The bus tour into the mountains.

The girls.

Kathy and me photographing a monkey sign.

Touring Ilan's cultural centers and learning puppetry.

Playing kid's games at the night market in Ilan.

Goofing off in the hotel room.

On the bus with Karen, our resident film-maker with a bright future.

Girls and boys at the 228 Memorial.

Reflecting on history, tragedy, and change.

Dinner with the Minister.

Jon's yearly Ximending Night Market / KFC / TAF photo.
Chris, Nancy, Wil, Jon, me, Michael, Dave, Roger, & Andy.

With TAFers Roger, Jon, Michael, Wil, Grace and doggie.

New friends from all over North America.

Roaming Snake Alley.

Snake blood.

More TAFers in Taipei, Steve and Karen!

And Gloria plans to be a TAF staffer too...

Roaming Taipei with Wil and some new friends.

A random peach festival near the hotel.

Goofing off in SOGO with Jon and Andy.

I'm heading to Taiwan tonight. It has been well over a decade since I last visited. I should be more excited.

I said goodbye to Priya and Cherie tonight. I wanted to shed a tear.

I'll be in Taipei, Taiwan between June 26 and July 2 with Wil from TAF and Kathy from TAYL. Come and find us at the Howard Plaza Hotel. But most likely I'll be lost in the city trying to find my way around...

I'm off to TAYL Summer Camp for the weekend... It has been years since I've been in the role of a camp counselor. I'm feeling a little rusty...

This evening, I said goodbye to my friend Sylvia who will be relocating to Houston in a few days. In the coming weeks, several more of my classmates will be leaving the area. With all this time on my hands, I'm finding myself becoming very sentimental about our shared time together during some of the most difficult years of our lives.

Something about sharing extraordinary stresses, life/death decisions, 30 straight hours of work every fourth day, fulfilling expectations of being no-less-than-perfect... these are the common experiences that forge bonds for a lifetime. I guess we needed to find strength in each other in order to survive ourselves.

Frankly, I'm just going to miss being with all of them on an almost daily basis, and a part of me just wants to start crying. I don't reveal my feelings often, but I can honestly say that I love my class dearly - for who they are, what they believe in, and the difference they will make in the world.

I burned a gabazillion katrillion CDs of slideshows, photo memories, and fun videos of the past three years as parting gifts for my fellow residents. The graduating seniors of my class get a bonus disc with surprise extras. After all the hours of creating artwork and manually labelling all the CDs, I think I'm ready to start my own production company. Geez.

Today was my "Hang out with Cindy" day.

Camping in Mendocino...

Today was the official start of my last two weeks of Residency, and I scheduled this slot to be my vacation. So technically, I have no further major responsibilities as a Resident and can consider myself graduated. I have invested years of hard-work, stress, and sleepless nights...

But, I'm finding this all a little bit anti-climactic. Where are all the fireworks?

I went to the store thinking that I was going to buy just a roll of tape. An hour later, I left with $380 worth of groceries and household products, but no tape. I hate when that happens.

I just found out that one of my 2nd cousins goes to Berkeley. And that my laptop wants to self-destruct just as the 3 year warranty is about to expire.

Graduation luncheon for my class.


We'll always be silly kids at heart.

Graduation dinner with my family and friends

TAYL 2005 Planning Retreat.

My Residency class... After our Intern year, 2002-03...

And a few of those friends during tonight's "Prom" celebration.

I guess we're grown up now...