Hello!

Hi everyone! Thanks for setting this up. I've never actually blogged before, so i'm not sure if this is the right place to put this.

I'm olivia and i'm going leaving for the airport to fly to china in about an hour. For the first semester I will be living in beijing taking a language class at peking university. It's a four hour course in the morning, so my afternoons will be free. I'm hoping to find some kind of volunteer teaching job or tutoring to do in the afternoon. I'm also hoping to travel a lot while i'm there. I'm not sure what i'm going to do for the second semester. Most likely, i'll stay in China. I would like to get a job teaching English, preferably outside of beijing.

I chose to take a gap year because studying abroad for an extended period is definitely something i wanted to do. Of course Stanford has the bing overseas program, but there is so much offered at Stanford, i wasn't sure i would be willing to leave for so long. it seems to me that the year between highschool and college is one of the most flexible, and a great time to do this. I'm hoping that during my gap year I'll meet lots of different people and see things that wil give me many different perspectives even beyond the typical college experience. I think that living on my own, i'll become much more independent which will help me make the most of all stanford has to offer. Afterall, most of us will only get to do the college experience once.

I decided to go to China because not only is it a fascinating place, but in many ways, it was the easiest for me to set up. My brother has been living in china for the last 10 years, so having him there definitely helps, although he currently lives in shanghai. I took Chinese in highschool and studied there for a month once before, so it was the logical choice. Also, the living is pretty inexpensive and because it is still very much a developing country, I think that there will be more chances to volunteer at something like teaching english than in other countries.

Before making my decision to take a gap year, I talked to a lot of people about whether it was something that i wanted to do. It was an idea that had been playing around in my head since the beginning of junior year, but it took me until the end of senior year to make a definite decision. The vast majority of people i talked to said that it was a great option and many of them wished they had taken a year between highschool and college. My dad definitely wanted (and still wants) me to go straight to stanford. I think that he sees the gap year option as a good idea for students that are burnt out after highschool and not fully happy about going off to college. As I was neither of these things, he sees my gap year as an unecessary biding of time. So, although he made it clear that it was my decision, it was difficult to go against my dad's wishes, because I usually respect his opinions.

Despite this, I am satisfied with and excited about my choice. Although it is a little hard to watch all of my friends' pre-college preparations and think how different my year will be from their's, i can't wait to start!
So this turned out to be a longer post than I anticipated. I hope i didn't bore all of you.:)