For the first time in several months, I put on a jacket today. Just for the evening, but all day before then, people were asking me why I wasn’t wearing one.

I mean, everyone I know here is from Taiwan, Indonesia, or India, and I’m a New Englander, so that’s my excuse. After all, it was only around 18 C/64 F with some mild wind.

But for the amount of “stuck-ness” that I’ve felt over the past little while – feeling like I can’t finish this project I’ve been working on, like I’m not really learning as much as I thought I would here, and kind of like my summer just still isn’t over, I was a little satisfied to be able to wear a jacket even for just a few hours tonight. I think that’s what they mean by “the winds of change”.

Anyway, I think I finished the first build of my main project – an air-pressure control device. At least, the first iteration of it. Like, right now it’s a stepper motor, solenoid, and Arduino bolted to a wooden board with a Mean Well power supply and some wires. The stepper motor driver and pressure sensor are floating on the wires that they’re plugged into the Arduino with. It’s kind of hack-y, but it works.

I never thought I’d get there. And, even better, my professor today told me that the next thing I should work on is making it better by designing proper components for it, like a real case and a PCB! So now I get to actually finish this project in a state where I might be more proud of it.

So, overall, the stress is starting to decline a little bit.

I left the campus again after I got out of work, just out of habit because I always do, not because I had anything in particular to do in downtown Taichung.

I’ve been riding the Green Line MRT everywhere, so my “downtown Taichung” world has become restricted to the best stops along Wenxin Rd – but that’s not too bad. I actually have a decent selection of Donutes coffee shops to choose from.

And if you ever need to use the bathroom in Taichung, ride the MRT to Wenxin Forest Park first. And bring sheet music, because there’s a piano in it. And your ears, because the in-bathroom speaker music is an arrangement of assorted full-length versions of TMRT station train arrival themes in the style of a cafe-study music compilation.

But today I rode the MRT to City Hall because I decided I wanted to go to the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi – it has a Muji in it, and those usually have nice things. I was looking to maybe buy a sweater for the newly-arriving fall. And my shoes have a big tear in them now, and the foam is coming out the side. So I wanted to maybe look at new shoes, too.

The Muji is on the eleventh floor, so I had to walk around a fair bit (just to find the elevators), and after leaving the Muji after having found nothing I liked and heading back down, I used the escalator. The entire building was covered in Christmas decorations, with Christmas music over the radio, too.

I know Western traditions and things like that are popular here, so it wasn’t unexpected. Actually, I’ve seen this kind of thing up and around since the beginning of the month. But the weather today made it feel a lot more “right”, and the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi building is almost styled like a New York City department store – I’m not from NYC, but there was something about riding down the escalator for ten floors and taking in the ambiance that reminded me of that one time I went to New York City for the holidays with my parents when I was 13. Oddly nostalgic.

After not buying anything at the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, I got back on the MRT and rode to Sihwei Elementary School (the secondary name is “Erfenpu”, which I feel like is more fitting for a random MRT stop in the middle of a downtown Taiwanese city. I feel a little out of place getting off at an elementary school, especially as a Westerner here, although I’m used to people thinking I’m probably an English teacher by now).

I at least felt confirmation in my decision to postpone my participation in the holiday consumerism when I saw a giant painting of Jay Chou and a sea turtle supported by the International Wildlife Federation on the way down the escalator.

I’m now at, of all places, another Donutes coffee shop (these are great – they’re all over Taiwan and they all never close). Talking to the cashier was another one of those times where she kept insisting on using English and I could clearly tell it was because she wanted language practice, which I can really understand, so I smiled and said “thank you” when I picked up my order and then started eavesdropping on the people next to me who were talking about some guy’s transportation habits and some place in Taipei by Lungshan Temple.

They have their own mistletoe on the handrails around the waiting line and Christmas jazz playing over the radio. Maybe it’s corny, but it actually does feel a little homelike to have it like this.

But as far as trying to fit in a little better in the parts of Taiwan that are less familiar, I am progressively struggling less. Not successful just yet. At lot of it is definitely in my head, especially my language insecurities.

This morning, I woke up to the dormitory services people scooping my roommate because he forgot to sign his name on the late-night entrance sheet yesterday. That interaction was all in Mandarin and I could understand none of it except for my roommate’s 「但我在睡覺！」. I have an unread copy of a book I bought at the Eslite in Xitun a while ago still sitting on my desk shelf. I should pop it open. My reading comprehension abilities are way better than I think I give them credit for.

You know, I think language learning is all about targeted practice. I’ve learned most of my Mandarin this year, with my lack of Chinese classes since April, listening to Mandopop on Apple Music.

I noticed the other day, when I was sitting on a bus and annoyed that whoever set the music changed the captions from Mandarin to English halfway through, that I was actually pretty good at translating the English captions back to Mandarin in my head (the only language practice I could come up with). A lot of the lines even rhymed, too! I’ve learned so much Mandarin from KTV that I think I’m fully fluent in cheesy love songs.

So, I thought, it’s got to work the same way with other language skills. I just have to find people who want to talk about things that I want to be good at talking about. There’s a conversation table here – at Asia University – that I’m at that I could (and should) join – but if I read and do that, too, I think I’ll give myself a decent shot at getting much better. I’m only halfway through my internship, so I still have time to make progress.

I’ll have to pick that book back up. It’s about world politics and similarities between the geopolitics in and around Poland and around Taiwan. I’m not sure where the idea came from, but if I can read and understand more than just the first two sentences that I read in the bookstore before I bought it, hopefully I can at least be able to write about eastern European history in Mandarin soon.

As far as lifestyle, though, I’ve otherwise been doing well for myself here. Yesterday I went to get hot pot with a friend for dinner, and he took me on the back of his scooter. I’d never ridden one before, but it’s something that I could get used to.

The next receipt lottery drawing is in less than a week, so I’ll just have to win enough money there to buy one of those things.

After that, I’ll just have to take an LoA from RIT, get myself an ARC, change my driver’s license for a local ID and, umm… find myself a part-time job as an English teacher at a high school in Dali or something.

Actually, I need a work permit for that, too. But I already have a commemorative wallet bag from Taichung Municipal Dali Senior High School, which is very nice and convenient and I will definitely be in the only person in all of upstate New York with Dali Gao-zhong merchandise when I return.

Whenever I introduce myself to someone new at Asia University, they jokingly ask me why I don’t stay for longer.

Earlier today, I met the president of the university, and he said the same thing. He asked what my major was. I said electrical engineering, and he told me about Asia University’s (really well-ranked) electrical engineering program. I told him I knew. You know, I have already looked at these things.

So even if this isn’t my home, I feel like the people I’m meeting are doing well to make this feel like a solid second home. And, you know, it’s impossible to predict the future. The other day, I was talking with a coworker-friend and somehow we got on the topic of my future study plans. I think I said that maybe I’d ask our professor about graduate degree options here. He said I wouldn’t have to, because the professor would ask whether I did or not.

Ya-Da’s a cool place. And now, it’s got weather to match.

Until Saturday.

Thanks again!