An Ode to My Hometown and How It Feels to Go Back After Not Having Lived There Over Three Years

Ann Arbor, Michigan is a place, the place, to which my sense of home is most closely tied. I grew up in Ann Arbor from the day I was born until the age of nineteen, when I moved away to start college in Beloit, Wisconsin. It’s the place where my sense of what home means in general and specifically to me were first developed.

A year after I started college, my family moved away from Ann Arbor to St. Louis, Missouri, and since then, I have not felt whole. I felt extremely connected to Ann Arbor, especially after reevaluating my own relationship to it and my sense of home there following a few exchange programs on which I embarked during high school. The sense of wholeness I felt by living in the place where I grew up my whole childhood and adolescence, the sense of connection it gave me to my past while still cultivating a rich present in the same place, is a giant hole that I have not been able to fill in the intervening time, no matter how hard I try or what I do.
In Ann Arbor, the simplest and most banal of things seem inherently more familiar. The particular cerulean tint of the sky during late spring afternoons when the days grow long. The union of the specific bird species of the surrounding area fusing into a unique, locally crafted melody. The reflections of pale, fluffy clouds over the swiftly moving waters of the Huron River. The color of the freshly grown May leaves and the sweet scent of their blossoms. Even though there’s nothing specific or drastic which truly sets apart the terrain on which the lines between Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and other adjacent states and neatly defines them into the pockets of division we see on a map, somehow there’s an instant, palpable change that I not only feel, but also see, any time I cross over those state lines while returning to Michigan. To someone who grew up there, it just is, and is plain to see.

Seeing and being are not simple or static actions for me in Ann Arbor. When one returns to a place one lived in for so much of one’s life and formed such a massive part of one’s sense of self, it is not possible to simple see and be. Every action, every movement, every sight, is beset by remembering. The act of remembering is a state of constant navigation through spaces familiar from years of proximity, that have grown alien from just a few of prolonged absence. The familiarity comforts - one is reminded of all that has transpired in the spaces and the happy feelings of the memories and interactions they conjure. But they also estrange and alienate - the unfamiliarity, and the comparatively short period of time in which they have mushroomed into existence serve to sadden, and deepen the gap between the place, and the familiarity of the life left behind. They feed off of each other and work their way back and forth into otherwise ordinary actions and transitions, deepening the feelings of separation from the formerly unchallenged and unobstructed sense of home, and the frustration at the very nature of this disconnect. They accentuate rootlessness.

No matter how badly you may wish to leave in your youth, no matter how limiting, droll, or stifling it may seem at the time for any number of reasons, moving away from the place that you grew up effectively your entire childhood and adolescence is not easy. The very nature of this action necessitates a farewell to a cherished part of life that is more or less permanent, a severance from how unchallenged and permanent one’s sense of home and security used to be, that can never be wholly restored.

I know this is at least the case for me when I visit Ann Arbor. At this point, with my family having moved away over three years ago, I am fully aware of this severance every time I come to visit. I have already been since the first time I returned after we left, as the stark difference made itself clear almost right away. Being a guest at friends’ houses, welcome and relaxed, but ostensibly a visitor to my own hometown, was deeply disorienting, as having to shift my sense of center and direction to their homes instead of my own changed the whole feeling of being back in the first place. Every visit brings different experiences with it - I see many of the same people again, who I’ve known practically all my life, and reconnect or disconnect with them on various different levels. Sometimes I feel truly in my element and being back restores me in a way few other things can; for split seconds I’ll forget that I ever left, and I feel like I have my old life back. Others I feel lonely and utterly disconnected from any sense of my old life, deeply nostalgic for the sense of home and belonging that once fully surrounded me there, and is now gone. Each time I go back, I never know which it will be.

Every time I return, I do my very best to lose myself in Ann Arbor, to search far back in my mind and memories and reconstruct them into a tangible contemporary imitation that I can access and feel like I’m back again. I try to lose myself in downtown, and remember dinners there with my family at our favorite Indian and Middle Eastern restaurants, and wandering around the Summer Fest, once called (and still colloquially known as) “Top of the Park” with my high school friends on cool summer nights. I try to lose myself in the variable seasonal beauty of all my favorite parks - the County Farm, Gallup, Kensington State Park a while further outside of town - and their introspective natural retreats. I try to lose myself in the winding and often confusing streets of Ann Arbor Hills, the neighborhood I grew up in, which have earned it the nickname of “Spaghettiland,” and try to imagine for a moment that I’m back again in the life I once lived, that once again I’m just going for a walk around the block in between lessons or homework assignments or just to do something and get some fresh air out of the house.

Being back is like reassembling the familiar pieces of a beautiful puzzle that have been taken far apart from one another and tainted with some harsh substance. The image is still fundamentally the same, but it’s damaged and pixelated, beautiful in its own right, although it’s different, but irreparably and unmistakably not the same.

And although it may hurt when the washed out, stained elements of the new image override its original beauty, the image is too important and beautiful not to reassemble. I will continue returning to reassemble it for the rest of my life. Sometimes with greater success than others. But always with an earnest and optimistic commitment to remembering and paying tribute to all the places, people, things, and experiences in Ann Arbor that shaped me into who I’ve been, who I am, and who I’ll be.

"Geturðu endurtekið?" An Honest Overview of My Disjointed (But Improving) Icelandic Skills

At this point in my life, I've studied a total of ten languages to some significant beginner level or above. Every single language I've studied has been deeply enriching and life-changing in myriad ways, and opened my mind to new ways of building words and structuring thoughts, new mediums of expression, new music, new literature, myths, folklore, and most of all, new friendships and human connections that I would never have been able to have or access otherwise.

Among all of them, my experience learning Icelandic has been quite unique. Not only because of the unique challenges of learning Icelandic specifically as a language (my favorite Icelandic writer, Alda Sigmundsdóttir, very accurately describes her native language as "a bloody mess grammatically, a nightmarish mishmash of inflected nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns, corresponding to four different cases, three different noun genders, moods, voices, and constructions, plus any number of exceptions that rules that seem completely arbitrary, and very often are,"). But also because of the odd ups-and-downs in my timing learning the language - absorbing lots of it in shorter periods of time, but then having it remain relatively dormant in my everyday life for long periods of time, consuming it passively through movie clips or music at best.

I first started learning Icelandic three years ago. I first found myself fascinated with Icelandic when I was falling in love with languages in general around the age of twelve, watching dubbed Disney songs on YouTube, and spellbound by its unfamiliar sounds and distinctive, old letters. But the language had been hovering at the top of my list of languages of greatest interest after I got greatly interested while I was an exchange student in Egypt in high school, and found myself watching videos by a girl who was on exchange in Iceland the same year and with the same program as me, AFS Intercultural Programs, and spent the year hosted in the tiny community of Seyðisfjörður in the Eastfjords. After hearing about her experience - how beautiful the country was and how comfortable she seemed to be there - I did a lot of research about the country and especially the language, and found myself fascinated by its unique history, its strong literary tradition, its expressive and beautiful way of constructing words for new concepts from existing root words in the language, and its importance to the sense of national identity. Being already interested in Nordic languages because of my American grandmother's Swedish heritage, it became one of my languages of greatest interest. When I entered college, I was awarded a grant from my college to construct a project of some academic or professional importance, and decided to take advantage of the chance to finally go to Iceland and try to pick up a little Icelandic.

I participated in the 2016 A1/A2 Icelandic immersion summer course at the University Center of the Westfjords, which was hosted in Núpur, a former well-known boarding school now turned hotel, on a breathakingly beautiful, isolated farm property on the shores of Dýrafjörður, about a half hour drive away from the 2,000-strong de facto capital of the Westfjords, Ísafjörður.

In the old classrooms in one of the far wings of the main building, with majestic views of rolling steppes home to fluffy, free-roaming sheep, and extinct volcanoes slumbering peacefully above the waters of the fjord in the distance, we all learned to express our first tentative and stumbling thoughts in Icelandic, and about the defining characteristics of the language - its cases and verb classes, its unique and sometimes maddening sounds, and its graceful and beautifully constructed compound words. From simple introductions, we passed to simple conversations. From simple conversations to numbers, then to directions, fruits and vegetables, to telling time, talking about ourselves, and so on. At the end, even though the program had only lasted three weeks, we left with not only incredible memories and pictures of the ethereal places we'd been which could barely begin to do them justice, but with a strong base in one of the world's most beautiful, complex, and oldest languages.

Then two years went by without actively studying Icelandic at all.
I did my best to try to keep my understanding of what I'd learned in the Westfjords alive by absorbing the language in passive ways - watching Icelandic clips and videos on YouTube, listening to Icelandic music, even reading passages and sentences from Icelandic Wikipedia articles, writing them down by hand in my notebooks, and underlining or translating unfamiliar words.
But that was about it.

Two full years and a few exchanges in decidedly non-Icelandic-speaking or Nordic countries later, I found myself back in Iceland, this time in Reykjavik, to study in the month-long summer institute at the Árni Magnússon Institute at the University of Iceland, which I had wanted to do since I was seventeen years old and had seen someone post about it in a language enthusiast Facebook group I was a part of, simply called "Polyglots," recommending it to those interested in learning Icelandic.

For a month, together with my dear Italian friend Sofia I'd met on my first program in the Westfjords, together with a whole bunch of fun and friendly new faces, I spent a month cranking my Icelandic back into overdrive. Having spoken scarcely a word of Icelandic in the two years since I'd been there the first time, I figured I'd be speechless for a few days. But in a few icebreaker activities we got started on the first day, I was struck by how naturally and effortlessly "Hæ, ég heiti Nico, ég er frá Bandaríkjunum," (Hi, I'm Nico, I'm from the USA) rolled off my tongue again.

We spent the month in class in a room tucked into a cozy room on the far corner of the bottom floor of Árnagarður, close to the heart of the University of Iceland campus, learning from a teacher named Gísli, who had been the teacher of the other class on my Westfjords program. Due to a month of intensive practice, thankfully with a particular emphasis on developing our speaking skills through rigorous debates, presentations, in-class discussions, and so on, my skills absolutely skyrocketed over the course of the month. Close to the end of the program, I finally met up with my friend Unnur, a Reykjavik local who my friend Salma met at a Youth Parliament in Vienna and put me in contact with, and we had a lovely, nearly two-hour conversation over coffee in which we barely ever resorted to English. Something which I barely imagined being capable of when I started studying Icelandic, and which seemed like a distant dream even when I'd started the month. But yet, there I was, just kind of...doing it, and managing.

That conversation took place two days after the two-year anniversary of when I landed in Iceland for the first time. And it felt like coming full-circle, in a surreal and amazing way - here I was, two years later, having just finished the program I had set out to participate in to begin with, and capable of having a two-hour conversation in Icelandic with relatively few grammatical errors, and scarcely having to fall back on English.

Then I left, and although I was already at work on my Fulbright application to come back as I have now, once again I didn't practice Icelandic almost at all for a year, as I focused on finishing my final year of my undergraduate degree, and dealing with readjustment issues on campus after returning from my year abroad, heartbreak, depression, anxiety, and just an all-around struggle of a time.

Now, of course, I'm back to do (at least - rain check on posting more on current thoughts re:future plans) the first year of the B.A. program in Icelandic as a second language at the University of Iceland through the Fulbright. I've been in Iceland four days shy of two months, and actively learning the language again for a few days less than that. Over the course of my time here so far, I've already improved my language skills tremendously compared to the day that I stumbled off my flight from Chicago back onto Icelandic soil, cheerily humming "Ég er kominn heim" ("I've come home," a famous Icelandic song about homecoming). But I've also reflected a lot on the evolution of my language skills, and come to realize that beyond the unique challenges Icelandic presents as a language, my own experience learning Icelandic has been quite distinct from learning any other language I've studied.

As mentioned, I've learned Icelandic in quite intense and concentrated bursts, with long periods in between where I barely studied it, perhaps occasionally absorbing it in passive ways. But within all the programs that I've done, most of the Icelandic studying I've done has been in immersive classroom environments where everything is done in Icelandic, including explanations of grammar and syntax, with only occasional deviations to English to compensate for moments of truly dramatic incomprehension, or to quickly clarify unknown grammar terms. Additionally, due to the fact that before I was taking part in shorter term programs where I was housed with and spent most of my time around other foreign Icelandic learners, I've only just started to make Icelandic friends this time, and so before I didn't have many chances to practice my language skills outside of the classroom with my Icelandic teachers, and lacked fluid, or especially more colloquial input from native speakers as a result.

As such, my Icelandic knowledge is full of somewhat bizarre contradictions, and areas of great knowledge and ease, complimented by others of total unfamiliarity, even if they're much more applicable to everyday conversations.

I remember quite complex terminology that I learned during the intensive speaking-based immersion of my second summer program, like "opinbert tungumál" (official language), "tvítyngdur" (bilingual), or "málvísindi" (linguistics) with great facility and ease. But when I first arrived this time, I found myself completely stumped by far simpler and everyday conversational words like "aðeins" (something like "[just] a little [more]), "klikkaður" ("crazy"), or "skó" (a ubiquitous filler word with no direct English translation which is usually used at the beginning or end of a sentence or thought).

I still remember numerous scathing and creative Icelandic swear words that I learned during an elective afternoon on my first program in the Westfjords three years ago (I'll do without listing or explaining them for now). But I still mix up "þolfall" and "þágufall" (the words for the accusative and dative cases) every single grammar class.

In the first couple of days, as the cogwheels started turning in my brain and my Icelandic knowledge started to come alive again, I found myself suddenly feeling comfortable doing things again very quickly that I never would have been able to access in my mind quickly and easily a few days earlier, when I hadn't been back or practiced in over a year. I suddenly felt quite capable of handling the simple bureaucratic matters I was running around trying to take care of during my first days in the country ("Góðan daginn, ég flutti nýlega til Íslands og þarf að skrá inn heimilisfangið mitt/sækja kortið mitt, o.s.frv." - "Hello, I've recently moved to Iceland and need to register my address/pick up my card, etc...). But I would go to the IT desk at the university for help with getting my router set up in my dorm room (as the building lacks WiFi), and stand in line like a dear in the headlights, with absolutely no idea how to begin talking about what I needed help with (uh...tölva...samband...herbergið mitt... - "uhh...computer...connection...my room....), so much so that I didn't even try, and in those cases allowed myself to just speak English guilt-free.

With constant and insistent practice sitting in the cozy loft space of my dorm, declining noun after noun and adjective after adjective for hours on end while slowly sipping cups of fruit tea, my grammatical accuracy is slowly improving, and the connections between various endings and cases are gradually growing stronger in my mind, and rolling off the tongue naturally and with greater ease. But I only just learned the phrase "að vera skotinn í [einhverjum]," literally "to be shot in [someone], meaning "to be fond of" or "to have a crush on" someone.

As I've started to get more involved in community spaces with locals, such as the University Choir and the AFS volunteer and returnee community, and make friends within them, my Icelandic skills have taken on entirely new dimensions, and I've been proud of what I've been able to contribute to those conversations, albeit often tentatively and with great trepidation. Depending on the context, speed, and speaking style of the locals around me, I find that I'm often able to understand great chunks of what is going on, and also to contribute, to extents that often surprise me. I played a game of "never have I ever" mostly speaking in Icelandic in a hot tub with people from the choir during our recent choir camp. During the AFS volunteer retreat I participated in earlier this month, I contributed a bit of niche knowledge of bizarre time zones in the Pacific Ocean (specifically how American Samoa and Samoa proper are twenty-three hours apart, in spite of being just over a hundred kilometers from one another) to a conversation about geography and the International Date Line. But conversely, there are times when I am barely able to make sense of anything happening, and have to struggle so much to express myself that my budding skills are scarcely given any benefit of a doubt. I spent a lot of time with the three Icelanders and my Icelandic-speaking Danish professor on a trip I recently went on to a conference outside Copenhagen, and did my best to speak Icelandic with them, but for some reason that I can't quite nail down, I just...struggled. To understand them, to get what they were talking about, to join in conversation. At times, when I feel nervous for what ever reason, my tongue rebels and my mind seems to stop working, and my normally decent accent and conversational flow just disintegrate.

Since people here are so used to speaking English with foreigners, they often switch to English without even thinking of it, or really realizing that they are. In the past, this was something that I struggled with a lot, wondering if that meant that my linguistic knowledge was insufficient or holding back efficient communication, and it would always make me feel frustrated. Due to the overwhelming tide of English influence around the world, but especially here in Iceland, I often feel guilty speaking English abroad, especially when I'm somewhere to learn the local language (which is usually the case when I'm living abroad). Since I worked so hard to get back here specifically to learn and study the language, I feel anxious or guilty for feeling like I'm not taking enough advantage of opportunities to practice with locals, or improving fast enough. But through many conversations with people about these very topics, I've gotten some great perspectives, and realized that it's usually something people do without thinking with foreigners around, just because they're so used to it, and it's not (in most cases, at least) anything that reflects badly on my own abilities or knowledge.

I've also learned over the course of my time learning Nordic languages so far in general to prioritize quality and consistency over quantity in interactions. While it might be frustrating sometimes when people switch to English in short, transactional interactions like paying for groceries or ordering coffee, I would so much rather prioritize having regular, dynamic interactions with friends of mine from the AFS community or the choir where I get much more practice in. Even code-switching occasionally to accommodate others in those groups who maybe don't know any Icelandic or aren't learning it as their exclusive priority of everyday life like I am, I've gotten so much practice and so much insider knowledge (aside from lovely conversations getting to know lovely people) in those spaces which I'm so grateful for.

Guilt and anxiety have always followed me a bit in my journey learning languages, and Icelandic is no exception. When traveling and learning languages, I always strive to be the one to immerse myself, to adapt to my surroundings, to work hard to be able to interact and connect with the people around me in their language since I'm in their country. And when I'm not able to do so, I often struggle with feelings of inadequacy, or complacency in English overpowering knowledge of local or native languages around the world (which is obviously a gigantic systemic issue far bigger than me or my own life, and for which I cannot reasonably hold myself personally responsible).

But among all the insecurities, even just in this month and 26 days since I got back to Iceland, I've been given so many beautiful compliments that have meant so much to me on my Icelandic knowledge, and specifically on my bravery in being willing to talk to people and just throw myself headfirst into conversation without worrying so much about speaking with completely correct grammar or vocabulary.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning (now already in the dark) for my 8:20 am grammar class, and feel so overwhelmed by the endless pages of irregular declensions for every word, arbitrary case changes that follow verbs and prepositions, and countless exceptions to every rule that I feel deterred and hopeless, like I'll never be able to learn Icelandic like I want to.

But then I take a moment to realize just how far I've come in less than two months, from barely being able to string a sentence together, to now being more or less back a graceful conversational equivalent to the one I had at the end of my second summer program, back to being able to talk to people, and to do most simple transactional things in Icelandic with no issue. And sometimes even if I do stumble in a way that clearly betrays my foreignness, I get a kind and sympathetic smile in return, as if to say "I see you, I appreciate that you're trying, don't worry because you're doing great."

And even just with those, I have all the motivation I need to keep moving forward, and not give up on trying to realize this eccentric, crazy, and cherished dream of mine.

Þetta reddast.

AFS Iceland Volunteer Camp Fall 2019 Padlet Answers

Hi everyone!

Recently, I participated in a volunteer camp with AFS Iceland, which was a fantastic experience (more coming up on that soon). Since I had significant prior experience volunteering, organizing, and being involved in the organization, I participated in the more advanced track of the two that we had, and had to complete a few extra steps and assignments beforehand. Most notably in the form of answering questions about teamwork and vulnerability, which we later used as material for discussion and reflection within our own specific track's activities.

Here are my answers.

• Share and example from fiction (can be a novel, tv show, movie) of good or bad teamwork and explain shortly why. 
  The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe):
  The Pevensie siblings in the first Narnia film are an example of bad teamwork turned good later on. Initially, there is quite a lot of tension and disagreement between them as they navigate the difficulties of being far from home, separated from their mother, and of Edmund and Peter specifically butting heads over Edmund's bad attitude and acting out, and Peter's desire to live up to their mother's wish for him to "look after the others." Up until about halfway through, Edmund is constantly making fun of, snapping out at, and actively trying to prove himself better than his siblings, ultimately culminating with his departure to the White Witch's castle, which leaves his siblings and many Narnians in great danger. After he sees how calculating and evil the White Witch truly is, and realizes the role which his negative attitude and actions contributed to her advancement, his perspective changes greatly. When he returns to his siblings, he is apologetic, but doesn't seek praise for his change of heart. He joins his siblings as a united front, contributing insider knowledge that he has been able to gain about the White Witch's plans, intentions, and army, which is of great help. The Pevensie siblings ultimately are able to defeat the White Witch and fulfill the prophecy they fit, through a combination of Peter and Edmund working to hold off the White Witch's troops, which greatly outnumber their own, and Susan and Lucy rushing to gain reinforcements with Aslan's help (and magical breath).

• Write a few sentences about the term "Teaming" and if you think that describes your experience within AFS.
  Although I do understand the thought process behind it, I'm not sure I agree either with Edmondson's assessment that teams have to be static in order to function properly. Although closeness and mutual understanding can certainly increase greatly over time, in other situations they can stagnate greatly, and new perspectives and beliefs introduced into a space, even just in temporary circumstances, can go a long way to introducing and precipitating substantial change.
  In my AFS experiences, as well as other similar exchanges, I've found that even groups of people I've been a part of for a very short time, such as a week-long Returnee Leadership Summit, or a semester-long exchange, can create very strong bonds and plentiful exchanges of ideas. In many cases, people continue to bring the ideas or information exchanged into places and contexts which they are a part of for a long time afterwards, rendering them highly valuable.

• Put down a few points on when you think teaming can go well vs when it doesn't (can be the same points as in the video or something from you).
  Teaming can go well in situations where people are interested in similar things, open to learning and change, willing to make compromises and sacrifices, and wish to accomplish a common goal. It is much harder without willingness to learn things from other people, as well as to make compromises and sacrifices. In such situations, even when people are interested in similar things, tension can grow and worsen group dynamics, and cause people to remain fixated in their own ways and own knowledge.

• How would you define vulnerability?
  I would define vulnerability as willingness to let down one's guard and openly express one's emotions and thoughts, and being willing to engage with others' emotions and thoughts when they are expressed, even if they may be different from what one is used to (assuming that they are posited in a respectful and non-threatening manner).

• What’s your current comfort level with vulnerability?
  I consider myself quite comfortable with vulnerability, and believe that being able and willing to feel vulnerable is one of my greatest strengths. My willingness to be emotionally open with people has enabled me to connect with many that I hold dear at deep levels that I would likely otherwise not have been able to, and allowed me to open myself to entirely new ways of thinking, approaching problems, and visualizing the world that have been greatly enriching and empowering for me.

• What’s been your best experience with receiving feedback? What about the experience was effective or meaningful? What role did vulnerability and/or openness play in the process?
  Three years ago, I was applying for a scholarship to study Turkish for a summer. As she was applying for the same scholarship (but a different language), I worked very closely with a very close friend of mine, who I had studied in Turkey with the first time we'd been there together. When editing my essays, she pointed out a number of flaws in the writing style I had used in my essays when applying for the scholarship the previous year (being subsequently rejected). Although I was confident in my writing skills from a young age, her blunt, but constructive and supportive feedback enabled me to understand ways in which I was applying writing techniques in these essays that would work in other contexts, but not there. My willingness to understand, process, and integrate her critiques into my essays enabled me to greatly improve my writing skills and taylor specific skills to certain contexts, which enabled me to get into the program and study Turkish the following summer, as well as to get into numerous other programs I have applied to using the same skills.

• If you’ve had a negative feedback experience (either giving or receiving), what didn’t work?
  I have dyscalculia, which is defined as "a mathematical learning disability that impairs an individual's ability represent and process numerical magnitude in some way" (I often refer to it as "dyslexia's math cousin"). Throughout my elementary, middle, and high school education, I often received extra help from tutors, academic support counselors, and an individualized education plan that were theoretically supposed to help me. But rather than investing time and energy into understanding my learning disability in full and making true concessions and compromises in helping me to succeed, I was essentially made to believe that it was an issue of mind over matter: that if I worked hard enough and got enough help, eventually something would click and I'd understand. In high school, I realized that this was not true, and that my learning disability is not something I would ever be able to overcome and change. I felt deeply resentful and angry that I had been fed a false narrative for so long, and that I had spent so many years struggling with insecurity over my disability and feeling stupid for something that is innately part of me and that I cannot change as a result.

• If you compare your answers from these first two questions, what’s the lesson?
  The two occasions described in my answers are quite different in their duration, scope, and implications. But there are important conclusions to be gained from comparing them: unlike many of my educators who largely overlooked my needs and fed me a false narrative from a flawed system they ultimately refused to deviate from, my friend Gianna, when reading my essays, processed everything she was reading calmly, comprehensively, and in context. She reflected upon it, and in a way that was respectful and thoughtful, mentioned what was strong, what needed improvement, and what aspects of my writing were strong in and of themselves, but would be better to use in different contexts of writing.So my conclusion from comparing the two would be that it is necessary to look into things thoughtfully and carefully based on their context and where they come from, in order to make a fair and determined assessment that will be constructive and not destructive.

• Have you experienced receiving a giving feedback with people from another cultures? How have those experienced been to you?
  I have been able to learn from and interact with people from many different cultures and countries from my exchange experiences and language classes. These experiences have varied greatly, as there is a great variety of technique and approach in giving feedback at individual. contextual, and generational levels, in addition to at cultural and national ones. But many of them have been greatly enriching and interesting, as they have revealed different tendencies and cultural conceptualizations of various things. For instance, in my experiences as an exchange student in Iceland and Finland, I have found Nordic people to be generally quite direct and straightforward when communicating about most things, in ways that are, to an even slightly experienced eye, very well-intentioned, but that to many from other cultures could be perceived as abrasive or even rude. In contrast, when taking Japanese in my final year of college in the United States, I noticed that the way my professor and her teaching assistants communicated, particularly with each other within the expectations of their own culture, was often more indirect, and relied on numerous implications through intonation, changes in language or vocabulary, or unspoken cultural norms of interaction.

Hope you enjoyed!


Nico

"Glee"'s Kurt Hummel and the Power of Representation

Picture this: the year is 2009.

Young Nico is 12, soon to turn 13, years old, in the midst of his sixth grade year, still relatively enjoying the novelty of being in a new, bigger middle school environment alongside new faces from other elementary schools in the Ann Arbor district, still not stressed and overwhelmed by the anxiety, sleep deprivation, and social toxicity that will mushroom the following year.

Barack Obama has just become the forty-forth president of the United States. Iceland has just experienced its intense and dramatic economic collapse in the midst of the Great Recession, and newly elected Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the world's first openly lesbian head of state, as prime minister. Michael Jackson's passing has fans the world over in mourning. Velvet tracksuits, multicolored tights, and leggings as pants are all the rage in fashion. Owl City's "Fireflies," the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling," Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A.," Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours," and Beyonce's "Single Ladies" hover at the top of the hot 100 charts and reverberate on radios anywhere.

And the first season of the hit TV show Glee has just started airing.

For the uninitiated, Glee is a musical comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network for six seasons from 2009 to 2015, focusing on the adventures, triumphs, struggles, and close bond of the members of the show choir New Directions at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. It follows the evolution of the group and its original members from a shaky beginning as a newly formed, rag-tag little bunch of misfits, which the school's cheer coach Sue Sylvester constantly tries to have disbanded, to a strongly competitive, talented, and high-energy powerhouse of excellent covers. The show features and covers numerous social issues in American society through the experiences of the characters and their relationships to one another, in ways which sometimes reflect the clumsier nature of social issues and how they were understood ten years ago - but always with a lot of heart, affection, good intention, and genuine desire for greater understanding and harmony among all people.

Many such examples are to be found with Kurt Hummel - talented member of the New Directions' original founding members, a consummate fashionista, and for much of the show, McKinley High's only openly gay student.

From coming out for the first time to good friend and fellow New Directioner Mercedes Jones, opening up about his sexuality to his quite traditionally masculine father Burt (to great acceptance - Burt later goes on to go out of his way to educate himself on gay issues and sexuality so that his son can come to him with questions like any straight boy could), and never being afraid to sing music, wear clothes, and experiment with forms of expression deemed traditionally feminine, to overcoming vicious bullying issues, and eventually finding a loving relationship with his first boyfriend Blaine Anderson, the other half of the iconic duo dubbed "Klaine" by many fans and shippers, Kurt's role in the show and gay representation in the media is not to be understated.

In the summer of 2018, a Klaine video popped up in my YouTube "recommended" list after I had just returned from my junior year of college studying abroad in Moscow, Russia and Turku, Finland. My curiosity piqued, I then spent the month I had at home before leaving for a summer program in Reykjavik, Iceland watching the first three seasons of Glee. The latter two for the first time. But I was surprised to find that the first season felt almost wholly familiar, like I was rewatching it, even though I didn't feel like I had watched it that closely when it was coming out.

Flashing back to 2009: At the time I had just received my first little netbook laptop as a Christmas present. But in spite of the greater mobility it offered to sit on my oversized beanbag in the quiet comfort of my own room, I still often preferred to spend my long sessions of perusing my new Facebook page on the computer in our living room, and often wound up at least peripherally watching whatever my sister was watching on TV as a result. Case in point with Glee. 

At the time, she was closely following Season 1. And even though I seldom actually sat down on the couch across from her to watch it together, it looked and sounded nice enough to capture my attention and get me to rotate the swivel chair at my parents' desk where the computer stood to pay attention for a while. Perhaps no more so than when Kurt was on screen.

At the time, I had barely even begun to realize that I was gay. I knew very little about what it meant to be gay, or the history and community behind the label, and was not self-aware enough to realize that the feelings I was struggling with were closely tied to feeling uncomfortable in my own body, not understanding the feelings that I couldn't control that so much of society was telling me were wrong, and feeling out of place and unrepresented in such a straight world. But among all the other tensions of feeling lonely, weird, and not enough in the socially cutthroat environment of Tappan Middle School, my baby gay angst and anxiety were some of the top causes of the stress I was undergoing. Even without an exact handle on that being a big source of my confusion and issues, even thinking that my stress and loneliness were exclusively products of the social environment and how I fit into it, I couldn't help but feel like something was deeply, fundamentally different about me compared to many others around me, far beyond the unique interests and habits that had defined me growing up, which often differed from those of the other kids, especially the other boys, around me.

"Gay" at that time was not a word with a pleasant connotation, usually either used as a general synonym of "bad" or "sucky" ("that's so gay") which has thankfully greatly decreased over the years, or to refer to what it actually describes - homosexuality - but in a greatly overstereotyped and disdainful way. Even though I wasn't yet aware of my own sexual orientation, every time I heard the word, or so many other hurtful and nasty ones associated with it, echo down my middle school hallways, my chest would clench and I would go numb with fear.

When I turned in that swivel chair from the ever-important business of making copious amounts of Facebook statuses with positively atrocious spelling and syntactical construction of all sorts (because for some reason I had it in my head at the time that proper spelling and grammar online was not cool), it was for a reason.

I was captivated and mesmerized by Kurt. I loved his energy. I loved his extravagant and innovative style, his fearless desire to push aesthetic boundaries, his refusal to let himself or anything he loved be defined by meaningless and trite expectations of gender norms. I loved his powerful singing voice and how it seemed to soar effortlessly into alto high notes. I loved his covers and how he brought who he was and his heart and soul into all of what he sang (perhaps nowhere else more so than his cover of "Defying Gravity," which I listened to for years, mesmerized by his beautiful voice and empowered of his rendition of a traditionally feminine song, especially before important turning points and new chapters of my life, like when I went to Italy in middle school for six months, before high school, and as I was getting ready for my high school exchange year in Egypt that I'd dreamed of for years, imagining myself soaring high above the Pyramids of Giza as he hit his high notes - I still listen to it lovingly as a reminder of my periods of greatest drive and determination in life, as well as to find new inspiration). I loved his high-pitched, softer-spoken speaking voice, how relaxing and soothing it was to listen to. I loved how even though sometimes he felt alone, afraid, mistreated, or ignored, he never let himself be walked over, and always called people out on their bullshit and didn't let them stifle him. I loved how bright, optimistic, effervescent, gentle, loving and kind he was. Any time I saw him on screen, I would light up and be mesmerized without quite knowing why. As I was only just beginning to understand at the time, I saw myself in him, I related to him, and I felt connected to him.

I think it's important to acknowledge the fact that there certainly were moments on Glee when various issues were handled clumsily or even in very insensitive ways, or where there were humorous references to things that shouldn't ever be joked about. I will be clear in saying that I don't overlook or play those down. It's definitely important to keep them in mind (in a way, it's also kind of helpful and reassuring to see how far we've come in terms of perceiving those things in just a few years). But conversely, I don't think it makes sense to write off the show completely as being problematic and overlook all the things it got right for those missteps. There are also numerous instances of very important issues, relationships, conversations, and representation that the show absolutely nailed, and as many of those moments and relationships are deeply important to many people, they deserve to be wholeheartedly celebrated.

Was Kurt, for instance, a bit stereotypical? Oh yeah, no doubt about it. But even rewatching the show today, I often find myself forgetting it. Because he's so confident and fearless and self-assured of who he is that he doesn't let the stereotypes define him. He always brings his own unique perspectives, experiences, and approaches to everything that the does, and does everything that he loves with immeasurable passion. He is fiercely devoted to the people that he cares about. He is brave and determined in everything that he does. He is committed to growing, to fulfilling his dreams, to doing what he believes is best. But, in spite of all the pain and hardship of growing up as a feminine, openly gay man in a small Midwestern town, he also remains strongly connected to the place he comes from and conscious of his sentimental connection to it and how it's shaped him, as well as to making Lima and all the places that matter most to him there better. He's an unapologetic hopeless romantic, both in love and life goals. He knows who he is, and he shares that with his loved ones and the whole world in absolutely beautiful ways. He sang with drive and passion, bringing all of who he was and what he had lived into gorgeous covers of iconic songs.

The issue of representation for marginalized people remains a critically important one for this reason. Looking back on how I felt watching the first season of Glee as a twelve and later thirteen-year-old, I am conscious of how important it was to have a character like Kurt on-screen that I could look up to. Seeing him being who he was openly and fearlessly was deeply, deeply validating and empowering. Even not being fully conscious of who I was just yet, I looked at him and I felt calm. Seen. Heard. And like I had a future. Like I could hope for growth and love and community and pursuing my dreams just like anyone else around me.

And for that reason, I will always be deeply grateful to Glee and to Chris Colfer, the amazing actor and singer (and now best-selling writer of the Land of Stories series!) behind Kurt, for allowing me to come into my own as a young gay boy looking up to such a beautiful and inspiring character.

A piece about my identity

The sentimentality of places, continued

Hey everyone!
A while back I wrote a post called "the sentimentality of places," all about different places in the world that I've been and forged some kind of special relationship with, and what they mean to me. In the intervening months since I published that post, I've had some wonderful chances to explore new places that have presented wonderful new experiences for me, and today I wanted to share those with you all.
So this is the sentimentality of places, continued.


The first two have a shared characteristic between them, at least within the context of college life:
Whenever I talk to people about my life and experiences at Beloit, one of the things I usually end up highlighting is that, although the school is situated in a fairly small community compared to what I and many of my classmates are used to, it's fairly easy, cheap, and efficient to reach Madison and Chicago from there. I've visited both of them from Beloit many times, and as such have come to form ample impressions of them, and have many great memories from these places.

1) Madison, Wisconsin:
Madison, in many ways, reminds me a lot of home. It's quite a bit bigger than Ann Arbor, and also has a bit more political weight as the state capital. But the presence of the University of Wisconsin's main campus, which is similar in size and scope to the University of Michigan back home, gives it a comparable feel. Many of the buildings are very pretty, and admission to most of the main landmarks of the city is free of charge. The Capitol Building in particular is a big one, being at the literal heart of the city, and very aesthetically pleasing to look at inside and out. Madison is the one of the two cities that I tended to visit more often - as Beloiters can get a $9 roundtrip discount on bus tickets from campus, compared to $44 roundtrip to Chicago, it usually was the one I'd visit if I was just wanting to leave Beloit and explore on a whim. And it's a great place to do that. I love being able to blend in in the city's sleek coffee shops and eccentric shops, losing myself in the greater anonymity compared to Beloit. I've also stayed in Madison with my parents on a couple of weekend visits of theirs, and have fond memories of strolling the city's streets in highly contrasting seasons. I'm always up for a day in Madtown.

2) Chicago, Illinois:
I've been to Chicago many times even well before I came to Beloit; as it was a comfortable three-ish hours away from my hometown of Ann Arbor, it was popular as a destination for weekends or short trips during school breaks. Indeed, for a long time I'd go at least once a year, more or less, and I have many fond memories from when I was small of bright lakeside views in spring time, and energetically enjoying the children's playground at Navy Pier. More recently, since I started college, Chicago has become the second most common destination of my brief escapades from Beloit whenever I start to feel bogged down or stifled on campus, one of my main logistical transit points for when I'm moving between campus and home (regardless of the method of transport), the site of a couple of cool conferences I've attended, and also gained a bit of a homey side as well as I've grown closer with my bestie Paula and been most graciously and generously hosted at her cosy Libertyville domicile, exploring the city with a local to guide me. Aesthetically and architecturally I think Chicago is breathtaking, with hypnotically tall steel and glass buildings making for an elegant contrast between the blue of Lake Michigan and the open skies. And I love how grand and worldly it is, without losing that relaxed, laid back Midwestern touch.

3) New York City:
New York is a place I've been a fair number of times in my life, as it's quite familiar territory for my parents, who lived there for ten years before I or my sister came into the world, and we have lots of relatives on my father's side who live nearby in New Jersey, so trips to visit Jersey-based relatives over the years have often included passages of varying lengths through the City on the side as well.
It wasn't until my visit to the New York/New Jersey area last September right before I left for Russia, when I went into the City two days in a row, once for my good friend Sikander's violin recital and once just to hang out with him for a while, that I started to see the City in a new light and truly, properly fall in love with it.
I think that because, to my previous point, I visited New York as a side part of bigger trips, I'd always associated it with movement, with passage, and thinking about New York as a place often came with a feeling of nostalgia for travel. However, going back two days in a row last year, spending part of the time moving around it introspectively by myself and the other parts with a dear friend who is a well-established local, I got to see it in a whole different light.

4) Turku, Finland:
As I've not shied away from mentioning in my posts about my experience in Finland, it was certainly not without challenges. My life in Turku was by no means perfect, and there were times when I felt touches of resentment towards the elements of monotony and difficulty that made it challenging. But overall, the town was a comfortable and fascinating home base through which to experience Finland. It had everything I felt I needed - plenty of cute cafes and tasty restaurants, a welcoming riverfront promenade, well-connected transportation systems, and a patchwork of elegant little towns and pristine parks in its surroundings. Turku is something of a special place in Finnish history, as it was the capital through all of Finland's six-hundred year stint as a Swedish province, and that history is truly perceptible in the parts of the city that have been preserved since that era, such as the Cathedral, the Old Square, and the area around the Castle. The presence of five different universities make it an intellectual powerhouse, with academia and the related tendencies towards reflection and learning a staple part of the city's culture. It also brings a distinct element of inter-regional and international flair, since people come from all over the country and all over the world to study at the universities and work in the city. People prattle on in all means of local and international languages as the stroll around town, going about their days.
In spite of the social challenges that I may have felt in my specific experience as an undergraduate exchange student, Turku was a comfortable and fun city in which to live, and it will always have a special place in my heart as my Finnish home, the place where I finally got to form a life and a daily routine in a place I dreamed of visiting since childhood.

5) Helsinki, Finland:
As much as I like Turku, I cannot deny my love for Helsinki, and its status as my very favorite city in Finland (and one of my favorites in the whole world). I got to visit five times over the course of my five months in Finland, which enabled me to explore the city thoroughly and get to know it well. And it's become one of my favorite places in the whole world. In many ways, I've found, Helsinki is my ideal city. It's just the right size; big enough to have the right kinds of worldly outreach, opportunities, and communities, but also small enough to have a more intimate sense of place and connection to the environment. It has lovely bookstores and libraries, calm cafes with tasty fare, beautiful cobblestone historic streets, and of course, in true Finnish fashion, positively crawling with saunas of all sorts, sizes, and calibers. Even being the capital and largest city in the whole country, it's surrounded by a wide arsenal of lush conifer forests, hidden lakes, and islands strewn in the Baltic waters like an archipelago of jewels, which are all easily and quickly accessible even from the most urbanized areas of the city. It combines so many of the best qualities of Finnish culture and life with a balanced, worldly outlook. As can probably be seen, I miss Helsinki greatly, and dearly hope to go back and spend a longer period of time there at some point in the future, weather it's grad school, doing some sort of job, or anything in-between.

6) Stockholm, Sweden:
My trip to Stockholm was one that had a personal significance that I cannot understate. My attraction to the Nordic world was born out of a curiosity about my Swedish roots on my American grandmother's side of my family, and so I had always hoped to visit their ancestral homeland. Stockholm's beauty can also not be understated - the first morning after I had arrived, I exited my hostel, and after not even ten minutes walking through the neighborhood near my hostel, admiring the cobblestone streets and bright red and yellow buildings gently illuminated by the sun, I burst into tears from how beautiful it was. I also cannot begin to describe the satisfaction and happiness I felt in the successful Swedish interaction I was able to have navigating through the city; even if it was just simple things, like ordering a Nutella crepe with bananas, or buying my bus ticket back to the airport, every word I uttered and interaction I had there helped me feel a connection to the city, to the land, to my heritage. Even in just a few days of introspective exploration through the city my great-great grandparents left for New Jersey, I felt a feeling of natural connection, of homeliness, almost, that I've only felt in places like Turkey, Iceland, and Finland. I can only say that I hope to go back sometime for longer, and continue cementing my connections to this place so important to my familial history.

7) Copenhagen, Denmark:
Among all of the Nordic capitals that I visited, Copenhagen stands out as a true favorite in so many senses. Helsinki holds a special place in my heart, and Stockholm is without a doubt the most beautiful. But if I have to pick a favorite among them, I go to Copenhagen every time.
Of course it's a beautiful city, with pretty beige, red-roofed older buildings and sleek, glassy newer architecture stretching over bright blue canals that look surprisingly clean. But Copenhagen's charm goes far beyond that. The biggest thing that captivated me while I was there was the energy, and how positive and warm it felt. Granted, I was there in the first week or so of beautiful spring weather after a winter that had been unusually harsh and cold throughout northern Europe, even by local standards, and everyone was flocking outside in droves as a result. But there was just such a palpably positive atmosphere, with everyone going outside for walks and boat rides, playing music and dancing along the sides of the canals, and celebrating. The vast majority of the locals I talked to were incredibly kind and friendly, and seemed to truly go out of their way to make me and other visitors feel welcome. The iconic Danish and Norwegian word hygge, described as "a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being," a truly staple quality of both Danish and Norwegian culture, hangs over the atmosphere of the whole city, and will become a defining aspect of any visitor's Danish experience. Although I was only in Copenhagen for four days, my time there was truly lovely, and having fallen deeply in love with the city, I look forward to going back and hopefully spending more time there at the earliest opportunity that comes my way.

8) Oslo, Norway:

My decision to visit Oslo earlier this spring was nearly on a whim, motivated by a nerdy attraction to Norway's innumerable, divergent dialects, as well as an overnight addiction to the excellent Norwegian teen drama of SKAM (possible future post to follow on this subject). And I was honestly taken aback by the surprise of what awaited me upon arrival. In my opinion, Oslo is greatly underrated in the context of the Nordic capitals, which I guess is in some ways kind of understandable when Stockholm is as beautiful and Copenhagen as fun and friendly as they are. But it's truly a shame, because Oslo is a dynamic, fun city that has all sorts of bustling and active neighborhoods, with a central square right along the shores of one of the country's iconic fjords, and the city spills out onto a myriad of picturesque islands out on the water. The way in which the city happily marries lively urban hustle and insanely beautiful scenery truly deserves to be seen (though the rumors of it's exorbitant prices are sadly quite true).

9) Tallinn, Estonia:
I can honestly say that I didn't expect to be nearly as captivated by Tallinn as I was. I'd heard from people who had been there that it's very beautiful, but I the beauty of the Old Town in particular, with it's cobbled streets, reddish towers, and light green and blue buildings truly blew me away. It looked like the miniature architectural lovechild of St. Petersburg and Stockholm, which are two of my favorite cities I've visited. And it was truly fascinating to see the different ways that Finno-Ugric/Nordic and Russophone histories intersected in the city's culture, people, and overall feeling. Being two regions that have been very important to me in personal and academic ways alike, I was delighted to see a place like Tallinn, where they came together in such elegant and beautiful ways. I only spent two days there, but I hope to go back for longer than that at some point in the future.

10) St. Petersburg, Russia:
St. Petersburg is beyond any shadow of a doubt my favorite city in Russia, and one of my favorites that I've visited in the world so far. I have a good friend from Peter (as it's affectionately or casually called in Russian for short) who I met several years before I went anywhere near studying Russian or going to Russia, and was well aware of how proud the people there are of their city. After having been there, I can say for sure that they have every right and reason to be proud. It's beautiful beyond words, filled with exquisite and ornate buildings built in old European styles with lavender, coral, and sky blue hues. The history of Imperial Russia is palpable in nearly every street corner. And comparing my time in St. Petersburg to living in Moscow, I can say that personally I felt a bit more comfortable there by comparison - people moved noticeably slower in the streets, taking more time to savor the moment and appreciate life. The whole spirit and mannerisms of interaction felt very European; people smiled more easily and were a bit more respectful in their interactions. In my time in St. Petersburg, I fell completely in love with the city, and how it elegantly combines all the best of Russian culture and history, with a distinct northern European touch.

11) Moscow, Russia:
As I've not shied away from discussing in numerous posts that I've made in the past, my time in Russia was one of the most challenging periods of my entire life. As a result, I have a very complicated relationship to my experience there, and to the city of Moscow itself, which are fraught by mixed feelings. But even in spite of all the numerous challenges I had to battle through, I found Moscow to be a truly dynamic and fascinating city, with a multifaceted past and bustling, changeable present. I made friendships during my time in Moscow that provided me with all the support I was needing to deal with my issues, allowed me to learn so much about unfamiliar parts of the world, and even explore key aspects of my own identity, which have now become some of the most important connections in my life. And I got to know so many places intimately within the city. I'll let one of my assignments from my Moscow in Transitions class sum it up better:
One of the things that I always strive towards the most by far when spending extended periods of time in a new city or country is building a relationship through a sense of regularity and routine. At the time that I submitted my first Moscow map assignment, through a desire to immediately begin exploring some of the city’s most well-known areas, as well as random objects of my own interest, I had already begun to form a certain degree of experiential knowledge, even over the course of just under two weeks. However, the greatest difference that the new version demonstrates is the regularity and routine, and how those have changed my relationship to the city.


In the Green Door anti-cafe near Chistiye Prudi, I have cried from laughter with both international and Russian friends while playing mafia and board games, strengthening my command of the language through practice rooted in laid-back and fun memories. At the Frau Brotchen cafe between RSUH and Novoslobodskaya, I have forged a friendship with the owner and a few specific members of her staff who have seen me in there nearly every day, as I stop by for a revitalizing cappucino and fluffy, heavenly tvorozhnoe kaltso in breaks between classes or to power up on my way to the metro. At Pinza Maestrello in Chistiye Prudi, I have deepened my knowledge of the cuisine of one of my own cultures, this delicious new flatbread-like take on pizza that has become quite prevalent in Italy in recent years. At Gorky Park, I have danced and laughed with friends through some of the final bright sunsets and open blue skies of the fleeting fall, and returned for some introspective snow walks alone on brighter, overcast winter days. I have come to identify Kievskaya and Belorusskaya as my favorite metro stations I have seen, admiring the beauty of their bright patterns and cultural homage to Russia’s neighbors.


On multiple occasions this year, friends coming to visit me in cities that I’m staying or living temporarily, but don’t fully call home, has made them feel more like home to me. In the first week of December, a good friend of mine who I had met on my FEG program in Iceland during the summer of 2016 came to visit me here in Moscow from Germany. It was in the week of her visit that I was able to see how much my relationship to my surroundings in this city have deepend. Though I certainly don’t have all the informations or answers, I was able to lead, direct, help, and translate for a friend who could not speak a word of Russian or recognize any Cyrillic letters, and was successfully able to ensure her a comfortable stay. Because of the inner turmoil and self-doubt that I have admittedly experienced in my time here, particularly during the tumultuous first days of adjustment following my arrival, realizing that I was able to act as a makeshift Muscovite guide and comfortably use my Russian to ask for, order, or contest the price of almost anything with no issues was incredibly empowering. Having this newfound map encompassing so many places in the city already in my mind upon her arrival, I was already able to propose itineraries day by day, keeping in mind what clusters of monuments to visit and restaurants to try were close to each other, sometimes even remembering how to get to them without having to consult the Yandex Metro app I’ve long since downloaded on my phone.

As such, I now know that whatever adversity I may have faced here, both situational and purely psychological, has been worthwhile. I’ve made roots in this city, and expanded the boundaries of my familiarity with it far beyond Korpus 4 and the RSUH campus. I feel proud of the relationship that I have succesfully been able to build with Moscow, and know that I will be able to easily return to and strengthen it at will in the future.

12) Baku, Azerbaijan:

A lot of what I described about my complicated feelings towards my time in Russia also apply in the context of my experience in Azerbaijan. Although my Critical Language Scholarship program surely provided ample support in a great many instances where it was needed and had good structures in place to do so, it was no secret that my host family switch I went through (more on that to come some time), the immense cultural differences, and the extensive communication issues I had being there to learn Turkish, which is not spoken there, made my time in Baku extremely challenging and got in the way of my enjoyment of my own experience quite a bit. But even so, despite the complicated aspects of the relationship I have to my time on CLS and to Baku as a place, I lived there for two months, and it's still special to me all the same. There are many aspects of my time there I look back on fondly: all the adventures I had with the sweet and interesting people that accompanied me on my program. Getting to know the eclectic combination of traditional Persian and Russian architecture, alongside typical Soviet and sleek modernist constructions. Getting acquainted with all the little cafes and restaurants. Long strolls along the Caspian shore. The constant linguistic flux of Azerbaijani and Russian rolling off the same tongues, and then blending together until the lines between them were completely blurred. And just the general exhilaration of being so far away from anything familiar, in a new place where I probably never would have ventured otherwise. Even in spite of the challenges, it will remain special to me.

These are the main places of importance that I wanted to add for now. In the future, as I hopefully visit and leave pieces of my heart in new places the world over, I will continue to add other places to this list.

All the best for now,
Nico

An original poem

Hey, everyone!

I honestly am at a loss for words on how to start this post.
I can barely believe how long it's been since I posted anything on here.
My senior year of college has been a rewarding, but tremendously challenging, experience, and between everything that's happened, all the things I've done, and the various day-to-day challenges I've been working through in terms of shaky mental health and planning for the future, there's a lot to catch up on.

I'm most likely going to hold off on properly catching up for a few weeks longer, until I finish classes, graduate, and make it home to rest for a few weeks. For now, I'm going to do something that I've been meaning to for a time, and share an original poem of mine on this blog.
I've been writing poetry for fun since I was a child (and getting progressively better over the years - at least I hope), and for a time I've wanted to start sharing more of them on this blog (stay tuned for more).

The one that I'll be sharing today is a poem which I've written recently, and is commemorative of a very special and emotionally powerful experience I had two years ago today. I submitted three poems to the campus lit magazine at Beloit, called Pocket Lint, a few weeks ago, including this one, and although they did select one for their spring issue, they didn't include this one, and as I'm very fond of and proud of it and would like for people to see it, I've decided to share it on here.

I hope you all like it. Be back soon!



The Art of Forgetting:

I want to forget the sound of your voice

and the sweet nothings you quietly whispered

into my naive young ears -

how earnest and well-intentioned it all seemed.

I want to forget the rush of the cool breeze of that fateful spring evening

as I walked under the towering golden clouds

on my way to meet you

with shaky hands and butterflies in my stomach

and how every breeze like it brings me back to those moments

of jittery excitement and spontaneity.

I want to forget the hypnotizing patchwork of jagged navy clouds

framing streaks of blue sky

and the lingering, periwinkle glow of twilight above us

as we walked back to my house

inching ever closer to one another.

I want to forget how gently you stroked the nimble tabby cat

who jumped into my lap

and petted her just so,

with your wrist slowly coming to rest on my leg

just to let me know it was there.

I want to forget how cozy and right it felt

to sit next to you on my bed,

and how my heart fluttered and my stomach tingled

when you asked if you could kiss me;

how happy it made me feel

simply that you wanted to.

I want to forget the words of our native languages that we taught each other

unraveling them gently

and trading them with gentle flickers of our tongues

soft to the touch.

I want to forget where you touched me -

that little fusion between thumb and hand

that you stroked so tenderly, so delicately.

I want to forget the light you brought into my room

and the warmth you brought into my bed,

how safe and careless I felt nestled between your arms

with your heartbeat against my back.

I want to forget the velvety touch of your parted lips around my own

and the soft strokes of your tongue through my giddy smile.

I want to forget how you looked at the painting of an elephant inside a snake

against a starry sky

while you held me

and asked if it was from The Little Prince -

it still hangs on the same side of my new room

and I can’t help but think of you

every time I look at it.

I want to forget

the feeling of promise

and hope that took hold in my heart

and the pain that came all too quickly

when the waves of the seas that soon stood between us

gleefully battered and smashed it to pieces.

I want to forget how I went to sit on the porch of my house under the bright sunshine

a whole half hour before you were supposed to come say goodbye,

how my heart tightened and skipped a beat with every person that walked past

even if they looked nothing like you,

and how deeply my heart sunk

when I realized you weren’t coming.

I want to forget

All the miserable hours I wasted alone

hoping trustfully

then crying pathetically

and finally shifting into holding a futile

but festering grudge.

I want to forget the pieces of my heart

That I scattered as I traveled across the world

That had traces of you written all over them.

I want to forget the silly optimism I felt

when I returned

that for once, finally, what I’d hoped for would be.

I want to forget how much it hurt

for you to make me

and everything I felt

utterly invisible.

I know you probably didn’t mean for it to hurt,

but you did hurt me

so badly

and part of me hates you for it

and part of me loves you yet

and I’m so full of anger

but also still miss you

and it confuses me so much.

I wish I could say I haven’t thought of you every single day

since that night

but I’d be lying.

In the end

no matter how much it still may hurt

I’m not sure I can ever manage

to forget something as beautiful

as the evening I met you.