wisdom from camus to ponder...

great ideas come into the world as quietly as doves. perhaps then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear the faint fluttering of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. some will say this hope lies in a nation, others, in a man. i believe rather that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of individuals whose deeds and works everyday negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history. each and every one builds for all.

- camus

MSN = culture prep 101

Since I have returned from Colombia, friends from the conference have asked me on more than one occasion to proofread papers or applications for them that they needed to write in English, which I am always more than happy to do.

Occasionally, someone asks me how to translate something from Spanish into English (although their English skills are undoubtedly a zillion times better than my Spanish skills...). An MSN conversation tonight revealed AIESEC at work in real life, as one of my amigos de Colombia asked me how to say the name of several different fruits in English for an assignment that he was writing.

I pulled out every dictionary that I have, searched the good old online translation websites, but came up empty handed. He described to me what they tasted like, sour or sweet, seeds or not, how you eat them, what color they are, but nothing that I thought of was exactly what he was looking for. Not to worry, @'ers are creative people, right? He said that he would send me pictures of what he was talking about.

Turns out that this was no cultural difference or language barrier in communication. The pictures that he sent me looked like nothing I had ever seen before in my life. I explained that Wisconsin tends to be lacking in most of the tropical exotic fruit however, as does most of the U.S. and we finally decided that since none of these foods are grown in any English speaking country around the world, there is no English word for them....

Sarah says:
sorry i couldn't be more help!
Andres Restrepo @EAFIT says:
well...this is a nice activity for you to get familiar with Colombia!!
Andres Restrepo @EAFIT says:
At least we laughed
Sarah says:
that's what counts

ahhh, the true beauty of culture. and that's why I travel.

spreading the impact...

We've got another madtowner matched and on her way to Morocco to do a Salaam traineeship for the summer. Leave her some love!

And now I've opened my eyes, I'm showing signs of life...

I can't exactly pinpoint when my travel addiction began. Perhaps my junior year of high school when I left the country for the first time and spent two weeks in France. For the first time in my life I was given a taste of what it really meant to live outside of Wisconsin, the place I had spent my whole life until that point. Family vacations had never even been more exotic than Florida, although had almost always been limited to the midwest. During those two weeks in France, I met a classmate's older sister, who was studying in Paris at the time, and from that point on, I knew that I wanted to do the same thing when I was in college.

Three years later I made that happen. Coming into college as the completely undecided freshman, who followed the cliche path of changing my major at least once or twice a semester, everything from pre-med to journalism, nothing quite seemed to fit. Early into my sophomore year, something kept nagging at me, saying that I needed a sign, something that I could connect with, because amidst the pressure of choosing a MAJOR, I felt so completely lost about what I wanted to do with my LIFE. I kept coming back to study abroad, the one thing that I had always known in my heart I needed to do. I applied on a whim, days before the deadline, without telling anyone. Before I knew it, Spring Semester 2004 would be spent in Paris and my life would be changed forever.

I love Madison and cannot imagine having spent the past 4 years of my life anywhere else. The school, the city, the people were exactly the college experience that I had always expected. I still cannot believe that I am old enough to have graduated from college, but no matter where I go from here, I will always be proud to be a UW-Madison alum.

Yet it was the semester that I spent away from Madison that had the greatest impact on my life thusfar. I spent 5 months learning so much more than French language, culture, lit, and art history. I learned the art of living in a new culture and how amazing it can be to step out of your comfort zone and experience a new country. It was not easy by any means, but that simply added to the richness of the experience. I became addicted to European culture, cuisine, architecture, history, and most importantly, I became addicted to traveling. Studying abroad taught be the value of independence and how much I value and depend on my friends, the most important people in my life whose support has helped me so much along the way, even when we are separted by an ocean. Much more than helping me to choose an academic major, the time that I spent living in Paris opened doors to me and showed me what it meant to be passionate about something. I found a way to fit together the pieces of my life that had not made any sense. I saw what was important in my life and I MADE IT HAPPEN.

The past two years since I studied abroad have been filled with traveling, both within and outside of the US. Like Paris, the best of those adventures were the crazy ideas that I got into my head and refused to let go of. Six and a half weeks from now, I will be leaving for my next adventure, my next crazy idea that I have somehow turned into a reality. Everything is falling into place so quickly that I am not even sure I am taking it all in.

Friday: offered a traineeship in Colombia.
Sunday: graduated from UW-Madison
Wednesday: booked plane tickets from Chicago-Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires-Bogota, and back to Chicago again, registered for another international conference, this time in Cordoba, Argentina, working on whether or not we can stop in Uruguay for a few days during the two weeks between when I leave the states and head up to Colombia

Life is crazy.

I can't even begin to count all the places that everyone around me is headed to. Hong Kong. New York. California. Cairo. Uganda. Chicago. Morocco. London. India. Adam already said this, but I'm going to copy. I have pretty cool friends.

I'm not sure where I was going with this post. I can't believe I have tickets. The Visa is in the works. My "to do" keeps growing longer. This is real folks. This little Wisconsin girl is pushing the limits and heading out of the country once again.

there's been a change in my life...

Less than 1 hour until my college graduation ceremony begins. Monumental? Overrated? Not really sure, perhaps a little of both, but symbolic nonetheless. I hate to use all the cheesy cliche lines, so I'll stick to just one.

The past 4 years have flown by like crazy. And they have been without a doubt, the most amazing and impactful 4 years of my life.

I went out last night, for one last hurrah as an undergrad, and spent it with some of the most important people in my life. I would not have wanted it anyother way.

It seems fitting in a way that I am just about to leave to meet up with friends who have been there with me since my very first day in the dorms freshman year, as well as my best study abroad friend, who got me through the most challenging and life changing semester of them all.

One last note before I head off...I know that I announced this to most of you already and you have put up with all my excitement and bouncing off the walls, but I wanted to officially state for the record:

Next step of my life, from Madison, WI, I will be heading to Barranquilla, Colombia, where I have officially been accepted to do an educational traineeship, teaching English and French for a year.

It's been an emotional 48 hours.

It's 9:15 on a Wednesday night. Hanging out with Williams, Adam, and Katy. Williams just busted out the Brats t-shirt and declared it was time for a nightcap.


Except that we are at the library. Something is wrong with this picture.

random thoughts from the ethnic studies sister room....

Exams do strange things to people...

Katie announced that she was planning to wear the same t-shirt this entire week, just in case it gave her good luck.

Jenna and I told her this may be the only day that she is allowed to sit at the same table as us in the ethnic studies sister room.

Per a late night study break discussion a few nights ago that revolved around dorm food, Katy just brought us potato rounds from Pop's Club. Hands down, the highlight of the morning.

The day has been filled with highlighter vs. textbook wars, uncontrollable fits of giggles between me and Katy which led to dirty looks from Jenna, and plans to quit school and join the circus.

Exam week has only just begun and I think that we have already lost any amount of sanity that we ever had.

oh what a night...

let it be said...for the record...

I HAVE THE BEST FRIENDS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD

...love you guys!

countdown begins....

12 days

2 banquets

2 presentations about Colombia

2 research papers

2 exams

7 work shifts

1 EB retreat

1 birthday shindig for 2 of my best friends since my 1st day at Madison


Just picked up my cap and gown. Reality is starting to hit me.

there's something in the air, must be something in the water...

Answering phones at the capitol has never been at the top of the list for things that I enjoy about interning. Usually, it takes away time from other work that I need to finish and it ends up being two hours of boredom, where we occasionally laugh about the ridiculous things that people call the governor about.

When controversy strikes however, watch out...When people get worked up about something, they have absolutely no problem throwing it all out there at whoever is the first to pick up the phone. Unphased by the multiple calls regarding usual issues such as the price of gasoline, whether the constituent thinks it's ALL the government's fault or ALL the oil companies' fault, and can't understand why you won't let them speak directly to the governor to yell at him about this, another issue struck me this morning.

For the first time in the year that I have worked there, I have had a very hard time biting my tongue and not responding to what the person on the other end of the line was telling me. For the first time, I have been so tempted to not even record the call into our database out of pure frustration at the ignorance I was presented with.

Immigration issues have been everywhere lately. They are on everyone's mind and on the front page of every national paper. We discuss it in class, at the capitol, at work. The debates are heated and the discussions are passionate. The political, economic, and nationalistic arguments vary immensely and are anything but passive. In between taking calls from people who feel very strongly about the proposed legislation on illegal immigration and the position that both state and national lawmakers should take, I spent almost my entire 2 hour shift reading article after article about the issue. NYTimes, BBC World News...I found no shortage of news to keep me reading.

For the second time in the past month, I have walked out of the capitol to (extremely peaceful) protestors gathered around the Square. I came over to Barriques for lunch and saw that our cook - who is Mexican, but has legal working status in the U.S. - had not come into work today. Around the country, immigrants and supporters joined together in a boycott today in attempts to demonstrate the role that this community of 11-12 million people play in the American economy. People argue the economic impact of immigrants very convincingly either way, that their significant role in the economy is harmful or helpful.

What I have a problem with is when people have the guts to call the office of the governor of their state and YELL at me that these people should be treated as FELONS, held to the same standards as CRIMINALS, that they do not deserve BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS because they are stealing jobs and are too stupid to learn ENGLISH.

I had more than one person ask me this morning why Wisconsin was not acting as a leader to deport every single one of these people back to where they came from.

I had one person tell me that he had called several state and national politicians to tell them that he would support the allocation of money for CONCENTRATION CAMPS for these people until the U.S. was able to GET RID OF ALL OF THEM.

I wish I was exaggerating.

If you are so concerned about illegal immigrants *harming* the economy and taking money away from taxpayers, is this really a better alternative for those taxes??

I wanted to ask that person if he had ever lived in such dire economic and social conditions that he felt his only option was to leave his country, fully aware of the risks, in hopes that he could provide his family with a better life?

I wanted to ask that person if he would even be willing to work a minimum-wage paying job that an immigrant may be lucky to get, knowing that he would not even be making a realistic living wage?

I wanted to ask that person if he had ever feared going to his job or sending his children to school in the morning because widespread rumors that officials would be conducting illegal immigrants raids across the country?

I wanted to ask that person if he even realized he was speaking about human beings in the vulgar language he was using?

I wanted to ask that person if he didn't think that all these immigration issues reflected much larger problems of inequality and lack of development in our world, that people feel they have no option but to flee from?

I wanted to ask him where his grandparents or greatgrandparents had come from...and whether or not he thought he could argue against the U.S. as being a country built on immigration from the beginning?

I am not be any means arguing that illegal immigration is not an issue that needs to be addressed within our country. I just become so frustrated at all the prejudice and ignorance that is spreading around here. Perceptions and attitudes need to change in order to effectively solve any of these problems. Otherwise, the stereotypes become intensified, the differences exacerbated, and people become blinded to the individuals against whom they are throwing out all these accusations....