10 days left and I thought I was ready? I have two major things to do before departure and I still haven’t even started. What am I doing? I’ve really been slacking these past few days. But let’s think about all of this for a sec. I have been in school for a good 4 years. The break is needed and the break starts now. Beyond that, I still haven’t really figured out what I will do in Taipei when I get there. For I have some spots that I will def hit up, but I need to sit down and curate a list for your girl needs to get organized. Remember that list I created? Let’s revisit it:

• Build a computer for my mother
• VisitArtechouse
• Attend a Bicycle spinning class
• Visit the Doctor
• Visit the Dentist
• Visit the Eye Doc
• Obtain my Driver’s License?
• Backup my files
• Create Hair Product Mixture
• Invest in Travel Credit Card??????
• Buy a new camera???????
• UpdateWebsite 

So as you can see, most of it is done. There’s like two with half strikethroughs for it’s in progress . There are more question marks on the two for it most likely won’t happen due to money concerns ahaha. And the spinning class is gonna happen sometime this week, I hope. My good friend of mine has also given me a blog to read about a black girl in Taipei and its quite funny, yet informative. She shares her dating advice along with tips on traveling to Taipei and other needs for black women. I’ve also been reading some other blogs of people living in Taipei like Edna who shares her experience living abroad since her college graduation along with this blog sharing her personal experience studying Chinese in Taipei. So I feel like I am mentally ready?

Photography for Life

I’ve been taking photos for as long as I can remember. Back in the 7th grade, my father bought me one of those point and shoot Sony cameras for like $75ish dollars from Circuit City (RIP) and I went crazy. I would take it to school and take photos of everything. The hallways, classmates, the art in the bathroom stalls…you name it, I got it. When my aunt from NIgera flew into into America, I took so many of her (and I lost all those photos due to a computer virus RIP). Beyond that, I was in love with it. Around this time too, Facebook was just getting popular so a few people asked for a new profile picture. Sending them was the hard part for we didn’t have smart phones around this time and some phones weren’t capable of sending/receiving pictures (damn you bluetooth).

But that spark came to an end when the camera somehow stopped work. I was so devastated. So I went through an almost entire period of high school where I took very little photos. We could not bring our phones into our high school, I didn’t have a camera, and iPods weren’t aloud either. So there’s that. But in my senior year, joined yearbook and was introduced to my first ever DSLR. Y’all, I did not know how to use that camera for my life , but I was taking a lot of shots. Sports teams, events, friends, you name it. I felt so proud putting that yearbook together and saying “I took that.”

Fast-forward to 2015, it was just days before I was flying to China, I bought a Refurbished Canon Rebel T3 off Amazon for $250 (mad cheap). That’s when everything changed. For the first few months, I took quite a few photos (not enough) but they came out pretty decent. Some good, others not so good, but it was all baby steps. I tried using online tutorials but with my VPN not working and step to step guide simply not being enough, I gave up. But then I met my friend who showed me some basic controls and how I can change the f stop, shutter speed etc. and that changed everything. My photos became like 2x better. Thanks! But I still was unsure of what I was doing to be honest.

So when I got back to the US, I took a Intro to Photography course and everything just clicked. She broke it down and really explained to my class how the aperature and shutter speed can affect your images and white balance affecting the color along with using it freehand vs tripod. This class really changed the way I view photography and taking photos. With that, it inspired me to pursue more of the hobby.

Nowhere near a professional, but its something that I love and enjoy doing on my free time.