My intent is to chronicle the experience of being a Fellow, primarily for future Fellows. Having accepted my Fellowship, the next step was to talk with the Program Director about where to go and when. I have to split my trip into two to accommodate my work – I couldn’t have gone if I had to do it all in one go. We talked about countries and quickly decided on a 3-week trip to China, starting in Beijing and ending in Shanghai with a yet-to-be-determined stop between the two. The goal for the third spot is to see some of rural China. The second leg will be to South Korea for 2 weeks. South Korea is new to the program, so I will have to be even more active in the development of my itinerary there than in China. We talked about dates, I refined them to minimize the impact on work, and we’re now working on the assumption that I’ll go to China in August and Korea over Thanksgiving. The Program Director is working with a travel agent and the folks in-country to ensure that those dates work.I am, meanwhile, doing research to figure out what I want to do. I was hoping that there would be a relevant conference to attend while in country, but I can’t find any. I’m going back to my application, which had an extensive list of types of people and specific individuals I wanted to meet to start to put together a list.I also received the program guide yesterday, which lays out details about how the travel and money work. It all looks both very straightforward and very scary. It seems like this might actually happen!To spur me along in my excitement about the whole thing, I’m already starting to be exposed to the power of the network. Next week the local alumni are having a meet-and-greet for this year’s three local Fellows. And we got invitations to some amazing events already: a meeting with the International Fellows at the Grand Canyon, an opportunity to have lunch with Governor Christine Todd Whitman at her farm, and a two-day trip to Microsoft for a set of high-level meetings. Wow.