Join Eamon Gibbons ’21, a biology major and public policy minor, as he studies in Dresden at the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD).
Welcome
Hello, there!
Welcome to Spained Glass Windows Are Aussome. Thank you for checking out my blog and I hope you enjoy the ride as we journey through Spain and Australia!
My plan for this blog is to make a post once a week, alternating between a written post and a vlog. The written posts are going to be in English while the vlogs are going to be in Spanish.
First up, we have Spain. One of my major goals, if not my biggest goal, for studying abroad in Spain is to become fluent in Español. Before starting the program, everyone had to sign an oath stating that they’ll only speak in Spanish (except under very specific circumstances) for the duration of the program. I’m very much looking forward to only speaking in Spanish because it’s pretty much forcing us to practice our Spanish at all times and there’s no way that we won’t improve drastically after a semester of that.
To give you a brief history of my experience with Spanish, at the elementary school I attended, we were required to take Spanish from Kindergarten up util 6th grade. In 7th grade, we were given the option to either continue studying Spanish, or switch over to French, Mandarin, or Latin, and I, against my mom’s will, decided to switch to Latin because I believed that it would help me when it came to the vocab section of the SATs. Fortunately for me, the year I took the SAT was the year they changed its format and got rid of the vocab section, so I ended up spending six years studying Latin for no good reason. What interested me about knowing languages was the ability to communicate with more people, and that’s something I wouldn’t have been able to do with Latin, so in 11th grade, I decided to take up Spanish again. I forgot practically all the elementary school Spanish I learned except for standard greetings and how to count to 20, but I relearned all of that and more within just a month of the intro Spanish course I took in 11th grade.
This is all to say, pardon me if there are frequent pauses to think, improper grammar, and misuses of words during my vlogs. Hopefully, the number of those occurrences decrease as the semester goes on.
I used to be upset with myself for switching over to Latin because I felt like I would be much more fluent by now had I never stopped taking Spanish, but after thinking about it a bit more, I realized that if I didn’t take that four-year hiatus, I most probably wouldn’t have become so impassioned to learn Spanish again.
I am very excited for the Madrid program to start and I look forward to sharing more of my experience with you.
Zeyan Tang ’21 in London
Follow Zeyan Tang ’21, an Econ major and Art minor, in London as he studies at the University of Arts, London (UAL), where he will focus on photojournalism.
Nonso Mogor in Spain and Australia
Join Nonso Mogor ’21, a computer science major and hispanic studies minor, as he spends a semester in Madrid with Hamilton’s Madrid program during the fall and a semester in Australia in the spring.
Bangkok, Thailand
My week in Vietnam came to an end, and I jetted off to Bangkok to meet my travel group for the next two weeks. However, before I met up with my group I had four days alone in the city. I had never really travelled alone before like this, as in the past I may travel alone but stay with friends or family. In this case, I was in a hotel completely on my own in a city I had never been to before.
As I am a small female traveller, I am unsurprisingly cautious about where I go on my own and the types of activities I get involved in. My hotel was luckily just a short walk from a bunch of historical and cultural sites, so traveling was not much of an issue. I played it safe and did not go far for dinners and meals, I went to restaurants near the hotel and did not go out to the bars. While I may not have had the most lively time during those four days, I felt better that I was playing it safe. I would recommend any solo female traveller to do similarly.
Now, done with all that, on to talking about how cool Bangkok is! I went to the Grand Palace and Golden Reclining Buddha. The Grand Palace was one of the most beautiful places I have been to, as every building was decadently decorated with gold leaf and jewel-toned glass. Every inch of the buildings and statues had decorations thoughtfully planned out and maintained. The Golden Reclining Buddha was also insanely big. I have seen pictures but I did not fully comprehend its massive size until I was standing next to it. I will be uploading a vlog of my time at the Palace and Buddha, as I do not feel my descriptions can do them justice!
See you in Chang Mai!
nothing without intention💌
Something I have been thinking about quite a lot recently is the notion of time, and how fast it seems to pass us by. Especially when we have a lot of free time in our hands, two weeks or a month can seem like the blink of an eye. Without setting intentions and realistic goals, we can often end up baffled by how little we have accomplished during a certain period of time. Don’t get me wrong: I am a firm believer that we should value periods of rest and self-care in the same way our society teaches us to prioritize times of success and productivity. One without the other can be unhealthy. A balance truly is ideal in this case; however, without clear intentions, we can feel lost, like we are living life on autopilot mode.
It is important for me to account for intervals of time during which I take care of myself in every possible way, to ensure that I am in the best shape to confront those times when everything seems a little more hectic than usual and I have about a hundred (hopefully exciting and fulfilling) tasks to complete. Since it’s summer, I have plenty of time to dedicate to this kind of endeavor, and part of it entails creating a plan which includes realistic and healthy expectations to set for myself.
Although two semesters abroad might appear to be a very long time, in the midst of change and excitement, time can truly fly by! So I have taken some time out of my summer internship, beach, and netflix routine to come up with a list of things I look forward to doing and experiencing in France. Although many of these goals are personalized and based on my own interests and desires, I am hoping this list can serve as inspiration for anyone considering traveling to France or studying abroad in another country.
Automne à Paris
- Get out of my social comfort zone. Not just stick to the old friends and acquaintances I already have in Paris or the people in my study abroad program. Put myself in situations where I can meet new faces.
- Learn how to not get lost every time I take the metro
- Be observant and present; draw from daily events and experiences to learn about socio-political patterns and how they manifest themselves in France in comparison to the U.S.
- Visit the sites of some of my favorite movie scenes filmed in Paris (think Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7 or Amélie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
- Find my favorite wine under €7.77
- Explore the Paris night scene and create a list of my favorite places to go dancing
- Turn visiting museums and art galleries into one of my main Parisian rituals
- Work on a collaborative art project with people I meet in Paris, outside and/or outside of HiF’s program
- Create a 35 mm film photography series of my time here
- Find my favorite cafes and lounges to study at
- Find the best, affordable thrift and vintage stores in the city
- Embark on the quest for my favorite french pastries and café au lait
- Watch at least one movie a week at a local cinémathèque
- Create my own vegan and gf alternatives to traditional French dishes (let’s see to what extent I can actually accomplish this)
- Leave Paris with a list of my top favorite places, activities, moments and photographs (and share it with you on this blog, of course!)
maya🕊🕊 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Birth Place: Caracas, Venezuela
Home Town: Miami, Florida
Age: 20
Pisces ☼ Aries ☽ Cancer ↟
Languages: spanish and french
Major: Women and Gender Studies
Minor: Education Studies
Passionate about: social justice, cinema, photography, gastronomy, dance and mindfulness/spirituality
Past Travel Destinations: Venezuela, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Haiti
Current Travel Wishlist: Indonesia, The Netherlands, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Morocco, Japan and Ghana
During the 2019-2020 academic year, I will be guiding you through my study abroad journey. My blog will serve as an opportunity for me to check in with myself throughout this life-changing period of my undergraduate education, and thus reflect on how this year is and will be contributing to my personal growth and wider understanding of the world as they relate to arts and culture, academics and human connection. Along the way, I hope to help those who might be considering the opportunity to gain a better understanding of what they can expect while living and studying abroad.
I plan to implement some of my personal interests to complement my blogging efforts: Expect text-centered posts as well as video montages and photograph series documenting different aspects of my time in Biarritz, Paris, Sydney, and any other destinations I end up visiting along the way.
