First person at the airport!

As you can probably imagine no one is here. I am a whole 4 hours early partly, because I have sent my son to Kansas City to visit relatives while I'm gone and I did not want to be held up at the check in. Check in did go rather well, I was actually shocked that I did not have to go through more security measures on account that I'm going out of the country.

I am really sorry to hear Dan won't be with us but I know how important family is and sometimes you have to make sacrifices. I was really excited to learn to do the "Irish Jig." Poor Rusty, he's going to be stuck with all of the "others" for a whole week. I just finished calling my mother and sending her all the necessary information just in case I get abducted by whom, I don't know. She wants copy of licenses, passports, phone numbers, addresses, a lock of hair, a vial of blood, DNA samples you know how mothers can be, it's endearing, I guess that where I get my feelings about my son from.

I have already had friends here in the airport. It's fairly easy to when the only electrical socket is in front of the mens restroom.

Ich schreibe aus Detroit.
(I will write from Detroit.)

*Gosh I love Google Translator!

Here we come

I have been spread very thin lately between work and life and preparing for this trip. Dan, you will be missed but I believe you are making a good choice to stay with your family. I believe when we put aside what we think we want for ourselves and put others needs first we find what we need. It never really hits me that I am leaving my home until I walk in the airport line, I am not sure why that is. As consequence I am a late packer; never fails. I love to fly but I have never been on a flight for more than four hours, so this is a whole new experience. I can't wait to see the Swiss Alps, this is a dream come true.

Leaving a friend behind

Well today we learned that we will be leaving one of our group behind. Dan will be unable to join us on our journey to Salzburg. His father is very, very ill and not improving so Dan made the good choice to stay in the country. We will miss his perspective and Irish humor! We will stay in touch and send Dan our best wishes for him and his family.

I'm Full!

Well, this afternoon at 2:00 pm I realized that I probably wouldn't be eating Mexican food for eight days (sniff, sniff). My sweet hubby took me to Posado's for my Mexican food fix, so I'm ready to go!

I still have to pack the "school" stuff (my communications textbook, the Salzburg preparation papers, communications research and my dictionary).

I'm not sure how much sleep I'm going to get ... I'm really excited about seeing you all tomorrow morning and joining you on this journey.

Sweet dreams!

Collection Expansion

Some people collect records, coins or dolls, but I collect places--be it a new street I've never driven down or a new country I've never had stamped in my passport before (that would be most of them). I get so excited to go to new places and see new things and I feel so grateful to have been allowed to go on this adventure with such a great group of people.

Yesterday I was thinking about how long I've been waiting to go to this Salzburg Seminar. It's been almost a year and a half. I first read about it on the TCC website when I was living with my sister in Muscat, Oman in December of 2006. I remember going into her room and saying, "Hey! I think I know where I'm going next....Austria!" She laughed at me, but here I am, 18 months later, packing my suitcase for Salzburg.....

....okay, I admit, I'm not literally packing my suitcase. In all honesty, I probably won't do that until an hour before I go to sleep. I'm one of those last minute packers. I hate laundry and folding things and figuring out what to wear. It's requires way too much brainpower.

And speaking of brainpower, I had to use a lot of it to make it through this oft' harrowing semester. Dr. Wood and Mrs. Hunsberger made absolutely sure to prepare us in every way, shape and form for whatever might be required of us during the next week. I just finished my speech journal and it finished out at 43 pages--practically a small book. (a lot o' fun to grade, I'm sure!) So yes, I feel at least mildly confident in my own abilities as well as the abilities of our group as a whole to do well at whatever surprises we encounter.

I don't actually have a lot of concrete expectations for what my experiences in Salzburg will be like. Whenever I imagine how things will be in the future, it never, ever matches up to reality, so I've adopted a strict policy of surprise. Whatever I encounter will be totally unexpected and new! It's worked well for me so far. I'm completely open to whatever happens. My only real expectation is that I will come away from this trip with some new relationships, new knowledge and new abilities for understanding the world I live in and how to improve it.

My only worry is that I will want to cram as many interesting experiences into one week as possible and we will only be able to do so much. I don't want to miss anything! I suppose I can always use that as an excuse to come back if I feel I've left anything out.

I guess I should also add under the worries category that I am a teensy-weensy-bit nervous to present my accumulated knowledge about listening styles to Carol (I'm definitely bringing my textbook). But, you know, other than me "teaching" an experienced professor about a subject that she is already incredibly familiar with, it shouldn't be a difficult project to research during the seminar. I'll just get to watch people. ; )

Austria, here we come!

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

Me?! Blogging?!!!

I have really enjoyed the times we have gotten together so far and am soooo excited about the trip.  I am counting down by the number of shifts I have left to work at each job, 1 each.  I have been really off balance the whole last year and thought that once the spring semester was over I could breathe, apparently it was just a warm up.  I am looking very much forward to the actual plane ride where I can sit still and not run around hither and yon.  I still have much to accomplish before my daughter takes me to the airport and have only packed my toiletries for real, the rest is virtual, on lists and in my mind.

I am concerned about doing well at the conference and these classes even though most of the coursework is completed.  My social self is the part of me that is in major transition and this trip has a lot to do with that.  My topic of expertise is Culture and Language.  Although I have lived in other cultures, it never occurred to me to analyze it from that perspective. And yes Carol in this particular assignment, I find you quite intimidating.  This stuff is woven into the very fiber of your being, you are so accomplished and I could hardly ever imagine being able to "teach " you anything about communication.

Well back to the laundry so I have clean things to wear in Salzburg.  See you all Wednesday morning! 

Leaving my Son

I wonder would they notice if I packed my son in my luggage. I have never left my son, sure he has left me to go on over nights at his grandmothers, sleep overs at friends homes, but I have never left him. As the days come nearer I had been unconsciously convincing myself that maybe I don't deserve this experience, I'm nervous. I am scared out of my mind, I have only traveled east of the Mississippi, once to California, and there was that time my mother took me to Tijuana, but that doesn't count, everyone spoke English.

What if I don't say the right thing or I say too many wrong things. Do I say hi or is it okay for a woman to give a man a good firm hand shake. What do I wear?!? What will my son think? He is happy for his mommy, then again he doesn't realize that I'm leaving him or maybe he doesn't really mind and I'm being too critical of him.

I've Never ...

Well ... I've never "blogged" before, never been to Austria, never participated in anything like the Salzburg Seminar and never, ever dreamed I'd really see "Maria's Mountain!"

Yesterday's meeting at Starbucks was a wonderful prelude and preparation time for the Salzburg Seminar. I am looking forward to our experiencing Salzburg together as a team. Carol and Dr. Wood have done such a wonderful job through their teaching and assignments to prepare us as we interact with each other and others from around the world. They've taught well, now I just hope that I've learned well!

I've just finished my journal for Interpersonal Communications and next plan to research and as Carol says, "become an expert" (ahem) on "Cultural Differences in Intimacy and Intimacy in Computer-Mediated Communication." I will be studying the people around me and how they interact in social relationships as well as investigating how computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be just as personal as face-to-face interaction.

There is still quite a bit of reading for me to do in preparation for the discussions of world events and cultural perspectives. I'm a little nervous about the expected work but am looking forward to meeting new people, working with our TCC team, and participating in cultural exchange activities in Austria and Germany. I know that our visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial will be somber experience.

After seeing pictures of the Salzburg Global Seminar library online, I'm really looking forward to using the resources there! I worked in a very small library for 16 years ... studying in this library is going to be ... Oh my! If you haven't looked at the pictures of Schloss Leopoldskron ... DO! This is definitely NOT a sight-seeing trip, but I'm hoping to see Mozart's birthplace too. I'm taking my camera so I'll be zapping lots of pictures of the grounds at the Schloss and am hoping that I can get in a position to take pictures of Salzburgs land and cityscape. If the TCC team is willing, I'll be snapping their pictures as they are working on their assignments and enjoying the air of Austria! I won't be able to download pictures in Austria though (sniff, sniff) the files are too large and I take WAY too many!

I'm almost packed ... Katie, I borrowed my daughter's rain jacket! She wore it when she was in Salzburg in 2003 on "holiday." I need to leave a little room just in case there's time to shop a little. I'd really like to bring home some Christmas ornaments from Salzburg. Hmmm ... I collect clocks ... I wonder how much it would cost to ship an Austrian clock to Texas? Sssshhh ... I haven't told my sweet hubby yet!

I'm really trying very hard to maintain some self-control and be giddy about getting on a plane to go to a foreign country with 11 new friends that I'm looking forward to knowing better! I'm trying to maintain some self-control at the possibility of seeing sights that the von Trapp family saw before their immigration to the United States. I saw "The Sound of Music" in 1968 (now you know that I'm an oldie) and have been intrigued by their story ever since. If you hear "The Hills Are Alive" next Thursday -- know that it's me living out a dream from long ago as I twirl like Maria did on the mountain! Even if we don't have time to take "The Sound of Music Tour," I WILL be singing next week!

So ... like have I written too much for a "blog?" Audrey and Michelle, after our discussion yesterday, I KNOW that you are great bloggers! You're going to have to help me! It took me about 30 minutes to figure out how to even start this post. Well TCC team, I'm thinking about you all as you pack and am looking forward to reading your posts. See you on Wednesday my friends!

In Him,

Dee

Gettin' ready

Hey, y'all! It was really great to see you yesterday and chat about the upcoming trip.

I am so excited about the Salzburg Seminar. I can't believe we leave in five days. It feels like this semester has flown by!

So I learned something last night...the Lost season finale will be airing while we are landing in DFW. But don't worry...I'm not such an avid fan as to ask the pilot what is happening. ;) (Hey, Michelle, it's cool if you like American Idol that much...to each her own!)

I borrowed a rain coat from a friend yesterday to take on the trip, so that's exciting...

For speech class I have to become an expert on the topic of Nonverbal Communication. It was rather fun getting to stare at people at Starbucks yesterday and try to figure out what they were trying to communicate. I don't think Carol noticed! :-P I'm looking forward to covertly staring down some Austrians so long as none of my experiences end in misunderstanding.

Well, that's all for now... Cheers!

Let's Get Started!

Our last meeting this morning at Starbucks before we leave for Salzburg was fun and informative. I know you are all ready to get going :) So I want you to post your thoughts as you count down these last few days before we leave (how your packing is going, how well prepared you feel after all your classwork, what you are most worried about, what are you most looking forward to seeing or doing, etc.) So describe your preparations and pre-travel thoughts as it will be interesting to see how you write about your final thoughts when we return. Also please write on your thoughts on how you will fulfill Mrs. Hunsberger's final requirement that you received today. So let's get blogging!

Welcome!

Hello everyone,

This is the blog for the Tarrant County College Salzburg Student Travel Group 2008. On this blog the students and professors will talk about their experience as part of the group going to Salzburg to participate in the Salzburg Global Seminar. Students will also be responding to questions posed by the professors and during the Seminar. Please follow along as we experience this fabulous learning opportunity.