I am one, procrastinated step away from finishing my junior year of a Bachelor’s of Business Administration degree. I have spent over 2,160 hours in class with the same group of awesome classmates, hailing from all over the world. This core group of students has welcomed transfer students and said goodbye to others. We’ve sat through classes that ‘never ended’ and learned about the 2008 financial crisis more times than can be counted. We took finals that were worth 40% of the grade and finals that were worth 10%. We’ve had teachers with perfect English and teachers with ‘no’ English. And now I am realizing that we, classmates, have spent more time together than we have left before we part ways. In fact, some of my classmates are already finished with us and will be traveling to different countries next year as exchange students.

Here in Taiwan it is quite common for people to remain close to their high school, or even junior high school, classmates throughout their entire lives. Many of my Taiwanese classmates spend weekends throughout the year, going back to their home city to visit with a group of high school classmates that planned a get-together. A fifty plus year old Taiwanese man we know went on regular walks with one of his high school classmates up until his untimely death. While these are only two examples there are countless others.

I am understanding more and more why this is the case. Like my current university program, Taiwanese high school students spend every day and every class with the same group of students. It is bonding to say the least. Everyone knows exactly who the slackers are and who the hard workers are. Everyone knows who is getting into playing guitar and who is getting into partying. Everyone knows everything about everyone.

At first, I think it was pretty strange for us as foreigners. But I have to say that after three years of it I have really come to enjoy it. There are definitely the clicks and groups and all that. But at the same time there is definitely an overall togetherness amongst us. I am hopeful that this bond remains even after graduation. Next year won’t be the same with Gina and Jennifer and Ken and the rest of my classmates who will be exchange students away in their various locales.

While I disagree with educational philosophy and practices here in Taiwan in many regards, I have become a big fan of grouping students into classes that remain together throughout a program’s duration.

We have completed what has been one of our most fun trips between the USA and Taiwan and are now chilling at our home in the good ol’ Jhongjheng District of Taipei City.

Our visit in California proved to be fantastically cultural and extremely enjoyable…you can tell I’ve been in the US for ten weeks ’cause I’ve got such a big vocab to draw on.

We made last Sunday a beach day and our friends took us out to Newport Beach. The sun was great and the waves were awesome. We all did our fair share of body-surfing, sun-bathing, and frisbee. Later we went to the evening service at our friends’ church. Monday we went to The Huntington where I saw a Gutenberg Bible as well as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that had the Gutenberg beat by like 50 or a hundred years. The gardens there are huge and we only made it through a third or so before the place closed. It’s a pretty cool place! Tuesday we went to The Getty. Again we only made it through a small portion of this place because it is stinking huge. Incredible collection as well and thanks to the wishes of its founder, J. Paul Getty, they aren’t allowed to charge admission! I of course liked the French Impressionism section the best but they also had a bronze exhibit that was pretty incredible as well. Actually the whole place was magnificent and I would definitely go back.

Tuesday evening brought a mini-reunion for Emily and I. Some of our friends whom we had met in Taiwan were in Long Beach for various reasons and the three of them came over to Genevieve and Kevin’s house for an excellent meal of spaghetti coupled with lots of talking and catching up! That night definitely ranked high on the most fun of our summer list.

Wednesday was a relax day and that night we were driven to the airport, graciously given exit row seats upon request, and settled in for a long but good (remember my high endorsement from a few months ago?) flight on Malaysia Airlines back to our little island. No joke I even slept for several hours which hardly ever happens!

We lost a day coming over and Friday morning after landing we made our way by bus and MRT back to our home in Taipei. I had planned on being out of commission but I felt fine. I even went to my Friday afternoon class and got to say hi to everyone.

Well, since then we’ve been grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, and in general settling in for another year.

Today we made it to church at New Hope and had a wonderful time worshiping God and catching up with friends.

Now its back to cleaning…

“The man who finds a wife finds a treasure, and he receives favor from the Lord.”  -Proverbs 18:22 courtesy of www.BibleGateway.com. I am one of those lucky guys who found a treasure. Emily and I just marked our two year wedding anniversary and I am remembering how much more fun it is to be on this side of that day. Not only that but getting the chance to think again about how crazy it is a bum like me ended up with a babe like her.

Sunday, August 9th, I led the Bible discussion at the church meeting in Sturgis on John 9:1-5. It had been a while since I’d done any Bible research and I had a blast diving into it. For some reason, up until now, I’ve never used Bible commentaries but I saw The Matthew Henry Commentary on the bookshelf in my parents’ house and read what it had to say on the passage. It was great! The actual leading of the discussion was interesting and fun as well. I like Jesus!

This past Friday we pulled our last corn tassels of the summer. It was a good summer job but its nice to be done with the six-o’clock mornings for a while. That evening we also got to spend some time with my brother, his wife, and their girls! If anyone is ever in Kalamazoo I recommend Schwarma King…you won’t be sorry. Over the rest of the weekend we were able to have a wonderful visit with one of my best friends, John, and his wife and daughter. John introduced me to mountain biking. I can see why people get into it! Emily and I had a great time chilling out with them, eating lots of good food and catching up on life….one of those things ya gotta do when you leave for a year at a time and when you come back your friend has a one year-old that you’ve never even met.

Yesterday evening we took off to head down to Florida where one of my other best friends, Marty, is stationed with the Navy for a visit. After sleeping in a parking lot for a few hours south of Nashville we hit the road again this morning and arrived safe and sound to his Huckleberry Finn paradise right outside of Pensacola this afternoon. So far we’ve kayaked around his bayou, shot bottles out of the water with a .22 and toured the area complete with Marty warning us of where the cops hang out and stories of his escapades talking his way out of tickets. Can’t wait to see whats next.

Its crazy how fast the summer is wrapping up. I’m a little bummed I wasn’t able to go camping up in Ludington with my 2nd family but I guess that’s life. After we’re done here in Florida we’ll swing through Tennessee and Kentucky for visits with Emily’s extended family. It has been a while since I’ve had a good, long road-trip and so far its been awesome!

I’ve been thinking about my second family lately. The Pippers took me in and let me live in their basement in exchange for a little babysitting during my year-long, unpaid, internship with Student Statesmanship Institute (SSI). They welcomed me back to sleep on the hide-a-way several times after that whenever I was in town and let me stay back in my old room for another 6 months right before I was married last year. Without a doubt they are a huge part of my life and I miss them.

Dennis is in fact a big reason why this site exists. He, along with Robbia, gave the taiwaneers.com domain to Emily and I as a wedding gift and has been webmastering and hosting this site on his server since it started. A great guy who I always enjoyed talking with, sitting around the kitchen table sipping beer and making wisecracks while the kids were swimming or bouncing on the trampolene. The camping I got to go along with the Pippers on is still with me. Higgins lake with the empty campground, and Luddington! Great times that I wish I could do over.

Robbia was our connection to summer jobs this past summer which was incredibly wonderful, taking the pressure of finding the dough-re-me for the plane tickets off of our shoulders. I cannot forget how her and Dennis included me in the MSU workers/friends cliqe parties, not to mention her own contributions to the beer sipping and wisecracks around the table. I loved those parties, which seems strange to me now since everyone was either married with kids or the kids themselves, and I was the 20 year-old guy who tagged along with the Pippers. For some reason those parties made me feel like I had a group. I was away from home but it was okay because I had a group. I haven’t even mentioned the food. The mushrooms Robbia can make are out of this world (did I mention Dennis’ homemade beef jerky?)….I’ll leave out the entire list of food that I miss from the Pippers because it would just be too long. The kind of hospitality Robbia and Dennis have is amazing. They basically had me over to dinner about a month into my internship, and towards the end of the meal Robbia asked me when I wanted to move in. A few days later I did and I’m so glad.

Abi, when I first met her was only eight years old. Now she’s a beautiful, talented, young lady who can razzle dazzle you with a piano and can make anything from cookies to dinner. She’s a fantastic young woman who loves God and seems to have limitless potential.

Noah, the former six year old now hockey/baseball/everything player, is someone you better not ‘let win’ when it comes to the basketball hoop in the drive way because now he really will beat you! He is definitely special to me. In my own family I’m the younger brother and now I finally have someone that I’m bigger than!!! He’s a great guy.

Emma, that four year old who was so crabby that first night at dinner, having just woke up from a nap, is now so grown up. She is basically a FIREBALL. I never used to understand it when I was younger and adults would describe certain people as FIREBALLS but now I do and Emma is one of them. She such a cool person and doesn’t let being the youngest in the family get in the way of anything.

If I listed out all the ways the Pippers have given to me (like helping at my wedding, giving me shelter, giving me sage counsel when I was hung up on Emily, taking me camping….) we’d be here forever.

I miss them and wish them a Merry Christmas!

PS- Some of you may wonder if this post reflects a bad relationship with my own family. On the contrary, I believe my incredibly good relationship with my natural family has made creating relationships like this one with the Pippers even better and I doubt my natural family will feel hurt or diminished by this post.

We slept in and missed church today. After waking up I walked down to the OK Mart convenience store down the street with an umbrella to shield me from the light drizzle to buy some milk and orange juice. One of the little neighborhood boys ran to catch up with me on his way to the store as well in what looked like his pjs. I said hello and he laughed. On the way back I ran into two of the other little neighborhood boys crowding each other under their little umbrella who said hello.

Back at home I put on a pot of coffee, stuck two slices of homemade bread (Emily’s getting good) into the oven to toast, and got the pan hot for frying an egg. I’ve never been very good at keeping the egg together when frying but low and behold, after asking my wife for advice on how she does it so well, today I managed to fry a restaurant worthy sunny side-up egg for the top of her toast. Thats the way she likes it, a fried egg on top of a dry piece of toast.

Sticking butter on my own slice of toast, pouring orange juice for my wife and delivering her breakfast to her, I poured myself some coffee and settled onto our couch to read a little in Bob Dylan’s autobiography Chronicles volume one which I’m about two thirds through. Hearing the patter of the rain outside only added to the perfect beginning to the day.

After a half hour or more Emily and I put our books aside, turned to where we’ve been reading in the Bible, Revelations, and read around four chapters discussing as we went. I got out my guitar and music sheets and we sang some praise songs and prayed. Its so great to be able to have church in the intimacy of your own home with the woman you love and the Creator of all!

Yesterday was great too. By happen chance we ended up spending several hours at the apartment of Peter and Angela, an American guy and his Taiwanese wife, their 5-month old baby Amira, and two young assistant professors from Ming Chuan, Michael from Australia, and Graham from Scotland. It was great to spend some time with people more our age/place in life after so many hours in class with a bunch of versions of myself at eighteen.

I met Michael a few months back at a two day camp thing that Ming Chuan held for students who wanted to go. He was one of the workshop presenters and rode with us on the bus back home. We sat together and talked during the ride. His Ph.D is in film studies and he was fun to talk to. Anyways last week I saw him through the crowds at Ming Chuan’s 51st anniversary celebration and was able to wave a quick hello before having to keep moving to stick with Emily in the masses. I emailed him saying sorry for only giving a quick wave and he invited me and Emily to yesterday’s little get-together for some poker and good’ol hanging out. It couldn’t have turned out better. Peter, the American guy, is a third year student at Ming Chuan so my worries of being a student among a bunch of academics was replaced with genuine enjoyment for the level of conversation. Although it made me miss my brother, Marty, John, and the Liberty guys!

Tomorrow I have an Accounting quiz and one for Calculus on Tuesday. Wednesday through Friday we have spring break and are going to go with Megan down to visit our good friend Sandy in the middle of Taiwan. Sandy’s planned what seems to be a very fun trip and it’ll be great to see her again. If you remember she is the wonderful person who, with the help of her father, helped us find our apartment, picked us up from the airport when we arrived, took us on our shopping spree to outfit our crib, and in general has helped us with all those pesky details of life. We love her so much!

We’re going to have our first visitor from America in a few weeks too. Technically he’s just passing through but it better to say he’s visiting us doesn’t it. My friend  has a layover in Taipei on his way to Indonesia to spend some time there. I’m eager to see him and spend a few hours with another guy from back home!

Well I guess that’ll do it for now.