The Beginning

I write today from the comfort of my temporary upstairs bedroom in Maumelle, Arkansas. Soon I will begin an adventure that will surely change the course of my life. In June, I will be traveling to the city of Qingdao in the Shandong province of China to begin a six month internship with the Leewen School of Foreign Language. I am feeling excited, nervous, unsure, confident, proud, supported, ready and unprepared all at once, quite a bundle of emotions for a future teacher. The farthest I have been away from the United States is Puerto Rico (2000 mi.) and now for my next trick I will travel to a country 7200 miles away, from my safe little bedroom, where I know about three out of one billion people. I am sad to leave my friends and family for such a long time but as Andy Dufresne says in Shawshank Redemption, "get busy livin' or get busy dying."