T minus 7 days until China...

I arrived back in Glasgow after a week in Greece with my friends and all I wanted to do was sleep, but I had about a million and one things to do. Passport photos, finding out my blood type (because my own mother didn’t know), and packing my bag with a year worth of clothes. Anyone who knows me will know that I have enough clothes to dress the nation, so choosing what to take was a battle. I only had a 30kg suitcase allowance and a 7kg hand luggage allowance, which might seem a lot, but not for your average shopaholic. I also had to get some Chinese yuan, where the woman proceeded to tell me scare stories of scams happening right now around china involving taxi drivers and fake money. 

I said good bye to all my friends and luckily a boy in my year was having a party so I could say goodbye to everyone at the same time, which made it a lot easier. My mum also had a lovely idea to invite all my family over for a goodbye party. I could not stop crying, especially when they gave me good luck cards. Goodbyes seem really hard at the time but my advice would be to keep in mind what you’re actually doing. You have a year of adventure ahead of you, filled with new experiences, meeting new people, learning the language, trying new food(my favourite part), and at the end of the day everyone is starting a new chapter in their life and my new chapter is in Tianjin, China.

I went on the 3 week immersion course last summer, which inspired me to apply for this opportunity. Although I continued my Mandarin study for two periods a week after the summer course, I hadn’t studied it properly since the end of April. This panicked me a little as I sat on the plane over, especially as some of the other scholars had done National 5, all the way up to Advanced Higher. But when I arrived the University made sure I was in a class of my level. In terms of everyday Mandarin phrases I would highly recommend the pleco app as it will translate anything into Chinese characters and show you how to say it.

I think something I’ve also kept in mind is that feeling anxious is normal, you're going to live in another country for 10 months, and (in my case) with very little knowledge of the language, therefore little way of communicating.

During 5^th year in school, I thought I knew what I wanted to do, I was planning on becoming a midwife, I had done loads of work experience, drafted my application to study it at university, but the minute I got this scholarship it allowed me to take a step back and really think about what I wanted to do. I realised I wanted to travel and experience all that the world has to offer. China is the beginning of the adventure that is life after school. I am now going to think hard about what I really want to do in life and hopefully by the end of these 10 months I’ll be able to get back to you and have a plan for next year. Right now, I’m just ready to fully engulf myself with everything China!!