Hello!
While I'm sitting here in my apartment watching all the exciting thunder, lightning and lashing rain outside, I thought maybe I'd use this discussion board to ask the sage counsel of the fair members of this site.
I'm currently facing a huge personal crisis and I'm chronically short of help to solve it! If anyone's read any of my other posts anywhere on here you may well know that I've been in China the last 5 months working as a teacher. I'm only 19 years old and I'm supposed to be going to University this October in Durham, NE England. This is an absolutely amazing University, world-renowned and in the UK certainly considered "up there" with Oxford and Cambridge. The thing is though I recently changed my course from a 4 year course to a 3 year one, and now I've got this potential spare year on my hands. I call it a spare year because I feel I could use it for something now, start university in 2006 and then still finish University exactly as planned, in terms of the year at least.
So here's what I've been thinking. I thought I could defer my entrance to University until 2006, return home in August as planned but then come back in September and work for the entire academic year, which would be awesome. I'd be able to continue my Chinese learning and by the time I start university be fairly proficient in Chinese. On top of all this I know I'd be able to carry on teaching the wonderful students I've come to love this year, or at least most of them. Some of them are going into a year of school where they don't have a foreign teacher, but many of them I will be able to teach, and my bosses promised me that if I came back they'd get me all my favourite classes and have already told me which schools they'll put me in, IE my favourite ones.
On the other hand of course I really really want to go to University, I really do. I keep having images of me at uni in my mind and I really love it! It'll be so much fun and I also do really miss studying, working, academics. I love all that stuff, I'm just a studious person at heart! I'm also conscious of my friends all being so far ahead of me with their University activities. I kind of feel like I'll be being left behind. I'm also really worried about forgetting how to study, forgetting how to do academic work which could affect my studies in the future. I'm worried I'll be putting it off for too long, since I'm now coming to the end of what was supposed to be my "gap year" - should I really turn it into a 2 year-long gap? I'm really unsure what to do and I would be very interested to hear anyone opinion, whatever it may be, on what they think I should do.
You can find out more about it here at my msn space
http://spaces.msn.com/members/tommytommy1985
You have to type it in like this (no www) otherwise it won't work. Read the blog entry "It get's harder and harder" - This is how I'm feeling at the moment, really lost, but it's drawing me closer to coming back. I really really am stuck - any help?
While I'm sitting here in my apartment watching all the exciting thunder, lightning and lashing rain outside, I thought maybe I'd use this discussion board to ask the sage counsel of the fair members of this site.
I'm currently facing a huge personal crisis and I'm chronically short of help to solve it! If anyone's read any of my other posts anywhere on here you may well know that I've been in China the last 5 months working as a teacher. I'm only 19 years old and I'm supposed to be going to University this October in Durham, NE England. This is an absolutely amazing University, world-renowned and in the UK certainly considered "up there" with Oxford and Cambridge. The thing is though I recently changed my course from a 4 year course to a 3 year one, and now I've got this potential spare year on my hands. I call it a spare year because I feel I could use it for something now, start university in 2006 and then still finish University exactly as planned, in terms of the year at least.
So here's what I've been thinking. I thought I could defer my entrance to University until 2006, return home in August as planned but then come back in September and work for the entire academic year, which would be awesome. I'd be able to continue my Chinese learning and by the time I start university be fairly proficient in Chinese. On top of all this I know I'd be able to carry on teaching the wonderful students I've come to love this year, or at least most of them. Some of them are going into a year of school where they don't have a foreign teacher, but many of them I will be able to teach, and my bosses promised me that if I came back they'd get me all my favourite classes and have already told me which schools they'll put me in, IE my favourite ones.
On the other hand of course I really really want to go to University, I really do. I keep having images of me at uni in my mind and I really love it! It'll be so much fun and I also do really miss studying, working, academics. I love all that stuff, I'm just a studious person at heart! I'm also conscious of my friends all being so far ahead of me with their University activities. I kind of feel like I'll be being left behind. I'm also really worried about forgetting how to study, forgetting how to do academic work which could affect my studies in the future. I'm worried I'll be putting it off for too long, since I'm now coming to the end of what was supposed to be my "gap year" - should I really turn it into a 2 year-long gap? I'm really unsure what to do and I would be very interested to hear anyone opinion, whatever it may be, on what they think I should do.
You can find out more about it here at my msn space
http://spaces.msn.com/members/tommytommy1985
You have to type it in like this (no www) otherwise it won't work. Read the blog entry "It get's harder and harder" - This is how I'm feeling at the moment, really lost, but it's drawing me closer to coming back. I really really am stuck - any help?
