Some Words To Start...
Does anybody know how tough it is to be an international student in unknown country? I can say for sure as a young Belarusian studying at American Graduate School that it is tough.
When I won a Rotary World Peace Scholarship, I was very excited. When I was admitted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I could not wait to get a visa, pack my luggage and fly overseas to a wonderful town known as Chapel Hill. The School was great; people are very nice and ready to help; the process of getting to make new friends was going well. Everything was shiny and bright as a sunny weather in North Carolina. But, in the course of the time, I started to feel lack of communication with my family and friends back home. I wanted to share with them my achievements, tell them about my experience, problems and challenges, and also let them see the United States “with my eyes”.
This is exactly what happens when we think about different means of communication. Telephone communication is great, but it is expensive and not visual. Email exchange is better, but, again, it is impossible to fit much text, links and pictures to one email letter. One could spend all the time writing tons of emails to friends all over the world, relatives and ex-colleagues. Online forum where I had an experience of active participation in a newspaper online forum ( followed by my publications in a famous Belarusian newspaper) and answered questions of young Belarusians, who were interested in studying abroad. I wrote so much, that a friend mentioned: “You should create a blog”. I learnt a magic word “blog” at the right time, and said: “This is a solution!”
For me, blog is:
A tool to share information with my friends on what is going on in my life;
A forum to discuss the scholarship and study opportunities for young Eastern Europeans who want to study abroad;
A photo album followed by the stories about the United States, from the point of view of an international student;
A kind of online diary, helping me to organize my thoughts and ideas;
A way to share my favorite links, articles, pictures, research, etc.;
An open discussion board.
The only fear I have in creating a web log, is “moving to in the Net” and living there day and night. How about face-to face communication? I think it is very important to be able to “get out of the Net” from time to time and just call a friend, to go for coffee or to movies, and just be human beings and not only bloggers. Enjoy!
posted by Diana Manevskaya @ 11:13 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Diana
Hello; what a great start to your Blog. I like people, and stories, and well written people stories. I am glad you are doing so well, although I do not know you! :)
Naturally a Blog is not the same as being next to the ones you love and talking to them in a real time, and of course you are right that there is more to life then the Net! Why, I remember a time when there was no such thing...
It is true though that keeping a journal (even a public one, hehe) is good therapy, it helps to focus the thoughts. Without this discipline, our musings are reckless drifters; our good ideas, exciting discoveries and important experiences all fade into ghosts of memories.
In short, keep on bloggin' and good fortune find you in your studies and career :)
Hi! It's Christy from class here. Just wanted to comment on your blog and say "good start." I added a few pics on my website using the image tag, but the pics were already online. I did not use the picassa/hello program. You may consider that if you have pics posted on webspace already. However, you'll have to make sure the pics are are fairly small so that they do not use up too much space or reformat your blog. I found personally that pics sized approximately 6000 bytes or smaller worked best. I also used coding on my own in the right margin to add additional categories. Your layout looks much like mine, so you might consider that. Okay...enough about that stuff.
I have no idea what it's like to be a "fish out of water." Traveling to another country, trying to fit in and learn the geography, the language, etc.--I can only imagine how hard that must be. I have had a few students who were from other countries though, and their writing was most impressive. Even though they had some difficulty getting the words right on paper, the meaning behind it was what moved me. One student in particular talked about being a small child in a classroom where he could not communicate. He couldn't understand what his teacher or the other students were saying. He only wanted to go home but didn't know how to express this to his teacher. So, he sat there afraid and waited for the day to end. I will always remember that. You are very brave, and I wish you all the best!
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