You Are Your Most Important Character

I survived the first round of midterms unscathed.  My second round of midterms is the first week of November, and I have a paper due in a week and a half.  But!  I am not thinking about those things right now, because fall break is this weekend! Huzzah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah!

I can't wait to catch up with all of you and see what magical words of mighty fiction you have been churning out.  I am sure they are numerous and splendid.

I have been feeling a bit guilty about putting aside my extra-curriculars such as blogging and fictioning.  But graduating from college is not optional.  It has something I have been forced to focus on with razor-sharp concentration.  I've been plowing through papers, short and long, week after week.  I can't believe it's already the middle of the semester.

My creative side side, as a result, has been feeling a little neglected.  "What about your characters?" it has asked me, sniffling a little.  "What about developing your voice and devoting yourself to launching your surely splendiferous literary career?"  Thus far, I haven't been able to come up with anything to console it other than bottles of wine my meager student budget can afford and binging on reruns of The West Wing.

But last week during office hours, it hit me.

In a weird way, you could say I am working on my fiction while I do my mountains of government reading and taking notes during class.  I'm forcing my brain to get smarter and more critical.  The stuff I was writing two months ago is not going to cut it now.  And I am writing.  The typing hasn't stopped.  The main characters are just not in my head, but on the world stage.  I'm pretty sure my characters are going to get more interesting and nuanced, because I'm training the organ that creates them.  As long as you're growing and learning, you're working on your writing.  The most important character to improve is yourself.


Happy Pumpkin Month.

Marjorie

Who Likes Pictures of Bunny Rabbits?

I got this a while ago from Steph Schmidt, and kept putting off doing this question-y thing because I was busy getting ready for China, then recovering from jet lag, then getting ready for school.  Now that I'm settled, it's meme time!

1. Are you a rutabaga? I don't think so.  It would be upsetting if it turned out I were just a rutabaga dreaming that I was a real person.

2. Who is your current crush? I currently don't have one, which is a first for me.

3. Upload a heartwarming picture that makes you smile

4. When was the last time you ate a vine-ripened tomato?  A while ago.  I regret that I can't remember the last time I ate one.  Tomatoes are the best.

5. Name one habit that would cause others to plot your demise.  Inability to keep my room clean and I turn everything into a debate somehow.

6. What is the wierdest, most-disgusting job you've ever had to do? Look through an inmate's personal belongings to find anything potentially anti-establisment.  It wasn't so much what I found as it was the weird feeling of rifling through someone's personal belongings with rubber gloves.


7. Where da muffin top at? Sitting above the muffin bottom.


8. What author introduced you to your genre? I don't have a specific genre.  I just write fiction about people.  I guess you could say I really clicked with Russian literature in high school, because I like to write about the non-supernatural sufferings of mere mortals and find the twisted humor in it.


9. Describe yourself using obscure Latin words. Lux et veritas (light and truth).


I shall announce the three recipients of the blog on fire award in the comments!  Yay!

Some reflections on traveling

On the Great Wall with new friends.

I've been having some technical difficulties with Blogger this evening, so I'm just going to type away and hold my breath.  I need to get better at using Blogger.  Good thing I'm a writer and student--they are very low-tech kinds of jobs.

Beijing was wowza awesome.  I met people that for the first time in my life I clicked with intellectually and were also incredibly fun to be around.  I talked about politics and economics and culture from morning until night and then went clubbing with my new friends until the wee hours of the morning.  I visited schools for migrant worker children and China's top consulting firm, and attended lectures on art, NGOs in China, health care, and the economy.  Nearly every moment was saturated with provoking questions, deep thoughts, and stimulating conversation.

This year, I lived in Taiwan and visited Hong Kong and Beijing.  These are very different places with people who speak very different Chinese from each other.  The first few days in Beijing were overwhelming as I adjusted to listening to Chinese spoken with an accent that was a world away from what I had grown accustomed to.  The first time I visited China in high school, I had much less of a problem with the accent than I did this time around.  I guess it shows how fast you can get used to doing something one way, only to find that you can get just as used to doing something another way over time.

Things were very different for me a year ago.  I took some very big risks and ventured way out of my comfort zone, but look where I wound up!  I found a wonderful and supportive community of writers, I have lived abroad, and am taking writing more seriously.  I have gained enormous perspective and insight and learned a ton about myself.  I know I'm going to look back on this year as a big turning point in my life, because this was the year that I realized what I am capable of.  And you, my dear blog followers, have played a strong supporting role in that revelation.

But I should warn you: traveling is not a cure-all, nor does traveling in and of itself make you an interesting person.  The experience of travel is merely an opportunity, and it's up to you to make the most of it.  I say this because traveling can also be inconvenient, expensive, aggravating, and even disappointing.  Flying for more than twelve hours and missing your connecting flight is no fun.  A week of jet lag is a pain in the ass.  Culture shock can be daunting, and homesickness is very real.  The excitement can (and does) wear off after a while.  I'm pretty happy to be able to park my butt in one place for a substantial period of time.  But I'm so glad I did it.  I'm living the life I always dreamed of right now, not at some fuzzy point in the future.  Traveling and writing has helped me understand that when you're on the move and spilling your guts across a page, right now is all you've got.

I think that's enough for now.  I'm gonna turn in.  Thank you all so much for your support.

Love,

Marjorie

Mac...Drool...

I'm in the Apple store in Manhattan falling in love with a Mac as we speak.  I'd like to take a minute to congratulate Misty Provencher and Michael Offut for getting agented and book deal'd.  You guys are awesome and have been longtime supporters of this blog.  I am proud to be your friend in the blogosphere.

Things are still a whirlwind.  School is just a few days away, and I need to post a longer post about Beijing with a few pictures.  I mean, we need at least one of me on the Great Wall! :)

And I will get around to talking more about the lovely award Steph Schmidt gave me.  Non-jet lagged brain FTW.

Love you guys!

Marjorie

Jet Lag and Exhaustion, Day 4

Spent the last days sleeping and resting, and
Watching hurricane coverage on CNN.
Don't go to the beach.
See y'all soon.

Back from Beijing

Got in from Beijing at around 11:30 last night.  So tired, but China was unbelievable.  I met so many amazing people and I learned so much about myself.

Things were so different a year ago.  Yesterday, August 23rd, made the one year anniversary that I got on a plane and headed to Taiwan, and my traveling adventures began.

I will post more when I am less groggy.  Also, thanks to Steph Schmidt for the blog award she gave me a while back.

Symptoms of Burnot Include

 I was going to spend a productive day packing and getting ready for China on Friday, and the only thing I've really done so far today is shower and send a few emails.  And check my new Twitter account obsessively.

I had to write a biography of myself for this conference that was 600 words or less, so when I finished this version I thought, I'm doing fine.  Until I checked the email again.

Whoops.
 
 Turns out no one wants to know that much about me.  They wanted 600 characters or less.

Here's the long version that I'm going to whittle down for the conference.  I'll even add a few dull details to make it more conference-apropos.


I was born and raised in New York City, and surrounded myself with almost every kind of book within my reach.  Frequent trips to the library were a staple of my childhood.

I had the almost impossibly good fortune of attending a school whose core philosophy was learning for learning's sake from the age of six until seventeen.  There were no grades, only written evaluations, and starting in high school we could form our own curriculum based on our own interests and ambitions.

The founder and longtime headmaster of this school, Stanley, recently went gently into that good night.  As I reflect on my own story, I will always be indebted to his bold vision of education and the tenacity with which he clung to it.  I am who I am because the school Stanley built taught me to have the courage to be the person I want to be right now.

I was monolingual until I took Latin in sixth grade, and then switched to Spanish in middle school and and added Chinese and French in high school.  I've stuck with Chinese as an East Asian Studies major at college, and just returned from a year abroad in Taiwan.  As a child people asked me if I spoke Spanish at home and if I frequently visited my grandparents in Puerto Rico because of my last name and my heritage.

These questions always befuddled me: I was American and I spoke English, as did both of my parents and their parents.  I didn't understand how the color of my skin determined an allegiance to a particular language, so I tried as many languages on for size as I could.


As I grew older and continued to ask bigger and more provoking questions about myself, I've discovered that the only way to learn anything about yourself worth knowing is not studying your own history, or 'discovering your roots', as some call it.  You must immerse yourself in the life of a stranger until you understand that he is you, even the parts of him you can't stand.  To know yourself is to know others, and vice versa.

TWITTER

I'm on it.

@buddingscholar1.

I had an account in 2009, and I didn't see the point.  It was incredibly distracting and I figured Facebook would be enough.

But it's a convenient way for me to keep in touch with friends, family, and my interests: publishing, politics, and literature.  I need to keep up on the run.  It's just the way my life is going.  If you have Twitter, and you follow this blog, I'll get to you soon.

So much has happened since Sunday it feels like it's Friday.  I'll see you all in China if I don't post before then

Love,

Marjorie

She's Back

The writer is in the building.
Worked on the work in progress last night, and that intoxicating feeling of getting back inside my protagonist's head. It was like taking a drive with an old friend.
Can't wait to get back to it.

50 Followers and a Breif Update

Hi guys,

I'm currently writing this from the Narita airport in Tokyo waiting for my flight home which is in about two hours. I spent the last ten days gloriously unconnected to the internet while I vacationed in Hong Kong with my mom, who came all the way from America to see me.  It was a restorative and much needed break.  The food is delicious, and I nearly induced myself into a food coma stuffing myself with dim sum almost every day.  We took a brief trip over to Macau, an island full of casinos, to eat Portuguese food and visit an incredible art museum.  And now, it's time to say goodbye to Asia...for now.  I'll be coming right back in August for a conference in Beijing.  But that's later.   I'm so thrilled to be going back to the United States.  Traveling is great, but there's no place like home.

Also:  I have fifty whole followers now!  Thank you all, you lovely people!  Tell me--what should I (by which I mean we) do to celebrate?

Things I Have Learned (While Abroad)

I was going to make a list, you know, of "things I have learned".  I would have been not unlike a fifth-grader at the end of a school year standing in the front of the classroom, with droplets of sweat clinging to the back of her neck while staring at piece of paper veined with thin blue lines and covered in smudges.  Her classmates would be squirming in their seats anxious to tear down the hallways and into the sunshine that beckons through the dirt-streaked windows.

But this is not fifth grade, is it?

The truth is I can't articulate exactly what it is I've learned in my time here.  I've done all those stereotypical things that people "do" when they are abroad: strengthened my language skills, made new friends, pushed myself beyond my comfort zone, etc, etc.  But there has been more to my experience than these things.  There were definitely times when I was so overwhelmed I felt I couldn't adjust anymore, and I didn't feel like I needed to.  I observed that some of my fellow exchange students got stuck in ruts: the going to clubs four times a week rut; the buying cheap shit rut; the I-hate-Taiwan-rut. (full disclosure: I was stuck in all of those ruts at one point or another this year.  Mom--I never went out four nights a week.)  It was extremely painful to leave those ruts, but when I did, I always learned more about myself and the world became a richer place.  And I will always be grateful for finding the courage to leave former, less than beautiful versions of myself behind.  It meant saying goodbye to ways of thinking, people, and habits that were no longer in my best interest.  But the people I have met, the new opinions I have adopted and the new things I am doing are fulfilling beyond my wildest expectations.  This year, while it had its ups and downs, was a gift.

 I am grateful for who I have become and the people who have accompanied me thus far.  If you're reading this blog, then that means you.  Thank you for coming along with me on this journey.  I look forward to the many places we'll go together.

Sincerely,
Marjorie

P. S.  I can change!  I can take a picture with Hello Kitty paraphernalia and not puke.

That's it!

I'm officially done.  Like with EVERYTHING.  All that's left is to pack and say goodbye.

WAT WAT.

So I'm feeling a little like this:

Also, the show this clip is from (The West Wing)  is THE BEST SHOW EVER and you all should totes watch.

I'll post a longer entry about What I Have Learned tomorrow.

Cheers,
Marjorie

SQUEEEEEEE

I just found out this evening I was selected to be an American delegate for a ten-day conference in Beijing, China in August.  According to the website, the program gathers American and Chinese college students and creates and environment where we can discuss the future of the two countries.

I am so excited.

So even though my days in Taiwan are almost over, I'm not done traveling.


First, off to Hong Kong!


(Here's hoping I can get it together to post some pictures)

See you all Thursday!

Wrapping Up (Taiwanese Tuesday)

I'm leaving in eleven days. First to Hong Kong, then back home for a week, then up to my home college for my summer job.

It doesn't feel real.  Not at all.  The butterflies in my stomach are scant fluttering their wings.

Summer has most definitely arrived: Taiwan's humid stickiness has returned and the temperatures are soaring again, but I'm much more used to it this time around.  I didn't think that that was possible--getting used to 90-degree, 65 percent humidity weather--but I suppose you can get used to a lot.

I've learned so much on this journey, but I think the most important lesson has been learning to love my messy and incomplete self.  I have a much clearer picture on what I want to accomplish my last year in college and in graduate school, and that was worth all of the discomfort and pain.

Time to finish my research paper, do my job training...and keep writing.

Work in Progress Tab

This week I decided to stop hiding my ideas under a bushel, so I posted the subject of my work in progress on my blog.  The reason?  Accountability.  This is my second attempt writing an actual book, and while I have been legitimately busy trying to get credit for classes, I don't want to give up on my idea.  I don't know where it will lead.  I have no idea if I'll even finish the damn thing.  But that Work in Progress tab is going to serve as a reminder that I am writing a book, and I've finally been able to condense what it is I'm writing about into two (somewhat) succinct paragraphs.

What do you do to hold yourself accountable to your works in progress?

Honesty and Doubt

Since the rapture didn't happen, it means we all have to get back to our responsibilities and commitments.  I'm actually kind of happy about that.  I'm in the middle of a lot of interesting things, and if the world had ended, I wouldn't have been able to go to Hong Kong to see my mom.

Time to be honest about some things, I think.

I haven't been completely happy here.

That's a bit of an understatement.

I really hated it here for a long time.

It's no one's fault.  I'm not blaming my program, the friends I've made, or even Taiwan.  But this experience for a long time was none of what I was expecting.  I complained pretty extensively to my mother and close friends and left it at that.  I had work to do, classes to go to, and projects that needed to be completed on time.  Making deadlines has historically been difficult for me, and when I leave here, I leave.  That's it.

So, I figured if I didn't have anything positive to say, then say nothing at all.  I beat myself up about not posting because not everyone gets to travel, so I didn't have the luxury of being unhappy.

This is not to say that I spent every moment of my time in abject misery.  There were moments where I found satisfaction, and I sucked those moments dry to find the strength to keep going.  And I threw myself into my research here: working with my advisor, refining my topic, working on my proposal, and steeling myself not to give up.  I could have.  The temptation was there; there were a lot inconveniences and obstacles, not the least of which was that I couldn't take books out of the library, and I needed a bibliography.  So I needed to get creative.

And then, like magic, everything came together for me.  The end is in sight, all I have to do is complete my research, take a final, write a couple of papers, complete my online job training, and I'm on my way.

Life is glorious.  Living often isn't.  But the unromantic moments (or days, or weeks, or even longer) help us enjoy those romantic moment when they hit us over the head.

I'll talk more about my research project on Tuesday.  Enjoy not being raptured.

I'm Back!

I'm almost there!  Three more weeks and I'll be done with my year abroad.  Man.  I feel like I just got here.

It's been a tough year.  That's why I haven't been posting as regularly as I should.  I got hit with a lot of things that needed careful monitoring, and I felt bad that I dropped out of the challenge.  It really came down to setting priorities.  I was really getting ahead of myself with this novel and I needed to refocus myself so that I can graduate from college first.  It'll happen.  I just finalized my research project this week and I heard back from my home university that I should get credit for it.  My departure day from Taiwan is June 11, right around the corner.  I'm meeting my mom in Hong Kong and we'll be vacationing there for ten days.  Then it's back home for a week, and then my summer job.

My novel is on hold, but I've thought about it a lot and will continue it at some point in the future.  First things first.

I've learned so much about myself, and I'm so grateful for all of you who read this.

More later.  Promise.

D is for Dogs

Afternoon naptime

These are just two of the many stray dogs that hang around my campus.  They bark a lot at night and follow you if you're eating something, which is really annoying.  When they crowd around me, I stand very still and pretend that I'm Cesar Milan.  After a while, they understand that I'm not going to feed them and go bother someone else.  I met the person who feeds them a few months ago, a lady in her forties with a tanned, weathered face and a broad smile.

"They're not good dogs," she said, scowling at the strays who wagged their tails.  "They don't listen to me."

I know they look cute in the picture, but they're kind of a pain to deal with in real life.  Still, I included them in this blog series, because, like it or not, they are a part of my life here, and they do pretty much run the University. 

I think I'm all caught up now.  See you tomorrow!

A is for ARC

Image forthcoming.  Need to charge my camera battery.

Today I picked up my Alien Resident Certificate (ARC), the identification card that goes with my resident visa, from the immigration office.  This is a replacement ARC; I lost my original and had to reapply for it.  Ugh.

This visa thing has been a mess from November.  I originally got a three-months visitor visa that was extended to six months, with a February expiration date.  But when I applied for my Resident Visa, it turned out that the visa processing office in New York had given me the wrong visa type.  They had given me a visa for exchange students, but I'm not here on exchange; I'm here with a program.  My resident director threatened the people at the consulate in Taiwan to use her political connections because she was so exasperated with the entire procedure.  I asked her how screaming at a service person fit in to her Buddhist way of life.  She replied that the Buddha appears to people in the forms most needed to "wake people up", so if yelling was what it took, then so be it.  (She's kind of my hero.)

But then I lost my ARC a couple of weeks ago.  It didn't even came home with me.

I'm kind of an absentminded person, so things easily slip my mind.  I'm going to try to use this experience to be more careful with my stuff.  Because going back and forth to process these loose ends of my visa have been a huge hassle, and I'm glad it's all over.

Happy April Fool's!

Taiwanese Tuesday: A Weekend in Wulai

On Saturday I went with my host mother to Wu Lai, a place in the mountains that had a hot spring resort.  I got to sleep, eat, and use the hot spring for free, a pretty nice deal.  My host mother was every bit as embarrassing and hovering and caring as a mother can be.  She stuffed me full of food, introduced me to all of her friends, and took me to see some beautiful scenery in Wu Lai.  I was amazed at how natural the landscape was just half an hour from Taipei.

The hot spring portion of my weekend was quite an experience.  I had been to a hot spring hotel before that was very discreet: an attendant filled a tub of water in a bathroom, and there was an anteroom where you could change before and after soaking.  This hot spring had none of that.  I stripped down and went into a public area butt naked with a whole bunch of Taiwanese ladies I didn't know with my host mother and all of her friends.

You might be thinking the hot spring was unsanitary.  Nope!  The place was spotless; it was a real spa, not a public pool, so they could afford to pay staff to clean.  Clients showered before and after soaking.  I soaked for a while in hot water, dried off in a sauna, and let a giant nozzle pummel lukewarm water on my back.  My host mother and I rubbed wet salt on each others' backs and went inside what looked like a reverse sauna.  It had transparent walls but was full of hot fog.  I sat and let the salt melt on my skin, then my host mother doused me off with a cold shower nozzle.  I shrieked because I wasn't prepared for the cold.  The ladies chuckled at my reaction.

The spa had no windows, allowing steam to flow freely from under the roof.  Except for the reverse sauna, I wore my glasses the whole time.

There was an outdoor portion of the spa that had two pools: one very hot and one ice cold.  How hot was the hot pool?  SCALDING.

"Good Lord!" I cried in Mandarin as I lowered myself into it.  "It's too hot. I can't take it!"

"Don't force yourself," one of my host mother's friends said.  "Sit on the edge until you get used to it."

I did as she advised, then followed my host mother back and forth between the hot and cold pools.  My toes crackled as though a current of electricity was flowing through me.

"You're very brave," the ladies murmured as I went back and forth between pools.

I took a break from the extremely hot and cold water after a while and went to look at the river tumbling over the rocks and the steam billowing out of the spa.  A few robed ladies rested on deck chairs next to me.  The river was an opaque emerald color.  Lush green mountains shrouded in mist towered over me.  I tried to make the moment last as long as possible.

After we soaked we had dinner.  My host mother is a part of the Taiwan branch of the Girl Scouts, and last weekend was their retreat in the mountains.  They had a full program that evening, including dancing, karaoke, and an auction.  Like a good sport, I sang a karaoke song with my host mother.  Warning: if you ever go to Asia, be prepared: karaoke is a staple of social life here.  I don't care how much you hate it (and I do--almost as much as Hello Kitty).  Make everyone happy and sing at least one song.

The next day my host mother and I got up early and walked around the tourist area of Wulai full of shops selling aboriginal-themed souvenirs.  It was raining pretty heavily, so it wasn't as fun as it could have been, but I got to see the waterfall up close.  That was pretty cool.

All in all, it was a eye-opening (and exhausting) weekend.  I learned to be less self-conscious about my body.  Athough my body certainly isn't perfect (legs aren't shaved, carrying more weight that I would like, etc, etc.) no one's else's body was perfect either.  99.9% of all of people there jiggled at least a little.

Who's ready for pictures?  ME!  I AM!

No, I don't have any pictures from inside the spa.  Obviously.

So the deal is that Taiwan has a lot of mountains.  Like this one.

Me and my host mother.  She was intense but awesome.

I don't know what kind of fish this is, but I've had it a lot in Taiwanese restaurants and it's good.

Flamenco dancers!  The woman on the far left had a 'tude, which made her performance HILARIOUS.

Cool-ass waterfall!  The wires are for cable cars that go all the way up the mountain.
I got to get closer to it on Sunday.

Whee!  Sadly, I did not get to ride the cable car.

A street in the tourist section in Wulai.

See you Thursday!

Marjorie