4 years later, and I’m still here. I was supposed to write about it being exactly 1 year since I graduated from university, and then I realized that April is also this blog’s “anniversary month.” I decided to move to WordPress last April 15, 2008 and I’ve never regretted it since. It’s been 4 years – I can’t believe that it’s been that long! Time really does fly by so fast.
Going back to the original reason for this post… I can’t believe that it’s been a year since I graduated. It seems like just yesterday, I was about to start university, and then I was just writing (and later on defending) my thesis with my partner, and then we were graduating, and now, a year has passed. Let me take this moment to look back and see how the past year has been.
Right after graduation, I started a job at this company (where I earned a good amount of money – money that was used to fund some of my other stuff like the documents for the scholarships and a camera, yay!) and stayed there for around 3 months. I made a lot of friends and memories there so it’s something I don’t regret doing. At the same time, I was waiting on scholarships from Spain and Taiwan. That was quite a stressful period of my life because I had to run a lot of errands, and I had to sacrifice a lot of “sleep time” but it was all worth it. I also accepted this translation job (that I did together with my thesis partner Jad). That was another experience too. We were also able to buy a house – something to finally call our own. We moved there a month before I left.
I got accepted to both scholarships (Spain and Taiwan), which meant more errands and more stress (but all worth it, yeah). I left the company and went to Spain on a one-month summer scholarship. It was so much fun! I was able to see Toledo, Córdoba, Granada, Barcelona, Segovia, Madrid, and a whole lot more places in Madrid. I had a lot of experiences and I met quite a handful of people (but I wasn’t able to bond with a whole lot of people because I kept on going to other places). It probably would have been better had I stayed there longer but I had to head to Taiwan for my other scholarship. I’m already happy with what I got and with the opportunity though. It’s something that I never thought I would get, and it’s something that I’ll forever cherish. I promise to go back someday! :)
After my scholarship to Spain, I went back to Manila for around 8 hours (after more than 16 hours of flying). I packed (well, it was more of I threw all that I could bring on the bed and mom packed it for me), slept, and then I was back on a plane headed for Taiwan. I’ve been for a little over 7 months now. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been to a lot of places in and out of Taiwan. Just 2 weeks ago, I was in China with my parents, visiting our relatives. I also went to Hong Kong with some high school friends – my first trip abroad of such sort. Siiiigh, it has truly been an awesome year. Of course there are times when I miss home and I miss my friends but I’m really thankful for everything that I have. I’m thankful for everything that happened over the past year, and for the things that are still going to happen over my next 2 years here.
Thank You, thank You, thank You!
This is all that I can think of writing for now. Looking back, it’s all still so overwhelming! :)
