Welcome to my gap year blog! Here is where you can find updates about what I'm up to, as well as see my thoughts about and reactions to what I experience and learn while on my year-long adventure.
Right now I'm in Boston, preparing to set off for Shanghai, China on August 26th. Lots of packing and organizing going on, as well as mental preparation for the cultural and linguistic transition I will be making in less than a week! I have to prepare myself for air pollution, culinary adventures, different sanitation conditions, culture shock, and an almost complete inability to communicate. I took an intensive Chinese course this summer, providing me with an excellent foundation, but I'm still going to be pretty much unable to communicate when I first arrive.
But despite all of these things to be worried about or afraid of, I'm so excited! This is going to be a marvelous adventure. I'm excited to have you along for the ride.
About Me
- Abby
- This blog has had a number of iterations. In 2013, I spent a summer on a Yale fellowship doing independent research for my senior thesis, mostly in Guangzhou. In summer 2011, I studied Mandarin in Beijing, generously sponsored by Yale's Light Fellowship. Before that, I was also in China for four months over my gap year in fall of 2009, living with a host family in Shanghai (abbysgapyear.blogspot.com). Now, in 2014-2015-2016 (!), it's once again time to set out on adventures in Asia. This time, I'll begin in Taiwan (which I will controversially (?) clarify is not the same as China), where I will study Chinese intensively for a semester this fall. After a month in India in February, in March I will begin a 10-month Fulbright research project, based primarily in Guangzhou. I invite you to follow along and keep track of the adventure(s)! And just to be clear, "Out and About" is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of me, Abigail Bok, and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State or any of its partner organizations.
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