I am Caitlin O’Hara, an 18 year old girl living in Victoria, BC. Or, to be more specific, Langford, one of the thriteen municipalities in Greater Victoria.  At least for the moment. In September I am going to Lampeter, Wales as an exchange student through Camosun College. I will be studying History and humanities courses, to transfer back and finish my degree of History at the University of Victoria.  Also, I was awarded a $10,000 Premier International Scholarship courtesy of the Irving K Barber Society in partnership with the Victoria Foundation. Plus $1000 courtesy of them giving Camosun 5 awards to hand out, and they gave me one.

I have lived in Victoria my entire life, so this exchange is something completely new. I have not even moved houses before. But, I am very excited to move away – albeit temporarily – to a foreign country. This blog will hopefully be updated regularly, I know there are several study abroad blogs out there, though i haven’t seen too many focused on Canadian students, and certainly not for Wales, usually it is England or Scotland. So, I will try and write helpful things, and as practice ‘reading’ I will upload my journal from when I went on a 3 week European tour in 2009 for my 16th birthday.

This blog will also help me to stay in contact with people over here, instead of individual emails or something, just come and read this! Though of course I will not ignore any emails addressed to me. Not that during the summer I am doing too much, just working, and annoying everyone around me with every other thing I say having something to do with Wales!

Though this page does say “About Me,” so what else can I say? I am the second of five sisters, I have a 10 year old fat white cat called Prince, and a size-able jewelry and accessory collection. In addition to liking the look of the UK with all its castles and gorgeous architecture, I like watching British television, almost exclusively through uploads on YouTube. Once in Wales though hopefully it will be on an actual television! I also enjoy cooking as a hobby, though the actual buying of food and cooking for only one person will be an experience, once I am living on campus. Though maybe I can cook for fellow students, if they buy the food…

I also play the violin and the past few years I have played in an orchestra where I was the second-youngest member by several decades. I home-schooled between grades 4-10, where then I decided to go to high school to get just the pre-requisites to go to cooking school. But I changed my mind, and decided to go to university, so stayed another year to get the pre-requisites to go to Camosun to do Humanities courses. But I was a bit young, so decided to spend another year and do AP (Advanced Placement) courses: European History and English Language and Composition. Then, finally began Camosun in September 2011, and a couple months later is when I decided to apply for an exchange. Full story is the first entry of this blog!

Thank you everybody who helped me get here, everyone who helped me write a resume, who wrote references, who edited my work, who helped me get good grades, and who just encouraged me and are excited for me to go to Wales. It will be so fun, and scary, and exciting, and super, and terrifying, and brilliant, and I hope to write loads about it!