For NDA graduate Keisha King, life is a big adventure.

As a student at Notre Dame, King was in marching band, pep band, Art Club and Drama Club. She was a good student and well liked by her peers.

Her favorite high school memory was actually a prank by two boys who wrote on the skylights in the cafeteria.  Associate Principal Joe Brooker did not appreciate the rather unusual attempt at being clever. And Mrs. Brown remembers watching the maintenance team cleaning it off the outside of the skylights.

“I walked into the Commons and everyone was staring up,” said the teacher.  “They were reading the message and watching Mr. Novotny erase it from the skylight. He was outside on the roof.”

After graduating in 2007, King moved to Madison where she took some courses at Edgewood College. “It was okay, but I wanted something more for myself.”

“I was working when Karen Thompson recommended I apply for a job where she worked. It was teaching in Guangzhou China,” said King, who left for China in August of 2016.

“Living in a country where you don’t know the language and you dont look like the people there had its challenges, but I learned enough Mandarin to get around and get what I needed.”

She said the public transportation was cheap, effective and expansive. “It literally got me anywhere in the city.”

She taught ESL for kids in grades 2-9 and lived her day-to-day life as an ordinary citizen of the city.

“There was always something to do. There are many parks,restaurants, malls, festivals and activities to do.”

King detailed her next adventure: “I went to Bangkok first and experienced the floating market where we saw ladies cooking pad Thai and frying chicken in their longboats. Then to Koh Samui for [my friend’s] wedding. It’s a beautiful island. We ended our trip in the pattaya where I had the privilege to hang out with some elephants. It was amazing.”

Currently King is working at CIOX Health. It’s a health information management company. She works there with her brother Joey Alberts.

King doesn’t want to work there forever though.

 “Over the next few years I’ll be moving to California, completing my degree and hopefully signing a contract to go teach somewhere. I’d love to go back to China or somewhere in Asia to be closer to my friends in Guangzhou, but I’d really just love to see the world.”