After I came back from China last summer, I remember being inspired in wanting to see other parts of the world. As I was riding in one of my friend's car right before school started, I was telling him about this source of funding that I had found from the Center for South Asian Studies that was funding students to go to India the following summer in 2008. His response? "I work there."Sometime later on during Welcome Week, I was at Escapade with some friends at the Michigan Union, which is basically a huge event hosted primarily for freshmen allowing them to get different tastes for student life and culture on campus. There was a room that had booths set up with different Asian languages and their representatives stationed around them. The point of the room was to write a single phrase five times in different languages. I ended up writing my phrase "where is the bathroom" in Hindi, Filipino, Viet, Korean, and Thai. After finishing, I placed my name card in a raffle that was to be held later on that night. The prizes? Michigan shirts that had MICHIGAN written out in a respective South Asian language. After pondering over the chance to go to India for the summer of 2008 that week, I was excited to enter my name and hopefully be one of the lucky people that had their card chosen. Later that night, my name was the first one called and I excitedly picked up my MICHIGAN in Hindi shirt. It was the start of a small dream that turned has turned into a realization of many of the things in life that I've found myself passionate about.
Well, that small dream that started about ten months ago is about to open itself up to reality. I've got my camera, journal, and gift boxes of Taiwanese tea packed, and feeling slightly anxious but definitely charged up to go. After a non-stop sixteen hour flight tonight, I'm sure I'll already have stories to share.
Here goes nothing.
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