ME, MATT and TISM

It’s December, that means I won’t have any more classes at TAFE and summer is finally here in Tassie. It rains much less here than Taiwan or Scotland, there has been about 10 rainy days since I’ve been here. Of course I am not going to complain about this. What I am less used to though, is the changes in temperature from daytime to night time, it can drop from 18 degrees to 0 sometimes. For this long awaited summer, I am going to spend a summer Christmas with a local family. We are going to have BBQ Christmas Eve dinner at the backyard, very Aussie and I totally look forward to having a summer festive holiday for the first time!


I’ve been living in Launceston for almost a year. The city has a population of 100,000, which is quite small compared to other places I had lived. There are not many foreign students around, I get to hang out with locals more instead. I got bored and a bit restless for the first few months after I got here given the fact that everything just felt so peaceful around here. And then, I start to get used to the pace and lifestyle, just do what the local do (the one I know): getting coffee, reading magazines, lying on the grass, going for a long walk and watching movies (including all the extra and special features that come with DVDs)! Interesting how this place has transformed me from a sleepless, restless worrier into someone who can actually fit in the very laid-back lifestyle—I do much less and I get to sleep much better! I realise my lifestyle is getting closer to be like the house cat, Tism I live with, hmm, not bad at all, “My life as a cat”.

People often ask me questions like: will you get used to living in Taiwan when you go back; what are you going to do with your job; will you go travel again? Well, the only response I can think of now is that I will climb the mountain when I come to it!