Week 21: Burnin' Out, Burnin' Out

Oh boy, burnout! This week's been so, so tough. On top of coming back from another tiring Taipei weekend, this week we had the joy of going to work on a Saturday. Apparently, Taiwan's government mandated that this particular Saturday become part of the work week to make up for an upcoming day off in a couple of weeks. At the very least, I did get to see not one, but two rainbows throughout the week.

I was exhausted, but I made it through Tuesday. After classes, I went to dinner with some other ETAs and two of the German exchange students who were visiting. It was a great time; we talked about Kinmen, NTU, German culture, visiting different places, and statistics/computer science. Afterwards, we headed back to the Jincheng apartment to hang out.

The Germans shared some Christmas snacks their relatives had mailed them. They brought various chocolates, gingerbread cookies, anise cookies, and literal packing peanuts, all of which were pretty good. The gingerbread and anise cookies reminded me of a couple of Dutch cookies my mom used to keep around the house, which was a nice memory. I missed having them.

We hung out on the roof later, then the Germans and two of my housemates decided to visit Little K. I headed to bed, but I heard the Little K excursion went pretty well (minus a bird incident).

On Wednesday, I didn't do much. I taught, then went to EV to plan for next semester. The most interesting part of the day was talking to one of the Jinhu elementary students, who gave me a konjac jelly and green tea drink. I just spent the rest of the day running errands and doing work.

Thursday was exhausting. As usual, I hung out with my partner during lunch and we checked out a place called 雙口海邊 (Shuangkou Beach), which was nice. Then I went back to Jhou Huan to play piano and dance, but I ended up feeling nauseous and motion sick afterwards. Once I went home, I did some productive things, then grabbed dinner, where I ran into some other ETAs. Besides that, I kinda stayed in my room and just tried to feel better.

On Friday, I had the most sleep I'd had in months! A full eight hours! I rolled up to the last day of EV of the semester a little early, which was surprising. As with a couple other days this week, as soon as work was over, I turned on the fairy lights and curled up under the blankets in my room.

For dinner, my partner and I went to a nearby Italian restaurant and ran into three other ETAs, so the five of us ate together. The conversation? Fun! The tiramisu? Impeccable! If only we didn't have to go to school the next day.

And then, the dreaded extra work day rolled around. Fortunately, Saturday was meant to make up for a Friday, and I don't teach at Jhou Huan on Fridays, so I didn't have anything to do all day. Unfortunately, I still had to wake up at 6:40am and go to work.

I spent the day working on some arts and crafts, but it turns out I bought oil paints by accident, which means that every time I work on my project, it takes at least eighteen to twenty-four hours to dry. Also, I apparently don't have paint thinner either, so it'll take even longer to dry.

During lunch, the other Little K ETAs and I briefly checked out the landmine museum. There was a nice overlook of some fields at the top as well as an extensive underground tunnel system full of exhibits. One of the most interesting but jarring experiences was walking through a tunnel with flashing lights, explosion sounds, and deactivated landmines.

After school, I headed to the Triangle Fort Café in Jinning with my boyfriend to meet up with some other ETAs. From the café, which was perched on top of an old fort, we had a beautiful view of the sunset, the Kinmen bridge, the Taiwan strait, and Xiamen.

I was pretty tired, but I liked chatting with the other ETAs. I also enjoyed the Kaoliang egg tart I bought, which just tasted like a normal egg tart. Back at home, I stayed in and had a chill evening. I just laid in bed and watched half of a movie.

Sunday was the entirety of our weekend. It was a good day to lay around and do nothing, but also our only day to do errands and other chores before the week started up again. I didn't do much, just called a friend from home.

This week's hotpot dinner was the last one for most of us before winter break, which is roughly a month. It still doesn't feel real that our grant period here in Taiwan is half over already; it felt like just yesterday that none of us had scooters and we were meeting our students for the first time.

Admittedly, I'm a bit anxious to leave for winter break. As burnt out and exhausted as I am, I love my school and all the members of my cohort, and it makes me a little sad to think about spending a month away from them. I can't imagine what the end of next semester's going to be like when we all have to go our separate ways.

I also think that the degree of exhaustion and burnout I've been experiencing this past week is keeping me from hanging out with everyone else as much as I'd like, which in turn is making me even more anxious about not seeing everyone

I'm excited to travel to several different parts of Taiwan and a couple other countries though! Lots of members of the rest of the cohort are traveling abroad (and domestically) too, so hopefully we all have some fun stories to share when we get back.

Here's to our last week of teaching before the Fulbright midyear conference and winter break; we're so close. 加油!

Writer's Note: This post was originally written on Thursday, January 12th, 2022.