Study Abroad "To Don'ts"

Read this article.

Then disregard absolutely everything it says. I can honestly say I disagree with every single point (except for it advising, in most cases, to not pursue serious relationships while abroad).

Main frustrations:

1. No host families? I have had an infinitely more meaningful experience with a host family than my friends who live in apartments. Plus, family dinners, church get-togethers and Cartago day trips have been so much more interesting than the luxury "to drink wine with a meal".

2. Emphasis on partying? I know that virtually anywhere someone goes to study abroad will have a lower drinking age than the U.S., and I'm not saying by any means that you should not experience the nightlife of the city in which you live, if that's your thing. I just think that by NOT being a bar hopper, I got to get up early and travel, build relationships with the same groups of people, stay healthy, and save money.

3. Don't pack peanut butter? Please. You can buy hygiene products anywhere in the world, but if you love peanut butter, bring some.

4. Don't go to class?! Maybe this is a joke I'm not understanding? If you want to stay a student at your home university, don't mess around with classes. Your grades count just as much abroad. And I learned way more about Spanish and intercultural interaction from my classes than any other part.

In summary, what the heck, study abroad article.

New friends

I can't believe I haven't told you about my friends in the GAP program yet!

A few months ago, I met a girl named Lauren outside of a certain place in Sabanilla (OK fine, Casa del Pie). She is also from Kansas (!) and here interning with a group of students learning about Spanish and the bible here in San José. We traded phone numbers and I didn't think much of it.

A few weeks later, they invited me to church. It was really inspired timing. I had just gotten really busy with school and was really missing my support system of my bibs girls and going to Heartland with my mom. Spanish church is neat, but when I'm working on language learning I'm just not using the same part of my brain as the wow-I-love-spending-time-with-God part. So when they told me that they had an English worship service for their program, it was just like, this is exactly what I need. So I went.

The rest is, if you can forgive the cliché, history — I have had just a wonderful time with this group. I play frisbee with them on Mondays, participate in a Thursday night small group (which was so wonderful to be included, since I know small groups aren't always so open to visitors), go to their house on Sunday nights for church and they even invited me hiking with them last Friday (and it was wonderful).

I feel like it's cheating since they're not Costa Rican, but one of the things I will most about Costa Rica is my time with the GAP kids. Every single one has been wonderful to me and I feel like I am able to come home in a really good place emotionally and spiritually because of their support. Beautiful hearts, every single one of them.

After hiking the mountain of the three crosses!

Questions

Sara told me about a hilarious interaction between her and Jorge, the newly-turned-three-year-old who always has a million questions. The conversation was in Spanish, so forgive me that it's not verbatim.

Jorge: Sara, why does Maggie come over here?
Sara: Because Maggie is a friend of Bailey's.
Jorge: Why are they friends?
Sara: Because they get along well.
Jorge: Why do they get along well?
Sara: Because they have the same tastes [meaning interests].
Jorge: Do they both like chocolate chip ice cream?
Sara: Sure, Jorge, they probably do.
Jorge: Do they have the same mom?
Sara: No, Jorge.
Jorge: Why not?
Sara: Because Bailey's mom lives in one place and Maggie's in another.
Jorge: What is Bailey's mom's name?
Sara: Jami.
Jorge: Why?
Sara: Because her parents named her that.
Jorge: Why did they name her that?
Sara: Because that's what they wanted to name her.
Jorge: Why?
Sara: I don't know, Jorge.
Jorge: What's Maggie's mom's name?
Sara: I don't know.
Jorge: Can we go ask her?

... and on it went. So inquisitive!

Art City Tour

Liz and I have mutually decided that, instead of spending our last two weeks spending money and time on buses and hostels, we would like to explore the cultural diversity of our city, San José.

I promise it's not a bad set-up for a joke! Sunday we went to a Christmas concert at the National Museum and today we went to some shops in Sabanilla and then on a free art tour, eloquently named Art City Tour. It was like the classy side of San José I never knew existed. We went to, among other places, two contemporary art museums, two design stores, a French art collective, and some kind of artisan co-op.  Some pictures can tell you better than I can. However, not pictured: me playing a videogame in which the US is sent to Costa Rica to fight the war on drugs, but instead marijuana plants become sentient and soldiers have to shoot them. In the moving art exhibit.

Elizapedia came with me, and a sweet old lady was in our group too.

Unrelated to much else, but this was the strangest sign I think I have seen, ever.

Golden plane raining bombs in teoréTICA gallery.

And finally, the favorite of the night: the caption says "Adonde la llevo, mi reina?" Unfortunately represents virtually all of my experiences with taxistas.

Don't think too much more of SJ, though, because I'm still not getting along with taxistas (ha) and I think doctors and motorcycles (?) are on strike. Some things never change.

Withdrawing

Today (Thanksgiving) was really kind of a sad day. I had a lot of school and the office was closed so I didn't get to see Isa or Zaida, and I got out of class so late I didn't get to see my family when I got home. I did, however, go to El Búho with Vero, Danielle and Maggie and get tasty vegan food for cafecito.

What's been on my mind this week is how dearly I miss my family, university, friends and life in the States. It's been totally new, the strength and the emotion of this, and it totally caught me off-guard. I have loved my time here. I have two free weeks to travel and play, starting today! But I would give anything to make it feasible to fly home tomorrow. What gives?


One of the ladies gave me the wisdom that my heart is just trying to prepare me to go home. That everyone else is feeling it too. Knowing that your time in a place is coming to an end, you start withdrawing from your life there in preparation for your life starting again somewhere else. I am doing awesome at this.





But really, today is Thanksgiving. I am thankful for being done with my finals as of twenty minutes ago and that I get to go home soon.

the Truman

Every year, 60 or 70 juniors in the United States are awarded Truman scholarships, which supply up to $30,000 for graduate study to the institution of their choice. They are awarded to students with a passion for creating social change in a specific area of need.

A couple of weeks ago I applied for KU´s nomination for the award, and I have a Skype interview tomorrow. I´m a lot more nervous than I normally am for these types of interviews and subsequently have had a lot about education policy on my mind (more than normal, I mean). I can´t pretend that I know all about the particular challenge of being a language educator -- my semester here has certainly proved, through my various volunteer work, that I don´t have it all figured out -- but the more I read, the more I see the need for people to want to care and think about it. Here´s what I´ll be telling the KU honor´s program tomorrow, about what I think I can change in this world if they give me a little bit of a jump start.

I see the need for a system-wide change in language education that will be implemented by people willing to work on an individual level. In the United States, English Language Learners (ELLs) are a group that has suffered from politics governing education policy rather than effective teaching methods. I believe that that the direct result of this is the widening gap of achievement between ELLs and other students — ELLs score between the tenth and twelfth percentile in standardized tests.

As part of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, all subgroups (including ELL students) are required to fulfill the goals Annual Yearly Progress (AYP). ELL students struggle with poorly adapted standardized tests, resource inequalities, lack of trained teachers, inadequate materials and bad or poorly designed facilities. Also, unfortunately, this group is defined by its deficiencies. Once a student has been declared proficient by achieving an arbitrary percentage on a language arts test, they are no longer part of the subgroup. On a macro level, these facts mean that schools in areas with high immigrant populations are doing markedly worse and schools are struggling to teach ELLs the bare minimum for the tests. On a micro level, we are failing each student that does not learn in a hurting system.

Because of increasing immigration, I believe the success of future generations and our nation as a whole lies in our ability to effectively educate all linguistic and cultural backgrounds to function effectively in an English-speaking society. This begins with effective ELL programs.

 I don´t care near as much abuot the money as the prestige, and I care almost as much about the KU nomination as the award itself. This is a huge passion of mine, now more than ever. I interview tomorrow at 4. Send good thoughts my way!


(Sources: Jost, Kenneth. “Bilingual Education vs. Language Immersion.” CQ Researcher 19.43 (2009): 129-50. CQ Rearcher. Congressional Quarterly Inc., 11 Dec. 2009. Web. 10 Oct. 2011.Crawford, James. No Child Left Behind: Misguided Approach to School Accountability for English Language Learners. Forum on Ideas to Improve the NCLB Accountability Provisions for Students with Disabilities and English Language Learners. Center of Education Policy, 14 Sept. 2004. Web. 3 Oct. 2011.)

"Shoes for tomorrow"?

TOMS shoes is very much a company after my own heart. I remember when I was 15 when Rachel told me about these shoes she'd heard about at church, that donated a pair to children in Africa. She bought a cute blue plaid pair she wore threadbare. I remember distinctly thinking they looked weird. By senior year, I had caught the I'm-gonna-change-the-world bug and bought my first pair — picnic plaid, and I wore them in my senior pictures. In college I heard Blake Mycoskie speak about how what he does isn't just philanthropy — it's an effective business model. It plays off of consumerism and people's simultaneous desire to make the world better for someone else. And it's worked. Clearly, sustainable global change won't come from buying a new pair of shoes — I'm not so naive — but I fully believe that if everyone fills their life with little meaningful actions like buying shoes from a socially responsible company, great things will happen. I have had four pairs now (and I'm sure I'll get more).

TL;DR: I love TOMS.

Imagine my surprise when I realized they were being sold here, in Costa Rica! And they costed less than in the states? I wasn't sure how that worked, but I got up early to go to Best Brands at the mall to check them out.

They were fake TOMS.

You are probably not surprised. I have fake Birkenstocks from here (that I do regret). However, my loyalty to the company and my belief in this mission made it so my heart was totally broken that Ticos might go buy Toms to support a cause and really just be overpaying for poorly made shoes that fund someone's illegitimate business. So, Costa Rica friends, be careful: those TOMS might not be what you think they are.

Here's the top 5 reasons how I knew:

1. TOMS has registered retailers. To sell TOMS and receive Toms, you have to sign up. There is only one in this dear country I live in: Guanacaste. An easy way to know if you are being sold TOMS that are legitimately straight from the company is to see if they are at a registered retailer.
   
2. International TOMS scams. In non-U.S. where real TOMS aren't as accessible, it's easy to pass of a pair as real to people who don't see real ones everyday. I was already wary.
   
3. Only some styles exist. For example, black with shimmy gold swirlies is not a design of TOMS — which means the ones I saw weren't either.
   
4. Shoddy design. The stitching was uneven, the sole wasn't glued into the shoe, the TOMS logo on the back of the shoe was crooked, and you could still see the glue oozing out from where the sole was glued onto the canvas body.
   
5. The TOMS flag. Filter results for pictures of people with their TOMS flags. Every pair comes with a cloth flag. These didn't.

I don't really like to soapbox much, but please, don't buy the fake TOMS! It will hurt my heart.