About
About Me:
My name is Katie, and I am about to embark on “the rest of my life,” whatever that might mean.
It took me 9 years to finish college (including a year taken off to work). I changed my mind a lot. I was unsure of who I was and what I wanted to do. Since my graduation in May of 2009, I’m beginning the process of living the rest of my life out of school.
I have studied abroad before; I spent 4 weeks in Greece in 2001. It was the best month of my life without a doubt. I have decided to extrapolate from that experience and go abroad to teach English in China. As such, I decided to start this blog to document every aspect of my experience, from application to return and everything in between.
I do not speak Chinese (Mandarin OR Cantonese). I would like to come away from China with at least a rudimentary understanding of Mandarin. My mentor obtained a Chinese name for me from her Chinese school in town. My name in China will be: 高凯丽 (pronounced: gāo kǎi lì), which means tall, victorious, and beautiful (I will modestly accept the attributes – all except for “tall,” which I am certainly not).
About This Blog:
I plan to document even the smallest of details, if only for posterity’s sake. I hope others will gain information from my experience. I encourage anyone interested in doing the same things I do to contact me and ask questions about anything I do not cover well enough in the blog. I may not have all the answers, but I can at least share what I have learned.
As far as the name of the blog, I was discussing this whole adventure with the woman I consider to be my mentor in all things Chinese. I told her that I wanted it to have something to do with traveling to the Far East…and then I said, “Although, East is really a relative term…China is only east of here because we say it is.” Thus “East is Relative” was born. I quite like it.
I have been known to be lax about updating my personal blogs before, but I believe it will be difficult for me to run out of things to talk about as the process continues. Just in case, however, feel free to drop me an email and remind me if the blog is silent for too long.