Made in Macau

There was an odd feeling I had when I started to read my first post for the first time since I wrote it. I briefly mentioned my anxieties over trying to figure out how airports work; and in many previous posts, I expressed similar worries over things like buses and trip planning and language barriers that now seem slightly trivial to me. This past weekend, I was in middle of returning home alone. I even had to deal with a last minute change of plans due to the very long delay of my first plane which would have prevented me from getting to my connecting flight. I had to take a different plane on a completely different route to London instead of Los Angeles, which I think would have made me completely freak out a few months ago, especially since I was alone. But now I have gained enough experience to take it all in stride, just following the new plan and do what I have to do. No doubt, I’m still a spaz that will freak out the moment that complicated problem rears its u

             I'm down to my last week here, and though I'm still quite sad to be leaving (mainly due to the prospect of packing 😭), I'm more and more looking forward to coming home, being with my family, leaving the cockroaches in our dorm, and not having to worry about language barriers when going out. I imagine that I'll find going on vacations within the United States to be infinitely easier this summer, and have a newfound appreciation for cockroach control in my house 😅.               But I decided that I should have one last excursion before the end of the semester, and so I planned a trip to Guangzhou in the Guangdong Province of China. Guangzhou is the third largest city in China, behind Beijing and Shanghai, and since it's only an hour by train from the border, I decided to put my 10 year Chinese visa to one more use before leaving. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince anyone to come with me since they all had tests and studying to worry about, but I d

I love seeing Senado Square at night.              My birthday was on Wednesday, and one thing that I thought about pretty often before coming to Macau was how I would be spending it. More than that, I was always wondering what my life at that time would be like. "Past me" was thinking about my birthday as some sort of checkpoint in my time abroad; it's near the end of the semester, so will I be busy with work? Will I have a lot of friends? Would they want to travel somewhere with me to celebrate? How will I feel, knowing that my flight back home is a couple weeks away?              Well it's about that time now. In terms of work, I don't have much. Classes have ended, I just finished my last paper, and I only have two finals. The next couple of weeks is the examination period, so I'm planning on going Guangzhou and/or Hong Kong during the time. While I have so many good friends from the study abroad group and a few local friends, I'm afraid that I