That John Denver Song (The One Peter Paul and Mary Stole)

  And so, after the longest summer of all time, I am finally leaving. I was going to attempt some sort of poetic tribute to North America, but that seemed a bit pretentious. Besides, I think it is a fitting enough tribute that my three meals today were fried chicken, a cheeseburger, and another cheeseburger. Today at 1:25 PM I board my flight to Cambodia, with a stopover in Seoul. I didn't mention this in the introduction post, but in order to teach English in China, you actually first have to learn how to be a teacher. I thought my economics degree would be enough, but oh well. So I will be going to Cambodia to become a certified teacher. Yes, I could've added 'and 4 weeks in Cambodia' to the title of the blog, but that would've been stupid.
  I will be spending 4 weeks in Cambodia completing teacher training, and then I will make my way to the People's Republic. I will attempt to document all the interesting things that happen to me along the way, but if that results in too many posts, I will do my best to only tell the most interesting stories. I am excited to begin this journey, and I hope you are excited to read about it (not like 'woooooo' excited, but at least more than 'meh' excited). North America (and I say North America because Canada is such an important part of my life. Not Mexico though), it's been real. I love you, I'll miss you, and in the immortal words of Arnold, I'll be back.

P.S. If you don't get the title of this post, google John Denver. But don't listen to the song. It's terrible.

Introduction

   As some of you know, and some of you may not, I am leaving my dear North America in order to spend a year in China teaching English. I've been advised by many people to write a blog about my experience, and so here it is. Since I love to talk about myself, this shouldn't be too hard. I am however new to this, and have never kept a diary, so I anticipate the style, pace, and substance of this blog to evolve as I get more comfortable with this whole idea. Of course it is entirely possible that the Great Firewall of China will stymie my efforts to talk about myself, in which case you guys are all out of luck. But I think that by using proxies I should be able to continue this thing. 
   You guys probably have a couple of questions (or at least I hope you do) concerning my trip. Why am I doing this? Well it's definitely not for the money. I won't tell you what I'm making, but I can assure you that I will not have any savings at the end of this year. My motivation stems I think from the fact that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Last year I was convinced I wanted to go to Law School, then I wanted to go straight to my MBA, then I wanted to work in the banking industry like seemingly everybody else with an Economics degree. I came to the realization that I am as indecisive as a child, and in order to decide the direction of my adult life, I first needed to become an adult. And the best way to grow up, to find out who you really are, is to leave your comfort zone completely and challenge yourself to the limit. It is for that reason that I decided to leave my culture, my family, and my friends. I am nervous and scared, but in one year my culture, friends, and family will all still be there, and hopefully I will return to them as an adult. 
   This post is very long winded, and I apologize for that, but this being the introduction, there were a lot of bases to cover. Don't worry, not every post will be an essay. Please leave comments, even if you do so only to pretend to have read my blog. My ego can never be too inflated.  I like quotes, so I will leave you with one by Plato: "For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories." (from The Phaedrus)