I meant to write this post a long time ago, but I was emotionally and physically drained on the flight home, and then I was immediately thrust into RA responsibilities and the new semester once I got back, so I haven’t gotten around to it.  But alas, here is the long awaited last day or two:

To start out with… I got an A on my Chinese final!  I really had no idea how I’d do leaving the classroom, so my grade was a pleasant surprise.  The tutors brought us breakfast, so instead of our last 1:1 session we just hung out, played games and ate food.

Before the banquet, all the dance groups were practicing their routines at the dorm and then again at the banquet hall.  TUSA rented out a huge room on the top floor of a restaurant and invited all of the teachers, tutors, host families, language partners, several government officials, and the French exchange program.

Because we had done two rehearsals, everything went smoothly.  The Taiwanese students in TUSA made a creative off-spin of Monsters Inc. to show on the projector while people were coming in.  Kristina and George were the MCs and spoke to the audience in Chinese.  Each class performed a skit, sang or danced.

Tony gave a heartfelt and humorous speech that reflected on the program.

My A1 class did a “Harry Potter puppet pals” themed skit that used the basic sounds we learned to pronounce in the first couple of weeks.  It was a hit.

Somewhere in the middle they brought out a several-course meal of incredible food.  Fried rice in an seashell?  I felt like a queen.

Later I was in two dance performances, which also went over well.  I really wasn’t too nervous given we had practiced them so many times.  I was just excited to perform.

I wish I could remember the name of the all-girls’ dance, but alas, my memory fails me.  The partner dance was “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga, and my partner was Tony.

Each teacher gave a short speech, which was met with cheers by their respective class.

And near the end we were presented with our certificates that said we had completed TUSA, and we were officially ambassadors.

A lot of the other classes sang songs– the highest level sang Mulan’s “I’ll Make a Man Out Of You” in Chinese.  The French students sang “Dui Bu Qi.”  Just to name a few.

Then to close off the banquet, they showed a video that the Taiwanese end of TUSA had been putting together for the entirety of the program.  It had video messages from the language partners and photos from the trip.  They had spent a ton of time on it, and it showed.  I’m pretty sure half of the people in TUSA were was crying at this point.  I was overcome by a strange combination of emotion— glad to have met everyone I did and share these incredible experiences with them, but sad that I didn’t know when I’d see any of them again.  At the end of the video, there were candles flickering in a dark room on the screen.  And out of nowhere the language partners pulled out little candles and gave us gifts.  It was truly overwhelming.

After the video, there was of a giant frenzy of goodbyes, and crying, and “I’ll miss you”s.  My host parents came and gave me a cute clay figurine of me holding a turtle (Maryland’s mascot).  It sits in my dorm room at school.  My host family and I still email occasionally, and I really hope we meet again.

Cards were signed…

And lots of photos were taken…

  

All my favorite guys!

All the tutor-student pairs we could find at one time…

Then Tammy, Jocelyn, Emily and I went back to the dorm.  The three of us said goodbye to my roommate, Jocelyn, and we took this one last selfie of the roommate-language-partner dream team:

She was off the the US, where I would be headed tomorrow.

But then a bunch of us were like, “Why not?  Let’s go to karaoke!  One last night in Taiwan!”

It was a blast.

On my way out of the dorm, Sally, Mark, Tony, Tammy and I posed for a polaroid:

Leaving the dorm was sad.  Tony and Jojo made an unexpected appearance at the train station, which was sweet.  Saying goodbye to Tony and Tammy there felt impossible, but I somehow managed to do it through tissues and broken sentences.

I boarded the HSR, and the rest is history.  I met my parents at the Baltimore airport at 6 a.m., I told them all I could remember in an exciting splurge of information and I was practically falling asleep by dinner. When I reunited with college friends, I gave them pineapple cake.  But really.  I can’t wait to go back.