I am going into this with high, formless expectations. The place I am visiting, Bali, Indonesia, has a reputation for being a “spiritual place.” As a fan of meditation and proponent of New Age thought, I am curious to explore how these cross cultural values are expressed in this area vs. the Western environment.

The Einstein saying goes “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” Considering I will be teaching a computer skills class to young children, I hope to gain a stronger appreciation for technology in general. I imagine communicating and demonstrating skills I use every day in a variety of ways will allow me to understand how useful and necessary they are, especially since Computer Science is what I hope to study.

My purpose in taking a gap year is to make the years following it more meaningful and fulfilling to me. I have never been out of the country. My growth in school and academics has been well spent and had good return, but towards the final year of high school I began to feel the discrepancy between the volume of words and facts and their connection to tangible experiences. This gap year is like a collection and linkage of all the border pieces on a jigsaw puzzle. The four years of college can then be assimilated as the central image more efficiently.