Week 2

Hello Hello Hello! Week 2 is over and it’s time for me to tell you about it.

Yay! So, at the end of last week, Sunday to be specific, all of the students from the other Taipei program, Intensive Chinese Language+ Culture (ICLC), arrived. The biggest difference between these programs is that the CBPE program includes actually NCCU courses so we are enrolled at the university like any other exchange student. The ICLC students are enrolled through CIEE because they’re only taking Chinese classes and once a week Art in China class offered by a professor that used to work in CIEE.

At first, Danielle and I (my roommate and only other CBPE student) were nervous for the other students to come, but it’s been really nice. We were nervous because we had all of our ambassador’s attention to ourselves. So, when the ICLC students and the ambassadors/our new friends’ actual “buddies” (each student gets 2 ambassadors to be their buddies) they would drop us and go be friends with the new people. Luckily this wasn’t the case. There’s something like 25 ambassadors for only 9 CIEE students. We have come to realize that there is enough love for everybody.

On Sunday and Monday (24th and 25th), when they first got here, there orientation was very similar to the CBPE program orientation. Since Danielle and I had already done the orientation packet and power points, we opted into ICLC meals, but we left when they were doing other stuff. We’ve been finding some other cafes and cool spots to hang out in while we’re on lower campus waiting to do something.

NCCU classes started this week. Classes work a little different here when compared to Pitt or most American schools. For a 3-credit class, instead of having it 3 times a week for 50 mins, I have a 3-hr. class once a week. As a result of this I don’t have classes on Monday or Friday. I am truly living my best life. That’s not even the best part. Yes, it is, but there’s another good part. (2 of them actually) Firstly, the only class that I have on Tuesday is my Chinese class, and for some reason of which I do not know, Chinese classes weren’t staring until the next week. Woohoo! The other good part is that for some reason NCCU decided to have the first week of school at the exact same time as a major holiday. Thursday was Taiwanese Memorial Day and Friday was a deferred holiday. So yes reader, you guessed it. I only had class on Wednesday for my first week of school. It was my Social Media and the Digital Narrative class. The gist of the class is just to look at how social media has affected different aspects of society. It’s more work than I was hoping for, but again. This semester is about self-care, and C’s get degrees! (Only when you’re abroad and can only get transfer credit. If your GPA transfers back to your home school, you should work very hard.)

So, before this week started, I made some goals. I wanted to start going to the gym every day and speak as much Chinese as possible. Since I have so much free time this semester, I have really made a point out of trying to develop healthy habits. I floss my teeth every day. I’m drinking lots of water. (Yet, somehow, I’m still always dehydrated) I’m not over/under eating. I’m reaching out to people more often. These are things that I have struggled with doing in the past, mostly because I didn’t prioritize them and didn’t have time to focus on things that weren’t priorities. Now they are my priorities and I feel great! I went to the gym on Mon-Wed which is every day that we were on campus. I tried to speak as much Chinese as I could, but since it’s been awhile since my last class, not too many coherent sentences were coming out. I put a hold on that goal until I started Chinese classes and could beef up on my skills. Other than these fun things, I watched some Netflix & Hulu, planned my trip to BALI -more on this in the future, and just doing other boring planning stuff for things in my life. I like to plan. I’m a planner even though nothing actually ever goes to plan. I’m a good adapter too hehe.

Tuesday night, we went to 通化夜市 or the Tonghua Night Market. Taiwan has lots of night markets. They’re kind of like a bunch of small shops that sell food, bags, clothes, souvenirs, and other small things. There are also a lot of carnival games and prizes at the night markets. I feel bad for parents because I know the kids that go want to play everything. All of the food was very unique to Asian cultures. While most of everything was Taiwanese or Chinese, there was the occasional Japanese or Malaysian booth. One of the dishes I tried was 臭豆腐 or stinky tofu. As one can draw from the title, it’s tofu and it expels a pungent odor. It’s extremely popular in Taiwan so I ate it for the sake of trying. Surprise Surprise! It was nasty. We are told to say that if we don’t like something, to say we’re not used to it. （不习惯）Usually I’d love to be polite and I said I was going to look at all the differences in culture with the perspective of the Taiwanese, but y’all this stuff smells so bad and it tastes almost as bad. That’s all I’ll say on the subject but just know Brittany is not a fan of stinky tofu. Other than stinky tofu I was prodded to try some other things such as pork intestines/pork lung. While I’m sure they’re just as tasty as can be, I have to draw the line somewhere and I shouldn’t be eating pork anyways so those were a no for me.

On Wednesday, after my class, I met up with some of the ambassadors (we all had late classes) and took the bus to to Welcome Dinner. The food was pretty good, we played 3 truths and a lie, and one of the ambassadors- Ian danced for us! It was a good time. After dinner, we departed to begin our 3-day excursion. The CIEE Taipei center planned this to coincide with the holiday so everyone could go, and no classes would be missed. Here is the schedule of our trip:

The CIEE center rented a coach bus (smaller and nicer than American ones) to take us to all of our locations during the excursion. After about an hour-long bus ride, we arrived in 较细 Jiaoxi and checked into our hotels. Since there were about 30 people on the trip, we had to split into two different hotels that were about a 5-minute walk from each other. Jiaoxi is famous for the hot springs and skin eating fish. Now I’m not talking about Piranhas, I’m talking about the small little fish that were all the rage in America a few years ago. Several nail salons offered a new service where customers could pay to get a pedicure from fish that would simply eat the dead skin off of your feet. Now I haven’t heard anything about that in years, so I’m assuming the FDA was like “naw” and must’ve made it really hard to be able to have that at American salons, but they’re everywhere in Jiaoxi! It’s a lot different though because the fish tanks are as big as a carnival tent and a bunch of people all have their feet in at the same time. As most things in Taiwan, it was pretty cheap to get it done. (I can’t remember the exact price but less around $5 USD) We were only in Jiaoxi that evening so I didn’t have time to do it, but if I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t have done it anyways. When I do things in everyday life, I try to live by “WWJD.” “What would Joy do?” If you didn’t already know, Joy is my mother and if I wouldn’t want to tell her about something I did while I was here, especially if it could affect my health, I probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. I’m pretty sure my mommy would deem an unregulated fish tank full of dead skin a no no, so I just passed on that.

The other thing that Jiaoxis is famous for is their hot springs. Here I was thinking that these hot springs were going to be like the springs that run off of the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica, but no. They’re just ginormous bathtubs in whatever hotel you decide to stay in. While I probably should’ve taken one of the huge baths- as I was extremely sore from the gym and having the experience itself wouldn’t hurt, I was too tired and went to sleep before I could, and we left too early in the morning (Around 9) for me to take a relaxing bath. Why was I so tired you ask? Well friends, as soon as everyone had settled in their hotel rooms, we decided to go out on the town and walk around Jiaoxi. After enough walking, we went to 7-11 and got some beer and a small (really small) bottle of vodka to share! We went back to the nicer hotel and somehow squeeze 30 people in the decently sized room. They had a loft! We played a bunch of simple drinking games and mafia (one of my faves.) I actually got too tired to actually drink more than one beer, and my roommate and I left around 12:30. Some people were apparently up until 3 am but I would’ve been dead so again, a no for me.

The next morning, we had a weird breakfast in a shack in the parking lot next to our hotel, then headed out for the Yilan Cake Factory. Yilan is very famous for their Yilan Ox tongue cookies. They’re just super thin very long cookies that can be made of just cheese and dough (what we made) or other ingredients that the factory makes and sells, in their cookies.

Making my cookies. Any anger that I may have had, I got out by smashing this dough.

After getting our cookies, we headed left out for lunch. I think we had a little extra time on our hands so made a stop and spent some time visiting the 妈祖 temple in 南天. (Mazu and Nantian) There was a boat yard, so we walked around that a bit then went to take a look at the temple. I love temples because I believe that Chinese Religion is very interesting (I’m taking a class about it this semester) and the art in the temples is simply breathtaking. Every single thing in these temples was handmade or hand carved and any picture from any camera could not do the amount of detail justice. Many temples are very similar, but I never get tired of the art.

After we left 南天 we made our way to Taroko Gorge. A gorge is basically a canyon with a river running through it. It was so beautiful. Mostly unbothered nature at its finest. We were more toward the bottom so the cliffs we SO tall. It makes definitely humbled me when it comes to how small I am in comparison to the rest of the world. (BUT BEST BELEIVE IMMA MAKE MY MARK/ A DIFFERENCE SOME WAY SOME HOW) Somewhat scary, but absolutely an experience I enjoyed and would do again.

We left the gorge and made our way to 花莲. (Hualian) Once again we were in the hotel for a very short amount of time, but we arrived much earlier. We were on our own for dinner this night, but there was a night market and 很有名的小笼包 (very famous steamed buns) a few blocks away. It was raining cats and dogs so Ta’ Morra (an ICLC student with CIEE) and I got very tired and lowkey just wanted to get something quick and not outside. She ended up getting noodles, but I didn’t want those, so I got those super tasty steamed buns and some dumplings to go with it. The rain lightened up and the ambassadors that we were with wanted to go back to the night market so that’s what we did. We walked around and ate, and window shopped like any person at a night market would. As we were about to leave, I wanted to stop at a mini seafood place with raw and fresh oysters and clams. (my absolute FAVORITE) At first, I was just waiting in line just to ask the cashier guy how much everything was and while we were waiting there were 2 guys on the grill. Both of them were tatted up and one was kind of cute ngl. We tried to ask them how much everything was (in Chinese) but then they just pointed to the guy we were already waiting to talk to. This really isn’t relevant to the story or the weekend at all but the not cute guy on the grill was holding a blowtorch to one of the giant oysters. He was working on the oyster the entire like 7 mins that we were standing there so props to those guys for putting in the work but also, I want to taste blowtorched oyster. I feel like it’s a delicacy. Back to the story- a few minutes after we asked the guys, the cute one passes me an oyster bigger than my head with salsa on it. At first, I was panicking because 1. I didn’t know if it was free and didn’t want to have to pay for it when I didn’t order it 2. I didn’t know how spicy the salsa was, so I really could’ve died. From the body language that I was getting from the guy and the ambassadors I just assumed it was free, so I SLURPED the heck out of that oysters. It had to take it in two slurps because it was so big. The salsa was slightly spicy but definitely tolerable. Right after I finished the oyster, the cashier guy told me the prices (I don’t remember how much the clams were, but the giant oysters were 200 NT$ each which is fair. I was full from my buns, dumplings, and other night market food the ambassadors bought that I tried, so I took a pass on staying out for longer just to spend a rack and be glutinous. However, that oyster was shapoppin’ and mark my words. I WILL be back.

During this whole day I was also in a lot of pain because my muscles hate me and even if I stretch before and after a hard workout, they fill up with lactic acid and are hard as rocks (in a bad way.) So, when I got back, I decided to take a bath before I took a shower to get these babies to soak. I had another long day ahead of me the next day and I didn’t want it to be as bad. After my bath and shower (you can’t get clean if you just sit in dirt), I hit the hay.

The next day I actually don’t remember at all what we had for breakfast, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say food. We started the day’s adventures with the Sugar refinery. The most interesting thing about it was the general scene and the ice cream. We only spent about an hour there. Then we went to the Wetlands. It was basically a bunch of grass and water. It was land that was wet. Not too much going on but it’s so refreshing to see all the green and breathe such fresh air. Those mosquitoes were ruthless. I work jeans and they bit me through my pants. Be careful out here in these skreets. After the wetlands we had lunch at a very mediocre restaurant then made our way to the beach.

The beach was a rock beach, but you weren’t allowed to take rocks from the beach, or you could get fined. Me being me, I hear the word “fined” and run the other direction, so I didn’t take any rocks home, but I did buy a coconut. They had guys near the parking lot with carts full of coconuts. I love real coconut water and cannot drink and of that stuff in the boxes of America, so I was so happy when I bought mine. I named him Larry and we really enjoyed our time together while we still had it. We took lots of pictures at the beach then finally started our 2.5 hr. journey back to NCCU.

For some reason my leg muscles were fine on this day but I’m pretty sure I slept on my back and shoulder wrong the night before and they were still sore so again, I was in a lot of pain. I finally gave in a took some strong Advil from a friend so that I could make it to NCCU and buy some tiger balm before my body gave up on me. We had a meal box on the bus on were just chilling when we got back. On Saturday, I was so tired that I went and got lunch around 12 then went back to my room and actually stayed there for the rest of the day/night. It was my recovery day. I feel like I was slightly more productive on Sunday but not enough so that I can actually remember what I did. Anyways, this is the conclusion of Week 2. It was long and tiring but I had a great time!

Getting to Taiwan

Whew Chile, let me tell you. It was a long day+. (I put the plus because technically it was more than 24 hours of travel, but it all felt grouped together, so we are going to say one day.) So, the supposed itinerary was supposed to be this:

Saturday 2/16/2019 ||| New York EST
  • 5 am- Leave for the Airport
  • 6 am- Arrive at the Airport, Check Bags, Say Goodbye
  • 8:15 am- Board Flight for San Francisco
  • 8:40 am- Depart for San Francisco
  • 3 pm- Arrive in San Francisco
  • 4:30 pm- Board Flight for Taiwan
  • 5 pm- Depart for Taiwan
Sunday 2/17/2019 ||| New York EST
  • 7 am- Arrive in Taiwan
  • 7:30 am -Depart from Airport
  • 7:45 am -Arrive at Hostel

Total Travel Time: 26 hrs 45 mins. Now this is what was SUPPOSED to happen. However, this is me that we are talking about so this is what actually happened:

Saturday 2/16/2019 ||| Eastern Standard Time & Pacific Standard Time
  • 5:30 am (EST)- Supposedly leave for the Airport
  • 5:35 am- Stop at CVS
  • 6:05 am- Actually leave for the airport
  • 7 am- Arrive at the Airport, Check Bags, Say Goodbye
  • 8:15 am- Board Flight for San Francisco
  • 8:40 am (EST)- Depart for San Francisco
  • 12 pm (PST)- Arrive in San Francisco
  • 3 pm- Board Flight for Taiwan
  • 3:30 pm (PST)- Depart for Taiwan
Sunday 2/17/2019 ||| Taiwan Time
  • 9 pm- Arrive in Taiwan
  • 10 pm -Depart from Airport
  • 10:30 pm -Arrive at Hostel
Me during the whole trip

So, let me tell y’all what happened. My day never really began or ended. I’d left my home at like 1 am on Friday (the day before I left) to engage in my last day tomfoolery. I went to sleep and the next morning I got to see my Zeus one last time and hang out with some friends that I had not seen in a while before I left. I then went to a friends’ house to get my hair done. I wanted to get it braided before I left and 1. it took me forever to find someone who would do it for cheap 2. I want it to be as fresh as possible so it would last longer. My hair took ALL NIGHT. We didn’t finish until I want to say 1 am on Saturday. I then had to drive from there (Silver spring) to DC to grab some things. I drove back to my mother’s house where all of my luggage was. (at this point I am tired because I haven’t slept in 24+ hours but I thought that it would be good to not sleep before the plane so I could sleep a great deal when I was on the plane.)

I finished packing and cleaning my room around 5:15 and we were out the door by 5:30. Since I’d been busy on Friday, I didn’t have time to pick up a prescription that I needed while I was abroad, so we stopped at our CVS across the street to pick it up. There was only one pharmacist there and homegirl had an attitude that I really didn’t appreciate. I stood there arguing with her and calling my insurance for a half hour because they messed up the pricing even though I’d called them 2 days prior about it and they said it’s be fine. We couldn’t even talk to a representative at the insurance company because it was 5 am, they were updating the system and didn’t have access to any of the records. Just my like, huh? Anyways, we paid the ridiculous amount of money for my medicine because there really was no other choice and went on our way. At this point I was stressed out because I was tired, hungry, mad that CVS is full of bozos, and the fact that my mother insists that I will miss my flight if I do not arrive at the airport 3 hours before departure.

We finally left for the airport and said goodbye. Everything was smooth sailing at IAD, and I waited to board for about an hour. During this time, I checked my ridiculously heavy carry-on at the gate FOR FREE. (y’all know I love me some free anything) You can usually do this with any airline, just make sure that everything in this bag can pass through TSA. Even though you’re checking it, you’ve got to make it through security, to the gate first. When I sat down, I was talking to this lady sitting next to me who was complaining about how long the flight was, and I told her I had a 14 hr flight right after this one and she said, “Oh goodness, then I guess I better shut up.” We chuckled and made the occasional small talk until we boarded. It turns out she was sitting in my row, but she was in the aisle seat and I was in the window seat. I slept almost the entire flight, which was nice because I forgot to nab some om my mom’s melatonin pills.

When I arrived in San Francisco, I was on a QUEST. I was hungry as all get out and I wanted a burger. Not breakfast food, not a panini or assorted fruit. A good ole American burger and some fries. I’m usually not a burger person but I have acknowledged that it would not be likely that I’d have access to one in Taiwan so I that it what I was craving. Before I set out on my quest, I wanted to find my gate for the next flight and set my bag down. The international terminal was a way away so I’m glad I did that first. Once I found a spot where I didn’t think my bag was going to get stolen or picked up by Airport security on account of it being suspicious, I started looking. I literally explored the entire international terminal and went back to the domestic terminal where I got off of my first stop looking for a burger. I was in the airport so of course everything was expensive, but again, I am me, so I was going to get the cheapest on. I went to a restaurant and got in line for takeout even though my plane was definitely going to start boarding in like 20 minutes. They host that was there then told everyone in line that if they didn’t have at least 40 minutes to wait, they should probably go somewhere else. So that is what I did. By that time my plane was going to start boarding in 10 minutes, so I no longer had time for the oh so precious burger that I had desired. I gave up on that and just went to one of the faster places that just warmed up pre-heated food, and I was going to get mac n’ cheese. It looked pretty fancy. That is when I got a glorious text. My plane had been delayed by 30 mins. Apparently, they couldn’t find a gate for it? Idk but I wasn’t mad. So then, I decided I had the time, a smooth 30 minutes before boarding began, and since I had a seat assignment already and overhead carry-on I could actually just show up at the end of boarding and be fine. So, I went to Gordon Biersch, which was less busy and similarly priced to buy my $18 burger.

When I bought the burger I also bought and orange as well as a Mighty Mango NAKED smoothie for the plane ride. I sat down at the bar to wait and this strange man comes to sit next to me. I forget his name so we’re going to call him Gary because he looks like he could be a Gary. Gary has on what looks to be very similar to a surgical cap, but I have watched enough Grey’s anatomy to know the difference. He orders some sort of alcoholic beverage and kind of just looks around for a while. Eventually the bartender asks him what he wants, and he says he doesn’t know- mind you they gave him the menu 5 mins ago and he hadn’t bothered to look at it. Exactly 15 secs later he stops he and says he does know. He wants mac n’ cheese. The bartender says it’s a kids’ size, is that ok? He proceeds to say that he wants 2 of them since they are small. I chuckle. This full-grown man in regular clothes wearing a phony surgical cap orders 2 mac n’ cheeses for like $8 each which are probably going to be fake cheese (since it’s for kids) 15 seconds after he told the bartender he didn’t know what he wanted. He then acknowledges my chuckle and we get to talking. Rather, he gets to talking. While still waiting for my burger, he tells me that he’s wearing the cap because he’s just had surgery. Apparently, he had started balding in his early 20’s (he was like 28-32 or something like that) and he’d always been self-conscious about it. He now had a stable job, so he flew to Florida to get hair surgery and was on his way back home. He asked me if I wanted to see his head, and I said “No, it’s all right” but he showed me anyway. He also told me how he was lowkey heartbroken because he was going through a “mild breakup.” This girl that he had only been on 2 dates with had apparently been stringing him along, but just told him that their “relations” (this is a PG blog so I’m paraphrasing his words) weren’t good so she thinks they should just be friends. He was upset because there was potential, but when they tried to have “relations” he had too much to drink which resulted in a lack of “relations.” After all of this and of course some other unsolicited information about his life my burger came out. I wished him good luck and hit the mom walk to get to my gate. Yes. Yes, he was.

As I was entering the international terminal, I looked at the schedule board to find out that my plane had been delayed another half hour for a total for one hour. So, I finished my walk to the gate with a leisurely pace and find a good place to plop down until it was time to board. Right as everyone was lining up, the flight got delayed another half hour. The people line up were pretty upset but I was glad to have time to eat my burger without being cramped or rushed, walk around before this long flight, and be able to call my loved ones to update them on my status. I finished my burger and finally boarded my flight after 1.5 hours in delays.

I had another window seat, and there was a Taiwanese girl next to me and somewhat of a redneck but very friendly man in our aisle seat. I was excited for this flight because I remembered from my flight to/from China that long flights such as this one that I was on have AMAZING movies and TV shows. It’s all the new stuff, which is exciting because I have not ventured outside of Netflix in a long time. However, as soon as I sat down, I realized that I did not have a single pair of headphones that was compatible with the TV. I brought 3 pairs, but 2 of them were Bluetooth and my only pair with wires was for my newer iPhone and I didn’t have the adapter. So, I had to use United’s crappy earphones and could barely even hear what was being said in the movie. I watched Crazy Rich Asians. Thank goodness for subtitles and I can’t wait to visit Singapore. This flight was 14 hrs long so I slept a lot, I worked on some blog posts, I watched that movie, and I was also working on a research proposal for a grant that I applied for. They gave us some weird crackers for snacks and drinks like any other flight. We were also given meals, I had chicken with veggies. It didn’t taste awful, but my stomach was definitely in pain when I got off the flight.

When I did get off the flight, I had to go through customs, which took a while. They didn’t rescreen my bag which was nice but just waiting in line to get my fingerprints scanned and my passport stamped felt like a lifetime. When I got through customs, I had to exchange money. That line wasn’t too long. I was please to find out the 30-1 exchange rate. When I finished exchanging, I headed to the baggage claims and all three of my bags were already on the belt. I grabbed them and headed toward the exit. I first went to the information help desk to find out the best way to get to my hostel my bus. (Again, I am cheap.) The lady and I were talking for like 10 mins. After she told me everything I needed to do, I realized that I had way too much stuff to get on the bus, so I just decided to take the L and grab a taxi. I went to my hostel confirmation email where I then saw that apparently the latest time for me to check in was 8 pm. (it was 10) After that my reservation would be cancelled and I wouldn’t get a refund. Before I started to freak out, I just decided to call hoping to goodness that someone would answer. Someone did answer! Instead he offered to pick me up for a similar price to the taxi, so I agreed and waited about 10 mins for him to get to the airport.

His name was Rex. I don’t know if he owned or just managed the hostel, but he was super friendly and cracked so many jokes. He brought me to a convenience store and helped me to pick some snacks before we made our way to the hostel. He told me they usually wouldn’t have answered the phone, but since my program coordinator, April, had called to notify them of the car that was picking me up in the morning, they knew that I was probably still coming. Wow, thank goodness for April! Anyways I arrived at the hostel, ate my Taiwanese version of Ramen/ talked with the Korean boys that were in the common area, took a shower, and headed to bed. I didn’t actually sleep that much, because, ya know, jet lag but I did some more work and called my favorite people around 7 am because it’d be 6 pm at home and everyone would at home would still be awake without it being an outrageous time for a phone call here in Taiwan. At 10 am, the car April had sent arrived, and I had a terrible stomach ache still (I was also getting over being sick) so I was a little car sick, but I got to NCCU, and my first day started, but that’s a whole other story.

Sorry this took so long to get up, but thanks for tuning in folks. My next post: My first day will be coming soon!

Week 1

Hello people! If you didn’t know, I am in fact, still alive. I didn’t think anything would happen to me but just in case you were worried, I thought I’d put that out there. So I’ve officially been in Taiwan for 1 week. I still have to write a post about my trip here and I’m also going to write about moving in, but for now I’m just going to sum up the entire week.

What have I done this week? Well on the first day that we got here, I was greeted, checked into my dorm and went to the CIEE office to meet our cultural ambassadors, our program cooridnator, and my roomate, Danielle. We did icebreakers to meet each other and orientation paperwork and all that fun jazz. When we finished, Danielle and I got to pick out some things for our dorm which will all be detailed in another post. Then we went to lunch at a dumpling place called 八方云集 ba1fan1yun2ji2. It literally translates to “All directions come together.” The food there ranged from about 5-30 NT$. 1 USD=30 NT$. CIEE paid for everything but 6 dumplings was $1 and they were oh so very tasty, therefore everyone was happy. I will defintely be returning there.

After lunch on the first day, some of our cultural ambassadors (students at NCCU who have joined the CIEE “club” to make American friends, help us with anything and show us the best of Taiwan while we are here) took me to get a Taiwanese SIM card for my phone. This is very important because even though lots of places in Taiwan have free wifi, it’s vey splotchy, especially on a mobile device. It took forever because the plans and the man explaining them to us were very confusing, but eventually we settled on an unlimited plan. There’s a bunch of boring logistics to my individual plan but I will say that I paid about $140 USD for 5 months of unlimited high speed data. MAKE SURE that if you are using the same phone from America and you’re just switching SIM cards, that you talk to your provider so that they can unlock your phone. I ran into lots of problems with this so it’s best if you talk to them far in advance before you leave for your trip so you have lots of time to resolve any problems or make decisions. After buying my SIM card I just went back to my room to finish unpacking. We went to dinner and my first day was finally over.

The next day, we had a bunch of boring orientations that I could’ve just read myself. My morning was pointless, but my evening was a blast! There wasn’t much inbetween other than a lot of netflix and hulu. Both of those became common themes trhoughout the week. ~ A neat trick for hulu~ I wasn’t able to watch any of my usual shows becuase my hulu said that they weren’t available in my location. To bypass this, I downloaded the google extension SetupVPN which basically tells whatever site you’re on, that you’re in the country of your choosing. I obviosly chose the US, and sometimes it gets weird and puts you in Canada but just keep connecting and disconnecting until you’re in a US location and it should work! In the evening, Danielle and I along with our cultural ambassadors took the bus and MRT (their version of a metro system) down to 西门 xi1men2, a touristy neighborhood and metro stop in Taiwan. We were going to the lantern festival which signifies the last day of the Lunar New Year and Chinese Spring Festival. There were so many people (人山人海）but the lanterns were beautiful and several of them we Pig themed since it is the year of the pig. After walking around a bit, we ate dinner and went back home. NCCU is far from everything so the trip takes about an hour on public transportation. I made some phone calls to friends and family and went to sleep.

The next day we had our chinese placement tests. Danielle and I are going to be the only ones in our class but we still had to to take the test so that our teacher (老师 lao3shi1) could hauge where we are and prepare accordingly. Yes Danielle and I are roommates and the only ones in our chinese class so we will be spending lots of time together over the course of this semester. The next day we went back to 西门 for a historical walking tour. I don’t like history so I was pretty bored but I got some excercise in, and by going I knew I wouldn’t regret not going which gives me the best feeling of content. We stopped halway through anyways because it was 3 hours long and we were hungry. We did a bit of window shopping but nothing too adventurous.

As the week goes on there was more Netflix, a very annoying 2 hour long fire drill, which in hindsight I don’t think was mandatory, and SO MUCH FOOOOOOOOD. Even in Taiwan I’m still not much of a breakfast person, so I haven’t had too much of it but for reference’s sake it’s delicious. 我很喜欢蛋饼。( I really like dan4bing3) It’s like a Taiwanese egg crepe. Honestly all the food here sounds pretty freaky but I have yet to try anything that I have not enjoyed. (Saw pig intestines on a menu though, and that’s where I draw the line) The portions here as reasonable so I usually spend about $3 USD for lunch/dinner, I’m always full but never have to take any food home. It’s actually kind of weird to do that here. They don’t have take-home boxes. The one time Danielle didn’t eat her noodles she asked for a box and they just put it in a plastic bag lol. So if you have a small stomach and don’t like your food to touch, Taiwan is not the place for you. (Maybe you can bring your own tupperware? Kind of like we do in Pitt’s cafeteria hehehe) When I’ve had more to eat I will absoulutely be making a post on food. (maybe 2 posts) I also just want to make a point to say that I’ve already been to the cat cafe twice and I went to KTV which is karaoke and had Taiwanese beer. The cat cafe is free as long as you get a drink. So far I’ve seen 4 furballs which isn’t enough but I’ll live. KTV was fun but expensive. I was also reaffirmed in the fact that I can’t sing to save my life.

Some cultural differences that I’ve run into
  • Lack of trash cans
  • Measurements
  • School shuttle system
  • Restaurants
  • Metro Card
  • Dorm Trash

Not going to get too deep into these but I just wanted to mention them. In Taiwan, there are no public trash cans! Like actually 0 I have not seen a single one on the street. There are very few inside of covenience stores and restuarants so you usually have to ask whoever the person at the counter of wherever you go, if they can throw your trash away. It’s actually much more inconvenient and annoying that you might think.

Measurements are obviously different here, becuase America uses a different system for most meausrements. So usually when I mention miles, degrees (Fahrenheit), or pounds to my cultural ambassadors, we have to do some converting to do.

I live on upper campus at the univerisity so I usually take the shuttle to get to my dorm. They run about every 5 mins. now that school has started but you have to pay 15 NT$ each way, and while that’s only 50 cents in America, it’s kind of annoying that it’s not free. Then again, students only pay $1600 USD in tuition a year so I understand.

I kind of mentioned restaurants in my expectations post, but it’s even more different that I thought. Most of the restaurants here are fairly small 10-15 tables and all you have to do is write the quanity of what you want on their paper menus, bring it up to the cashier and pay. I’ve never waited more than 10minutes for my food and at some restaurants there is complimentary tea and soup.

The metro cards here are so great! You can use them for the bus and metro, but also at convenience stores that take them. Most 7-elevens do, and you can reload the card there in addition to the machines in the MRT station.

So this may sound weird, but I love taking the trash out in my dorm. Instead of the trash room that most US universities have, everyone in NCCU waits for the trash truck to come. It comes around twice a day around 2 and 9 pm. It goes around the city with a tone similar to an ice cream truck. When it gets up to the dorm, I can usually hear the truck first because I’m on the first floor right by the entrance, but inside the dorm speakers, Fur Elise by Beethoven plays for a few seconds. At first it’s alarming, but then it’s pleasant. Everyone goes down with their trash at the same time and kind of looks like the scene from spy kid’s where the robot kids are wating to get their brains, but less evil. It makes me feel like I’m a part of a community. Anyways this is Week 1 but there’s lots more to come.

Since Taiwan is 13 hours ahead of New York, waking up and bedtime are the best times for phone calls! I usually use facetime, skype, or whatsapp for calls but almost everything has some kind of video call feature these days. I suggest trying them all to see what works best with your camera and connection. Skype is my favorite!

If you go on the the facebook page for the blog (make sure to like it for updates) there’s lots of pictures of the lanterns and even the Twinkle Twinkle Pig which is an electronic Pig that is basically an edm light show that people seem to love. Just watch the videos. If you want to see other pictures of my group and food from the week, that’s where I’m putting all the pictures. (照片 zhao1pian1) Just click the gear at the top of the page and the facebook icon to get there!

Expectations

Some things I forsee to potentially give me trouble while I’m in Taiwan
Buckle up friends, this is a long one
  • Culture Shock
  • Language Barrier
  • Time Difference
  • Homesickness
  • My skin color
  • My hair
  • Living in a dorm
  • Time management
  • Making Friends

So, culture shock is always something to be mindful of when going to a new place. When going state to state or even from one western country to another western country, there’s going to be a lot of similarities despite the differences. However, I am going across the world. I am leaving an individualistic primarily English-speaking country to live in a collectivist primarily mandarin speaking country. The values that have built each of these societies are fundamentally different, so obviously the societies are going to be different too. A big difference is manners. I will never forget one experience I had in the bathroom of an airport coming home from China in 2012. This lady was walking right in front of me and we entered the restroom one before the other. She didn’t hold the door for me, but it was fine because I was right on her heels. When we washed our hands, rather than going behind me to the dryer, she walked between me and the sink right as I finished up. Finally, we left at around the same time, but I was further back than I was before. Once again, she didn’t hold the door, but this time the door slammed shut on my nose. Sometimes you hear about this kind of stuff, like “it’s rude in Asian cultures not to eat all of your food, but it’s polite to slurp.” I’ve heard that countless times. I’ve also had several Chinese teachers and my study abroad advisor remind me that it’s rude to tip in China and Taiwan. Their system is not the same as ours, so they don’t tip over there. Another fun thing that I learned in my Chinese class during our ordering food unit is that- you usually don’t ask for food or say please. In Chinese, you basically say, “bring me this,” and there’s really no more conversation unless there’s a problem with the order. Your server will most likely not even check up on you. If you’re eating and you need something, you have to call someone over and tell them to bring you what you need. Crazy right? Not really, because different countries have different customs and manners. While some people would love to believe it, America does not set the standard for everything in the world. (except for Simone Biles. She is EVERYTHING.) Whether it be manners or any one of the many forms that culture shock comes in, it’s going to be something to overcome during my trip.

“Language Barrier? But Brittany, don’t you speak Chinese, isn’t it your minor?” Well yes friends, I do, and it is. However, the amount of language that I retained that from middle school and high school surmounts to nothing and I’ve only taken four semesters of it in college. When I took the fluency test, I think I got like mid-intermediate level of fluency. Also, I haven’t learned a single new word since April, because that’s the last time I took a class. Therefore, I know enough to get around, but there’s definitely going to be a lot of “huh” moments. In addition to that, I’ve only been taught the simplified characters since I began learning Chinese. As it turns out, everyone in Taiwan uses the traditional writing system! Yay me! I have to relearn how to read/write half the characters I already know. I think this will be a challenge at first, but once I get the hang of it, I’ll probably be able to decipher the characters without staring at them for an unreasonable amount of time.

Uggggggggh. This jet lag is going to be something else. Not only am I flying for almost a whole day, but the time difference between Taipei and DC is 13 hours! Taipei is 13 hours ahead. This will prove difficult as there will be a short time frame for me to call my friends and family. Someone is always going to be asleep. My loved ones and I decided that a good calling range will be 7-11. I can’t really say am or pm because my am is the other person’s pm. So nobody call me at 3 because I will either be asleep or in class. I am not going to promise that I won’t forget at first though, so if I call you at 5, don’t be mad. (@ everyone)

Homesickness- I kind of alluded to this in my Saying Goodbye post. I left a lot behind at home. I’m going to miss it all. Hopefully nothing will be too triggering where tears silently stream down my face as I walk the streets of Taipei because something reminded me of my mother or my dog, but not guarantees! I plan to just keep myself busy and hopefully travel a lot so that I am reminded of why I did this in the first place. When I first arrived at Pitt as a freshman, my outlook was to try everything at least once so that I could say I did and not have any regrets. This is my outlook for Taiwan too. If I am too busy moping about America, I won’t have any time to enjoy Taiwan. Now that I think about it, I might put some reminder of Donald Trump in my dorm room so that I won’t miss America as much.

My skin color always seems to be an anomaly. Whether it be positive, or negative, I am always treated some type of way because of it. In America, black people, especially black women have to work twice as hard as anyone else to get the same thing. There’s a million other ways black women get treated differently but this isn’t a political blog so I’m not going to get into all of that. The fact of the matter is that I am treated differently in America. When I went to China in 2012, I was treated differently there too, but this different was different than America’s different. Instead of people crossing the street when they see me, or walking faster, people would cross the street in order to see me or stop walking so they could be next to me. I was in the Jilin province for most of my 2012 stay and these people had really never a seen a real black person before! They’d run up to me and take pictures (often times without permission) and touch my hair and genuinely be so excited to see me. It was a weird feeling. While I felt like an exhibit at some points in time, it was really exciting not to be put in a box and have people just look at you and just be excited. For me personally, it was more of a positive experience being able to just be me, rather than what America expected me to be. The scary thing is that I don’t know what’s going to happen in Taiwan. Taiwan is more western, tourist friendly, and modern compared to China. I don’t know what their expectations of or previous experiences with black women are. Either way I’m going to be true to myself and am mentally preparing for anything, but it’d be nice to just be a person while also keeping my identity as a strong black woman. It doesn’t happen too often where I can have both.

MY HAIR, GIRRRRRL, let me tell you. I have been thinking about this since I began thinking about studying abroad. For those who are versed in black hair lingo, I have 4b, super shrinkage, very malleable, very soft hair. For those who are not versed in black hair lingo- my hair is very curly, but I can do a lot with it if I have the right products. At most points throughout the year, you will see my hair in some protective style. Usually it’ll be box braids or Marley/Senegalese twists. For my birthday I decided to get my first sew-in (never again.) I’d also bought two wigs back in August to test the waters with manageability for those. If I’m not in any of these styles, my hair will usually be in two strand twists, a twist out (braid out if I was wearing a wig), or a simple puff. Since my shrinkage is so extreme, my wash and go-s always look cuckoo crazy. So those are all my regulars and I like to change my hair fairly often throughout the year. None of my styles last more than 1.5 months anyways so I had to figure out what the heck I was going to do with this head of hair for 19 weeks. For even more context, I don’t like the natural color of my hair- it’s too boring and I also just got tired of dealing with my hair last year, so I dyed it and cut a lot of it off last January. My hair also grows super-fast so a lot of it has grown out since then and I haven’t dyed it since. I had to decide whether to cut/dye it again and I decided no for both of those. I didn’t want to cut it again, because even though it was a lot easier to comb through and braid up, I couldn’t really wear it naturally without feeling very insecure. Now that may have just been because of how it was cut, but I’m not taking that chance again when I don’t know if anyone in Taiwan would be able to fix it, and it would take another year to grow back out. I didn’t want to dye it again because dying my hair made it dry to the point where it would not even hold the moisture that I tried to give it. It was straight fried. Again, this could be because of the person that dyed my hair, but I didn’t want to have to bring the bajillion products that it takes to keep colored natural hair healthy when I have limited space in my suitcases. So, my hair is at a good length to do things with, and I’m not dyeing it, so what am I going to do while I’m in Taiwan? I first decided that I was going to need wigs. If your hair is already braided down, and you get some cute synthetic ones, wigs are super easy to just throw on and walk out the door. I thought this would be perfect. Now, I’d still have to braid down my own hair, and while that is annoying and time-consuming, it is manageable, and I’ll be buff afterwards. I bought 4 from samsbeauty.com. Highly recommend! Just make sure to look at reviews and get them when there’s a wig and/or shipping sale. I got all 4 for $80. If you are a wig wearer you know how poppin’ that is. I also recommend wearing wig cap with your wigs. It helps preserve your braid down longer than if you weren’t wearing one. I bought 4 2-packs from Sally’s beauty supply for $4 to last me the trip. Now I could give a million wig tips but that is not what this post is for lol, so just head on over to YouTube, especially my girl Sarah’s page to up your wig game. Since my hair would be natural under the wig cap for the majority of the trip, I still needed to bring hair products. I brought what I usually use in a week for my regular styles. I brought all the products and the tools which basically took up half of one of my suitcases but you gotta do what you gotta do. If anyone is interested in my hair products, please let me know! It changes from person to person, but I can make a separate page to let you guys know what I use to keep my hair healthy. Hehehe I might make it anyways even if no one tells me they need it. The support would always be appreciated though. Lastly, I figured that my first few weeks were going to be a doozy and I wouldn’t want to be worried about my hair, so I just decided to get braids. They’re my fave and I missed my half-up half-down look. They’ll last me at least the first month that I’m here, so that’s nice because my hair won’t be anything to worry about until I’m all settled in.

By golly, living in a dorm is something I said I’d never do again because I hated it so much the first time. I am a person that really enjoys personal space and privacy, so much so that I might have run my freshman roommate out after the first semester. Jk, there was definitely fault on both sides for that one. Nevertheless, I am losing a lot of freedom here. I have to live in a building where I have to sign in guests. I have to share a tiny room and bathroom with another person, and I have to walk more than 50 feet to get food. I won’t be able to cook my own food. My room can’t be a mess because someone else lives there. I have to be cautious about getting dressed. I can’t play music, talk on the phone, or do homework at outrageous hours of the night. I don’t do those things anyway because I am an old lady and midnight is my bedtime, but it’s the principle. There’s a bunch of other things that I’m restricted in now because I am living in this dorm. However, I’d rather this than some murderous host family or weird Taiwanese landlord. (off-campus housing wasn’t an option, but again: principle.) Dorm life is going to be hard to get used to again, but like everything else, acceptance will come with time and I’m going to try to be positive and make the best of it. Maybe my roommate will be my new best friend, who knows?

Time management is an age-old problem when college is concerned. You’d think after 5 semester and being a mentor to other students I would have my life and time management skills together. I actually DID have time management skills together last semester as confirmed as the Dean’s list. HOWEVER, I had close to no social life (mostly because I ain’t feel like going nowhere or talking to nobody.) I’m going to have to adjust how I manage my time this semester because my priorities for the semester are different that usual. Since the program I’m doing is through CIEE and not through Pitt, my GPA from this semester is not going to transfer over. It’s just going to be my credits. That means that I can get C’s in all of my classes and it would look the exact same as straight A’s on my Pitt transcript. Now of course I’m going to aim to get C’s. Apparently, everything above an 80 at NCCU is an A so it would require actual effort to get anything lower than that. My priorities for the semester are more aimed at experience, living in the moment, and creating memories rather than getting good grades and impressing professors for recommendations. I’m not sure what I’m going to have to manage over the course of the semester, which is why I think I’m going to have a hard time doing it. This is definitely a take it as it comes kind of thing, so we’ll see what happens.

So, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I have social anxiety. When comes to initiating conversations with people I don’t know, I have a hard time. I’m not going explain the ins and outs of it all on this blog: that’s what google is for, but it’s a common thing in modern times. For this reason and the possibility that I’m not the friendliest human in the world, I have a hard time making friends. I’ve definitely been working through my anxiety and on my communication skills, but it’s no easy feat. CIEE makes it a little easier for us to make friends by providing us with cultural ambassadors who are basically instant friends. They are great with starting conversations and they genuinely want to know about our lives so it’s a big help. I’m primarily worried about making friends outside of the cultural ambassadors. I really want to get involved in at least one on-campus club. It’ll probably be a sport, but I’ve seriously been thinking about ballroom dance because I can really swing my hips and my facials are on point whenever I imagine myself dancing in my head. I am also making it a goal of mine to try and make at least one friend in all of my classes. I don’t know how this is going to go, but I know there’s a lot of opportunity, I just have to push out the bad thoughts and introduce myself.

Saying Goodbye

2/10/2019

Hello! Yes, um, I am skressed. Skressed the heck out. It has really started to hit me that I am moving to an entirely different country, 7840 miles away from home and my mother for 19 weeks. I’ve never gone without seeing my mother for longer than 2 months. If you’re a momma’s girl too, you probably know about the pit that has slowly been forming in my stomach.

It’s not really just leaving my mom that has me nervous. It’s leaving all the positive relationships that I have made over the last 2.5 years. After trying for so long, I finally found a good place for myself, so at times it feels like I’m throwing something good away and just leaving. Yet, I know that this is not the case. I am going on the trip of a lifetime that everyone in my life (including strangers) supports and praises me for doing. Yes, it will be hard to miss getting to know my g-little! It’s going to devastating to miss 3 of my best friends’ graduations from college, but also my little sister’s graduation from high school. (She missed mine for gymnastics though, so I’m not as upset about that one.) It’s going to be hard to leave the country knowing I haven’t seen my friend in the hospital one time since she’s been there, and I won’t be able to see her until I get back. These things and so many others are so difficult, but change is good, and all of these things will be waiting for me when I get back. Especially you Alex Warner! (Go Donate to her gofundme please and sign up to be a living donor! We gotta get this girl a kidney.)

2/16/2019

It’s the big day!!! I am currently writing this in the San Francisco airport as I await to board my delayed flight. I can write a different post to tell you all about this crazy day I’ve had. HOWEVER, this one is about putting pause on one chapter of my life while I start a new one. Let’s just say I got writer’s block. (I think that was witty, but I also think I am the funniest person ever so interpret it how you will)

As anyone can imagine, saying goodbye is hard. Everything I wrote above (in blue) was written right as I was leaving Pittsburgh. I have great friends. They encourage me to want to do better things with myself whether it be striving for that 4.0 and medical school or getting over my anxiety and fear of talking to people and actually communicate my feelings. They make me want to do it. I think that’s one of the reasons saying goodbye was hard. Of course, I thought about not getting in that car to leave Pittsburgh and not getting on the flight to leave home, but I did it. I did it because these people help make me strong, and they encourage me in everything I do. They’d be disappointed if I didn’t get on the plane, and everyone knows that disappointed is worse than mad. Wow, I’m getting sappy. If you’re thinking about studying abroad, I think it’s really important to have a strong support system, especially if you’re doing a program like me, where I know absolutely no one and am in a country where almost everything is different.

Before I left Pittsburgh, I wanted to see and spend time with as many of the people that I’m close to as possible. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to see everyone and do everything. That doesn’t mean that they don’t still love me and won’t miss me when I’m gone or vice versa. To everyone who went out of their way at some point in the last few weeks to do something with me, thank you so much. It means the world. To everyone who I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to, I love you too and I’ll see you when I get back. Now that really sounded like I was dying, or I was going to end the post, but I have more!

P.S. Shout out to my beautiful sissies for my going away gift! They painted a box for me and each of them wrote at least one letter with words of encouragement for whenever I need them throughout my trip. I’m sure I’ll use it at least 3 times a day just so I can read the letters in their voices.

When I got back home to MD I didn’t do much. I don’t really hang out or talk to anyone from high school other than Shleigh. I wanted to see some of my old coworkers, but our plans fell through because “someone” (me) didn’t get her hair finished in time. Anyways, the at home goodbyes were a little easier because there weren’t as many. I spent the week mostly with my boyfriend (Kyle) taking some time off to spend time with my parents and celebrate Shleigh’s 21st birthday. All in all, the week was pretty chill, and even though I know each day meant I was closer to leaving, I didn’t really have any feelings. Rather, I think the excitedness about this new experience but the sadness in leaving my loved ones and comfort zone neutralized each other. I got to say goodbye to Zeus and Thurgood, (idk how I am going to live without a pet for 19 weeks, but I guess we will see) Kyle’s family, Shleigh and her family, and even got to talk on the phone with Alex for the first time since her accident a few days ago. My two mommas and Kyle drove me to Dulles and helped me check my bags and walked me over to the security check. Of course, I cried, because my mother has that effect and I am going from long distance relationship to Xtreme long distance relationship, but I decided to do this and I know it’s all going to be worth it.

“With every goodbye, comes a new hello.”

Funding my Trip

If you know me, you know that one of my biggest personality traits is frugality. As a result of this, I had to find a program that wasn’t going to break my bank. Luckily, a lot of study abroad programs (even some in Europe) are cheaper than the out-of-state tuition that I pay at Pitt.

Pitt Semester Fees

  • Out of State Tuition- $16,026
  • Transportation- Free with ID
  • Books & Supplies- ~$250
  • Housing- $2100
  • Personal Expenses- I have no clue
  • Meals- $1400 (probably less but this is a ballpark)
  • Total- 19,776 + whatever personal expenses I have

Now of course, there’s a bunch of random money things that are involved in any one semester, whether that be going home once or twice during that time (usually about $60 roundtrip), or the parking tickets I’ve received because Oakland is the worst, or fun things I can do with my friends! I suppose all of those can be listed under personal expenses, but every semester at Pitt has been wildly different for me, therefore I have spent different amounts each semester. However, I generally don’t spend too much because I don’t work too often, and these are all expenses that are my responsibility.

Proposed Abroad Semester Fees

  • CIEE Participation Confirmation- $300
  • Pitt Study Abroad Fee- $300
  • Tuition- $14,933
  • Housing- $2050
  • Insurance- $167
  • Meals- $1500*
  • Airfare-$1010**
  • Local Transportation- $200*
  • Books & Supplies- $100*
  • Visa Fees- $160***
  • Personal Expenses= $2150*
  • Total Costs- $22,870

* These are rough figures. It could be more or less while I’m in the country.

** I have found that airfare to Taiwan can be as low as $700 roundtrip if dates are flexible.

*** If you are an American citizen, you can actually obtain and Taiwanese visitor visa, in-country. No application necessary, but it expires in 90 days. (I’ll address this a little later in a different post)

At first glance, it is clear that the study abroad trip would be a little more expensive that a regular semester at Pitt. However, there are numerous scholarships and other resources to help fund trips abroad. Much more so than a regular schemegular semester. There’s always a way to finesse the system in one’s favor, and so, I did.

Where Did I get my Funds?

  • My pocket- $1300
  • CIEE Gilman Go Global- $2500
  • CIEE GAIN Grant – $1500
  • Pitt Student Aid- $12,483
  • STTW Scholarship- $5000
  • Gofundme- $1373
  • Total: $24,156

Scam today, before today scams you.

-Joanne the Scammer

Yup. I DID that. I got a profit off of the semester! As a result of generous people who simply want this young black girl to succeed and experience Taiwan, very little of my own money has/will be spent. First, I want to thank everyone on the Show Them the World (STTW) Scholarship committee as well as everyone who donated to the Gofundme. All of these people believed in me enough to donate their own money. Now, what the heck are these scholarships, and how did I apply/ get them?

So, my pocket clearly isn’t a scholarship. That’s money that I saved up over the summer with the exact intention of using it for study abroad. (It started out as $1600 but some of those unexpected expense came up…….)

Anyways, the two CIEE scholarships I received were directly from CIEE. For students that receive a federal Pell grant, CIEE offers need-based scholarships to its students. For the Gilman Go Global Grant, all I had to do was apply for a Gilman Scholarship. The best thing about this is that I didn’t even have to receive the Gilman grant to receive the CIEE scholarship. I just had to forward the application confirmation that I received from Gilman- to the CIEE scholarship staff.

The Gilman grant is a popular study abroad scholarship that students all over the US apply for- so it’s super competitive. While any applicant should always try their hardest, I happen to have lazy spells and like to call myself a realist. My GPA, resume, and writing skills are all mediocre compared to the rest of the country so I figured I wouldn’t be too competetive for this particular award. Therefore, I didn’t put much effort into this application and decided to direct my focus to more feasible goals. (While I did not receive this award either, I also applied to the Fund for Education Abroad scholarship. The more, the merrier…right?)

The CIEE GAIN grant is a scholarship that pays for roundtrip airfare to the student’s destination. I received this simply by receiving my federal Pell grant and confirming participation in my program by the deadline. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

My Pitt student aid is the aid (federal and school provided) that Pitt is putting toward my semester abroad that they would usually put toward my regular semester. I also received a work study award for the year but unfortunately work study is not eligible for study abroad semesters :((( It’s ok. I don’t have a work visa anyway.

The Show Them The World scholarship is an endowed grant that was so graciously introduced to me by my lovely Pitt study abroad advisor- Leslie Ann Smedley. (She’s really the bomb y’all go to her with all of your Pitt study abroad needs.) It’s a grant for black students with 3.0+ GPA that have demonstrated financial need and have never studied abroad before. The application was like most when it comes to essays and all that jazz. (There were only 2.) However, there was also an interview! I really enjoyed the interview because rather than asking me questions most of the time, the scholarship committee told me to tell them about what I want to do and why they should help me do it. I was lowkey shook at first, but they seemed to really be engaged in what I was saying and they clearly were since they decided to give me money. The scholarship itself provides varying amounts of money depending on the student. They gave me $2500. However, Dean Bonner (our dean of students) and the Office of the Provost always match the award; giving me a total of 5000 monies.

Last but of course not least: my Gofundme! 18 extremely generous people have helped me to raise $1420. (After gofundme fees I had $1373.) I started the campaign all the way back in September so that I could have as long as possible to raise money. I am especially fortunate for this award because it helped me to pay off the last of the tuition for my trip before I even received the STTW scholarship. If these amazing people didn’t donate, I probably would’ve had to put it all on credit cards or take out a loan and both of those things are evil so that was a last resort. Thanks again people! The campaign is still open for anyone that still wants to donate. This will allow me to eat fancier food, go on more surrounding country trips (Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong…etc.) and bring back nicer gifts! The hyperlink to the campaign is at the beginning of this paragraph and there’s also a link on the social media menu.

In lieu of gofundme, I’d prefer donations to be made through venmo or cashapp so that no one loses any money. My username is brittanyjrf on both platforms.

A FUNdraising tip is to request people on venmo and cashapp like $2 for your trip! I decided not to do this just because I didn’t have to, but if you’re having a hard time finding money- go for it. The worst they can do is deny it and maybe talk about you in their group chat. You never know, some people really might surprise you.

My Program

Continued from: How Did I Get Here?

What were my findings upon further inspection you ask? Well, reader, here’s the tea. The CIEE Communications + Businees + Political Economy is based in Taiwan. Students in this specific program take 15 credits in total. 6 of the credits are from a Chinese class provided by CIEE. The other 9 credits come from regular classes that will be taken at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei. NCCU offers both English and Chinese taught languages, and since my level of Chinese is not advanced enough to take a whole class in the language, I have to take my classes in English. Now here is where the hard part comes in. Most of the English taught class are in business, communication, and political economy- hence the title of the program. However, I am a boss. I combed through NCCU’s websites and several course listings for several hours to find classes, in English, which catered to my needs. These needs being: two sociology classes, and one Asian studies class that would count toward my certificate. I looked through the course descriptions and syllabi of about 30 classes from NCCU’s last spring semester of which had titles seemingly pertinent to sociology/Asian studies. I eventually ended up choosing 7 classes that I thought I could convince my academic advisers to approve, even though I’d only be taking 3. Of course, all of this class searching and approval was done after I’d already put my deposit down for the program, but once I realized that I’d found a program where I could take Chinese and sociology, I was sold.

{A fun snippet of information on why I was 100% in on this program is that I have a friend that did basically the same thing. Her name is Jess Penn a.k.a Penny. She too is on Pitt’s women’s rugby team and we’ve always been close because we both take Chinese. I told her this is the program I was doing and she basically went bezerk. Instead of doing the business program, Penny did CIEE’s Chinese in Taipei program. Since both programs are pretty small, they clump together the students. Since I told her, Penny has been giving me great advice on people to talk to, packing tips, places to visit, visa information and so much more. I have been super lucky to have a friend that has been on the same trip as me and can tell me the dos and don’ts of everything Taipei.}

Another great thing about this program is that I’m going to have a lot of freedom and free time. Unlike PittMAP, I’m going to be in the same country for the entire duration of the trip). I’m also going to be enrolled at NCCU as an international student, so I will have access to all the happenings (clubs, events, internships) like any other student. I really want to find the nearest hospital to my dorm and try to volunteer there or shadow their doctors. I’m extremely interested in Eastern Asian Medicine, and I think it would be great experience to have while I’m over there. This way I’ll also be able to “keep my vision” and remember that medicine is still what I ultimately want to do.

While I am not utilizing any of these features, some cool things that my program offers are internships or research for credit in place of classes, and home stays. I’m not doing an internship because those are for the students with more advanced Chinese skills. You’d be working for a real Taiwanese company with no language aid, so those skills would need to be on point. I’m not doing research because 1. I didn’t want to make a proposal in the week that I realized I could before it was due and 2. I needed the credits I’d get from taking classes. I’m not doing a home stay for the simple reason of convenience. It would be a great language opportunity, but I think I have plenty of that opportunity staying in one of NCCU’s dorms with the rest of their Chinese speaking students and I avoid all of the problems that would come with living with a family of strangers. Not to say that it isn’t a great option for others. It just wasn’t something that I, personally, was interested in doing for the entire 19 weeks that I will be in Taipei. However, these are all options to look into and consider for this program and any other.

Throughout my stay in Taipei, I’m going to be taking several day/night and weekend trips to places throughout the island with and without my program. I even have to leave Taiwan for a weekend to renew my visa. (woohoo for forced vacations and new destinations) Apparently NCCU also has a CIEE club where people have to interview to get in and are cultural ambassadors (basically forced friends) for us. This program is really just the bomb.com and I love it and am super excited!

Whoop! Whoop!