Ni Hao

Hello! This is my first official blog posting about my study abroad semester in Macau, China. There are a number of reasons why I’m choosing to keep an online blog throughout this experience.

1. I want to have an account of my experiences as they happen to me while abroad. When this is all over, I would like to have a way to look back and remember my life in China.

2. I want my friends and family back at home to be able to keep up with my life and experiences while abroad. Hopefully they will be able to have an idea of what I am going through, which will make coming home a much smoother transition.

3. This fulfills a few academic requirements at my college, Northern Arizona University. One, I must do a project to receive my Global Opportunities Scholarship through the NAU Center for International Education. The project I chose to do was to keep a blog. Also, I must keep a journal to receive honors credit through the NAU Honors Program, and this is my way to fulfill that requirement as well. However, I have been planning to keep a blog of my study abroad experience long before I was aware of these requirements, so this blog is something I want to do, not something I have to do.

4. By making this blog accessible to the public, I would like other students to understand what study abroad is all about. Upon my return I plan to take on a proactive role within the NAU Center for International Education, the NAU School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, and in the NAU Honors Program to encourage other students to study abroad as well.

I’ve started keeping this blog now because I feel it is just as important to record my pre-departure experience as it is while I’m abroad and when I return. Already I have had to do so many orientation sessions, paperwork, and essays just to prepare for my departure. Although I feel a bit burned out at this point from the hassle of putting everything together, I keep reminding myself that it is all worth it in the end. I am truly looking forward to this experience, and I know that it is a very rare opportunity that I may never get again.

I hope my friends and family will keep up with my blog, and not only read it but comment as well! Let me know what your opinion is of my experiences, or at least do it to check in on me while I’m so far from home. :)

Looking forward to the future,
Kati

P.S. For those of you who do not know, “ni hao” means “hello” or “greetings” in Chinese.