Sha la la packing!

So I said I would start packing last Wednesday. It is now Monday, and I have not yet found my suitcase…I love packing! I usually end up packing the night before…but then again, I’ve never gone overseas! And not for this long either, without laundry service =/… This is truly going to be a challenge for me…trying to pack only the necessities. I am so excited though!

I’m not sure quite what to expect from this experience except that it is going to be amazing! I imagine it will be very busy and even more thought provoking. I know I’ll be completely engrossed in the lectures given because this sort of thing absolutely fascinates me. I’m so excited to be spending the week and working with everyone from our group and from the other school. I can’t wait to meet the students from Austria either. I’m looking forward to the tea breaks! I think that’s so wonderful…I love tea.

I feel so extremely lucky to have this opportunity…it still blows me away. I know that once I get there, I probably won’t want to leave, but I know that I’ll get so much out of it. I can’t wait to take everything I’ll learn and start applying it to my everyday perspective of things at home and globally. It might even guide me in the rest of my college career.

I’m especially excited to start my experimentations for my final in interpersonal communication. I got the lucky draw of physical space. I can already picture just how much fun I can have with that! I got so many ideas from Dee when we broke apart in groups. There are so many different circumstances involved with physical space and how we use it…whether it be gender, relationship, culture or age. I plan on trying out as many different combinations as possible. So beware, you might be the subject of one of my experiments! I’m also going to be doing a lot of observing to see just how everyone interacts and I want to watch the progression that occurs as the week goes on. I’d like to see how much the use of space alters as everyone gets to know each other and then compare the beginning of the week to the end. I think it’ll be especially fun once the banquet rolls around. It’ll be interesting to see how people in our group interact with each other, with the other group and how our culture will interact with that of the Austrians’. After the Space Invaders assignment we did, I’m sure I can come up with some pretty interesting situations.

Overall I just can’t wait to be on a different continent, walking through some of the oldest, history packed streets, in what I keep hearing is one of the most beautiful countries…I’m anxious to see how I’ll respond to the jet lag. And I can’t wait to see if Carol and I will actually discover who the American Idol is before we land the plane!!

For now…I just found my suitcase…so I’m going to give packing another try. More later…

Not Quite Ready...

As I am counting down these last few days before we leave the country my thoughts are everywhere; from I don't know what clothes to take, are the kids going to miss me, will I be prepared for whatever I am about to experience. My nerves are through the roof and I seem to be having a lot of anxiety. Packing right now consist of me making a list and staring at my suitcase that is in the corner of my living room.

No matter how much I have studied, read, learned, and comprehended, I never actually feel ready for what I am about to do or say. The whole giving a presentation idea, especially in front of strangers, makes me very uneasy. Yes I can get up in front of a room full of people and speak, but it never fails that my thoughts in my head are being processed a hundred times faster than my mouth is able to speak and then everything becomes jumbled. Someone please look and me and give me sign to slowdown and take deep breaths, and don't forget to smile at met to make me feel like I am doing a great job :)

The thing I am looking forward to the most is when I step off of the plane in DFW on May 29 and give myself a great big pat on the back and say, "Chandelle you did it, and it was great!"

As for my final exam in Speech and teaching a teacher a thing or two in their area of expertise is going to be challenging but rewarding. I will truly be able to enjoy being the observer and sometimes the instigator in the great thing we call communication. I hope to become an expert but I also know it takes trials and errors in order to learn.

See everyone Wednesday morning and enjoy your last days before our lives become transformed by this journey we are about to embark on.

Preparing for An Austrain Adventure

We'll be going to Austria in less than two days! I literally can't believe it. It's hard to acknowledge the fact that I'm going to be in another continent. It hasn't really hit me yet.
I went to the store yesterday and bought things I'll need: travel-size toothpaste, shampoo, band-aids (just in case). I bought a converter and I hope it works this time. I had bought one before going to France last year and the plug wouldn't fit. I also bought new shoes, and used this trip as my excuse. With all of that, I started to pack today. Just the little things. And I'll finish tomorrow.
I think I've learned a lot both in speech and history, and hope to put that to use at the seminar, but really I'm prepared to learn more while I'm actually there. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway. I'm kind of nervous about the whole experience of meeting everyone and have discussions and whatnot. It's intimidating, though I'll try not to let that affect me so much. I'm also a bit shaky about the airport. I've only been on an airplane once, so I don't really know what I'm supposed to do! I should get through it, though. Can't wait.
Oh. I am also quite terrified about talking to Carol about my topic (Relationship Models of Development). :)
- Julissa

And what is ethnocentrism, anyway?

Carol said, "a phenomenon does not exist if there is not a word for it."

So as I sit here nervous, with butterflies and bucking horses in my stomach I come across the word "ethnocentrism" in our syllabus information for the seminar. So I "googled" it and "wikied" it and based on information learned I have been suffering from this phenomenon of a tendency of looking at the world primarily from the perspective of my own culture.

I was at one of my jobs and a woman asked me a general question in reference to gas prices and my response to her was, "I'm sort of grateful about our gas, other countries have been paying exorbent amounts of money for gas for years, we have been getting over for some time now."

In her instantaneous defense she stated, "I don't like to be compared to other countries, they are nothing like us. Americans should be better than this."

There is was, if I had no knowledge of the word ethnocentrism and it's meaning, would her comment even appeal to me?

There is even a special name that they give "us" Americans that suffer from this, it's called American Exceptionalism. Which basically means that we as Americans think that we differ on a higher degree of subjectivity from other developed nations, because of our national credo, historical evolution, or distinctive political and religious institutions. Generally we Americans think that we are superior based on a rationalization or explanation that may vary greatly depending on the historical period and the political context, essentially our rationalizations could change tomorrow, depending on the situation. The term can also be used in a very negative way referring to a willful nationalistic ignorance of faults committed by the American government.

So how do I convince other people from other cultures other than my own that I am not like this? Conflict Styles? If you examine our government and political ideals we are earnestly "forcers" not necessarily taking into consideration other people or cultures. Take for instance "Manifest Destiny" our idea that in a sense the American government was "destined" to establish uninterrupted political authority across the entire North American continent, from one ocean to the other. Not that we should bond with the existing cultures but, we should take over and conquer.

So using my conflict styles, I'll listen more trying to accommodate and collaborate during discussions. It might even be necessary to even compromise sometimes, yes, I the classroom "shark" is considering compromising. Compromising is a characteristic that benefits everybody and allows both parties to see the perspective of the others and still be respected for your own values.

Auf Wiedersehen. Ich werde sehen, jeden Mittwoch.
(Good bye. I will see everyone Wednesday.)

Audrey