Introduction
Sunday, October 7th, 2007Hi, everyone! I am a sixteen-year-old who has always wanted to travel, but that desire became way more intense this summer, when I spent a few weeks travelling, mostly in England and Spain (but also visiting Gibraltar, an English protectorate, and Morocco). I don’t think I’ll be doing any international travelling in the next couple of years, but I’ll be blogging about the travelling I do here in the US (I live in Asheville, NC–if anyone’s thinking about coming here and wants tips, feel free to ask!), about my previous experiences travelling, and about what I plan to do in the future (as well as whatever else catches my attention and is in some way travel-related).
Especially for someone living in the Southern US (where I’ve lived for the past thirteen years or so–I lived in Ohio when I was very small), I guess I’m pretty “international” (I don’t know what a good word for it is, really). For instance, most of my news comes not from my local newspaper that doesn’t cover much outside of Western North Carolina, but from the BBC or the New York Times.
I have a working knowledge of Spanish (hoping to spend some substantial time in a Spanish-speaking country in the future and become fluent), am also currently studying French, have previously had some experience with Russian and Japanese, and hope to learn particularly Arabic in the future. I listen to Spanish music and watch Spanish television to improve my Spanish.
I am obviously still in high school, where my favorite classes are Spanish and World History. Between college and high school, I want to do a gap year (or two), working and travelling (hopefully able to combine the two for some of that time). For college, I am probably going to major in International Relations and/or Political Science, minoring in Spanish and/or Arabic. I don’t really know where I want to go to college, but hopefully somewhere in Europe (England is my top choice, but also one of the more expensive ones). After that, I’m not sure what I want in the way of a career, but I want to get my TEFL certificate and spend at least a few years teaching English around the world.
I don’t know what happens after this life; this life may be all I’ve got, and, in it, I want to see as much of the world as possible. I also, at some point in my life, want to make a difference in the world, but I figure that to make the best difference in the world, I should know the world. So that’s my most immediate goal.
jocelyn