almond black biscotti introduction

If you told me three years ago that tonight I’d be sitting cross-legged on the floor in my bedroom in my mom’s house, listening to Bon Iver, wearing my glasses and drinking loose-leaf tea while blogging about graduating from college and moving to China, I don’t think I could have believed you, even if I had cared what you were saying.

Well, I would have to ask you who Bon Iver was, I’d probably believe the bedroom part, definitely the glasses and tea part, but when you got to China I’d think you were talking about someone else.

Someone who: was probably a year older than I am, because they’d already finished school; who had some sort of cash flow, because they were taking expensive transportation very, very far away; who had majored in Very Impressive International Business with an emphasis in Intercultural Communication, a concentration in Conflict Negotiation and a minor in Mandarin or something, because they obviously had some serious direction in life; who knew what they were doing.

I am/did/have none of those things. Cool. But this is what I’m doing tonight, including the loose-leaf almond black tea and glasses (not the cute hipster kind, the nerd kind I need to see with and that some hot bearded nerd man will one day find hopelessly attractive).

My name is Rachel and I am a twenty-one-year-old recent graduate of Pepperdine University from Murrieta, California, United States of America. I like to be outside and knit. In eleven-odd weeks I will put my English Literature degree, some clothes and a lot of books into suitcases, and I will leave on a jet plane probably not knowing when I’ll be back again. That jet plane will be going to Harbin, Heilongjiang province, China, where I’ll teach English in a public university while drinking hot tea and being a human.

I mean, I might not actually drink tea in the act of enunciating clearly and discussing gerunds, but I have a feeling there will often (always) be a thermos or mug within arm’s reach, warm and thoughtful.

Because I can imagine myself needing a bit of that in the next year (or two or three), since I did indeed graduate from college and will, in fact, be moving to China. There will be a lot of stretching, a lot of movement in many different directions, for which I am so excited and by which I am already blessed. Just a lot of elasticity and loose leaves.

So, elasticitea: the practice of constantly growing in and seeing the world, regardless/because of latitude and longitude, accompanied by a cup of love and a good spirit.

I know, I’m witty. Cute title. Good thing I actually mean it! So come with me-

Until the next tea,
Rach