Estonia as a financial model???

My mother's family hails from the tiny Baltic nation of Estonia (no, that's not near Romania or any of the -stans -- head north and look just under Finland).  Thus, I take special note of any mention of Estonia in the news.  Bloomberg has just published Brenden  Greeley's article titled Krugmenistan vs. Estonia, and he discusses the financial model of austerity used to get Estonia's economy moving.  Read the story here:  http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-19/krugmenistan-vs-dot-estonia#p1

Let me also point out that Toomas Ilves, the Estonian president, grew up in Fort Lee, NJ, the exact town where my husband and his sister grew up!  What a coincidence! 

Going Global

I absolutely love this article on NPR's website about the trend of young Americans being well-travelled and culturally aware.  It interviews some students who have spent years traveling and studying.  I have to say that I absolutely loved my time studying and traveling abroad.  I look forward to waking up in new lands and being surrounded by languages I don't know and cultures I need to learn.  Honestly, I never thought I'd go to Asia, but I've now been there twice, and I absolutely can't wait to go back!  I've definitely switched from an American-Euro-centric interest to more of an Asiatic interest.  Recently, I've been reading books about women in China and Afghanistan.  I'm about to start one that details the lives of the Indian ruling class women.  (I'm even gathering multi-cultural children's books for whenever we have children.)  I've also been listening to my CDs of Mandarin lessons in my car on my way to work --- it's so different from what I grew up hearing, but I embrace it as a part of my family's culture.  Looking to the future, my life plans include hiking the El Camino de Santiago, revisiting Taiwan and other Asian countries many times, visiting Estonia, and joining the Peace Corps (if Sam dies before me).  I also very much want to travel to the Galapagos to see the tortoises and spitting iguanas and to the arctic to see polar bears in the wild.  Bring on the world!!!  Where do you want to go???

Adding an adendum, I strongly believe that we have a duty to help othes across the world and that we have a duty to learn about each other.  Every day this world is becoming more and more connected.  With more connections, there will be more conflict.  As we engage in discussions to resolve conflicts, it will be important that we understand the other person's point of view and cultural ideas in order to properly interpret messages and identify his or her wants, needs, and interests.  An obvious sidenote is that, as we know and understand more about each other, any diagreements become less about people and their charactertistics that are different from "us" and more about the issues at hand. 

a Latvian reader!

I just saw that someone in Latvia read my blog.  A big hello out to those in the Baltic states!  My mother's family is from Estonia -- check out my very pale, tall self.  I love sour cream, cabbage, and smoked fish (not necessarily together, but also not necessarily apart).