Tickets Booked.

I'm officially going to China.  I have fought hard for the opportunity go abroad again and I am finally going.  I booked my plane tickets today. I will be in Beijing from December 10 until January 7! Through the host program, Education First, I am going to be staying with a host family and sharing a room with another girl in the program hopefully around my same age from somewhere around the world. I am thankful that I will know some girls who live in Beijing who had come to Mississippi State. I could not be more excited about this opportunity and am thrilled to be able to go out and see new things!!

It's Official.

I will officially be spending Christmas in China.  I will be living in Beijing, China for 4 weeks while I take classes and travel around.  I can't believe that after all this time and all of my attempts to travel abroad again I am finally getting to go and it is all working out. Hopefully I will book my plane ticket this weekend and start applying for my Chinese visa sometime next week!  Prayers that I will find friends and have a nice host family would be appreciated!!  I will be traveling alone and living in a place where I know no one.  I am going through this program called Education First, EF, so hopefully everything will work out!!

Christmas in China...??!!!

“We must go beyond textbooks,

go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness

and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.”

 – John Hope Franklin

For some reason I just can't shake the itch to get to China. SO I'm going. The tentative dates are mid December until the beginning of January. Daniel and I will be going to take classes that would let us finish our Chinese language degree and to travel!

In other news, I LOVE my internship. In the month that I've been at Travelers, I have learned more than I ever thought that I would learn. I am finding out that the insurance business isn't as boring as I thought. It is actually quite interesting and I am learning lots of information that will be very valuable for my future!

Since my trip to China will allow me to graduate in May, I have started thinking about where I want to be in the future. Graduation is less than a year a way and I have already started to look for jobs in the Marketing and International Business fields and anything else that sounds interesting. But more to come on this later!

Internship Offers!!!

I got several offers for internships for the summer!!!!!!! Stay posted to see which one I will end up with! I have phone interviews this week. Pray that they go well!

We decided that the best date to leave for China would be between May 12 and May 15th. That way we have plenty of time to travel to Beijing and Hong Kong (hopefully!!) before the internships start.  As the months are quickly going by (I ALREADY have a midterm next week!!) my excitement is growing with each passing day and as the internship offers have arrived, it is all finally starting to seem real that I will be spending almost 3 months in China. After returning from Taiwan and being in the States after, I have a whole new outlook on traveling and experiencing all there is to see in a world that is so unfamiliar to me.  However, I am frequently reminded of how it feels to be in a country where you know only a few people.  My conversation partner, Christina, from Beijing, has to rely on other people to take her to the store or to get food since Starkville is a place where walking around the town is basically impossible since it is so spread out. I am reminded of the kindness that was shown to us while we stayed in Taiwan and will be forever grateful for the people who spent so much time with us to keep us company and show us the best places to see.

On another completely unrelated note, on Valentine's Day this year I will be participating in Mississippi State Speed Dating. Yes, speed dating. Let's get real for a second, since I don't have any other plans, or a boyfriend, I thought that this might be an experience that would be interesting to experience at least once in my life.  Several friends are doing it with me so it should be a good time... or well, entertaining to say the least.  I know you are all very jealous of my V-Day plans so I'm sure there will be stories to come soon.

Look out China, here I come!

After my trip to Taiwan, I was genuinely glad to be back in America and thought I would be happy staying in the States for a very long time. But after thinking about the goals that I want to accomplish in the future, I decided that going abroad again would be the best decision. After spending many MANY hours researching and studying up on all of the many programs out there, I think I have found the one. Thank you to the MSU Study Abroad office for being so helpful and patient with all of my questions. I could not be more excited about this trip. Because I still need an internship to complete my degree, I have decided to try to get an internship in China! I have started the application process with a company called GlobaLinks that will hopefully find the perfect company for me to internship with. It can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks to find a company that I will be a good fit. This time I will not let culture shock take a hold and deter me from experiencing everything that I can in China. I am looking forward to exploring on my own and seeing everything that China has to offer. I will be gone for 10 weeks this summer, interning and traveling around China.

I always said that if I ever got the opportunity to travel back to Asia, I would go to Hong Kong. So, we will see! Some things on my list of places to see include The Great Wall of China, The Forbidden City in Beijing, the water town of Zhujiajiao, and ride the Shanghai Maglev, which is the fastest train in the world! I will be by myself in Shanghai and will not know anyone. Please start praying that I quickly make friends through my internship and through my living arrangements. May 28th is the day and is quickly approaching. More to come soon!