Posts

Summary of 6 weeks learning Russian in Moldova through NSLI-Y

First, the incomplete first blog I started writing about our pre-departure orientation and journey to Moldova:  The last few days have been a whirlwind of airports, airplanes, hotels, and new cities, but each of us have finally moved in with our host families. With the help of a red eye flight and major time zone changes, the past several days have sort of bled together, and it’s hard to believe that it’s already been 5 days since we said our goodbyes to our families and took off from our respective American airports. The pre-departure orientation, which included students going to both Moldova and Estonia, helped us get to know each other a little bit before departing for our host countries. Even though we will be spending the summer apart from those going to Estonia, it was fun to meet those students. It will be exciting to hear about their time in Narva when we see them again in six weeks. The Pre-Departure Orientation also gave us a better idea of what to expect in our host c
Post a Comment
Read more

Incomplete posts from Taiwan

These posts are only barely started but as I was going back through my blog, writing about my time in Moldova, where I’m currently studying Russian, I decided to post these as some of my incomplete final thoughts while in Taiwan. Post 8: With only a week left in Taiwan, I want to make sure I have a chance to write a bit more about some of the eye-opening opportunities I’ve had this year. One of those which I’m truly grateful for was my six day school trip to Japan. As compared to Singapore, Japan is a huge country of which I only saw a tiny part, and I strongly hope I can go back someday to see the rest of the islands, but my time there was made special my the students I traveled with. Instead of traveling with my class, as I did to Singapore, the trip to Japan was an elective trip for first year students of all classes. While our excursions were fun - strawberry picking, meeting students at schools with whom I could only communicate by calling thing kawai (cute), and staying in a
Post a Comment
Read more

Stinky tofu, Winter Break, and China from Taiwan

Image
It’s been a while since I last posted, but while I’m still in Taiwan (just over a month :’( ) I will try to add a few more posts about some of the things I’ve done this second half of the year (so many!) and maybe also a few of my own observations on Taiwan itself. To keep this from becoming a droning list, I’ll try to mix it up a bit and maybe talk about the three trips I went on during winter break a few months ago, interspersed with a few paragraphs on some other topics. To make up for a notable lack of school days off (and a tendency to replace the necessary national weekday holidays with school on Saturdays…), Taiwan rewards it’s ever hardworking students with a month off school, running from mid January to mid February. Which, it turns out, my classmates dread because it means an intense increase in homework, and few opportunities to see their friends. But for me it meant a long awaited release from monotonous, 7:30 to 5:00 school, everyday, five days a week. Not that I
Post a Comment
Read more