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Postings from resident directors and students currently abroad, important announcements and useful infomation for planning your study abroad experience.
November 2007 Entries
We’ve all heard it before, we all know that a second or even third language is beneficial….but HOW?!
As we went through high school some of us may have grumbled about the two year language requirement, while others took an equivalent of six years of language in high school. Studying a foreign language is important, or so we’ve been told. Here’s a little something to motivate you for those language finals that are creeping up this time of year.
Some benefits of learning a foreign language:
1. Improve knowledge of your own language
As you study another language, you begin to really dissect your native tongue. Sure, most of us took grammar in middle or high school. But how many of us actually cared then if a verb was in the past perfect or the past progressive? It was obvious that the international students knew English better than we did! After studying a foreign language, you can properly speak English.
2. Foster respect for other nationalities
This has so many dimensions to it! While studying the language, you also study the culture, history and traditions. You also gain an appreciation for people who are trying to learn English.
3. Teach you how to learn
Learning a language improves your cognitive and critical thinking abilities.
4. Expand leisure activities (travel, reading, films, etc.)
Imagine reading Don Quijote in the original Spanish, discussing Victor Hugo’s works in French, or understanding Verdi and Puccini’s Italian operas. Travel is also more enjoyable when you can speak at least a little of the host country’s language.
5. Give you that edge when applying for jobs
Employers are looking for people who can speak more than one language. As companies are competing in today’s global market, it is more important than ever to be able to communicate in a foreign language and understand other cultures.
6. And you never know…maybe your “someone” speaks another language…
If reasons 1-5 weren’t enough to grab your attention or motivate you…perhaps reason 6 is more your type. According to the Summer Institute for Linguistics, only 322 million people speak English as their first language. Approximately the same speak Spanish, approximately 90 million speak German and 80 million speak French. So if you speak Spanish and English, you’ve just double the number of people that you can potentially communicate with!
Cassandra Trachy
Thanksgiving is just a few days away - the holiday season is upon us. As we give thanks for all we have in our lives, please take a moment to think about those less fortunate. We encourage you this season to donate some money or time to make a difference in your community and the world.
We at Abroadco believe in giving back to the community and have volunteered time with high school exchange students adjusting to life in the U.S. and working at a local animal shelter, among other things. We encourage you to find something you can do to make a difference!
If you don’t have the time, please share by donating to a favorite charity. If you are not sure how to do that or where you want to donate, we’ve listed some websites below. These are just a few – there are many more out there on the web.
Thanks and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Network for Good
You can search for charities by state and/or type. Many food banks use this site to accept credit card donations. There is also information about how to contribute to help those affected by Hurricane Sidr in Bangladesh.
Free Rice
This is a fun website that has been profiled on several news shows. For every correct answer (brush up on your vocabulary) 10 grains of rice are donated to the World Food Programme. Play as long as you can and see how many bowls of rice you can donate to needy families around the world. This is free for you – the website has advertisements that pay for the rice to be donate.
Heifer International
This is one of our favorites. Instead of a traditional Christmas present, why not purchase a flock of chicks or a hive of honeybees for a family member? For $20-30 you can make a difference!
Are you looking for some interesting classes to take abroad next semester? Would you like to spend your study abroad experience in a quaint medieval town? Then consider studying in Marburg!
Our program at the Philipps-University Marburg is expanding next semester to include courses in Linguistics, Education, Communication, Geography, and Media Studies. These offerings are in addition to the current slate of courses offered in Accounting, Anthropology, Archeology, Economics, Finance, Philosophy, Peace and Conflict Studies, Political Science, Psychology, and Theology.
We still have a few spaces available. Learn more about the Marburg program at http://www.abroadco.com/Marburg.
So…what it’s like living with a host family:
I keep seeming to commit cultural errors in this respect, but I think I’m getting better at it. One day I was late for both lunch AND dinner, and my host mum was NOT pleased. In Spain , eating is very much a social activity—the idea of doing it by yourself is odious. About 2pm, all the stores are closed, because families all come together to eat lunch. Sometimes this includes grandkids, too! (which I love, because then I get to play with Curro and Jose, Encarna’s grandkids.) Helping out with cleaning up, or cooking, where it would be welcome at home, would probably insult my host mum. One day she came in my room and made it all tidy, and seemed very proud of herself. (I’ll admit….that’s a pretty nifty skill. Still, it was sort of weird.) And just the other day during lunch somehow the topic of messiness came up, and she insisted we all come over to see how messy my room was. (During which process, I accidentally locked the bathroom door from the outside, to prevent the other students from seeing what my only being half awake in the morning does to the bathroom counter. Since when do doors do that?? Luckily host pop somehow fidgeted with the knob and it’s open now. )
In spite of all the cultural errors I make (and I know I’m making them because Encarna points them out), Encarna seems to like me anyway. She’s told the other girls, " you need to talk more, ask more questions, like Kathleen, she speaks Spanish really well!" and "REMEMBER TO WEAR SUNSCREEN" …and stuff like that. (just a warning: I’m practically orange from the sun now….)
One day Curro (a CUTE three-year old who I thought was five, but no, he’s three) was over for lunch, and we ran up and down the stairs and pretended we were monkeys. SOOO CUTE. "Hello! Where are you? Hm…where did Curro go? He just went up and disappeared…" SOOOO CUTE..Anywho…(I could probably go on for a while about how completely adorable this kid is, but I don’t have any pictures of him yet, so that might be a wee bit of torture ^^;;; ) After lunch, we were playing with some of the unfamiliar things I have in my room (mp3 player...nalgene…glasses case…) and he took my glasses and sort of hid them somewhere. I reached to put them back on and he said "No! you’re prettier without them!!" …and what does one say to that? So I had fuzzy vision for about an hour. (aha! So THAT’S why Europeans have a reputation for being charmers—they start when they’re young!!)
One day we went to visit the famous cathedral of Granada , which has a sacristy that holds the long-dead bodies of Isabel and Ferdinand, the catholic king and queen that conquered remote parts of Spain (including Granada ) and gave Christopher Columbus the A.O.K on finding a shortcut to India . I was a little reticent about "how cool it might be" because my general opinion is that once you’ve seen one European cathedral, you’ve seen them all. (After seeing the cathedrals in Italy , the Vatican city , Austria and Hungary —and all the disgusting hordes of gold each one carried—I developed an allergy to Cathedrals. ) To my surprise, this cathedral was different. Okay, yes, there was some gold on the walls, and a statue commemorating the "saint" Miguel " Matamoros " (which means "Muslim killer"…I swear, whatever happened to "love your neighbor as I have loved you?" bah. ) ….But, on the whole, I rather liked this cathedral. Aside from being dedicated to Mary, this cathedral is also called "the cathedral of light". Everything inside was painted white. Rather than having been built in the "holier than thou" gothic style, the architecture was to reflect being open to new ideas and accepting the good side of human nature. Also, instead of the tried-and-true paintings of the Stations of the Cross, there were paintings from MARY’S life--including her days in the synagogue—admitting that, yes, Jesus WAS Jewish. (Most ancient cathedrals seem to try to deny this.)
And …The ALHAMBRA !!! …um…so, I really can’t do it justice with words.
…Other than that, I’ve visited a Teterilla (Arabic tea house…I’m in love) and saw a Flamenco show in a restaurant that was built in a cave. SOO NIFTY!! I may need to learn how to flamenco. I’ve also gone to a salsa club, but I think flamenco’s better. Sooo cool…..anywho….
It’s sort of difficult to get myself to sit down and recount the niftiness that is Granada while said niftiness is everywhere around me. That, and, when I do finally sit down, if I’m in the same spot for 5 minutes I have a tendency to fall asleep. I’ve adapted to siestas quite well.
So, here we go—
First, I took a placement quiz to figure out which level of Spanish I’d need to take during the "intensive language" session. I pretty much got exactly the level I wanted, and my profs have been awesome! We make jokes and play taboo. And, uh, we review grammar too. And vocabulary. Yes…that. It seems so easy when we talk about it in class, and yet, as soon as I pick up a book or a magazine, my Spanish-English dictionary becomes my respirator. Notes from the diary: Still not fluent yet. Doh!
In Spain, along in many other places, public drunkenness is not a cool thing, although it is still legal. However, apparently public urination and public nudity are okay. One time as I was leaving my host family’s building, the first thing I see is a random guy urinating in a bush in the middle of the plaza, right where anyone can see him….perhaps he was drunk? (It was pretty early in the morning though, that seemed a little unlikely…) Then, I went with a group of students on an excursion to the beach, and toplessness seemed to be in chic—which, okay, I guess I’ve heard of that before. What I found surprising was how completely nonchalant it was. No one was being rude or hassling the women. Which was a little weird, considering that catcalling is pretty normal in the cities. According to a Spanish local, catcalling is a result of guys wanting to let random girls on the street know that they think they’re pretty. (When you think of it that way, it doesn’t seem like that bad of a thing—the jury is still out on whether or not that’s twisted logic.) It doesn’t happen that often anyway (at least, not to chicas who look like they’re Spaniards: Any given time I’m with my blonde friends the catcalls multiply by 8 gazillion.)
Although in my previous note I remarked that Jaime (our director) said that I do not look like a Spaniard, I have received conclusive evidence to the contrary. Within three weeks of being a granadina, I have been asked not once, not twice, but THRICE for directions from local Spaniards! That’s almost more than I’ve heard, "hey, chica!!" The irony is gorgeous. (For those of you who are  unaware, if my sense of sight were as bad as my sense of direction, I might see a fire-breathing dragon and think it was yesterday’s cold turkey sandwich.)
In Granada, every night is a party night. Everyone stays up ‘till the wee hours of the morning, checking out restaurants, going to fiestas, and spending quality time with family and friends. Well, the other students from my program decided—hey, we’ve been here for two weeks. It’s high time we get out there and check out the night life! We’d heard about a music festival that was taking place this weekend, and figured that was a good place to start. We met up about 10:30pm, and attempted to go out for tapas. In Granada, tapas, random appetizer trays from restaurants, are free when you order an alcoholic drink…Unfortunately Irish pubs don’t seem to offer tapas for free (oops..) We hung out in the pub for a while, trying to get to know each other better (What’s YOUR favorite color? How many bones have YOU broken?), and then headed out for the street again. We walked around for about an hour trying to figure out where exactly we were going, and which bus to take to get there. Eventually, maybe after…hm…half an hour to an hour, we decided a taxi was our best bet. (taxis are WAY cheaper in Spain than in Cal. I shudder remembering a half an hour taxi trip in LA costing $60…)
Wow. We get there. Wow. It was a CARNIVAL!!! There were stands selling things (for some reason the playboy bunny is very ch ic here…), carnival games (bumper cars! Racecars! Throw things and get a prize!), people dressed up like woody woodpecker or Winnie the pooh, HUGE jump houses with Monster’s inc theme, Shrek theme, and loaded with…LITTLE KIDS….playing soccer! (at ONE A.M. Wow! ) There were tons of people milling around, sitting at side-shop restaurants, just chilling. At ONE A.M. What were they all doing there at one am???
Then we headed over to the concert area. Soo…crowded. And such an amazing conglomeration of people! Sky-high highlighted dreadlocks, go-go boots, sports jerseys, suits, gypsy costumes….crazy. I would have loved to have just people-watched (if I could have managed it from a distance—I’m not a huge fan of crowds…)
We finally get near the stadium, and some people are climbing on it playing with the projector, fidgeting with the lights. By TWO A.M. the concert hasn’t started yet. We were considering leaving, and then, at 2:15, rock stars take the stage and the already vibrant audience comes alive. The band was GREAT!!! But…we were tired. So we only stayed for about three songs, and then attempted to escape the area. (this was easier said than done—the stadium was already crowded, but MORE PEOPLE kept pouring in! We felt rather like party poopers. (or, the Spanish term, "aguafiestas": meaning someone who throws water on a party. The comparison of terms makes a good data point for linguistic argument about how words form culture and backwards.)
As we waited for a taxi, we noticed there were STILL kids playing in the jumpers, STILL people chilling out at the side restaurants, STILL people looking at all the stalls—of all ages. One parent was dragging a crying kid away from the festival, and we started laughing (we’re evil, yes), imagining the kid was probably saying, "I don’t wanna leave! It’s not even three a.m yet! It’s not fair, all the other kids get to stay ‘till five am, you’re mean!!"
All in all—crazy amazing.
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