Hello, my name is Sarah! 你好, 我叫霞苒！ My life goal is to become a translator and linguist and to teach English as a second language. I didn’t always know that I wanted to work in a language-related field, but I met someone who inspired me to strive for more than just a 9-5 job. The young man I met was a missionary to Nigeria and he talked about the experience of speaking to the people in their language, engaging with them in a way most foreigners couldn’t. He had a profound impact on me and I realized just how much our first language impacts our outlook on the world. Language is what we use to interact with and interpret the world around us, but it also constrains our way of thinking about the culture and concepts that exist in our language but may not exist in others (and vice versa). I began to desire to learn another language fluently and move to another country to be fully immersed in a culture that was completely different from the one I had grown up in. I would like to interact with different people and cultures and one day move to an Asian country for my work. I am currently learning Mandarin Chinese, but am also planning to learn Korean and Japanese.