Feeling Freedom

Feeling Freedom

Whitney 吳思妮

I honestly have no idea why I am writing this but I have always been in love with Japan.  Sometimes I catch myself and think of how I could possibly love a country I have never been to...it might be because I get tears in my eyes and feel such a longing that I fear I might break whenever I see a picture of Japan.  The landscapes are just so gorgeous that I can hardly stand it and I immediately reach out for a blank piece of paper and a writing utensil just so that I can draw or write what I feel or see; to just express my yearning for a place I have only heard about, seen in pictures, and read about.  Sometimes I feel like there is something wrong with me because my friends tell me that whenever I hear about an Asian country or language (especially about Japan/Japanese) I get just so happy, excited, and just so giddy that they have described my obsession as a fetish of some sort and that it is like watching me having an orgasm *blush*.  To me I don't find anything wrong with my liking Japan and ither Asian countries and my need to travel and they don't really think so either but they just think that my obsession with traveling and my 'need' for Asian countries is a bit over the top.  Does anyone have any feelings that are the same when it comes to traveling or languages? I don't understand how they cannot have a goal or a dream that is so important to them that it has become a need, a freedom.

This is the reason why I wish to become an English teacher. Though I love to help others and teach people new things I must admit that traveling and learning new things is a divine feeling and its like a rush of adrenaline.  My major is what will give me my freedom and myself back to me.

While in Taiwan I finally felt like I was home...in America I am the weird kid while my brother is the one that everyone knows.  I don't resent my brother at all for he is my little brother and I love him dearly, but I don't fit in at all.  Whithout realizing it Taiwan had become my home. I may have only stayed there for only one year but it was the best and the worst year of my life, so bittersweet that I almost wish that I hadn't gone but at the same time I would never give it up, no matter what. It was like tasting the forbidden fruit, so sweet that it hurt my teeth but too tantilizing to not take another bite and another and another until the fruit had been eaten and all that was left was the seed which had planted itself in my mind; never allowing me to forget that though the year was hard, tough, and lonely I had met many fascinating people, made many friends, and found the me that I had never known or allowed to grow.  I found out that I loved to explore everything, that I loved to learn the language even if it was frustrating, that I could make speeches and teach a class without stuttering or having a loss of words, and most of all I that I could feel completely accomplised and satisfied with what I had learned that day. My time there taught me what it must feel like to love something so dearly that you never want to let it go and to see beauty in places where you might not think it would be.

Taiwan taught me so much and I wish to give back to the country I feel at home in and to other countries as well.  The world is my home and I want to continue to imrove myself and think of every country as my home as I have made Taiwan mine.

One day I will be free to explore my home and experience things I have never seen, felt, or heard of and I look forward to my shackles being cut from my flesh and left to rust as I take steps to find the other peices of myself that I have yet to discover and nurture if I so choose.

• travel
• Japan
• Asian
• Freedom
• Bittersweet
• Love
• learning
• languages
• countries