Who.What.Where.When.Why.How

Six. As of today, that is the number of days before I get on a plane, fly to China, and stay there for eight months. Six days...and one final exam AND two papers AND tying up unfinished business AND a heck of a lot of packing between now and then. But let's start off with something less stressful- why am I heading off to the Orient?

As some of you know (and others don't), I will be studying abroad next semester in Beijing, China. The program is through CIEE, and the focus is on ethnic minorities and the Chinese identity. Kinda different right? Well, in my search for programs, I had two basic requirements. First, I really wanted the location to be China, specifically Beijing, because being the culture and history aficionado that I am, what other city would be better? Second, I needed to make sure that at least some of the courses would count towards my major so that I stay on track in graduating on time.1 It would seem that finding such a program would be easy, but in actuality, I wasn't able to find many that fit the bill. Happily and luckily, this one does.

So as I said, the program is in Beijing. What I didn't mention was that it starts in February. Since that is the case, I will be spending Christmas break in Hong Kong with my family. It will be very exciting to go back, but as strange as this seems, I will miss the cold and snow of winter.2 Last year, I remember that I rarely wore a heavy coat (or a light one for that matter) to go outside. There were even some days that we had the air conditioner turned on! In addition, if that wasn't strange enough, stores were open and people actually shopped on Christmas day! I know this because unlike years past where I would go to Church and then spend the rest of the day cooped up at home, I went to purchase shoes for my cousin's wedding banquet after attending another cousin's baby's baptism. It was confusing to see a mall that was open for business on Christmas day, but what really got to me was the great3 amount of people that were shopping. My dad had told me that since the economy was so bad, not many people were hitting the stores. If that also applied to my Christmas day experience in the mall, I can only imagine how much fuller the area would have been of people. I don't know if I will be shopping on the 25th again this year, but I am sure that if I were to, my feelings wouldn't change.4

I sort of digressed a bit above, so back to the point of this post...

So far, we have Christmas break in Hong Kong and then the spring semester in Beijing. If you have been keeping track time-wise, I am sure you realize that this doesn't amount to eight months. You would be correct since after the Beijing semester, I plan on going back to Hong Kong and taking summer courses at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. This part isn't written in stone yet since the application for the program isn't out and I haven't signed a contract for it with the study abroad office here. But yup- that is the general plan for the next eight months of my young life.5

Through this blog, I want to record down what I do during my days in Hong Kong and Beijing as well as write about any topic that strikes my fancy, whether or not it be inspired by this trip. The blog most likely won't be updated on a daily basis (since I am a perfectionist so writing takes me forever and I am not sure I have that many interesting things to say), but hopefully frequently enough. I hope the posts will be more interesting and deeper than just a boring list of what I did. I'll try my best to include photos and videos so that you can get a better and more colorful experience, though I am not promising anything.

Also, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please leave a comment! My well of inspiration and creativity only goes so deep and it needs to replenished every now and then. Besides, I want to keep you entertained and engaged. So if you have a moment to spare, please let me know what you think, what I am doing wrong/right, what you would like to see less/more of, etc.

Finally, you might be wondering why I have "l'chaim" in the title and how that relates to the blog. Well, "l'chaim" is a word of Hebrew origin and is pronounced something like this: le·ha·yim (not as three different syllables to be enunciated separately and entirely on their own, but rather, joined together- basically, as the way it is written as one word). It means "to life" and is often heard when people are making toasts. I chose this as the title since I identify so very strongly with these two ordinary words. To be very succinct, I believe in life- the wonder, the beauty, the gift, the celebration, the joy, the journey, etc. of it. Also, as I have previously stated, while the blog is centered around my trip to China, I think some posts will touch on things not related to traveling at all but life in general. Therefore, I wanted my title to more accurately reflect that fact as well as the passion I have for life.

So that's it for my first post. It's rather long, but future ones will most likely not be as lengthy. Hence, I hope you'll continue reading (as well as give me feedback).

Until then, l'chaim!

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Footnotes (a.k.a. The random and rambling thoughts that popped into my head as I was typing)
1. If you are planning to study abroad, I suggest that you don't complete all your general education courses before that experience. I say this because in my case, being basically all done with them forced me to impose some restrictions on myself. Since study abroad programs usually offer many what I would characterize as more "general information" based (as opposed to the in-depth, major specific based) courses, the greater the amount of flexibility you have, the higher the number of options you also have since the different classes can then fulfill various general education requirements.
2. I've recently noticed that I continue to say things like "go back" and refer to Hong Kong in the context that I still reside there even though that hasn't been the case for a VERY long time. I guess for me, I still consider the city to be home to a certain degree.
3. This is just my opinion and based on the American experience of seeing streets devoid of any activity that day.
4. Actually, unless absolutely necessary, I don't think I will since I much prefer to stay at home with family and listen to QUALITY singers like Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, etc. croon carols to us from the radio.
5. Sadly, I have begun to feel so much older than my age. I am losing the ability to pull all-nighters, feeling such great joy at staying in on Friday nights by myself and doing absolutely nothing, repeating that again on Saturday and Sunday, needing caffeine or energy drinks to stay awake, finding bedtime to be the ultimate hi-light of my day, etc.