Beijing to DC to London in Nine Months...and some other places in between

Hello from the bustling city of London! I've been in the UK for a week now and have been requested by a close friend to restart my blogging. So, I will oblige my good friend as well as use this as a way to stem my boredom on empty days. For those that don't know (although let's be real, the only people that read this blog are friends but we'll pretend as if I have a huge international audience), I'm in the UK for a year studying at a conservatory in London that is for music and dance...I'm trying not to give too much personal information away but frankly, there's only one conservatory for music AND dance in the UK....so just google that now.

Before arriving, tons of people told me how I would have such a great time and how I would absolutely love the city, but most of those people also didn't have to set up a temporary, one-year home for themselves here. Therefore, since I've been in town, I have seen very little of the city, except for a few sites. What I have seen a lot of is their shopping centers (or rather "centres") where I have purchased various homegoods. This whole experience, thus far, basically reminds me of when I moved to DC to start my undergrad. The only difference is now I'm too old for the antics of the "freshers" on my floor and their tendency to make loud noises late at night. Still, don't be put off by my negative Nancy view, I expect I will have a great time in London. It just takes awhile to settle into a new city and make new friends. It doesn't really help that classes don't actually start till September 24th and I'm consequently left to fend for myself for over two weeks.

But in terms of my dance programme (I have to learn the proper British way of spelling words, after all my heathenish American English will not do!), I'm super excited for the year and I think my courses will be really good for me. It is difficult to see what everyone is doing back home and all the opportunities I'm missing, but I have to remember that by being here I'm better preparing myself to take on those same opportunities in a year...I just hope people don't forget me....

Along those lines, I will be sharing my goals for my dance career (*tingles*) in future posts on the blog. I've been told that if you write down, or in this case type up, your goals and ambitions; it helps to make them real in your mind and therefore more likely for you to actually achieve them. Two simple-ish goals that I've already slowly been tackling are: 1. creating a business card (DONE -- just waiting to print them until I get back to the US) and 2. creating a website. The website is a slightly larger undertaking, but I'm trying to use various sites to create some different ideas for what I want to visually represent me on the web. So, I'll keep you posted about that...

Okay, I've already written much more than I thought I would for this first post and I know it's a lot of text and no visuals, so sorry for that. But future posts will also be about my experiences in London, my dance programme, various opinion posts because I can't help myself, and also a "Movie Critic of the Week" post (nice rhyming eh?). The last idea is basically a tactic for me to consistently post each week and since I have Netflix, a great independent movie theater nearby, and endless amounts of boredom, I shall attempt to share old, new, and different movies with you. I'm gonna say for now, that the movie post will come out each Sunday night (this might change once I get my class schedule) However, I will post a special edition movie post (sounds so fancy) in a little bit because I just went and saw a movie today...and I want to...that is all.