Amherst College Global Education Blog
Kukka and I became friends the summer before my senior year of high school. We spent a few years together studying violin at the Manhattan School of Music, but eventually both of us left MSM. Kukka went to Finland and I went to community college. Four years have passed since we left MSM and now I am also in Finland.
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I have been here for four weeks now, just under a month. Long enough to begin to feel comfortable, to touch the cultural nuances of this country, but not long enough for the raw newness to have faded yet. I am still surprised by the manicured hedges on the side of the highway, the silhouettes of shipping cranes over the
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“Monsieur, c’est pour les femmes.” “Oui,” I respond, “oui, oui… je suis la faim.” Faim? La faim? Really, Ellen, you are The Hunger, is this some new superhero? You took the time to take off your sweatshirt, cover your hair with a hat, and pull the necklace out from under your shirt, but somehow, you forgot to prepare your tongue.
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The first day of the class The entrance to the school building was packed with people where three guards were checking ID cards and bags of each student. Entering the lecture room, I was struck by its gigantic size. Rows of seats were filled with students, about a hundred and more at the lowest estimate. Presently, the door opened again
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I thought I would structure my first post as a primer to Yale-NUS, hopefully to give some context on where I will be going to school for this upcoming semester. Yale-NUS is liberal arts college that was founded as a partnership between Yale University and the National University of Singapore in 2013. This means that all of the current seniors
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“A realistic goal for the semester is to make one good French friend.” I scoffed then. It was early September, during orientation for my study abroad program in Bordeaux. Confined to the stuffy university classroom, I was antsy. I longed to begin the experience already, to be free from the long hours of powerpoint presentations and overwhelming logistics. I had
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Moscow is lit for NYE. Going to Europe and the States for Christmas is overrated. Go to Russia for New Year’s instead. I’ve been at my grandparents’ in Moscow for the past few weeks, and before that, traveling with family around Germany around Christmas. I’ve been relaxing, talking with family, celebrating the New Year with traditional extravagant Russian festivities. This
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I write now a little less than a month before my flight home. It’s at this point in my stay that, when spending time with our now close-knit group of friends, someone occasionally mentions that we have less than four weeks together before we all part ways. Then someone else tells that person to shut up. At this point, I’m
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PRECURSOR: I do not talk about Russian typical food. You know what I mean: borscht (beet soup), blinchiki (pancakes/crepes), olivier salad (it’s a mess to describe), katleti (meatballs), etc etc. I’m not talking about kitsch – I’m talking about experiences. Food is so important in Russia – so so so important, as any food is pertinent to any culture. While
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Saint Petersburg acted as the capital the country for 2 centuries, where aristocracy full of military and government officials did their jobs and flirted at balls, and artists and musicians all flocked there too. Best international talents also coursed there at the request of the aristocracy stuck in this swamp and needing some beauty – the designers of SPb were
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