Summer Vacation Day 54-60: A Week in a Day and Goodbye (For Now)

Hello, Tim!

This letter might be a bit more special than the others;

This is the last letter for the summer.

Wait, what?

I know, I know, and I’m saying this with a wave of my hand.

The previous letter was dated the 22^nd of August, Wednesday, but in fact, today is already on the twenty-ninth, and tomorrow would be our first day of school, and the very words spell ‘the beginning of all chaos’. If I had done the vowed ‘a letter every day’, I would be keeping up with the schedule very closely. However, there were days in which I had just let the ‘lazy me’ kick in and skip a letter or two on this day or that.

With the school on the second day in view, I figured that giving a ‘condensed’ recount of the last several days was necessary. After school starts, I would only be able to write a blog post occasionally, which, for now, I am thinking about once a week. However, I would still have to see if a weekly post would fit into the crazy routine in the future.

Without further ado, let’s start!

ON the 24th Friday, my mom got a job! Again, she got a job at 7-11, although there is a little distance between the workplace and our house, she was relieved and happy that she finally would come out of the unemployed state. My dad returned in the middle of the night. He was hungry and in need of some midnight snack (as usual), so I cooked some tiny dumplings for him. I kept on writing my blog posts after that, and as I remember, my eyes closed at about three in the morning. I didn’t know that my dad had something on my mind right then.

The next day, the 25^th Saturday, with enough sleep until ten o’clock, I spent a day that happened to be the Taiwanese Ghost festival. Mom stayed at her brother’s place to help prepare meals, and I went to my grandma’s with my dad, who hadn’t been back since New Year because of the busy job.

Mom and Dad

My dad would be unemployed soon. It was a big shock to me, for I thought my dad’s job was a stable job. Being a ship mechanic is what my dad is good at, and there was not once I thought he would be taken off the job. But this is just how it is, my dad said. He said that there are also others waiting to work on the ship, and he would be soon looking for another ship to work on soon. I hope he does.

My aunt is sick. Her high fever happened in the midnight, and she was given antibiotics when addressed to in the emergency room. When we got to my grandma’s place, she was asleep. We kept telling her to take sick leaves on Monday to have a more thorough check in the hospital, but she was quite stubborn and insisted that she had to be at work on Monday.

On the 26^th of August, Sunday, Dad set off for his last trip on the boat he had been on for over six months. There was a blood-donate bus around the corner of the intersection next to my house.

In Taiwan, the age restriction for blood donating is seventeen years old, meaning that I was eligible of becoming a blood donor!

Get your ID cards, for we are going to spill some blood! :D

I practically bounced up and down all the way to the bus. I was informed that the computers inside were facing a temporary meltdown, so we sat there and waited for a rough twenty minutes. I was then handed a sheet of form that I had to fill in. A part of it was my basic information, while the other part was about some of the medical experiences. I was told to be as honest as possible, and I said that I had some medical treatments for the stomach in May, some braces adjustments on the previous Thursday. The next part of the sheet was a checklist of all the things that would make you a high risk for AIDS.

An A4 sheet of questions you have to answer.

Now it was this part that really got me into thinking. On the checklist, there was one thing you mustn’t do if you want to become a blood donor if you’re a male: having sexual intercourse with another man, or MSM, according to Red Cross.

I know the initial intent when this regulation was established, but I still find it unjust. Being gay doesn’t always mean that you have a high risk of getting A.I.D.S. It would be totally unfair if you want to donate blood, but you can’t because of your sexual orientation. Take me for example. I am going to be completely honest, but I intend to be a consistent and frequent blood donor, but that is never going to stop me from being on a date with a guy. That is what I believe in. I would really like to ramble on for another paragraph or two or even three, but I have to get back to my story.

I was then sent onto the bus, had my blood pressure tested, and then I was asked about my braces.

‘So you had that altered less than a week ago, hadn’t you?’ The doctor asked me. (translation: Don’t go to the dentist a week before your blood donation.)

Skip the little disgruntled but not-ready-to-give-up arguments and the act of the doctor’s please-stop-arguing-here-is-a-list-of-what-you-cannot-do-before-you-donate-blood. As a result, I got off the bus after been in there for only a brief ten minutes. I was so excited about this, from the possibility of helping people and the notion of having a thick need stuck in me while feasting on my blood like an over-sized mosquito. I was so bummed, and as a consolation, Mom treated me to some ice cream.

Next week, I would be well off the dentist thing, and I would go to the nearest blood donating center and have my blood taken. It is a must-do.

Consolation ice cream

On the 27^th, I tried making some earl grey tea jelly after going to a nearby supermarket with a new brand of earl grey (which was still not the one). I would like to talk more about my thing with earl grey and I, but I’m afraid this tale would have to wait a little longer.

The making of tea jelly was not that difficult. You boil a pot of water and add agar powder and stir until it is completely dissolved. I then dropped four packets of Twining’s earl grey inside the 1.5-liter water. You cool it down, and you have some supposedly nice tea jelly.

There was only one thing- it was not tea-flavored enough. It still had a cool texture, though. In fact, I’m eating it right now!

I'm happy; I have jelly.

Fast forward to the 28^th, Tuesday. We had to go back to school for some before-school school cleanup. It was a class thing, and we were assigned FOURTEEN teacher’s office when only ELEVEN of us showed up! Candy and I took two of the offices and here are some pictures.

I promise that Candy wasn't at all upset or whatsoever; it was just an accidental capture of her face.

William, one of those who didn’t show up at the right time finished his job later than we did, but we later met up at a nearby café to study for the whole afternoon:

The guy who woke up five minutes before the photot was taken.

It was the longest duration of study in the afternoon for the whole week!

For today, the last day of summer vacation, I was sitting at the desk, typing furiously on the computer, trying to tell seven-days-worth of story into one little post.

This concludes the amazing adventure of this summer vacation.

Maybe that this was not comparable to the awesome escapade to England last year, but the truth be told, this is one of the highlights of the year!

Starting from tomorrow, I would no longer be constantly updating my blog, but I would try to be as active as possible.

How was your vacation?

Sincerely,

Hugo