Hello!

Xinh Chào! And welcome to my blog. I’m Betsy Ray, and I devote this blog to detailing the more interesting aspects of my adventures, beginning with sprint kayak nationals in Atlanta, Georgia this summer and then moving on to the semester I will be spending in Hanoi, Vietnam. And I hope you will join me in my endeavors to follow.


Right now, I have just returned from Gainesville, Georgia for flatwater sprint kayak Nationals. I am very excited, because in K2 (two-person boat), I won the gold in the 1000m Juvenile (age 15-16) race and the silver in the 500m Junior (age 17-18) race (shout out to K2 partner Maeve!). Although she and I have trained very little together because of the distance between New York and DC, we still managed to beat K2s made up of this year’s Junior World Team members!


I have competed at the Lake Placid International Regatta and the US Nationals for two summers. This spring, at the Mid-Atlantic Regatta held at my home club (Washington Canoe Club, http://www.washingtoncanoeclub.org/) I qualified for the Junior National Team Development Camp in Lake Placid, New York. I attended the camp with about 20 other Juvenile paddlers from all over the US, including Hawaii, California, Washington State, and Georgia. We trained for two weeks with an emphasis on team boats, and I felt proud to race as a member of Team USA. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone at camp, and though I will miss the fall development camp because of Vietnam, I look forward to future camps. I just hope I can find somewhere to paddle in Hanoi!


On August 26, three days after my return to DC from Georgia, I will leave for Vietnam: a study abroad for the first semester of my junior year. The city is Hanoi, the program is School Year Abroad (http://www.sya.org/), and the foci are economics, environmental science, community service, and of course Vietnamese. I will be staying with a host family and taking classes with the fifteen other American students on the program. Although we are based out of Vietnam National University, SYA hires the teachers and runs the classes. I chose Vietnam to experience life in a developing country and because of my interest in economics and environmental science. I look forward to learning in depth about both subjects in the context of Vietnam, a fast-developing country to look out for in the future! So chào for now,


Betsy