♫ Blogging madly by moonlight  ♪

♪ traversing Taiwan by daylight ♫

♫ with her 中文 she will write! ♪

♪ she is the one named Sailor Skye ♫

After my first semester as a newly admitted transfer student at SFSU, I decided to join the Chinese Flagship program.

[Wait! What is Flagship?]

 

 

The Language Flagship is a national effort to change the way Americans learn languages. We offer language programs at schools across the United States for undergraduate students in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi Urdu, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, and Turkish.  …The Language Flagship sponsors twelve Chinese Flagship Programs across the U.S.; each offers unique strengths and provides undergraduate students with pathways to professional-level proficiency in Chinese alongside the academic major of their choice.

Learn more here

[About Sailor Skye]

When I started learning Chinese back in 2008 as a wee little 17-year old, the prospect of traveling to a Mandarin speaking country was just a dream I had. Instead, I traveled to Taiwan vicariously via TV Dramas starring the likes of Vic Zhou (周渝民) and Rainie Yang (楊丞琳), repeating the phrase “one day” to myself like a magic spell enticing me to study harder.

With the help of generous scholarships from the Gilman Foundation, TECO, and The Language Flagship, I was able to study abroad in 2014 at National Taiwan University, receiving intensive summer mandarin training as part of the Chinese Language Flagships two part study abroad program. Studying in the blazing hot Taipei summer sun was my first experience  abroad, designed to prep me for my direct enrollment at Nanjing University and subsequent internship, once my Chinese reaches Advanced Proficiency that is.

After I came back from the 2014 Summer, I applied to be an intern for the Yilan County 2015 Children’s Folkgame and Folklore Festival. For the 2015 Summer, I worked as a translator and columnist for the Children’s Folkgame Newspaper (童玩日報) and published an article written in Chinese about my experience you can find here.

Now, I am applying to the final phase of the Flagship Program: the year abroad at Nanjing University as a student and intern. 

In addition to studying Chinese, I am an English Education Major with an emphasis in Linguistics at SFSU. My career interest include TESOL, International Education Management, and English to Chinese Translation and Interpreting.

I am a California girl. Born and raised. I love writing, teaching, studying Chinese, eating (If it wasn’t obvious), playing videogames, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, anime, reading, spending time with my friends and family, drinking coffee, kale, eggplants, and helping others! I don’t like mushrooms. They are slimy and gross.

[About The Site]

I created this blog to remember my study abroad experience and to reflect on what I’ve learned as a second language learner, student, translator, and educator. I also hope that this site can be of use to future Chinese Language Flagship Students, who want to get a bit of an idea of what it’s like to live, study, and intern in Taiwan and China.

 

Feel free to follow me, make suggestions for content, or leave a comment!

❤