Is getting there really half the fun?

I never fully understood  exactly how not Asian I am until I walked through the doors of the building of the Los Angeles airport that housed Asiana Airlines, Air China, Air Korea, China Airlines, Philippines Airlines, ANA, and Thai airlines. I was still in Los Angeles, but I was in a totally different world. During my layover I passed the time by making some last minute phone calls to college friends that were still up at 2:00 A.M. in North Carolina time. Finally, I boarded the Asiana Airlines flight to Seoul, South Korea. A few hours into the flight I was served dinner. I was given two options, a "western" style dinner platter and a Korean style dinner platter. I decided to be adventurous and order the Korean style dinner platter. I didn't think much of it. I've had Korean food before, and I really like it. It wasn't until I got the meal and realized that a degree of assembly was required that I began to regret my decision. I knew that the rice had to be put in the bowl along with the various other things, but I wasn't sure what else I was supposed to combine. Not wanting to look like an idiot for preparing my meal incorrectly, I watched my neighbor make his food out of the corner of my eye. Once my meal was assembled it was actually pretty good in respect to other airline food. That is, until I took a bite of the mysterious brown-green twiggy substance that my neighbor had been eating. I am not sure what I was expecting, but I was not expecting to realize that my mouth was full of very tiny, dried fish. While I love fish, this taste was far to abrupt for me, so I proceeded to eat everything on my plate until the overwhelming taste of fish was gone. To avoid any more confusion, I got ham and eggs for breakfast.

I am currently sitting in the airport in Seoul, South Korea, where I will be for the next several hours before departing for Nanjing, China. I will spend four days in Nanjing for orientation, and then I will fly to Yumen China, where I will spend the next nine months. I hope to be able to update my blog during my stay in Nanjing, but I make no promises!

The Freak Out

This has been, without a doubt the longest summer of my life. I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way, or in a good way; I am merely stating a fact. One of the side effects of such an absurdly long summer is that I have an entirely messed up sleep schedule. Therefore, naturally, I happened to still be awake at 5:35 A.M. on Friday. This was very convenient, because that is when I received my official Letter of Invitation from the Chinese government. For the past two weeks this one piece of paper has been the only thing standing in between me and China. 

In addition to sending my Letter of Invitation  via e-mail, Amity Foundation (the organization that placed me in Gansu, China) informed me that they would like for me to be in China by Saturday the 8th of October. At this point, my sleep deprived brain imploded. One week? Amity wanted me to leave the country in one week! In retrospect, I realize that this was not that big of a deal, but at the time I was really worried. I needed very badly to vent to someone. However, as I mentioned, it was 5:35 in the morning, so naturally most of my friends and family were asleep. Luckily, within twenty minutes two of my friends were online. I am eternally grateful that they listened to me rant, and helped me see logically at that absurd hour of the morning. 

There were two reasons that I found Saturday the 8th of October to be a stressful arrival date. The more obvious of the two was that I had a lot of things to before I would be able to leave the country. Among other things I had to apply for and receive my visa, buy my plane  ticket, finish packing, clean my room, and do some last minute shopping. Honestly, I was not sure that I would be able to get it all squared away in one week. The other reason, which probably played more of a factor in my brief panic attack was that actually setting a date for arrival made my future journey feel real in a way that it had not before. Previously my journey to Asia had been an abstract trip that would be happening at some non-specific time in my future. Now it was both concrete, and approaching very very quickly.

Eventually I calmed down and started making arrangements. I will be leaving on Tuesday the 11th, and despite my momentary freak out, I could not be more excited.

Also I figure I should also include some details about what i will actually be doing. I will be teaching English to middle school students in Yumen, Gansu, China. There are eleven other volunteers that have already been teaching in Gansu for a little over a month. I will be living and working with them, which I am very excited about. Nine of the other volunteers are from Germany, one is from Holland, and one is from Switzerland. I am also excited about that because I took German throughout high school.