December

December is finally here! I'm happy for this time of the year, but as China doesn't really celebrate Christmas, it's not too festive around here. Meredith, one of my classmates is planning a day to make sugar cookies and gingerbread houses at her house soon so I'm excited for that and I'm also thinking about planning a Secret Santa for Flagship students! Stay tuned :) A bunch of us are going to QiXia Mountain today to see the fall leaves so I'll definitely be posting some photos soon.

Nanjing is cold. I'm now getting used to wearing multiple layers and sleeping next to my heater. However, we just put up Christmas decorations in the Flagship office and it's really starting to feel like Christmas! Meredith had a cookie decoration party last weekend, and it was really fun fitting 20+ people in a small Chinese apartment listening to Christmas songs. See below for a few pictures!

We were also able to go to QiXia Mountain to see the autumn leaves! This place was rather far, but relatively easy to get to. We caught the metro to Xianlin and then took a didi for 30 min. Make sure you bring your student card with you whenever you go to a tourist area, a student card let's you buy your ticket for half-off! QiXia Mountain is a beautiful forest area with walking paths and a view of 长江 at the top.

Aside from weekend adventures, everyone is getting a little stressed about speech competitions, finding an internship, organizing a large Christmas party, planning new years travels and everything else that comes with living in China. Crazy how fast time is flying by, but I'm excited for what is yet to come.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Although China doesn't celebrate Christmas as we do back home, I had an unexpectedly pleasant time here during the holidays! A few classmates and I planned a Christmas celebration dinner for everyone in the program (including roommates and teachers) where we were able to eat dinner at school and play several group games such as musical chairs, ninja, and gift exchanges. We also had a make-shift photobooth set up that was really cute! The first picture below is me with Lena, Joseph and Grace; the second photo is with Amy, Lena, Jocelyn and Omar; and the third is with my roommate!

Another interesting Christmas experience was being able to travel to Thousand Island Lake 千岛湖 over Christmas weekend. It was a government planned trip to promote tourism in the Thousand Island Lake area. About 10 Flagship students were able to participate and there was also a group from another school in attendance. All really nice people and we were able to learn about different cultures. Below are some photos from the weekend trip. They gave us rooms at the Sheraton Hotel and kept us quite busy during the day with activities such as go-cart racing 卡丁车，bicycling around the lake, experiencing the local culture, and not to mention delicious meals all around! Definitely a place I'd recommend visiting if you have the time. The lake is actually man-made and all of the islands were once mountain tops.

For the school portion, many classes are now coming to an end. Each of the 3 Flagship Chinese classes have both a written test and an oral test. I am also taking an optional "Hot Topics" course that also has an oral exam. Then, there are the 2 Nanjing University direct enrollment classes that each have essays and exams. It goes without saying that I have my work cut out for me these next few weeks. But all is going well otherwise!

Now that we are approaching the end of December, many Flagship students have confirmed their internship companies/cities. Here is a brief explanation of how my search went and a few tips along the way：

1) Before arriving to Nanjing, I reached out to many people I knew that I met either through school, internships, or conferences/competitions. Many of these people were replying to me saying that they weren't aware of any internship opportunities, but were willing to help wherever possible. I was overwhelmed at the support I received threw these lines of communication and is something I definitely recommend using.

2) I was very fortunately able to get introduced to the Tencent Human Resources department and inquired about an internship opportunity for the next semester. After a screening call and simple introductions on both sides, an official interview was scheduled for a few weeks later.

3) A week before the internship, I was a mess. In the midst of midterm testing and internship preparation, I didn't think I was ready. The Flagship Program here has an internship office where you can have a quiet space with fast wifi to conduct interviews. My phone interview and was with two Tencent employees from their finance department. It was relatively smooth despite a few language mis-ups on my part, which did not hinder the conversation as a whole. It actually lasted 50 minutes, when it was supposed to only be 30 minutes.

4) A few weeks later, I received an offer over the phone! I was extremely excited and relieved. The next step in the process is to get a lot of paperwork from the company in order to change one line on your long-term China visa saying that you will now be interning instead of studying. This process is rather strenuous as you need original paperwork from the intended company and when you submit it to the police station 公安局, they will keep your passport for 3 weeks during a processing period. In that 3 weeks time, you are unable to travel domestically or abroad because you won't have your passport. So plan accordingly :)