up I have some questions for this guy).

2023.12.24
> After doing my homework in the morning (and one unit of the classical Greek course I've started going through), it's time for the Exchange Students' Talent Show.
> The Rotary gods hate (or perhaps love) us, so they pick Yang Jie to go first (he speaks more Chinese in his very monotone speech than I've ever heard him say in all our classes combined, even if he mispronounces nearly all of it). When it's my turn (I'm singing a Chinese translation of Take Me Home, Country Roads), my voice shakes and I keep losing my place in the lyrics, but luckily Rotary is an organization of corruption, so they give me Runner Up and 200 dollars because they've heard I'm supposed to be good even if my singing didn't support such a conclusion.
> Most of the other students also sing (my favorite is one who came onto stage with a pink ski mask and a fake gun to sing a song about asking for money), my Spanish classmates plays kalimba, one of the Brazilians from the other class breakdances (he somehow doesn't win any prizes, which confirms my suspicions on the Rotary corruption), and the Brazilian girl in my class gives a presentation and then demonstration on a form of Brazilian dancing (dance-fighting?) that rightfully wins her first place.
> The food is impressively bad by any standards, but they give us Welch's fruit snacks in our candy bags so I am satisfied. They sit all the exchange students down to watch a video, which turns out to be a compilation of messages from our families back home. While not as long or as heartfelt as some of the other videos, my dad makes a beautiful Christmas graphic with corresponding 8-bit Christmas music with his Apple 2+ simulator, and is the only video to win applause from the audience. Even though I can't understand the languages the majority of the videos are in (I can understand the three other Americans' families and the trumpet player preforming Silent Night in the snow), the very tone of their voice is endlessly touching. Even though we're from places across the globe, it strikes me that we're really not that different at all. And if Christmas can bring us all together like this, maybe cultural imperialism isn't that bad after all-- (okay sorry I take that last part back).
> Apparently the cool thing here is to give Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, so my host parents give me a beautiful jade bracelet before I go to bed.

2023.12.23
> This morning my second host mother picks me up to show me how to get to my school from my next house. I feel proud of myself for recognizing that we could've just gotten off the bus before the bridge over the North Hsinchu station and taken the train there instead of going all the way to Hsinchu station.
> We go to Big City, the mall that serves as the primary attraction of Hsinchu, for lunch, and I find that it certainly is big. While waiting for Karen, the second host mother, to get her blood drawn for the Rotary Donation Drive, I talk to the host father of one of my classmates and finally find my way to go hiking! It turns out a bunch of Rotary members from their club go hiking together semi-frequently, so I get invited along for the next trip and complimented for my Chinese speaking skills.
> We get mediocre sushi, though I know I'll have to come back to get the delicious looking naan I see at a restaurant on the fast food level.
> We return home to pick up Eli and then go to our Rotary Club's Christmas pre-party, which involves making miniature Christmas trees (mine gets given away to my third host mother as a present) and delicious ginger and brown sugar tea. Then we move downstairs for the real party, with mediocre food but free drinks from the fridge and I only play lookout to Eli definitely not breaking Rotary rules twice(ish).

2023.12.22
> For some reason when I wake up, this crisp silence of the morning feels like Christmas.
> We're finally onto the test printing in art class, and it's very fun! Rest of the day is pretty normal, and I spent most of my time reading the 300,000 Kisses anathology. I discover my new favorite poet (Catullus) and later find that my favorite poem of his is also the source of my favorite latin phrase (I can not print it here)! One day I'd like to memorize the entire poem, but that's work for future me.

2023.12.21
> You've heard of stress dreams, but my dreams apparently decide I don't have enough stress in my life, so instead they make me do calculus. I also don't realize this until I'm thinking about it later in the day, but I also had the first dream in Chinese I can remember, where some students from another school ask me how much Chinese I can understand on the way to the station, but there's no street corner in real life like that one we stood on.
> We play Jeporady in class and spend the rest of the day rehearsing for the talent show on Sunday. Puragatorio is done now too, so I just have the final book of The Divine Comedy left.
> It's finally cold enough for me to actually put on my sweatshirt, except even that's not enough. I regret not bringing any sweaters, even if it would've taken up a lot of space in my suitcase.
> I transfer a poem I wrote in the Notes app on my phone to my journal, and paste some of the papers I've collected in there too. My Secret Santa exchange comic is due in two days, so I make the responsible decision to go ahead and finish coloring it today, though at this point I doubt my chances of finishing the Christmas animatic before the big day.

2023.12.20
> I finish Leviticus in Art, and read another page of The Stranger in the Life Boat while drinking expensive tea at the library. One of my classmates finally asks me for English help, and he acts blown away by the very fancy sentence I give him: "Three students stand in the school courtyard."
> I'm having a main character day, because on the way to Gym I look longingly at the stairs up the second floor of the gym building where the seating area is, only for the teacher to let us go up to watch the volleyball tournament instead of having class today. Later, I decide my after-school snack will be two handpies from the shop outside the school, but some teacher stops me in the library to give me two handpies, one with a boba filling, instead.

2023.12.19
> Typically boring Chinese class, and I even forgot my homework at home.
> At home I finish Ender's Game, so I get to talk about that now! I really enjoyed it, but I am sure I would have eaten it up even more had I read this when I was in elementary/middle school. It's feels very wish-fulfillmenty, which I suppose isn't inheriently a bad thing, and it definitely does a good job of appealing to its clear target audience. Seperate the artist from the art and all that but the knowledge that Orson Scott Card is a pretty sucky person (heard someone vaguely mention it on the internet and opened his Wikipedia page to see a "Personal Views" section... hoo boy) probably doesn't help, though the transphobia is kinda funny for the guy who made Ender the way he is. (only called his legal name by his parents and identifies entirely with an entirely different name... described as the combination of his brother and sister... do I need to go on?)

2023.12.18
> I lied last time, and add a sixth book: Ender's Game, which is often mentioned in reference to the Seafort Saga. I'll give my thoughts on it once I finish it.
> During my library period, the old lady who teaches me Chinese decides to have me read the book she just finished too, the Chinese translation of Mitch Albom's The Stranger in the Lifeboat. We get through the first page in the hour we have together, and its a lot more fun than trying to think of conversation topics or going through textbooks below my level.
> I finish reading Exodus and nearly finish the test spoon-cavity I'm carving in Woodworking class. Carving out organic shapes is a lot more fun than the last geometric-shaped project.
> Xie An gets to the sword-selling scene in The Still today, and I was very glad that he not only kept going after the Chela scene but also to finally have someone to complain about my favorite fool to.

2023.12.17
> I work through the first subchapter of the calculus textbook I found during my homeschooling kick last spring, along with all my Chinese homework.
> Somehow, I go back down the Julius Caesar rabbit hole again, though its with his early career as opposed to the end of it this time, so I end up spending most of the day reading a mix of scholarly articles and fanfiction.
> And because three books wasn't enough, I add two more to the rotating list: 30,000 Kisses, an anathology of queer Greco-Roman poetry and stories, and Since My Last Confession, a gay Catholic memoir.

2023.12.16
> Today is the Hsinchu Culture Trip, so I take my morning train to Hsinchu Station to meet up with the rest of the exchange students before we get on the bus.
> We spend the morning at a rice noodle restaurant, where we get to make and package noodles ourselves, go through a history exhibit, and then eat lunch. They're the thin kind of rice noodles, not the thick soft ones I like, so I'm a little disappointed.
> In the afternoon we go to a glass studio, which is in a very crowded and small warehouse, and very different from the Corning Museum of Glass. We take turns getting to make our own glass with the help of a worker, and the guy who helps me when it's finally my turn is super cool and has good taste in American music. We'll get our finished cups next week, but we also get a free drink stirrer (I choose one with a very cute whale on top) from the shop.
> While we wait, I watch Xie An get to the Chela scene in The Still. He, quite fairly, takes a break from reading it for the rest of the time. > I solve the "should I read Seafort Saga Book 4 or another book" dilemna in the most reasonable way possible: by reading not one other book, but three at once. I started the Bible when I first started reading the Seafort Saga and thought it would be a lot more theological reference heavy, so I pick that back up again (finished Genesis today), along with Dante's Divine Comedy and a nonfiction book of the history of stellar cartography, Mapping the Heavens.
> I go to the mall for dinner with my family, and it's very decorated for Christmas. There are no candy canes to be seen, but there's an awful lot of chocolate, which appears to be the Christmas candy of choice here.

2023.12.15
> I explain the Seafort Saga thus far to Youren on the way to school, and finish carving my print block in art class, though I don't have time to do a test print.
> Playing badminton against the first years boosts my ego again, and once I get into the flow of it (and get very sweaty, though I didn't even bring my jacket today unlike the rest of the class), I imagine Seafort playing with the other midshipman in early book 1. I doubt they would ever play after he gets promoted to captain, and now he definitely can't play with his dear midshipman because [we'll get to that later].
> Our usual computer teacher has a meeting, so we get to take a test instead. This time it's actually about programming, and though it takes me a bit to get into it, I only have to use the internet to help with one problem, and that's solely because I'm fairly certain we never learned how to specify the number of decimal places that an answer should show.
> I have dinner alone again because there's a big multi-club Rotary Meeting, and I finish Prisoner's Hope while eating. I accidently spoiled myself to the fact that Vax dies by the end, though it was at least a better death than the way I began to suspect he would go as the page count dwindled near the end. In the end he chooses the share in Seafort's eternal damnation, and in true Feintuch fashion Seafort finally uses the L word to describe his feelings for him only after he's dead. This makes Seafort's hysterical/suicidal wife count 5, so while only the Vax situation was directly his fault, maybe he should stop seeing people. Though he's committed treason on at least 3 accounts by the time he gets back to Earth, the job of a Feintuch protagonist is never done so instead of executing him they give him even more power. There are three more books, but the NYPL only has one more, so I'm still trying to decide whether or not to finish it now or read something else first.
> I also finally finish the last twenty minutes of Saltburn, so I'll talk about that too. Aesthetically, it's probably one of my favorite movies ever. The story is also pretty solid, although I feel like it starts overexplaining itself at the very end. I feel like it would've been a lot more thought-provoking if they didn't show exactly how the main character killed them, much less how he set up the meeting with Felix in the very beginning. It definitely would have been improved via more Farleigh screen time, and that has nothing to do with him being my favorite character. Overall, 8.5/10.

2023.12.14
> Before heading to class I watch a bit more Saltburn, but am unable to finish it before I have to leave to catch the bus.
> In the afternoon class we get free time to practice for the talent show, and despite my magnificent plan to skip DnD because I have something more important to do (aka finish Saltburn), when Xiake finally shows up an hour before class ends (he passed out for seven hours after pulling three consecutive all nighters. the fact he is still alive with the amount of caffeine and other drug stimulants he takes and the complete and utter lack of sleep he gets continues to impress me), I get convinced into playing anyway.
> We go to Yang Jie's house again, and though I wasn't prepared to do a session today, I pull through. I've decided since I hate dungeons I'll actually let the party find the missing guard they're looking for next time, instead of stretching it out any longer, and then they can go bother the princess/go to North Dakota/whatever.

2023.12.13
> I continue reading Prisoner's Hope, in which Nicholas Seafort's second wife is also driven to hysteria, the least offensive midshipman gets the Anavar treatment (although he only suffers from amnesia and not Anavar level brain damage), and Vax, the proto-Rustin, remains secure in his hatred of Seafort after his actions in the last book.
> I do slightly better in badminton, and since I'm done with my painting for my art class the teacher has me make something with perler beads.
> Before bed, I watch the first hour of Saltburn, but I'll save my comments until I finish it.

2023.12.12
> Chinese class continues at its usual snail's pace, and my favorite person to talk to Xie An, isn't even there today. At first I worry he was killed by Rodrigo of Caledon, since he happily informed me he actually started reading the PDF I sent him at his request, making him the first of the 20+ people that I've talked about RoC to do so. I later find he had a school trip, so my guilt is alleviated.
> I make it to the bus stop before finally caving and checking out the third Seafort Saga novel, with an unspoken promise to try and pace myself this time, at least a bit. > I do a bit more work on my Secret Santa comic once home and watch an episode of LoTGH while treating myself to a very slow dinner of Japanese curry with chicken and a can of Sprite, since I'm eating alone tonight.

2023.12.11
> Started reading the second book of the Seafort Saga, Challenger's Hope, on the way to school. Finally finished the tic-tac-toe board shaped wood thing we've been working on in Woodworking Class for weeks. The badminton gods apparently didn't appreciate my arrogance last week so I did terribly today.
> Ended up finishing Challenger's Hope before bed too, because 530 pages in 3 days was a decent pace for the last book but 530 pages in 1 day seems far more reasonable (uh huh). I may still have been in shock over proto-Roddy marrying a woman and now having a child, but dear old Feintuch wouldn't do something as silly as let his main character actually be happy so that doesn't last long. Most of the supporting cast get removed from the narrative except my favorite late-book 1 addition, pretty boy, who I was very glad to see get a proper redemption arc. There actually is one really good theological conversation in this one, even if its with a computer who just wanted to play chess with its captain. Only complaint this time around is that Feintuch should've made up a silly sci-fi slur instead of just using a pre-existing one for a completely different group of people because I'm fairly certain he isn't transgender.
> Got my plank time up to over 2 minutes again, meaning I'm roughly where I was at my previous peak physical condition. At this point it's still more willpower than actual core strength, so I think I can keep improving my time at the pace for a bit.

2023.12.10
> Host family went to Taipei, and since my DnD group was technically thinking about playing today I got to stay home, even if I perhaps already knew we weren't going to meet up.
> Finished the panel quote I set for myself, left the apartment to buy bubble tea and ramen, but mostly spent the day reading Midshipman's Hope. It was pretty nice to finally have some time alone though.
> Finished the book after dinner, and I can confidently say I really enjoyed it. Not Rodrigo of Caledon level of ruin my life, but I look forward to reading the rest of the series. It's nice to get a bigger perspective of Feintuch's work, even if it's incredibly uncanny to see the character who is essentially proto-Rodrigo not only sleep with a woman but get married to one, something Rodrigo couldn't manage in two whole books. Proto-Rustin also remained very good and gets my favorite scene (immediately after this the main character court martials Vax and tells him he would hang him if he could for disobeying his orders because god forbid a man love his captain).

2023.12.09
> Relaxing weekend, Day 1. Did my Chinese advanced class homework and translated the chorus and first verse of Country Roads into Chinese for the upcoming talent show, while rewording some lines to be more about my own home town.
> Did the lineart for a few more comic panels and spent a while playing a typing game that was just the first chapter of Moby Dick. Ended up thinking too much about the irresistible nature of the ocean and got back into my monthly "I want to work on a cargo ship" phase, which haunted my brain so much I actually finished my entire hot pot at the restaurant at dinner because I was trying so hard to convince myself that I don't need to attend a maritime academy, with limited success.

2023.12.08
> Finally Friday! Working on carving the printing block for my print in art, and the dance teacher wasn't there so we got two free periods. Realized that Living Fantasy isn't a very enjoyable book to read for long stretches at a time, so I finally caved and checked out the ebook of Midshipman's Hope, the first book of David Feintuch's other series, which is sci-fi christian military fiction instead of medieval fantasy fiction.
> I tried setting my expectations low because its his earlier work, but as per usual he met and exceeded even my high expectations. It wouldn't be a Feintuch book without the weird corporal punishment thing and the main character having a gay best friend, and though the main character is very Rodrigo, he is significantly more well-adjusted because he wasn't raised as a prince. Thus far the Rustin-equivalent is not actually the gay best friend who was mentioned a singular time, but another midshipman who hates Nick (the Rodrigo-equivalent) because they aren't childhood best friends, so they mutually beat each other up (at least until Nick gets promoted) and therefore get to be declared more normal than Rodrigo and Rustin. If you can't tell, I'm enjoying it a lot. Only problem I have thus far is that the unified space Christianity is just kind of there as a background element and we haven't really gotten into any theology.
> Working on a comic for a LOTGH Secret Santa event. Today I finished digitally redrawing my thumbnails, did all the panel outlines and one full test panel to make sure I like the brushes I'm using. Watched a little more of the Poplan Musical and another episode of LOTGH before bed.

2023.12.07
> For Culture Class we tried ink painting, and after class Xie An and I went with Yang Jie to his house to play DnD.
> It was on the upper floor of a clinic instead of in a normal residential area, so I let my guard down and forgot the prior information that his family literally has a maid, and was subsequently blown away by how fancy it was. We bought McDonalds on the way, as to not overwhelm said maid, which I was only a little sad about.
> I didn't write myself many notes for the scenes I had planned out, and Yang Jie was very determined to mess up my plans as much as possible, but I managed decently. Next time I'll have to prepare the dungeon ahead of time (I had not intended for them to visit a dungeon this session, but they did nonetheless) and work harder on remembering the differences between Investigation, Perception, and Insight. The vague storyline I have thus far is a combination of the Castle Country story I'm working on and Fear & Hunger, though at this point I'm mostly making it up on the fly.
> Starting ready Gary Gygax's Living Fantasy as well.

2023.12.06
> This week we're playing badminton in Gym, which I find I actually really love. With the possible exception of swim, I've been genuinely enjoying all my Gym classes here even if I'm often only mediocre at the sports we play, but badminton is not only very fun but I (like to think) am very good at it. I don't think I was this good back in the States, but everyone puts more effort into it here and that energizes me more in return, so even though my arms feel like they're getting close to muscle failure by the end of the hour, its a very good time.
> I skimmed through the Dungeon Master's Guide and brainstormed for the new DnD campaign. Found out there is a musical about my one of my favorite LOGH side characters, so I started watching that. Definitely missing out on a decent amount of the meaning since there's no English subtitles, but from the little Japanese I can understand and the overexaggerated actions of the actors I can decently follow it.

2023.12.05
> Finished my third reread of the Rodrigo of Caledon saga today at lunch while still switching wildly back and forth between the stance I've held for months on Rodrigo's feelings for Rustin and actually just trusting his narration. Talked to the German girl about it, who seemed very interested although she made it pretty clear she'll never read it unless I make it into a webcomic.
> Yangjie has decided he's had enough of being a DM after one session, so I once again enthusiastically offered my services and was finally accepted this time. A little sad that I won't get a chance to play my half-elf barbarian but I already have a couple decent plot ideas.
> After dinner I finally sat down and watched the LOTGH episode where **** gets assassinated, which I knew was coming so I wasn't terribly upset over that. Instead, I was terribly upset over the fact that one of my favorite side characters got killed off with him :( And now there's still 28 episodes left. So. Back on the grind...

2023.12.04
> Back to school :( It was actually pretty fine, we played what I assume must be the Taiwanese version of Mafia, called Werewolf, except after each turn everyone has to say what they are but they don't have to do it truthfully, so everyone just said they were civilians (I actually was, which was good because I wouldn't have known what to do if I actualy had to do anything). We practiced our song a bit and then did nothing for the rest of class, so I was American and faxed my senators.
> Started reading two different new comics at home and finished redrawing the thumbnails for my Christmas animatic digitally.

2023.12.03
> We went along to Taipei with Kelvin today to see the Astronomical Museum while he was at work. Saw two different 3-D movies in the museum theater before we left to go eat lunch, but I got really light headed halfway to the 7/11. I barely made it, though I dutifully drank the entire bottle of water Elsie bought me and ate all of the egg and chicken donburi she bought, minus the chicken, before sleeping for two hours, still in the 7/11. I finally felt better, but we went to Kelvin's parents apartment so I could rest in a proper bed while everyone else waited for Kelvin to get back from work so we could eat.

2023.12.02
> Today I went on a daytrip with Elsie and Anna to Emei Lake, though I had no idea of what to expect, so I was already decently impressed when we walked down the little path to the bridge to see the first giant building on the island in the middle of a pretty small country town. There was an old man playing really good trumpet at the foot of the bridge, which added to the atmosphere. It took me a moment to notice the other even bigger building on the island.
> We could only visit the temple, which was a single 10 story tall room with what felt like a comparatively small Buddha statue but his earlobes were nonetheless the size of my head. After we prayed, we got to pull fortunes (mine told me that I'll never be this young again and I need to do some self reflection... less fun to hear than my last fortune I got on the Rotary trip which told me it was the perfect time for me to study abroad and learn a new language lol). We also got little prayer satchets so I chose the Lord Guan one.
> As we left the building, however, my dreams of an actually giant Buddha statue were fulfilled when I saw that the island did infact have one even taller than both of the buildings that I somehow didn't see on the way in. We walked around the island a bit (couldn't go into the other building because we didn't have a reservation) before walking back across the bridge to get some really yummy pomello ice cream! Drew in my sketchbook while Elsie talked to one of her friends who owned the ice cream shop.
> We got lunch at a nearby restaurant and then went home. We went out again for dinner at this fancy Japanese natural living restaurant which had a robot server and really good congee. We walked around the block afterwards, which used to be housing for military personnel but now is filled with cute shops and startups. There was one artists' cafe where you can paint and drink coffee which I'll definitely have to visit once I switch host families since my next host faily lives just a block away!

2023.12.01
> It's another big test for my school again, so Kelvin took Eli and I to the Imperial Palace Museum in Taipei instead. The museum is nearly entirely Chinese artifacts the KMT took on their way out of China instead of Taiwanese artifacts, but it was pretty cool either way. The word 'almost' is there because there was one exhibit on the Roccocco period with European artifacts? They had free sticker pamphlets so that was cool at least.
> Me and Eli talked at least 70% in Chinese, which was extra funny with the amount of foreigners visiting the museum. After, we visited the oldest Confucist temple in Taipei before visiting a night market. I got my favorite winter melon boba and fried sweet potato balls, but I also finally got to try the famous Taiwanese clam omelette (delicious), peanut soup douhua, and some really nice and crunchy strawberry tanghulu.

// *°:⋆ / ☆.:* //
Chronicle of my 2023-2024 Rotary Youth Exchange to Taiwan.