Allegheny College Study Abroad Spring 2009

Okay well, I have finally settled in (And now have internet, huzzah!) and things are starting to calm down. And I mean that in, calm down for me, its crazy with all the students returning this weekend. Still, its nice. The first day... The first day was hard. It all seemed to hit me then, and the others too, because when we all got together the next day all we could do was talk about how much we cried when we got to our rooms.

It's better now though. I have made one really good friend and a few others who are very nice. Me and Samantha went into town today, and Thursday we had a tour of Lancaster- which has it's own castle, in case someone didn't know. Its a prison now, but parts of it can still be toured- I think I'll be doing that next weekend. If we don't go to Scotland. We're only an hour and a half by train so... Yeah we will be goin there when we can!

Monday starts classes and I am both excited and nervous. Excited because it will be new, but nervous for the same reason. We will see what happens but I am really happy with the classes I got. And it appears that all I have for the second half of the semester are a few tests and no actual teaching. So that is even better! I'll get a lot of traveling in. Probably. If the money holds out.

Hmm... I was going to say so much more but my mind has gone blank! I'll post up a picture or two- of Lancaster- and write later!

This is Lancaster Castle. I still get excited about it. I cant believe I am around a real castle! The Queen currently owns it because she is the current Duke of Lancaster. The main area is used to house 200 inmates but a lot of the castle can still be toured- including the old cells.

With my departure fast approaching I hope that all of my preparations and research have made me ready enough for my trip. My semester in India will take me the farthest I have ever been from home and the longest time without seeing any of my family or friends. I will essentially be traveling to a whole new world. As a female I found it was very important of me to be prepared for “Eve teasing”, or being followed, whistled at, or commented at by men. Being white is going to make me stand out, but trying to blend in with my dress with help me. This will mean dressing modestly, avoiding anything that is too showy or too tight. Because of the desert climate of Jaipur, the city I will be living in, my best option will be to purchase Indian clothing, which is modest and suited for the climate. I have also learned that I need to be prepared for a variety of different restroom facilities, many of which will not have toilet paper. Because of this it will also be important to never offer or accept anything with my left hand, it is considered rude for reasons I am not going to explain, you can figure it out. Other details about India I have discovered have to do with the religion, culture and politics of this country of 1,147,995,904 people. Most of which I learned from a variety of books, articles, e-mailing and talking with others who have lived and traveled in India, movies and websites. I found talking directly with others was the best though I enjoyed watching Louis Malle’s documentary Phantom India the film Earth and the documentary Gypsy Caravan, which was about different Romani or gypsy groups including one from Rajasthan, India. In terms of written works I read a great number of articles dealing with agriculture in India and the book Understanding Contemporary India for a good overall understanding of the country. I do not think I have learned everything there is to learn but I hope I am prepared and I expect to do a lot more learning when I arrive.

So I am at Duke Marine Lab... :-) NO SNOW... Everything is going well and the weather is brisk.

My month at home has been comprised of saving up money for my trip, buying plane tickets, and talking to those that have been to Australia through Allegheny. I still have a several weeks until I depart from the United States and arrive in a city within the Tropic of Capricorn.
During my two decades of life, I have yet to break the domestic barrier of the United States. I have been to Canada yet I rarely consider this foreign travel due to the fact that I could literally look over Niagara Falls and see the New York State. If you do want to say that my visit was technically to another country, I still have not set foot on another continent. Even though all oceans are technically connected, I also have yet to swim in an ocean besides the Atlantic or a sea for that matter.

Fortunately, with my journey to Australia I can, depending on how you look at it, kill two or three birds with one stone. I'm setting foot on my first foreign country, which is dually a continent. Also lucky for me, James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland has a fantastic location right near the stretch of marine life in the Great Barrier Reef. I'm planning on making an immediate trip to the Coral Sea to see something up close and personal that can also be seen from outer space.

Despite all the questions I am sure I will have when I arrive "Down Under", there is one query that is bothering me more than any other. Is the City of Townsville in Queensland Australia the basis of the setting for the animated series The PowerPuff Girls?

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My journey to Kenya has not actually begun yet but over the next week I will be without internet access while beginnining the orientation phase. The realization of leaving for three months has finally set in as I begin to think of things as "this is my last American dinner" or my "last shower" before I leave. I am very excited to leave the comfort of Allegheny College and my country behind for a new experience.

One of the aspects that I am most excited/ nervous about is learning a new language. I will be studying Swahili for my stay in Nairobi. The classroom phase only last two months but I will have the opportunity to live with two different host families and practice my new language. I feel like this experience will give me an extra edge in becoming familiar with the culture because I am trying to assimilate my self with the locals and not be a mere observer. Kenyans do speak English and it is more common in urban settings so my language skills will be useful when traveling to my rural homestay. I have never been to a place where learning another language would be so crucial to communicating. Last summer in India I had the opportunity to practice some basic Hindi phrases but learning Swahili will be a new experience for me. I want to learn the language and be challenged for what I can make of my study abroad experience. Learning a new language will allow me to gain confidence in my new surroundings because I will be working towards my goal of communicating with Kenyans in native tongue. In the end I hope the locals will respect me more when I speak in Swahili.

I never realized before just how much I bleneded in- and just how comforting that could be. I find myself being singled out as an American here (though there are quite a few of us) because people just seem to 'know' I am different.

Of course, that could just be paranoia but the first time I sat down in class- and keep in mind I hadn't even had time to say anything- a girl turned around, smiled, and said "You're American, aren't you?"

It was quite funny and we are pretty close friends now, but it was still a little disturbing. Not that she asked, but because it was just so different.

I find myself not getting pop refrences, or understanding just what people are saying. I can stand there with a group while they laugh at something as simple as a quote "That's a good answer, but wrong" which someone, somewhere said and I can only look puzzled. I didn't really have that issue back home- even though I was not always up on what was happening, I could recognize a name.

I find the biggest difference is just the language itself- though we are speaking the same tongue. Words I am so used to useing aren't used here- and vice versa. Last week in class the professor used the word "Chav" and the two girls who were sitting next to me looked as blank as I did while everyone else laughed. It really singled you out even though it wasn't meant to. You just feel out of the loop.

Yet, for all the times I find myself confused, I also find myself enjoying the confusion. It's an opertunity to learn something new- even if it is figuring out just what a "Quid" is or what "Cheers" means. Even if it is just remembering to invert the date or to call my money "Pound" instead of a "Dollar" which I still get laughed at for doing- but if you can't laugh at yourself then there is no way to keep going.

I've made friends here, and that is really helping. They can grin and tell me what I'm missing and let me in on the joke, or the simple thing that seem to pass over my head. So while I still see myself as the awkward new kid in school I think I am adjusting easily enough- with a little help!

A college student is a college student is a college student--or so I have always thought. In fact, judging by physical appearance and fashion, it would be difficult to determine whether I was an American student or an English student just by looking at me. Then I open my mouth and it becomes quite clear that I am not English. Perhaps one of the most disorienting aspects of studying in the UK is the English accent. Of course I anticipated that most people I would be attending classes with and talking to would have a British accent. However, I did not think of my own reaction to this. On one of my first days of classes, I was sitting in a lecture room comprised of nearly all British students. As they were already acquainted with one another, they were talking together. Strangely, I didn't feel as though I was the only "normal" speaker in the room but rather quite the opposite. Perhaps years of being interested in English history and literature has given me the overly glorified impression of the English and the English language. But my own American accent felt jarring and out of place, as though I were a barbarian invading a very cultured classroom.
This feeling repeated itself when I was talking to my fellow hallmates, all of which are natives of the UK. Although they never gave me an impression of their superiority over me, I felt instantly self-conscious about my voice, how I spoke, and the phrases I used. Of course, I mentally acknowledge that my self-consciousness is ridiculous, that my American accent denotes that I am different, not inferior. But I still find myself naturally softening my voice, as though I'm worried about speaking too loudly and being characterized as a brash, loud American. Thankfully, in my second week of classes, I've felt more comfortable in the midst of the prevalent English accent and speaking among them. However, as I hear myself speak, even now, I still hear the jarring quality of how different I sound among everyone else. While I certainly will not adopt an accent (from any region in the UK) not my own, I hope to adjust to the point where I am satisfied with hearing myself speak again.

Nothing like not understanding English to make you feel a bit off...On three occasions now I have had no idea what someone was saying in ways that were really just kinda silly. One was just me not knowing the word for a type of key, another was me not knowing the name for myself in fencing, sabreur, which in my mind was hard a saybreur, and thus had no clue what a sahbreur was. Probably more embarrassing was my inability to recognize the name of our president, boruck obuma as I heard it said. Nothing to give the British people faith in Americans like them looking at you quizzically when you ask them what they think of their own president. (One nice thing about this new president already is that it's kind of reimaged Americans from something bad, to something a bit off, but we can still have hope for it, which ya know, is nice.)

But where differences can make you feel disjointed, a sharing something with others can make you feel like you belong. For me, this is generally at any one of the activities I've taken up. It's hard not to feel like you belong at a meditation session, because well, that's kind of part of it, but fencing and wing chun, among a few others, allow me to belong just because we all have the same drive.. Further in these things the students help each other, you have trouble not liking the people around you in a situation like that.

Intrinsically my life style is much the same, but in a deep way it's not. Symbolic phrase! Yeah I still walk into town for my groceries, and the weather is similar, but the scenery is different for one, there's more sheep.

Hmm...that was a good ending, but! I suppose realization number one should be tossed on here. So in my philosophy courses I have noticed something, having a different background is great. For one, philosophy discussion is more interesting because their agreed beliefs on right and wrong and the mind and such are a bit different, and secondly you find your input can nicely help the discussion because you come in at a bit of a different angle. Oh philosophical discussion...how I love thee. Hmm...if being an American doesn't single me out, geeking out over getting to discuss what makes a mind, and whether or not we should allow suicide certainly will eventually.

Washington, D.C. is an exciting city filled with many different kinds of people who have had many different kinds of experiences. Until yesterday, when I was out in the city or on the metro, I felt slightly out of place. I felt like a tourist. While physically I didn't stick out in a crowd, my demeanor gave me away at times. I looked up at the tops of buildings and said excuse me when I bumped into people. Over the past few weeks, I've had to get used to doing things quickly when on the metro or when crossing streets. I learned this when trying to use my metro card to get onto the platform. Because I didn't do it fast enough, I broke the rhythm of the line. Although I was slightly embarrassed when everyone got frustrated with me, I learned from my experience. I have learned to go with the flow of the crowd and to be more aggressive when needed. I say that up until yesterday I felt out of place because yesterday two people asked me for directions. There isn't much more gratifying in life then being asked directions when you're in a new city. Although I'm still learning the ins-and-outs of the city, I feel comfortable my new "home."

I came to Washington D.C with the notion that Washingtonians always wanted their own space, Washingtonians never make eye contact with people [ strangers]. One should not expect a Washingtonian to smile at him, when walking down the streets, in an elevator or when in the metro. I however found the above information false, after conducting my own research on Washingtonians.

It was a cold Saturday afternoon, when a friend and I decided to go have lunch in town. We decided to walk back to campus after lunch. We thought it would be wise to walk instead of taking the metro, since it was cheaper. We tried to make the walk interesting by engaging ourselves with small talks. This soon became boring, and hence the need for something more entertaining. We both decided it will be fun to just smile to by-passers, saying hi to strangers as we pass by them.

It was a difficult start, since most people we passed had their noses in the air and also wore straight faces. However, after a few positive responses, we began to feel more comfortable and confident. Some of the people we greeted actually walked with us and talked to us.

After this exercise, my friend and I realized that not all Washingtonians are “anti-social”. We also agreed that we might have come across unusual Washingtonians and that the typical Washingtonians do not associate with non-Washingtonians which may cause one to feel out of place in DC.

Through this exercise, I have come to love DC more. I feel safer now sitting in the metro and saying hi to the person sitting next to me.

After reading the selection, I am looking forward to learning much more about French culture. Unfortunately, I am still home and am unable to tell a story about my experiences in my host country. I do not leave until February 1st. Many of the common courtesies that were listed in the reading are things that I admittedly take for granted in my own home. It will be interesting to see just how different my host family is. By the next entry, I'm sure I will have a story or two to share. From what I've heard from the last person who stayed with this family, they let you come and go as you please, and they are very patient. That certainly makes me feel a little better, because I know I am not fluent in French by any means, and I hope I can learn more of the language from them. Hopefully they will understand if I make grammatical mistakes when speaking to them, and if I do, I hope they will explain the correct way to me.

As I looked at my new home on the very first day, I noticed that all the service jobs were held by African Americans or Latinos. I had a question about raising my bed to create storage, so I went into the hall and ask one of the house keepers. We struggled through the conversation because she spoke very broken English, but I did receive an answer. I then proceeded to Subway for lunch to also find that all the workers were Latino. Ordering my lunch was even harder than my previous conversation and it involved a lot of pointing. Later that evening, I went to our dining hall to discover that all the employees were African American and I was called “sister” more times than my actual brothers have said “this is my sister.”

I was trying to not hold any stereotypes about these groups because they are just trying to make a living and trying to allow their families to live the American dream, but all I could feel was that I was upper class and better than them. I wish I did not, but that was my first reaction. When I was in Europe this past summer, you were expected to know the language. Immigrants come to the U.S. to live and they cannot speak English. I guess I cannot be upset with people for not knowing how to speak English because the U.S. does not have a national language. While I know that these workers are trying their best to make a life for themselves, it put me in a situation of thinking I was more education, had a better future, and ultimately a better life than them because I would never be in a situation where I would have to serve others for a living. Who says I can judge, when I can only speak one language and immigrants can understand and communicate, for the most part, at least two languages.

The closer it came to the inauguration, African Americans fill D.C. wearing Obama apparel from head to toe. For me, Barack Obama is just another President of the United States. A friend and I were talking about why Obama drew just a following especially from the African Americans. He brought up the point that there have been 43 WHITE presidents and this is the first BLACK president. We both had friends from high school and college that will describe people by saying “the black kid down the hall” or “my Latino friend,” but we have never heard anyone say “my white friend,” because they subconsciously think “white” is a higher race and the more common race. President Obama and the first family will show America a prestigious African American family who shatters all the typical stereotypes. Breaking these labels is the hope that minorities work and live for everyday. I just hope that if other look down on the service workers or different races in their first glance, as I did, that they quickly realize that we are all human trying to make it in the world and that they do not need the stereotypes to bring them down.

I am studying a Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC. Seeing as I am still in the United States I was not anticipating a cultural change. For the most part I was correct. However, it is a very enjoyable change to be surrounded by people who are so very interested in the same scientific topics as I am.

In America most of us are used to seeing people of all different backgrounds with many different appearances frequently. Most of us don’t find it startling or find it necessary to stare at those who appear different from us while in India this is not the case. There are people, like my host family and the staff at the school, who do not find my fair skin and that of most of my classmates abnormal but on the streets of Jaipur and Delhi it is very different. Many people turn their heads on the streets to get a look and cabs assume I am a tourist and I do not know where I am and that I need a ride. Though the worst instance so far has been while a group of six of us was waiting to cross the street a guy just started taking pictures of us, even as we walked away.

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In Kenya I have the opportunity to live with the same host family for three months. My study abroad term just began but already we have exchanged so much. After arriving, my twelve year old host sister asked me to bake Betty Crocker Brownies with her. I was under the impression that she bakes all the time but mid way through I learned this was only the second time. Also, the measurements were not in metric so I had to use my best judgment. I do not bake often but my host family appreciated my advice on what kind of pan / utensils to use. They enjoyed learning to make a new food with me even though my sister decided to smash them together into a ball shape so they would fit in the fridge.

In return, I am learning to be more economical like Kenyans. They are middle class but it is still important to save food, water, and electricity. The lights are kept off during the day and showers are under ten minutes. It is a good adjustment and it makes me realize that Americans are wasteful.

The difference that has had the most effect on me in terms of how I see myself in my new surroundings would have to be the fashion in England. While this may sound materialistic, it has become quite clear that the English use fashion as a deliberate means of self-expression, leaving me feeling quite plain and I guess, American. At Allegheny, it is quite typical to enter your classroom and see half your peers in sweatpants and the other half in jeans. At Lancaster, it is much more typical to see perhaps half of your peers in jeans and the other half in dresses or some other form of stylish clothing. It is quite atypical to see someone here wearing a sweatshirt, and it seems only acceptable to wear sweatpants when going to or from the gym. While this change in style was quite shocking at first, as I wished I had known this before I packed, it was also quite exhilarating. While everyone certainly puts more effort into their appearance here, you will be hard-pressed to find someone wearing the same thing as someone else. Everyone has a unique style, and a lot of the outfits I've seen (and even begun to wear) I know would stick out in Meadville, and probably be mocked.

Another cultural difference that has forced me to re-evaluate myself in my new life is the language barrier. That's right, there is a language barrier between English speakers. When I first got here and met my flatmates, at times I found it almost impossible to understand what they are saying because of their accents. I would have to ask them either to repeat themselves several times or slow down. While I have gradually been gaining more and more understanding of the accents, there is still a language barrier in terminology. There are some words in England that mean something quite different in the States. For instance, when a guy told me he bought a 'jumper,' I was confused as I thought he meant a schoolgirl's dress. However, a jumper in England is simply a sweater. This also applies in terms of food and other everyday things; 'prawn' is shrimp, 'toilet' or 'loo' is the bathroom, and if you try to use American terminology it often results in laughter. But what both of these cultural differences has taught me that there is room for change, and I find myself embracing my new English ways rather than clinging on to American pastimes.

I arrived in Sevilla, Spain 3 days ago, and since then I have noticed many differences in my homestay and in the city. The first, and obvious difference was the language. I was thrown into the language right away because my luggage was lost. I have been taking Spanish for many years, but having to communicate with locals about something important was an exhausting task. Since then, I have adapted to the language a little more and my ability to communicate with locals has improved. With more practice, it will continue to get easier. Another difference involving the language has to do with my host mother. She cannot pronounce my name. In Spain, the "sh" and "l" sounds in my name do not really exist, so saying "Ashley" proves to be near impossible for her.
Another difference I noticed was the meals. Lunch is huge, and my stomach is not used to eating so much in the middle of the afternoon. But my host mother hates throwing food away so I struggled through it. We ate dinner around 10pm and it was a smaller meal, but I wanted more. This is a change my body is going to have to adjust to, and I'm sure with time, it will.
Lastly, the rules for the bathroom are different here. Water is very expensive, so I was asked to turn off the water during my shower while I was not actually using it. This is a different idea, but it isn't something I disagree with. While everyone does enjoys a long, hot shower, we can be very wasteful in the U.S. Because of this cultural rule, it has helped me see how important it is to conserve and that we are more wasteful in the U.S. I will never again take for granted the ability to take a long shower, and I'm sure it is something that I will miss during my stay in Spain. While different, these are all minor adjustments that I know I can make in a short amount of time.