Notes From Abroad

Vote. Or Else.

Matt Hintsa — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Armed soldiers in fatigues checked identification as women filed into a school to vote the last weekend of October. Such was the scene in Santiago as I accompanied my Chilean host mother to take part in nationwide municipal elections.

It was a whole different ballgame from its United States counterpart. In mid-September, campaign ads featuring candidates for alcalde (mayor) and consejal (municipal councilmember of sorts) started to pop up. Come mid-October, it was nearly impossible to look anywhere in the country and not see a political poster. In Santiago’s comuna of La Florida, forty-six candidates were on the ballot for the position of alcalde.

An American Election in China

Mcallister Jimbo — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

“Obama jia you!” exclaims my Chinese teacher, using a signature Chinese phrase that translates to “Keep going Obama!” Over the past few months, she has been closely following the election and frequently asks our opinions during class. Though trying to remain non-partisan, she cannot help but reveal her penchant for Obama.

Lessons in Loss, From India

Caleb Dresser — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Bvijay was late to work today. I was sitting at a lab bench when he arrived, intently focused on the delicate process of weighing root samples. He stood and watched me work for a minute, normal behavior for any of the curious field crew. Leaning closer, he said “Your house — in sadness. Tomor- ne ne in yesterday dead. My in sadness.” His command of such things as prepositions, gendered pronouns, and any words involving the past or future tense is scattershot at best, so I assumed he was once again trying to comfort me about my grandfather’s death and nodded sadly. He paused, no doubt in frustrated contemplation of the insensitive foreigner.

Crotch-less Pants and Squatting Toilets

Mcallister Jimbo — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

“Beautiful lady! Come over here and try a nice, tasty scorpion!” yelled the stand owner as he shoved a big, black skewered scorpion in my face. “No like? How about some sea horse? Good for health!” yelled another from across the way, beckoning me to come over to her stand. Dozens of stands, all bedecked with red lanterns, line the street of Wangfujing every night for the famous Wangfujing Night Market. Some sell tempting treats, such as steaming bowls of hot and sour noodles, while others sell the more exotic (and sometimes much less appetizing) delicacies. Locals sit on the sidewalk chowing down on fried dumplings and grilled lamb kebabs, while foreigners walk around and take in the unfamiliar sights and smells.

I Don't Know How to Say Goodbye in English

Molly OToole — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

It is an interesting writing environment when you are stranded in Rome and the only thing for you to do is wait and hope for some divine act and ... write your last abroad column?

Yes, well, soldier on mate.

Through life you will have these moments — moments where you are sitting on a sleeping bag on top of a hostel bunk, but you are still concerned about some awful sort of skin disease, moments when you feel abandoned because your mom, sister and guy you were supposed to meet up with yesterday can not figure out there is a reason you are not responding — because you can not — and that they need to call. These are moments where you are numb with doubt.

Au Revoir, France

Michelle Pascucci — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I am currently asking myself how one says goodbye to Paris. I have said goodbye to people, places and things before, but never like this. An image of life without baguettes from local boulangeries, without infinite open-air markets brimming with bright, fresh produce or architectural and historical wonders around each corner suddenly seems bizarre, unfamiliar. When riding in the metro, I see one of the most beautiful urban views that exists: the Eiffel Tower, essentially the symbol of Paris, stands over the Seine, the basilica of the Sacred Heart a small silhouette in the distance. In less than two months, I will return to a city where this view is mere memory, and I ask myself: Is that possible?

"Ah, the East End ... Where's That Exactly?"

Molly OToole — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

“Don’t ever go out alone. Ever.”

These were the parting words of my airport shuttle driver, moments after arriving in London, in reference to my school’s location. Every so often, over the rare drink in the even more rare club in the more posh (read: more touristy) area of central London, I’m asked where I live. After a brief internal investigation of whether said asker is a stalker, I answer, “At Queen Mary.”

Blank stare.

“In Mile End …”

Unconfident nod.

“East London?”

The English Invasion

Michelle Pascucci — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

There is a French institution called the Académie française that strives to control the usage and maintain the purity of the French language. Founded in 1635, the Académie also works to prevent the Anglicization of French. For example, rather than saying “tie-break” or “walkman,” the Académie française imposed the use of “jeu décisif” and “baladeur” in France. Though they do not say as much on their website, I believe the Académie mourns the loss of the era where French was the language spoken in the European courts, the language of the aristocracy.

Falling in Love in a Foreign Land

Molly OToole — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

I am in love.

It came on me, suddenly, without warning, on a London day like any other.

I woke up at 9 a.m. to the warm sound of my various flat mates laughing, soft voices and heavy accents wafting to me from the kitchen with the clank of spoons in cereal bowls. I cannot remember a time before arriving in London when this phenomenon — waking up with a smile — occurred. Similarly, as I look in the mirror, my reflection is strange to me. I do not recognize my face without bags underneath my eyes.

At 1:30 p.m. I threw open my curtains to another sunny day. It was an honest warm day, rather than one of those — brilliantly sunny, but a chill forty degrees — that catch newcomers to London unawares.

Let's Talk About Sex

Michelle Pascucci — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

When passing by the metro station Tuileries, I am greeted by a larger-than-life image of Josephine Baker’s breasts. I don’t note this because I have any particular attraction to her breasts. Rather, they are a blatant paradigm of the cultural difference between the French and American attitudes toward sex.

A New Semester

Michelle Pascucci — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Several weeks ago I found myself in a very familiar situation. For the second time in four months I stood at Logan Airport’s International Terminal in Boston, preparing to board a transatlantic flight from the United States to Paris. In some ways, nothing had changed since September, when I first arrived in Paris as an American student on the Educo (Emory, Duke and Cornell) in Paris program: though I was certainly more familiar with my European destination, waiting in airport terminals always conjures uncertainty in me. I inevitably fall into asking myself banal questions.