This New Years was the first time I did the countdown in Chinese. I wrapped up my time in Taipei quite nicely by spending some time with some good friends: on Friday, I met up with Suanne near 101; we had drinks and cake at J-POP Cafe (Jenni’s suggestion); I went to Shi Lin night market with Ying Ling and consumed a deadly Cho Dofu Ma La Hou Gou; I took the bus up to Tien Mu for a drink with Alex; the two of us met up with Jenni and her coworkers who drove us up to Yan Ming San where we drank tea, hung out, and enjoyed a captivating night view of the city.

The next morning I took the subway over to Shi Ta (where I studied Chinese three years ago) and walked around campus. Many memories came flooding back; it was simultaneously sweet and painful. I thought about how quickly time passes, leaving fragments of the past intangibly immortalized, like the memory of a song carried by a mute unable to sing. Somewhere I hear a faint, bittersweet minor chord progression refusing to resolve. Though there are elsewhere new songs to be learned and new melodies to be played, the notes that I breathe onto the so called empty staff paper of life continue to betray attempts at revisiting motifs of the past.