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!!

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!

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -- Helen Keller

I haven't updated in quite a while and a lot has happened since my last posting.  My plans have changed and I will not be interning in China this summer. BUT I think I am going to Russia for a 10 day study abroad trip!  How's that for a new experience?? At the end of May, a professor will be taking a group of students to tour Moscow and St. Petersburg and I will be receiving school credit! As the semester is coming to an end, I desperately needed something to look forward to since my trip to China has been canceled. I have always wanted to learn Russian and now I think I finally will have an opportunity to!

On another note, this is Easter weekend and I surprised my parents and came home for the holiday.  I left all my school books and homework in Starkville because it will still be there when I go back.

Anyways, this trip to Russia will be coming fast and soon. We're talking like 5 weeks.  So things will be moving pretty quickly for that.  ALSO on more important news, 13 days and 10 minutes from right this very moment I will be turing 21 years old. That's less than 2 weeks.......... updates to come later!

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights;

it is a change that goes on,

deep and permanent,

in the ideas of living"

- Miriam Beard

Well, we are here...

My luggage was only 40 pounds, THANK GOODNESS; however, that means that I could have brought 10 more pounds of stuff. But thats ok. The flights over were uneventful, it was easy to get from one gate to the next, and everyone ended up in the same place in the end. Tiffany, Lily, Daniel Spencer, and Rob and I flew out of Detroit. The 12 and a half hour flight was less than exciting. I sat about 6 seats over from Rob who was the closest person I knew. The guy sitting next to me did not speak to me one time for 12 1/2 hours. He slept for the majority of the flight. I don't know if you all know this about me but I can't not talk for 12 hours. So I made my way over to Rob and stood in the aisle for about 30 minutes. Needless to say, that flight was insanely boring and I am not looking forward to flying that again in 6 weeks.

Anyways, last night was crazy. As soon as we got through customs, we exchanged American money for Taiwanese money. 1 USD = 32 NTD which basically means that everything here looks way more expensive than in America because they only use 100 and 1000 bills instead of just 1, 5, 10 dollar bills but they use 1, 5, 10 dollar coins. 1000 NTD looks like a lot of money but in reality its only about $20 USD. There is also no tax here. Then we met up with Jeremy and Daniel Cook. A girl named Lydia and another girl named Queenie came to pick us up. Lydia is about 24 and works for NTPU and Queenie is 21 and is a student here. They took us to the 7/11 store here so that we could get a mattress pad for our beds and some toilet paper and things like that. Then we went to our dorms. The 3 girls share a room with 4 bunkbeds and the guys are right next door with the same room. The view from our balcony is amazing.

It looks off on to NTPU's campus. After a quick run down of things here and a trip to get some late night snacks, I fell asleep around 1am.

This morning I woke up around 7:30 am. The guys were up by 5am and had already walked through the campus and the streets before the girls were even awake. We got ready for the day and headed over to the Administration building that we had no idea where to find. Lucky for us, we look like complete aliens here so we stood out when we were wandering around looking like lost puppies. Conveneintly, the lady who is in charge of us walked right by and took us to the cafeteria where we ate an... interesting breakfast.

Later in the morning Queenie took us to buy cell phones and we walked around one of the streets with tons of small shops. We saw lots of temples and food vendors and clothing stores. Everything smells wierd here and the food is very different. After a few hours of walking around we were all ready to come back to the dorm with airconditioning. So happy to have AC. It feels like its about 140 degrees here. It is now 4:35pm here and 3:35am back in Huntsville. For the rest of the afternoon we are planning on being lazy and taking naps. We all are going to study our Chinese for the placement test that we have tomorrow. I'm planning on taking a nap, watching The Bachelorette, and studying for the remainder of the afternoon.

Right now im laying in my bunk and I just want everyone to see the view from where I am. Well, thats all for now. Pray that I can adjust to new smells, new and odd food and drinks, and to the ridiculously hot weather. Tomorrow we are going to Taipei City... more to come in a few days!