Well, I now have less than a month left before leaving for Prague! I have to admit that I am both very excited and a little sad. We have been doing so much work in our apartment over the past few weeks that I am really looking forward to living there, but now I will have to wait until January. I don't like to think about all of the things that I will be missing out on during the fall semester, but I'm hoping that the amazing experiences that I will gain by studying abroad will outweigh the things that I will miss at UNC.
I got my Czech Crowns (or Korunas) today. They look like monopoly money, and I was a little dissappointed to realize that 100ck is only $7. I still have so much that I need to be doing to get ready, but somehow I seem to occupy all of my time with working at the hospital, painting the apartment, and hanging out with friends.
Anyway, the real reason that I wanted to write this post was to reflect on something that actually happened a few weeks ago. In our modern time, there is no question that technology continues to push globalization to new limits. Often times (especially in my globalization class freshman year) we focus on the negative aspects of this ongoing change. Whether it be inhumane labor practices, currency speculation, or the questionable economics of the IMF and the World Bank, many issues cause people to fixate on the negative.
But, most recently I experienced something that seems so simple, yet upon further reflection was truly amazing. This amazing moment that I'm referring to? Well, believe it or not, it happened on Facebook. As I was bored and cruising facebook during yet another evening shift in the Surgery ICU, I opened facebook chat to find that both Anna and Isabella were online from Copenhagan, Denmark and Amman, Jordan, respectively. I was able to spend time catching up with both of them, despite the large time differences and the thousands of miles that separated us.
You're probably thinking that this is not so amazing afterall, but something about talking to two of my closest friends in far-away places really made me appreciate how far we have come in such a short amount of time. Considering that the internet wasn't really even available to the public when we were born, the current sophistication of instantaneous communication is quite impressive. Our generation tends to take things like AIM, Skype, and Facebook Chat for granted, but that afternoon I took a moment to reflect on the wonder of it all.
I got my Czech Crowns (or Korunas) today. They look like monopoly money, and I was a little dissappointed to realize that 100ck is only $7. I still have so much that I need to be doing to get ready, but somehow I seem to occupy all of my time with working at the hospital, painting the apartment, and hanging out with friends.
Anyway, the real reason that I wanted to write this post was to reflect on something that actually happened a few weeks ago. In our modern time, there is no question that technology continues to push globalization to new limits. Often times (especially in my globalization class freshman year) we focus on the negative aspects of this ongoing change. Whether it be inhumane labor practices, currency speculation, or the questionable economics of the IMF and the World Bank, many issues cause people to fixate on the negative.
But, most recently I experienced something that seems so simple, yet upon further reflection was truly amazing. This amazing moment that I'm referring to? Well, believe it or not, it happened on Facebook. As I was bored and cruising facebook during yet another evening shift in the Surgery ICU, I opened facebook chat to find that both Anna and Isabella were online from Copenhagan, Denmark and Amman, Jordan, respectively. I was able to spend time catching up with both of them, despite the large time differences and the thousands of miles that separated us.
You're probably thinking that this is not so amazing afterall, but something about talking to two of my closest friends in far-away places really made me appreciate how far we have come in such a short amount of time. Considering that the internet wasn't really even available to the public when we were born, the current sophistication of instantaneous communication is quite impressive. Our generation tends to take things like AIM, Skype, and Facebook Chat for granted, but that afternoon I took a moment to reflect on the wonder of it all.
1 comment:
You're so lucky! I wish I had it soooo much!
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