Alex in China

May 31st, 2009- It’s pretty crazy to think that exactly one year ago, today, I was flying across the ocean to China. The time I was able to spend over there was definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life so far, and I’ll never forget it. I’m definitely starting to feel a bit nostalgic as I think about all the good, bad, crazy, challenging, rewarding, tiring, overwhelming, exciting times we had there. I realize that I never really wrote a “closing post” for this blog, and I apologize for that to anyone who was hoping for one. I kept thinking about it, meaning to do it, and then BAM! …the next thing I know it’s been a full year.

A lot has happened over the past year as far as my life goes. I could probably write pages about all the minor details, but I’ll spare you the novel and skip right to the good stuff. This past spring I was accepted into Texas A&M’s Public Policy Internship Program (PPIP). I’ve been hoping to apply for this program for over a year now and I can’t even begin to describe how excited I am to have been accepted! Let me give a brief background on what PPIP is exactly. To make things easier, I’ve organized the next section into a spiffy FAQ style format for your viewing pleasure

So Alex, what exactly is this PPIP you speak so highly of?

PPIP is an internship program at Texas A&M that selects a group of students every semester to be sent to Washington DC for a political internship. Cool, right? It gets even better!

Better? How could a semster in Washington DC get any better!?

To help fund the students who are chosen, the Association of Former students provides each intern with a scholarship to pay for housing while in D.C. If you’ve ever lived in D.C. then you know how expensive living there can be…I doubt my bank account could have handled a single month there by itself.

Neat-o! So what exactly are you going to be doing over there?

Hm….that’s a good question. I wish I could answer it!
The way PPIP works is that once the students are accepted into the program, they must then go and apply for individual internships seperatly. Luckily, the PPIP has many connections in DC which will help some of us in getting an internship. The program also reviews all of our application material before having it sent out to prospective internships to make sure that everything is ship shape.

Unfortunately, it’s still early summer and the people over in DC are just starting to read over our applications so I’ll probably start doing phone interviews and other fun stuff over the next month. We’ll see what happens

Hm, well where do you want to end up?

Ideally I’d like to end up in a government agency, department, or ogranization that deals with international relations or something along those lines. I’ve applied to a wide variety of places, all of which I would be honored to intern for

Wait…so when do you leave? (I’m gonna miss your sweet smiling face)

And I’m going to miss yours too! (Is it weird that I’m talking to myself like this?)

I got accepted into the fall program which means I don’t leave until August…August 24th to be specific. I’ll be in DC from then until mid December.

What are you doing this summer then? GOING BACK TO CHINA!?!?

Unfortunately, no. Since I’ll be missing an entire semester in order to do this internship, I need to take class’s this summer so that I can still graduate on time when I return.

But of course, I couldn’t just settle for taking summer classes…that’d be way to boring. So to make things more exciting, I’ve also managed to score an internship with Congressman Chet Edwards this summer! He has a local office in college station so I’ll be interning for that office part of the day while taking classes the other part.

Congressman Edwards is an amazing man, one of the few Democratic congressman in Texas, and I’m looking forward to everything I’m going to learn from being a part of his staff for the summer. You can find out more about him and what he stands for at edwards.house.gov/

Anything else?

And lastly, since this post will bring a close to my blogging experience in China, I’ve decided to upload and post a little something I created during my last few days abroad. I made this video as a project for the Institute of Asia to use as an advertisement for students thinking about studying abroad in China (Qingdao specifically). It’s a collage of my favorite moments and pictures, I think you’ll probably recognize a few of them.

Thanks to everyone whose read this blog, I hope you’ve enjoyed it!