This was originally posted on blogger. Well, a lot of things are going to be changing in the next few months for me. Notably, I’m intending to leave Taiwan on May 19th. The reason for departure is nothing dramatic or decisive. It’s simply that two years seemed about right. Two years is the same length as the Peace Corps, Mormon missionary service, and, for a long time, the Taiwanese military service. Two years is a substantial amount of time to live in a place, but it’s gone by remarkably fast.

Both Berkeley and Kaohsiung have become adopted homes for me. Home in the sense that I’ve gained a fondness for the people, for the geography (within the city and without), for the way people talk and what they talk about. I’ve become accustomed to the weather in Kaohsiung, so much so that now, it is 11 degrees Celsius (52 F) and I feel like I’m freezing my butt off. How bizarre.

In college, however, I more or less had a set end-date. Four years. Too much longer and you get kicked out. I stuck to the standard time-frame and then, upon graduation, moved across the Pacific. Although leaving college was inevitable, leaving the US was not. But moving overseas was my way of escaping adulthood in America. I thought it too intimidating to not have all my friends living a bike-ride away from me. I found the idea of a 9-5pm horrifyingly confining.

Being in Taiwan for this amonut of time has let me cherish and cultivate my non-work life. Here I’ve had the leisure to play ping pong, strum the guitar, run and bike, read and listen to podcasts, play dungeons and dragons (a new, dorky but good past-time!), and catch up on Pixar movies, to me, is an investment in life-long happiness. Cultivating activities that bring me calm is critical for when the going gets rough. And teaching English, honestly, has been everything I hoped. I love the dynamism and excitement of teaching kids. It’s a job with few stresses, mostly just joyful moments. Part of me even worries if I’ll ever find work I love as much as this again.

But I’m hoping to move back after the summer and look for what scared me away in the first place: a “normal” job. A life that involves an office, early morning wake-ups, preparing my own meals again. When I graduated college, settling into that sort of life felt like the beginning of the end. Entering the work-force was, in my caricaturing point of view, the start of a long, tiring slog towards retirement (and then death). I’ve changed my perspective. Now I believe I have the skills to make life more meaningful, even if it’s built around a more routine job. For instance, how to make friends in a new city, how to explore activities I want to do – the things you’re meant to learn in your twenties. So I’m hoping that when I move back to the US, life is a little more flexible and lively than I had originally thought. A “normal” job can be rewarding, grounding even. And it’s true, after all, that stellar pieces of music, the greatest books, the blaze-trailing politicians and business-people mostly get their work done at a normal office. I believe I can work like that too. Staying in Kaohsiung too long, I’d worry won’t be living up to my potential.

After leaving in May I’m going to do some traveling. I’ll write another time about where and how it goes. The primary goal is actually not to see new places. Obviously that is part of travel, and I look forward to that. But in truth, traveling is an exercise in becoming more of a searcher rather than a planner. A planner is what I am, as much as I loathe to say so. I schedule things in advance, iron out the details, and feel a grating discomfort when the plans change. Creating plans is like a religion to me. It applies in all aspects of my life: what I do in my future, what I’m doing in a week, how I bike to work. Often, even how I write a blogpost (you might be able to tell that this blog post is more train of consciousness). In most cases, planning in good – it helps me feel more organized, more in control of a situation and more relaxed. The problem, though, is that because this is so deeply ingrained in my psyche, when something doesn’t go according to plan, it’s deeply distressing. I’m thrown in a loop and fumble around. That is, until I concoct a new plan.

I was talking to my friend Truman recently. Ten years ago, he hitch-hiked from Europe through Russia and China and back to Taiwan. The journey and voyages took eighteen months, and he had a total of only $8,000 to spend. Many nights he pitched a tent by a road-side or relied on the charity of a stranger. In reflecting on this journey, he said that when you’re traveling on a shoe-string budget, there’s simply no use in worrying about the unknowns. Even when it comes to important things – which trucker picks you up, what you eat next meal, when you’ll next sleep on a bed – what life will look like can’t be known in advance. Worrying about the future is useless. All you can do is pick a direction, and focus on the next choice at hand.

I’m trying to channel that ethos (not necessarily Truman’s particular methods) in travel and the subsequent job search. It involves some beliefs. Belief that things will work out. Belief that I will be okay if it doesn’t. Belief in the people I don’t yet know who might help me along the way.

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Happy New Year, Western and Chinese. This year is the year of the dragon which means I was born two Zodiac cycles ago. One’s fortune is actually inauspicious on this year and so according to tradition in Taiwan, you’re meant to do some extra prayer and stuff to appease those folks up above. I hope I get around to it! Oh, and it’s also my golden birthday (meaning the date in April, 24, matches my age, 24). How curious!

This time my update reads more like a journal entry. I hope you enjoy a slightly different form and seeing my style of thinking. As always, I love to hear everyone’s updates in return, even if (especially if!) it’s been a while.

I have a question for the lovely people who read this blog. I was thinking about adulting – something I’ve been trying to do for the past few years. Well, it’s a work in progress, so I want to ask you for your thoughts. How do you know when you’re an adult? Have there been any critical junctures in your life where you thought – “wow, I’m really adulting”, or conversely, “wow, adulting is so much harder than I thought”? If you have some of those stories please share them with me and perhaps I can include it in the next update.

Love,

Rohan.

PS. The jazz album 補習**BAND from last May is out. Music here and post-mortem here.

PPS. A website redesign is in the works. You’ll know it when you see it.

PPPS. Some people notice grammar mistakes in these updates. A+ for participation!