Yesterday I didn't really have to go to school, and I didn't, my visa had already been extended for the last time. I no longer need to give immigration my attendance records to justify re-extending my visa. I would like to continue my studies, but I'm in Taiwan, I've had only a few days off in the ten months I've been here already. Most of my friends have had a few weeks off, they go to Universities, but my school is catered to business men, they don't take long vacations like students do. I want to use my remaining 12 days to see a little bit of the island. Today I returned, after my little hooky day, to have one final day of class, and to say goodbye to my teachers and my 3 remaining classmates. I even got to say goodbye to two class mates that had switched to a different class.

Class went as usual, plenty of new confusing words that never quite translate into English. Plenty of laughing. Plenty of Teacher Chang drawing childish pictures on the white board and apologizing for it. Today Jason came up to the white board and turned one of her pictures into a dog's face. I even had my usual meal of an egg and an egg with rice during class, with a milk tea to wash it all down. I snapped a few pictures too, but I wish I had snapped a few more. I supposed I could go back and have another last day of school, but that would just be weird.

As I passed countless piles of dog "fen" on my way home I remembered that today we learned how to say "a big pile of poo," in the nice way, "the way a young lady would say it" the teacher said. We also learned how to say "double eye-lid" and "single eye-lid," Jason hadn't realized the eye-lid differences (50% of Asians have single eye-lids, Westerners all have double eye-lids), and Yangping said that when he was sick he had double eye-lids. Jason and I let our third teacher know that we thought her eye-lids were pretty, they are. Naturally she rejected this possibility and said that we had a different viewpoint being Westerners. Of course we do.

So after saying my good-byes, riding the elevator down one final time, I found myself turning the corner that I usually turn and feeling an unexpected lump in my throat. As I squeezed by a lady eating noodles from a bowl on a stool blocking 2/3 of the busy sidewalk I knew I'd miss my school days, but I hadn't expected to feel a lump in my throat. I guess it's only natural having spent 3 hours a day for ten months with the same people, learning a new complex language, that I'd feel a little lump in my throat. I still feel a little lump in my throat, I may never see any of them again, who knows where any of us will end up in a few years. From now on I'll have to learn Chinese on my own, no longer will I have a little audience to laugh at my sentences.

But this is just the beginning of the end, I still have a little party to go to and 5 meetings to attend. Many good-byes left to say, people asking me if I'll be coming back, and me saying that I don't know, no plans yet. I've already given my printer to my room-mate and my broken bicycle to Sammy Pu. I'm already wondering how much junk I'll be able to squeeze into my suit cases, I've aquired a few odds and ends.

But my Taiwan adventure is not quite over yet. Even though I've been talking about how little time I have left for at least a month, I still have a couple weeks left for new blog entries, if I find the time, or have a computer on which to type them.