In what I dubbed to be my #YOLO year, 2013 was set to be a year of firsts, impulse decision making, not overthinking things, independence and hard work. So when I heard my uni was offering an in-country study at Peking University in July, I had made my decision to go and within a day had already started organising applications and paperwork. I’m just about ready to jet-off tomorrow morning and I’m starting to get cold feet. While I’ve been dying to have a little exchange experience of my own (seriously half my news feed is full of pictures of friends overseas), I’m already starting to miss the idea of not having my family, friends and Jack around, of not being able to fall into my usual routine of work, gym, sleep and missing all the healthy, clean food I have come to love from my little fitness stint. This was probably the reason I decided not to apply for a six month exchange last year.
A month isn’t very long when you put it into perspective, but long enough to be able to experience the culture and lifestyle and of course my number one priority: get better at the language. I’ve been studying Mandarin since I started uni (and even before that when I was little) but I’ve never really been confident at speaking, writing or reading. I’ve never been a ‘language’ person, nor have I ever had enough time in the last three years to dedicate towards mastering it. I’m hoping that studying in country for a month solid and being able to put it into practice in the real world will stop me from just ‘getting by’ during my last semester of uni come August.
Unfortunately with all this worldly experience and development happening, I’ll be putting the blog on the backburner for the next month. I’ve decided not to take a fancy camera (and I’m packing a touristy variation of tee+shorts+sneakers) and have no idea whether my roomies are avid photo takers so expect less style posts and more travel related content. Thre will be plenty of scenery, food and hopefully shopping guides with my usual personal reflections and maybe some editorial inspo and collages for my fashion fix. So stayed tuned for my Beijing Adventure. It’s going to be life-changing…
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Beijing
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How exciting! You're going to love it there!
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Have an absolutely amazing time in China, such an incredible experience! Can't wait to see photos! xx
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have a wonderful time, it will be challenging and exciting and so character building! can't wait to read about your travels x
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