To follow suit,
I should probably introduce myself as well. Like Adi, I am a rising senior and a quasi-CAPS lifer; I declared the major spring semester of freshman year. This summer, I researched the rare earths industry, familiarizing myself with its applications and redevelopment of production in the western hemisphere. I will be continuing that research here in Beijing to understand how the industry is being developed in China.
Aside from rare earths, I also enjoy learning about Australian foreign relations with China and the U.S. It’s random, but it ties in with the trade balance of commodities between countries, which I also find extremely interesting. I brought my violin with me from the States and am super excited to join the student orchestra here at Beijing University — hopefully, I’ll get to know some local students well and get some chamber music going.
In terms of blogging, I’ve had a blog in high school and had a short stint on the College Blogs Network my freshman year at Cornell, but otherwise have been pretty inactive. I’m hoping to be better about it and starting with blogging here.
Tonight, I think we’ll be walking around Sanlitun, and tomorrow we’re going on some form of a mystery tour of Beijing with four alumni that involves jianbing at 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning. Should be a good time, with pictures on this blog to follow.
P.S. I want to put out the brilliant irony of my last post, which is that after I put it up on the blog, a slim 30 seconds before the computer blacked out, I headed back towards the dorm and got lost on campus. I know I’m at fault, because I wasn’t quite paying attention to where I was going, just following roads that seemed to lead to the northwest corner of campus where the dorms are, but I somehow managed to land myself somewhere along the banks of Weiminghu. This was unfortunate because I really wanted to go to the bathroom, but I did manage to get back in time and found Edgar Snow‘s grave along the way, which was cool.