Getting ready to go

It's 1:17 a.m. here in New Jersey, which means tomorrow's the day I drive to JFK and fly to China, where I'll be living for the next six months. That's a pretty sizable amount of time. How do I fit half a year's worth of stuff into two suitcases?

For the next six months I'll be studying Mandarin Chinese through the Harvard Beijing Academy and the Associated Colleges in China programs thanks to the VERY generous Light Fellowship at Yale University.

I'm really enjoying my time here at home, so I do feel a little sad to leave. Especially because I know that only a few hours after I land I'll have to take a placement exam, and I haven't reviewed as much Chinese as I should have. Class is going to be really intense-- I'll be cramming two years worth of Chinese into six months-- so this isn't exactly a vacation. But I'm sure I'll get into the swing of things. I'll definitely miss home, but I know I'm going to have an awesome time in Beijing!

I have some audio recordings of myself speaking Chinese from when I sent out my HBA application. It'll be fun to listen to them at the end of my stay in China, when I'll be fluent (!!) in the language. A year ago, I didn't speak any Chinese at all. I really just decided to take it on a whim after watching this Youtube video:



After finishing L1 and L2, the stuff in the video seems really easy. And come December, my level of Chinese right now is going to seem just as basic. It's pretty unbelievable.

I'd like to close this intro entry by giving thanking the Richard U. Light Foundation for sponsoring my trip. I'm so lucky that Yale offers its students opportunities like this.

I can't wait.