Blog Number The Last: In Love In Uganda I knew my life would change, but I never quite knew how. This is my last blog post, but I still have at least 2 more months here. So now it’s time for nostalgia. All of the nostalgia. I remember the conversations I had during the semester before I left. “Sam, I am scared. Like, really scared.I don’t want to leave you guys. I have seriously been thinking about just staying,” I…
Spring Retreat I just got back from Japan Study’s (the study abroad program I’m in) spring retreat at Minakami Onsen, a five-star ryokan (hotel with onsen, hot outdoor baths, as well as ofuro, hot indoor baths), about a three hour bus ride away from Tokyo. I am pretty exhausted, but in a good way. The spring retreat complements the fall retreat that our program had at Karuizawa, which has ofuro, sports facilities, and great views of Mt. Fuji. I’ve learned…
The mere acts of travel and observation of a culture that is not your own can have a huge influence on your existing perspectives on the world around you. After spending nearly three months immersing myself in Australian culture, I can safely say that I have picked up new views, habits, and principles that will have a lasting impact on my behaviors and beliefs for years to come. I have learned that viewing the outdoors as a companion one should…
This is part two of a two part post. Part one is available here. 9. Wander (with a purpose). Be the person who fulfils the hokey quotation ‘not all who wander are lost.’ I spent my first week thinking that I needed to only follow the advice of Trip Advisor or what I had mapped out the day before. My favorite day was the one in which I buried my map into the pits of my backpack in Krakow and…
So, this will be my last post, huh? Doesn’t particularly feel like “just yesterday” I was writing my first one–no, it was definitely an internship cover letter yesterday–but that’s what thoughtful people say in times like these. I certainly feel as though my time abroad has been too short; that’s certainly more to the point, eh? Yet I’m not really at the end of it: I still have a month and a bit from the time I’m writing this. What…
If I had to name this two-part blog post it would be: How to Make It In Eastern Europe Without Any Friends, A Little Money, and Five Changes of Clothes. After 8 long weeks of reading about King Arthur’s dwindling machismo and Winston Churchill’s drinking and its hand in saving international politics, I found myself six beautiful weeks of mindless vacation and an opportunity at empowerment. For almost four weeks I would travel to Eastern and Central Europe—places where few…
Well, the spring semester has officially begun, and things are off to a great start! Classes seem like they’re going to be a lot more interesting this time around, mostly because two of my classes, Creative Writing and Contemporary Japanese Literature, are taught by an awesome, laid-back, half-Japanese/half-British writer. I’m excited to start writing again; I haven’t exactly written much fiction since high school, even though I’m part of a creative writing club here at Waseda. I’m also taking a…
It wasn’t really until I was forced to rest in the hospital last weekend as I recovered from getting my appendix out that I stopped to think about what a wild ride this semester has been so far. As I lay semi-asleep in that mercifully silent hospital room, reveling in the thought that I wouldn’t have to pay a dime for the entire operation and eternally grateful that my doctors and nurses spoke such flawless English, I was dumbfounded to…
Maldichos y Memorias I have learned something new every day in Chile. I suppose that this is true at home, and at Vassar as well, but I feel like my learning here has been more pronounced, and more deliberate. And while, of course, I have done a lot of learning in class, most of my learning has happened outside of the classroom. Sometimes these life lessons are just silly. For instance, apparently a lot of mistakes Gringos make in Spanish…
On the eve of my spring break, I feel quite happy to have experienced all that I have in the first part of my semester, and was inspired to write in a different style than that of my previous posts. Things to be grateful for… In Madrid 1) Parque Retiro Much like Central Park of New York City, Parque Retiro is plopped in the middle of the city, offering a tranquil refuge from metropolitan life. Here, one can walk, run, paddle…