10 years later

 What can I say? it's been 10 years since my last blog, a lot has happened since then. There's so much that I want to say but it won't all fit in this post so I'll just talk about the most important things that have happened to me since 2012. 

2013: This was my very last year in Miami, I had just finished up my second semester in FIU and I was needing to find a place of my own since my mom was losing her house. It was definitely an important year because it was the end of a long chapter in my life, where I had spent most of my childhood and part of my young adult life, no more Publix and no more chusmeria.

2014: On July 4th, early in the morning, my friend Frank, his buddy Mustafa and I, set out at 5am. We were bound for West Virginia, about 24 hours by car from Miami. I gave a big hug to my mom and told her I loved her, and from that moment on, I knew I had to take care of myself. I lived in West Virginia with my best friend, his wife and his mom, they really gave me a hand and helped me all the way through, for that I am forever indebted to them. I re-started my school career in West Virginia University where I met some of the most interesting people.

2015: This is the year I started working in Arnold Dining Hall at WVU, it was a pretty laid back job and I enjoyed talking to the international students. This was also the year I made friends with some pretty cool Japanese exchange students, some of them would keep in contact even years after they studied in WVU. I was definitely more sociable at this time, since I saw myself making friends left and right, mainly Japanese and Chinese friends and we usually had a lot of fun together, going out to parties and just hanging out.

2016: This was a big turning point in my life as it was the year in which I finally got the chance to study abroad in Tianjin, China. Our class got a scholarship to study at Tianjin Foreign Studies University and we stayed there for two months, May to June, and it was one of the most eye-opening and jaw-dropping experiences of my life. I had always dreamed of going to Asia and experiencing a different culture in person, and I had finally had that opportunity. Apart from my experience in China, this was also the same year where I visited Japan for the first time, it was everything I had expected and more.

2017: This would be the year I graduated from WVU as a dual major in Chinese Studies and Language and International Relations with emphasis in  East Asia. After a lengthy Capstone requiring me to speak in Chinese for 20 minutes and a 20 page paper about Chinese Opera and its history, I had finally finished my student life. After graduating from WVU, I started working for Teletech as a bilingual operator, we represented United Healthcare. It was working for this industry that I realized how corrupt and fucked up the healthcare system really is.

2018: This was yet another life-changing year for me, as it was the year when I decided to teach English as a foreign language in China. There is a lot to say about China, both good and bad, but that will be for another post. China was quite a rollercoaster ride and very different from the US in terms of ways of looking at the world and how they deal with things, there are people who have never in their lives seen a non-Chinese person and I think that's both fascinating and dumbfounding. During my stay in China, I also got to travel multiple times to Japan and to Hong Kong and Macau. This was also the year that I visited Spain for the first time, with a complimentary stop in Munich, Germany.

2019 to present: I've been living in Japan for about 3 years now and it has been a time full of ups and downs, I've had relationships and I've lost relationships, I've met old friends and also made some new ones. I'm currently working for an Eikaiwa, not the best job around but it pays the bills. I'm hoping to land a job working as an ALT, the pay may not be that much but at least we get weekends off and public holidays off as well.