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. 

I've been on vacation

Well, sorry for the silence . . . I've been grading appellate briefs, judging moot court competitions, and traveling.  My first year as a legal writing professor is quickly coming to an end.  In fact, I pretty much only have to convert my 0-100 scaled grades to a 12.0 scale and submit them, and then I'm done.  It's been a doozy of year, and I have learned so much.  I've been receiving numerous emails from students and reports from other professors and from my students themselves about how much they learned in my class and how much they enjoyed it, despite it being one of the toughest classes they have ever taken.  They know they've learned a lot, and they are now appreciating it.  Wonderful!

Due to the fact that I've not been rehired, I am now looking at some time to rest and cater to my own whims and the whims of my family.  These whims include painting, walking with dogs, and cooking good food for my husband.  Speaking of food for my husband, he has recently been on his own while I was in Asia.  I spent a little over two weeks in Taiwan and Japan.  Here are a couple of pictures of me there.  I'll be posting more about it later.  Enjoy!

This is me at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo.

This is my sister-in-law (Sunny) and me on the bus from Taoyuan to Taipei. 

This is my sister-in-law and me outside the National Diet Building (the Japanese legislature) in Tokyo.