ITC New Zealand 2014 Scholarship

Hi there! My name is Roy Emerson and I am a thirty year old male from USA. Well, sort of, I live in China currently. How I came to living in China is actually an interesting story. It would be safe to say that I am big on taking adventurous risks. I am the same person that moved to New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and San Francisco, all with one thousand dollars and the drive to succeed. Of course that was all in my early twenties, but in my later twenties, I earned a full scholarship to become a certified nurses aide on the intensive care unit of Kent General Hospital in Dover, Delaware. I loved the job, but the location was not for me and so I took a leap of faith and applied for a flight attendant position with Republic Airways Holdings. I had almost forgotten about my application until one magical day about one month later I received an email inviting me to fly to Indianapolis for free and interview. I figured to myself, sure, why not? Two weeks later I was sitting face to face with a lovely woman named Corina. She and I hit it off instantly and before I knew it I was training to be a flight attendant with Republic Airways. I worked as a flight attendant for four years with Republic Airways before I "got the itch" to try something else for a little while, but still travel. At that exact moment I remembered going to a presentation in New York City when I was twenty years old,  for teaching oral English overseas. I researched the idea more on the internet and came across a company named Will-Excel TESOL Institute in Harbin, China (also known as Ice City). I filled out the application and emailed it to the Registrar, along with a recent photo, and I patiently waited. Roughly two weeks later I was informed that my tuition for the TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) teaching diploma would be waived in full by a scholarship that also included a six month internship in Harbin. I knew absolutely no one in China and that even made the thrill that much more interesting when I arrived just two months later. I was eating fried water beetles, walking through castles made of pure ice, hugging a panda, feeding a live chicken to a pack of Siberian Tigers, and randomly having my photo taken for newspapers just because I am a foreigner. After my internship ended in Harbin, I chose to try another part of China for one year. I chose Zhuhai because it is fifty minutes away from Hong Kong on the ferry and only fifteen minutes from Macau (Chinese version of Las Vegas) on the bus. I have celebrated in the largest casino in the world (Venetian Hotel--Macau) with Chinese politicians, guest starred on Chinese soap operas, danced the Niu Yang Ge traditional Chinese dance in a performance center while wearing traditional Chinese makeup and costume, recorded CD's for the Bureau of Education, and most recently I was the "face" of my current company (they chose me to be in their ad campaign). All of this wouldn't of been possible if I hadn't of taken that leap of faith and began to travel. It almost seems larger than life when I think about it sometimes, to be honest. I currently teach only kindergarten students (and love it) while I study online with Ashworth College for my degree in business. I will be returning to USA in 2014, but I want my travels to continue on (both personally and occupationally). If I am chosen to win this scholarship, then I fully intend to travel to infinity and beyond!