All posts filed under: Personal

And then there was computer gaming

Last year, I shared how my teens were filled with online 3D multiplayer chatting games, but I have to share how that phase died and slowly converted to computer gaming. We’re talking about actual “I went to the store and bought some games to play on my shitty Windows XP” and “I used my first-ever debit card to order GTA as a 14-year-old on Amazon.” type of games.  If you haven’t read the first part yet, I recommend you go back and check it out. AS you may or may not know already, my parents hated the concept of video games. They felt like it was a waste of a child’s time and unproductive time not well spent. But my 12-year-old self didn’t care too much of their feelings. If I was going to game, I was gonna do it. When I was younger, it was all about the consoles. During my upbringing, we saw how Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft blessed us with these new gaming consoles that changed the way we consumed video games from the …

So, when are you coming home?

I get this question a lot.  Do I tell people how I truly feel? Should I spill the real tea?  When I came to Taiwan, after graduating, I planned to come to Taipei, study 9 months of Chinese and then “maybe” go home and start working. But really, in my head, I was already thinking “Stay another year, get your mess together, do something else and continue learning Chinese” was lowkey already my plan. April came by this year, and everything was going so well. By then, I have fully assimilated into Taiwan, my Chinese learning was going well, I was a part of so many activities, and going home just seemed like an afterthought. It was in fact, the very last option. Even when things went to shit in the summer, going home just was not a thing. When I first came back from living in China for a year, I was experiencing a major reverse culture shock. Even though I have mixed feelings about China itself, I, in fact, was very pleased with my time living …

Throwback to Online Web Multiplayer Games

As early back as elementary school, my father got me hooked onto using computers. He spent a lot of time building his desktop computers so I would accompany him to the big computer shows out in MD and VA where he would go buy his spare parts. Sitting at home, I would just watch him put the computer together in fascination. A lot of the vendors would even sell those educational games and he would get those for me as well. But as I got older my interests expanded to other things.  Now when he set up a computer just for my sisters and me, everything changed. I started going ham and doing whatever I could on the internet. Using Google Search and Ask Jeeves, listening to music and watching music videos on Yahoo, I mean I was doing everything I possibly could. For at this time, the internet was still fresh, relatively new and playing games online was a huge thing. I started playing the single-player games on websites like Arcadepod, Y8, Miniclip, Freeonlinegames, …

Finding an English Teaching Job in Taiwan is easy “they say” w/ GIFS

Who? What? When? Where?  Why? and  How? I am pretty convinced that the universe was out to get me. My luck in job hunting for English Teaching particularly in Taipei has been close to impossible to find. And it doesn’t help that I am also picky, but it is for a good god damn reason.  I have already lived in Taipei for more than one year now with some English Teaching Experience under my belt, so I have an idea and know what kind of work I want to do. And from talking to many people who have or are teaching in Taipei, I have gained a lot of insight on what I can do and things I can avoid. So finding this work is easy right? Yes, but just because it is easy to find and secure, doesn’t mean it necessarily a “good” place to work.  For starters, I want to find work to do in the afternoon, for I plan to continue studying Chinese later this year. Secondly, I want to also find a school …

Language learning takes time

When I first started learning in China 3 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. At first, I honestly was against learning a new language, for I just was never good at it. I took Spanish for 3 years in high school and that was a bust. Love the language, hated my teachers. And unfortunately, I didn’t grow up learning my parents’ native tongue, Igbo so the interest to learn any language was never there. While learning Spanish, the process of learning the language was not fun. All of my Spanish teachers were crazy. My first teacher spent more time dancing bachata music with us and flirting with one of my classmates than teaching the language. The second one was a complete psycho. Definitely, if not one of the worst teachers I have ever had in my entire life. Too many days I went home crying. She would say one thing, do another and always found a way to ridicule people in class which I hugely disliked. My last teacher knew …

The strange gets stranger

I have had a handful of “interesting” encounters with people in Taiwan. Too many to not just share. When I travel, people are more inclined to stare. But I feel in Taiwan, they love to come up to foreigners and share the craziest lines as a way to practice their English or even see if the person can speak Mandarin. And I know for sure being black, a woman, AND traveling solo in Taiwan, I’ve had one too many funny, weird, creepy, and interesting interactions with locals in this country. Here’s an example of just a few: The funny Selecting Snacks We’re by a food stall in the night market where this lady sells a snack called 年糕 which is a deep-fried rice cake. Anyway, my friend ordered and the lady thought I chose the darkest pieces because my skin is so black. I hollered. The audacity. “WOAHHHHH YOU CAN USE CHOPSTICKSSS???!!!!” So in Hualien, I took my friend to a restaurant near our hostel for he wanted some noodles. Mind you, a lot of …

NEW RIDE, LET’S GET INTO MOTION

Why do I love to ride? It’s super convenient and my way of unwinding down. I just love being outside and seeing new places and exploring different parts of where I am without necessarily putting in a lot of effort to walk. With a bike, you can cover more ground moving at a slightly faster rate in a lesser amount of time. On those bad days, If i go out for a ride, those headaches and all of what I was thinking about goes away temporarily. Sometimes, I feel like I am in a movie going through the streets. That strong wind pushing against me maneuvering through the people, the cars, and the pedestrians. But biking is also my main way to commute to places. I know if I am going somewhere relatively close (and close can be different depending on how you may see it). But for example, if the location is close enough, I will walk. If it is kind of close, but not too far, I will definitely ride a bike. If …

How did I get started with biking?

Biking as a way to commute has gained a lot of attention in the past few years, but it is also something that I have personally always wanted to do. When I first learned how to ride, at that time my family and I only lived in a small 2 bedroom apartment in Fort Totten. My father would stand outside and watch us ride our bikes down the alley while fixing his car or chatting with the neighbors. If we went any further, he would get worried for we were so young at the time. When he wasn’t looking, I would sneak off with my sister and ride down to my cousins’ place (which was just literally a block down) to see if they were outside and say hi and I would ride right back. I wanted to re-live those times but extend it to more of an everyday thing. And this where it started: The transition to biking as a way to commute didn’t start till 2013 right before I graduated high school. I …

Where is home?

Nnedimma, you are always on the go. When are you coming back home? Nnedimma, are you flying home for the holidays? Do you have a set place you want to settle after you are done traveling? These are questions I get a lot of time from people. There’s no set time or place that I have in mind. I have no specific ideal or dream place that I want to be. And to be honest, I feel like I haven’t gone to enough places to answer this question. And even if I did, is it enough? Is it where I truly want to be? Do I want to have a place set out for me for the rest of my life? What am I exactly looking for? Maybe I should just be content of where I am? Will, I just hit a dead end? Growing up in the United States nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. to first generation to Nigerian born parents, DC was a very comfortable place for our family to live in. Even my …

Postcarding for Life

In second grade, my teacher introduced a PenPal program through our writing lessons where each student was assigned a pen pal. These pen pals were college students from a university in DC. So every once in a while, we would get a letter from them. For homework, we had to write a response to these letters. I really enjoyed this program a lot. The thought of receiving a letter from someone you don’t know, yet share their life to them was exciting to me. We learned how to write a letter, how to properly fill out the envelope, what kind of stamps to use etc. And this program continued on till around the end of fourth grade, and I didn’t have a chance to send letters since and was devastated. But when I graduated from high school, my really good friend of mine insisted that since we were going to university in different states that we should send letters to each other. Fun. And the letters began. As much as I love to talk to …