The ticking clock

The number one question I've been asked is: If you're a spanish major, what the hell are you doing in Hong Kong? That question was just racking my brain the week after I got off my 16 hour plane ride. How the hell did I end up here? I can finally articulate a semi-coherent response.

I'm here for the very reason people expect me not to be here. It's a region that has always been off my radar. Probably the one region in the world I had never given a second thought about visiting. It had little to do with my majors, and less to do with my aspirations for the future. And that's why I am here. Of all the places, this culture was the one most foreign to me, the place that was the most outside my comfort zone. It's the region of the world that I was least comfortable approaching.

Some people might find that a bit ridiculous. I'm on a study abroad program through the business school of a prime university in a highly developed, urbanized high tech society. And what, I was expecting some huge mind-blowing cultural leap? My campus is more high tech than I could have imagined, with a total of 3 elevators and 6 escalators to get to any given class. I am not deprived of any material or "western" luxuries. If anything, they're more accessible. But the challenge in this study abroad is the challenge of the culture and all of its subtleties. Of taking the vibrant life of Hong Kong and melding to it and making it my own.

I've been an aiesecer for just about a year now. And now I'm here because of it. Because of the people I've met in it that have pushed me to push myself. It's weird to think that just a year ago two timid newbies took on a little project that we were slightly pushed into thanks to T-rent and the Mix. And now, one year later, Kaitlin's on the US MC working with Salaam in Egypt, and I'm here, in a place I never thought I'd be.

But all these are baby steps. I've barely made a dent, both in Hong Kong and in AIESEC.

I'm just getting my feet wet.

I'll end with a thank you to the aiesecers who've impacted me and inspired me to push myself and to blow some shit up. I'm on the brink of delving in full force...in due time, in due time.

But first, four more months of taking in everything I can from this place.

And the clock ticks.