A letter to my representatives in the United States legislature

(I'll let this letter speak for itself. Kindly join me in writing to/calling your local representatives if you are an American citizen, signing this petition, and doing all you can to stand up against bigotry and populism wherever you may live in the world).

I think I'll let this letter speak for itself. 

Dear Representative/Senator,

I am an alumnus of the National Security Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y)’s 2014 program in Bursa, Turkey. This State Department-sponsored scholarship program sends high schoolers abroad to learn languages considered critical to the interests of the United States government, those being Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Tajiki Persian, Russian, and Turkish. This program is currently under threat from the budget cuts targeting funding to ECA State Department programs, save for the Fulbright Fellowship. 

I can go on at infinite length on the benefits of exchange. As the son of an Italian immigrant who first came to the United States as an American Field Service (AFS) exchange student in 1978, and having participated in multiple exchanges myself, in Alexandria, Egypt, and Bursa, Turkey, these experiences and the members of the communities built around them are a part of who I am. They helped me to better understand and relate to other cultures, shaped my worldview beyond recognition, and allowed me to connect to people in every country I’ve visited since with new mediums and languages. 

Every single alumnus and alumna I know have said the same. 

Particularly on my NSLI-Y program, I forged a passion for a language that I intend to make an integral part of my personal life and future career, an opportunity I would almost certainly never have had prior to college if it had not been for the State Department’s generous support of these programs.

The Turkish programs which I participated in have been particularly affected by the violence and senseless populism which have plagued various parts of the world, having been canceled since 2016 in the wake of Turkey’s numerous terrorist attacks and attempted coup. But such attacks and political turmoil are not endemic to any region in the world, as can be clearly seen in our country currently. 

Though travel and exchange at any point in life and education will only serve to foster understanding and eliminate bigotry, high school exchange represents a particularly precious opportunity, allowing students to fully become part of families in their host countries and learn their target languages from within the culture itself, more fluently than would ever be possible in most other contexts.

Aside from my personal feelings regarding this wonderful program, it also cannot be ignored that these are an irrefutable positive force for United States foreign relations. Many alumni I know have expressed interest in one day working for the United States government and State Department as a direct result of this program. Many of them intend to work in countries or regions where their target languages are widely used or understood, most of which are of great importance as strategic allies to the United States, and are instrumental to the maintenance of a stable and productive US foreign policy. 

Quite frankly, given the current state of affairs in the world, treating any program like NSLI-Y as though it is not necessary, some sort of “extra cost,” is utter folly. The only way that we can hope to foster true peace and understanding is to uphold and push the goals enshrined in programs like this. I urge you thus to vote against this measure and to uphold these values yourself going further. I know for a fact that for myself and many other members of the NSLI-Y, AFS, Critical Language Scholarship (CLS), Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Abroad, Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX), and countless other exchange alumni communities, this will become a crucial element which will heavily influence our reelection of future officials.

Thank you for your concern,
Nicholas Borbely
Beloit Resident

More "How Far I'll Go" versions!

Hey guys!
So a few months ago I proved my status as a giant nerd both of Disney and foreign languages by sharing my favorite versions of "How Far I'll Go," my favorite song from Disney's Moana/Vaiana/Oceania.

Here are my thoughts on some more versions that weren't yet available on the Internet at that point.
Enjoy!

1) Dansk - Danish
I like this version a lot. There's not a ton I can say about this one that I haven't said about the others, but it's emotional and strong - at times maybe even a little too much so, but not so much that it makes this version unlikeable - and a pleasure to listen to. It's also very well written - one of the most beautiful lines in this version, in any version in my humble opinion, is "havets kald er så tydeligt og klart og jeg brænder," meaning "the sea's call is so loud and clear and I'm burning." It gives me goosebumps and teary eyes every time.

2) Norsk - Norwegian
People online often don't seem to like this version, saying that it's the weakest of the three Scandinavian dubs. I couldn't disagree more. Though it's true that her voice is a bit more subdued, I don't think the issue is a lack of power, just another kind of power. Her voice is still very melodious and pleasant, so I think of it as just another take on the character and the beautiful emotional articulation that is this song. Well done, Norway.

3) Svenska - Swedish
Similarly, people have criticized this one a bit as well, saying that it's weaker compared to Disney's usually stellar Swedish dubs. Again, I'm not too sure where that's coming from. I find this version to be very beautiful, the singer's voice fantastic, as well as unique, and this to be one of my favorite dubs. I'm honestly not too sure what else I can say about it, I just think it's really good.

4) Suomi - Finnish
For this version, I will be linking to a Vimeo video, as the only full video of this version on Youtube is pitched in a way that I really don't like to avoid copyright infringements, which really takes away from its beauty. But honestly, ditto to this version with everything I said about Swedish. Melodious, breathtakingly powerful (especially towards the end), very unique due to the singer, Yasmine Yamajako, having a rich, smokey voice. As she's half Finnish and half French Beninese, it's also very exciting to see Finland featuring a talented Finnish woman of color for this role. I like.
Taivaanrantaan


5) Türkçe - Turkish

Much as it pains me to say it, the Turkish version is definitely not my favorite. I figured it would be nice to include it just because Turkish is such a special language to me, and I do also appreciate the fact that this version isn't terrible by any means. But overall, I found the tone and emphasis a little odd on certain parts, and the singer vocally could have been much more powerful. It's a little frustrating knowing some past Turkish dubs that have had singers with such powerful voices, and thinking how good this could have been. But overall, it's alright. :) I'll also include the Turkish version of a different song from the soundtrack, "I am Moana," as I feel that the singer's vocal talent is much more clearly and nicely put forth in that song. So here it is as well! 

6) 日本語 - Japanese 
The Japanese version honestly blew me away. It's become one of my very favorites. I will admit that there are certain places, namely in the second verse, that I don't like quite as much, mainly due to the long phrasing that gets a bit cramped in there. But I also fully recognize that that's in some ways unavoidable and overall doesn't take away too much from the stellar quality of this version. Yomona Tabiku's voice is bright, clear, melodious, and compelling, and even startlingly similar at times to Auli'i Cravalho. Well done, Japan.

7) 普通话 - (Mainland) Mandarin Chinese
Chinese seems to be another language in which Disney has significantly upped the ante in terms of their dub quality. This was honestly a fantastic version in my opinion. Her voice is young and lively, but still gives powerful pushes at all the right points in the song. A delight to listen to.

That should be about all for now. I've heard a couple of videos of the Cantonese, Taiwanese Mandarin, Greek, Hungarian, and Croatian versions, which sound very promising, but they're too low quality to enjoy. When they are uploaded in better quality on Youtube, I will share those with you all as well.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy listening to these versions as well!

Have fun!
Nico

My favorite accents in different languages

Hey everybody!

Before I begin this post, a quick blurb: my dear, dear friend Salma who I met on my NSLI-Y Turkish program was recently featured on the Humans of William and Mary website and Facebook page, and gave a brilliant interview full of rationality, honesty, and love that are so crucial in this time of deplorable hatred and political repression. I will link you to her interview, and highly encourage you to check out her interview as well as her blog.
Okay, friend shoutout over (hey Salma).
Here on my blog I've frequently gushed about the different languages I love and what I aspire to do in my future with regards to languages. But today, I wanted to do something that I don't believe I've done before, which is talk about my favorite accents within the different languages I've studied or am familiar with to significant extents.

I'll be listing seven today, my two mother tongues of English and Italian, plus the five I've studied to significant levels later on in life, those being Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, and Icelandic. I've also studied Latin for a year and a half in middle school and Hungarian for a semester in college, but I won't be including those. (This is because the former has been dead for thousands of years (let's face facts), not to mention that I was only really taught to read and translate it, not speak, and I remember little even of what I learned in those capacities. As for Hungarian, due to the rather lackluster teaching style of the class I was in, I unfortunately learned very little beyond an arsenal of elementary pleasantries and smatterings of random vocabulary, and therefore I cannot really be considered conversational to any serviceable extent.)

I won't hold myself to naming any specific number of accents/dialects in each language, but rather will just name a couple that immediately come to mind, and talk about why I enjoy them. I will include a video exemplifying the sound of each accent I talk about.

Please keep in mind that this is purely and completely opinion based from my tastes and personal experiences. If I don't mention your accent/one that you like, I probably either like it but forgot, or just haven't heard it before. :)

With disclaimers and background info out of the way, let's begin.

1) English:
The thing that I find interesting about different English accents is that they exhibit strong phonetic variety, while still remaining almost completely comprehensible. If I hold a conversation with a person from London or Sydney, we will very likely understand each other with no difficulty at all barring occasional unfamiliar slang terms or unshared foreign borrowings, but will immediately know just by ear where the other speaker is from (or at least have a rough idea).
It's no secret that my favorite accents in the English language are Irish and Scottish. Something about them has always appealed to me. I enjoy their graceful, almost sing-songy cadences, and find their pronunciation of English to be quite beautiful. To me personally, Irish and Scottish accents share the same sort of refined charm as a typical British accent, but with an added fiery, down-to-earth flare. Between the two of them, I find that the Scottish one has a more untamed European allure, with an "l" pronounced higher in the mouth and a strongly trilled "r." Irish exhibits a kindred pronunciation and allure, but has a sort of softer-spoken touch, almost making it a bridge between the British and Scottish accents. I as an American can find them, particularly Scottish, a bit hard to understand, especially if spoken very fast! But their beauty is nothing short of captivating.

Here's a video from a great Youtube channel called "WonderWhy," which is operated by a Scot who does excellent videos about historical and contemporary geopolitical issues in his lovely accent.

Here's an Irish actor, Jonathan Rhys Myers, who played King Henry VII in the show The Tudors, who doesn't have a super strong Irish accent, but it gives the idea.

2) Italiano - Italian:
Italian has an interesting situation when it comes to accents and dialects. It came to be in a way very different from comparable Western European Romance languages, like Spanish and French. This is because Spain and France united comparatively quite early on in their history, during the Middle Ages, and their capitals of Madrid and Paris have been the political and cultural centers of their respective countries for much longer. Italy, conversely, was a collection of scattered duchies, principalities, and city-states that shifted in and out of control until the Risorgimento, or Italian unification movement, in 1861. Rome was not even the original capital of Italy; it was first Turin, then Florence, and then Rome, which came under Italian control and subsequently became the capital in 1871, previously a final remaining vestige of the Papal States.
Because of this hugely localized cultural development throughout much of its history, Italy has not had a history of unity comparable to Spain and France with the dialect of a capital to serve as the foundation for a standardized language. When Italy was united, it was agreed that one dialect needed to be picked to serve as the base for the country's new standardized language in this way, and the one that was selected was the Tuscan dialect, due to its longstanding literary tradition spanning all the way back to Dante Alighieri, and its perceived spoken beauty. There's actually a proverb in Italian, "lingua toscana in bocca romana," meaning "Tuscan tongue in Roman mouth," to describe what its purportedly the ideal, most beautiful spoken potential of the Italian language.
With that historical background out of the way, my opinions:
I honestly find Italy's abundant dialects and accents to be fascinating, but I'm not sure about favorites. I really like southern dialects in general, particularly Sicilian and Neopolitan, as swift rhythm, strong bounce, and musical expressiveness make them very nice to listen to (though at times somewhat difficult to understand). In Sicilian specifically I can also identify a number of Spanish influences due to a long standing history of Spanish occupation of the island, so that is interesting as well. I do enjoy the dialect in southern Lombardy where my family is from, as it's familiar and homey to me, with a distinctly coarse earthiness and comical honesty that I have yet to find in any other dialect or tongue the world over. I can understand it fairly well, but definitely not speak it. I love it while still recognizing that it's not the prettiest though. xD
In general though, check out this great video! I haven't been able to find a lot of great videos comparing different accents of languages to each other, but fortunately this great one for Italian exists. Check them all out, super fascinating!

3) Español - Spanish:
The main divide in Spanish, which pretty much everyone familiar with Spanish to any significant extent knows about, is Castilian Spanish, as it's spoken in Spain, versus Latin American Spanish. Though the rhythms, pronunciation, and general cadences of the language vary significantly even within Spain and Latin America, the most noted defining factor between the two is the "lisping" of certain consonants in Castilian Spanish - "z," "ci," and "ce" being pronounced with a "th" sound, rather than in Latin America, where they're all pronounced as an "s" sound.
Personally, I would say the Castilian accent is my favorite I'm currently familiar with in the Spanish language. I love how crisp and melodious it is, I like the difference present with the lisped consonants, and also the greater clarity they can offer - for instance, casar (to marry) and cazar (to hunt) sound exactly the same in Latin American Spanish, whereas in Castilian Spanish a difference between them can be clearly heard ("casar" versus "cathar" respectively).
This is going to sound quite random, but I would say a close second is the Venezuelan accent. One interesting feature is that much of the time, the "s" will be pronounced as a gently aspirated "h" in the Venezuelan accent, giving it a very light and airy feel. It shares many of the musical rhythms and laid-back vibes of many Caribbean accents of Spanish like Dominican and Puerto Rican, while (at least in my opinion) not being nearly as difficult to understand as a foreign learner.
Another Spanish accent that I'll mention, which I only have started to become familiar with more recently, is that of the only African country where Spanish is an official language, Equatorial Guinea. Equatoguinean Spanish is quite unique, with wider, more relaxed vowel pronunciation likely originating from some of the major local languages such as Fang, Bube, and Combe. Its "r" sound is almost guttural, giving an effect comparable to the letter as it's found in French or German. Overall, despite the fact that Spain is Equatorial Guinea's closest linguistic point of reference for Spanish, the accent has a distinct African sound that reminds at times of some Caribbean varieties as well, likely due to the fact that a great majority of the country's population does not speak Spanish at home as a first language, but learns it later in life from school and the media.
A final very interesting case, in my humble opinion, is the Filipino accent of Spanish. Spain colonized the Philippines, and because of this Spanish has had a number of influences on local languages, with many of them still bearing ample Spanish vocabulary to this day. But in the decades following a period of American occupation and eventual independence, the Spanish language has steadily declined in use in the Philippines, replaced largely by English. The dialect itself is, in fact, on the brink of extinction. But a few Hispanophiles still continue to use the language and keep this unique register of it alive. It resembles Mexican Spanish, due to Latin American immigration to the Spanish East Indies and a shared colonial history. Unsurprisingly, it is accented in a way that closely resembles the phonology of local languages like Tagalog, such as pronouncing "v" as "b." In my opinion, it sounds quite interesting and unique.

I couldn't find any good videos of people just speaking European Spanish or comparing it to other ones, so enjoy this video of newscasters speaking a load of European languages. Spanish is at 13:00.

This is one of my favorite comedians, Joanna Hausmann, who is Venezuelan American, giving an interview and showing off her lovely Venezuelan accent. 

An Equatoguinean singer giving an interview of her own.

And here is a video made by a community of Hispanophiles in the Philippines.

4) العربية - Arabic
Arabic has a very interesting linguistic situation when it comes to dialects. Basically all Arabic-speaking countries share Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as an official language, which, although it is used in all these countries as a language of official administration, education, and so forth, is highly antiquated and formal, and is therefore almost never used in any other context. Informally, Arabic speakers talk to each other in colloquial dialects that can vary immensely from one country to another, and within countries as well. I would say there are five main dialect groups: Masri (Egyptian),  Shaami (Levantine, i.e. Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria), Khaleeji (Gulf, basically any country on the Arabian Peninsula), Maghrebi (anywhere in North Africa other than Egypt; these are infamously difficult to understand for other Arabic speakers), and Iraqi, which is something of an in-between of its own. For the most part, though there are distinct differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and Iraqi dialects are fairly mutually intelligible, while speakers of Maghrebi dialects usually are able to understand these, though the reverse is not often the case.
Though I do have a special place in my heart for the Egyptian accent, as I lived in Egypt for a year and its accent is the only way I know how to speak Arabic, I would say that my favorite accent would probably be Levantine, specifically Lebanese, Arabic. The pronunciation of many consonant letters is quite soft, and the vowel pronunciation has a soothingly rich tone, giving the dialect a very mellifluous sound that is renowned throughout the Arabic-speaking world. I know from my time in Egypt at least that most Egyptians have very good things to say about Lebanon, including the fact that its accent is beautiful (and to this I very much agree).
Egyptian for me personally takes a close second. This is likely mostly for the sake of my own personal familiarity with that version of the language, but I am also genuinely of the belief that it sounds nice. The letter "qaf", which makes a guttural "k" sound pronounced at the back of the throat, is not pronounced in Egyptian, substituted with a slight glottal stop (a pause, like in "uh-oh), meaning for instance that the word for time, "waqt," is instead pronounced as "wa't" in Egypt, giving the whole accent an interesting, more vowel-filled flow. It's also the only Arabic accent to contain a "g" sound as present in English - the letter "jim" is "gim" in Egypt, so for instance jameel ("beautiful") becomes "gameel" in Egypt.

Here is a video from the Arabic Pod 101 Youtube channel about Coptic Christmas in Egyptian dialect, a uniquely Egyptian celebration. <insert language name here> pod 101 exists for a great many languages and I find them to be lovely resources, especially their very interesting subtitled videos about holidays in target languages like this one. Check them out!

And here's a guy speaking Lebanese Arabic!

5) Türkçe - Turkish:
To be honest, I'm not actually too versed on different Turkish accents. This may be in part because in both of my Turkish experiences, I have stayed mainly in the same region of the country, the northwest, which may have similar accents and dialects that I as a highly imperfect and intermediate-level Turkish speaker likely cannot intuit.
I got a little information from an insider, my dear friend Gianna who lived in Turkey for a year more than I did and is certainly more aware of these nuances than I am.
According to Gianna's immensely trustworthy expertise, there are a couple of main accents: the Istanbul accent, the Ege region (southwestern region around Izmir), the Anadolu (Anatolian) accent, the Karadeniz (Black Sea) accent, the southeastern accent, the Cypriot accent, and also (debatably) Azerbaijani. The Istanbul accent is essentially just standard Turkish, considered very clean and correct.
The Ege region's accent apparently uses a couple of grammatical functions that are absent from other parts of Turkey. These include the verbs gidivermek and gelivermek, which  attach the suffix vermek (which usually means "to give") to the root verbs gitmek (to go) and gelmek (to come). The distinction is one of speed, where gitmek and gelmek mean to go and to come whereas gidivermek and gelivermek mean to go and come RIGHT NOW respectively.
The Anadolu accent is considered something of an unrefined country accent, as it comes from the more undeveloped, rural, and conservative areas of central Anatolia.
I have little information about the distinctions of the Karadeniz accent other than the fact that it's apparently quite unique.
The southeastern accent is one of the more distinct, as many living in this part of the country are in reality ethnic Kurds who only learn Turkish as a second language. It's a bit deeper and sharper-sounding, and features guttural pronunciation of certain letters like k and h due to influence from sounds found in Kurdish.
The Cypriot accent has a significant Anatolian base, as many of Cyprus's Turks are descended from immigrants hailing from that region, but it has naturally evolved significantly with four hundred years of isolation. It also apparently preserves a number of features and vocabulary typical of Ottoman Turkish, and features gone from standard Turkish that mirror some found in informal vernaculars in other regions of the country. Also it seems to switch a couple of consonant sounds, so that for example the standard Turkish "Kıbrıs" (Cyprus) becomes "Gıprıs" in local parlance.
And now to illuminate on why I used the "debatable" qualifier in reference to Azerbaijani. Azerbaijani, sometimes interchangeably called Azeri, is the language of Turkey's neighbor and close compadre, the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani nationalism and identity was somewhat perpetuated by the USSR as a divide and conquer method to separate the Azeris from Turkey. In a modern context, Azerbaijani is once again written in Latin script after a long Cyrillic stint during Soviet times, and is largely mutually intelligible with standard Turkish, though it does use a number of distinctive letters not found in Turkish. Overall the languages have a degree of about 90% mutual intelligibility, so it is sometimes argued that Azerbaijani is a Turkish dialect rather than a true language of its own, but this is debated.
I know that there are unique Turkish dialects in the Balkans as well, as there are Turkish minorities in many Balkan countries dating back to when they were part of the Ottoman Empire. But I have no knowledge of what distinguishes those dialects from others linguistically and phonetically.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any sort of video that parses out these various accents in a comparative fashion, but I will definitely leave you with a few to get a better impression of the language.

Here a video of an Azeri man speaking Turkish, Azeri, and Russian.

And here is a video of a man speaking Cypriot Turkish.

And here is a video of a Turkish teacher from a school in Prishtina, Kosovo, speaking the Balkan Gagauz Turkish dialect.

6) Русский - Russian:
I admittedly am not too informed about Russian dialects. But according to my research, the standard is the Moscow dialect. In some of the northern dialects, there is apparently a phenomenon in which unstressed "o"is pronounced clearly as when it is stressed, as opposed to merging with "a" as it does in standard Russian. I honestly wasn't able to find too much more, but I will inform myself and get back to you about it.

Couldn't find a good comparative video of Russian accents, but to give you guys an idea, here's a video of a Moldovan beauty Youtuber speaking Russian.

7) Íslenska - Icelandic:
One of the many features defining Icelandic as a highly unique language is the fact that it almost entirely lacks any dialectical variation at all. This is due largely in part to geographical and logistical realities of living in Iceland for much of its history - as much of the country's population lived in small, far-flung rural settlements, it was in people's interest to ensure that they could communicate as effectively as possible with those in other parts of the country that they relied upon for supplies. But it also had to do with the fact that many of these settlements consisted of old turf farms. It was normal for people to move all around the country very frequently from farm to farm, and interact with people originating from different areas of the country, so this high degree of interaction largely ensured the language would develop little regional variety. In addition, Iceland has a literary tradition dating back to even before its colonization by Viking settlers around 870, and this long-standing literary tradition has helped the language remain uniform through the unchanging use of an accepted written standard.
For all of these reasons, Icelandic essentially has no dialects to speak of. There are, however, minimal variations in pronunciation in different parts of the country. The one I'm personally most qualified to talk about pertains to the Westfjords, where my language immersion program took place last summer.
A bit of context: Icelandic has two "a" vowels, one is "a," which sounds like the "a" in "father," and the other is "á," which is pronounced like the "ow" in "cow." So in much of Iceland, certainly in the Reykjavik area, there are apparently some words, such as "ganga," meaning to walk, that are pronounced as "gown-ga" instead of "gahn-ga," even though they're written with "a" and not "á." In the Westfjords, they're pronounced as they're written - "gahn-ga."
I'm told that Akureyri Icelandic (Akureyri is the second largest city of the country, located on the northern coast) also has some distinctive pronunciations of its own, some of which are apparently easier for foreign students of Icelandic to reproduce than the ways in which they're pronounced in other parts of the country. But I'm currently not knowledgeable to talk about that in depth to any real extent.
Unfortunately I can't find any videos concretely explaining or demonstrating the differences in Icelandic accents either. But I will still show you guys what the language itself sounds like overall.

And that's it for now.

I hope that you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! :) I intend to keep making posts like this as I grow and learn and continue learning languages, especially with my study abroad year in Russia and Finland coming up!

Take care for now,
Nico

Life

Hey guys!

So I've realized that somehow, as crazy as it seems, I haven't written an actual post about my own life and the happenings therein since LAST AUGUST when I had just returned from Iceland.

Needless to say, it's been a minute. A lot of great stuff has happened in my life since then that I'd like to share with you guys, so let's go for it.

1) Last semester
The day after my return from Iceland to Beloit's campus, I arose for 8:45 am Intermediate Russian 115 to commence my sophomore year of college in all my emotional, jetlagged glory. It by far proved to be my most intense and challenging semester of college yet academically. I credit this partially to being in several higher level classes relevant to my fields, plus one introductory level class in a subject area that has always been a challenge to me. I was enrolled in the aforementioned Russian 115 class, a 240-level Hispanic literature class (in Spanish), a political science class called "nationalism and ethnic conflict," and an introductory zoology class to fulfill my last general requirement, for the sciences (we call gen-ed requirements "domains" at Beloit). Additionally, I continued my job at Beloit's Phonathon, calling alumni to request donations, which I have held since my first semester freshman year, took on a position as a representative for Beloit's Russian special interest House, where I live, on the Residential Life committee, and continued my guitar lessons which I have been doing since second semester my freshman year. I also took on a second job tutoring Russian 100 students.
With such a busy schedule, unfortunately my participation in some of the clubs in which I am a mere member, namely SAGA, Beloit's queer alliance group, suffered significantly towards the end of the semester. As too did my ability to partake in certain activities which I love that mean a lot to me, such as practicing languages, journaling, blogging, writing poetry, reading for pleasure, and the like. I struggled to find a balance between finding time to partake in such activities, fulfill all of my academic and extracurricular duties in an effective and dedicated manner, have a social life, and also find time to relax and devote to bettering my mental health. I think I did a fairly good job of it, certainly more so than I have in past semesters, but I think that it's something I'm still very much working on, and will likely continue to for a while.
In terms of the academics, I had a good time. Russian 115 was honestly kind of frustrating in some aspects of how the class was run and set up, but my knowledge of the grammar and my vocabulary have at least stayed stable, if not increased, so I will leave it at that.
Hispanic lit was interesting, and it was nice to take a Spanish class at the collegiate level, as that was something I'd wanted to do for a while. But it was a very intense course taught by a particularly demanding professor whose margins for how she wanted us to express our work were quite limited, and I felt at times like I was busting my ass to learn stuff that I'm not especially passionate about just to stay afloat. Though in general I would definitely not consider it a negative experience, there were aspects of its intensity and the disorganized nature of Beloit's Spanish department which it exposed me to which prompted me to drop my Spanish minor that I had previously held. At this point I believe that I've reached a point in my Spanish education in which the only thing that would significantly heighten my fluency would be to have an immersive experience a Spanish-speaking country. Nonetheless, I did learn quite a bit, revitalize my Spanish, and was able to straighten out some of my major/minor concerns.
Zoology was honestly hell. It was the first STEM class I'd taken since high school, and I was not a happy camper in that first-floor classroom of the Science Center, constantly dominated by the harsh acidic scent of dissection fluid, when it's no secret that I would rather have been in "Language and Culture," "History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," or first-year Japanese. The course was academically demanding, and as I mentioned, the dissection aspect was heavy. Nonetheless, I did experience some positive aspects as a result of being there, such as making some good freshman friends that I likely would not have otherwise (I was the only non-freshman), getting a little over my fear of bugs by holding a cockroach during a group experiment I did with them, and the satisfaction I got when I learned I'd secured a B grade in that class.
Nationalism and ethnic conflict was by far my favorite class last semester, and one of my favorites I've taken in college so far. We learned about a number of specific case studies, such as Turkey and its Kurdish population, the falling apart of the former Yugoslavia and the resulting war, Kosovo's independence and contemporary political status, Israel/Palestine, and so on. We also had to do a couple of papers on individual case studies - I did mine on the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, in preparation for my study abroad next year (more on that in a bit!). But yeah, it was amazing. I was basically nerding out hardcore every single class, every reading outside of class, and even researching/writing my papers. I find myself fascinated by the relations between groups of people, the intersections between different national identities, and communities of people in other places (one can see why I'm an international relations major), and so I was at home in that class. It was also taught by my international relations advisor, who is an incredible woman that I deeply admire. Taking this class and learning from her inspired me a lot, reinforced my passion for the aforementioned subject areas, and provided excellent context for the sort of stuff I want to learn about in the rest of my academic career and perhaps even dedicate my life's work to. 10/10.
Socially it was also pretty good. I grew closer to most of my friends I'd met freshman year, and also met and made some lovely new freshman friends. Unfortunately one of my best friends transferred, and a few more went abroad, who I will sadly not see again (at least on campus) because they will graduate when I am abroad next year. Due to this, I took the chance to hang out with them as much as possible, especially towards the end, to take advantage of their presences before we'd have to say goodbye.
So overall, a tough semester for sure, but also one that helped me learn and grow and become, and I will look back on it quite fondly for the most part.

I spent a weekend in Madison with my parents a few weeks after returning to campus, which was a great escape and bit of quality time with them.
Also I got to meet my friend Paula, who I had known from the NSLI-Y Facebook groups for years, for the first time! She's from the suburbs of Chicago, which is an hour from Beloit, so I came over for a little overnight trip. We stayed up and watched TV together, went out for brunch and then explored a Turkish festival in Chicago, all the while talking about our respective NSLI-Y experiences in Korea and Turkey, and how they've been formative and treasured experiences for us. It felt like having a reunion with an old friend much more than meeting someone for the first time, and suffice it to say I hope it is the first of many. :)

One of the sororities reaching out in solidarity after the election.

One of the dirty chai lattes that are my daily life blood.

A beautiful cat named Benny who belongs to Sarah, one of our on-campus hall directors.

With my friends Alby and Evan before we got on the bus to O'Hare at the end of the semester on our way home.

Me and my friend Nate

My housemate Noel has a cat named Tabitha who occasionally wanders into my room and I love it

Madison mural

Back when it was snowy (I miss it)

I took a selfie while I played in the snow

Celebrating the end of zoology with a delicious sushi meal with my friends Kathleen, Kat, and Devon (left to right)

Me and my friend Leslea

Someone decorated the Russian House sign with little matryoshka snowmen

One of the abandoned factories near campus with on-fleek sunset lighting

Me and my friend Sofiko, an international student from the Republic of Georgia

One of the tables in the library with little arts and crafts activities 

Biker squirrel

Fall colors

Multilingual musings on the activities table in the library

Our World Affairs Center, where my languages classes are

2) Fall break
My fall break in mid-October provided a much-needed reprieve from the academic intensity which characterized last semester for me, and came in two main parts. The first consisted of a weekend spent visiting my dear friend Gianna, who I met during my NSLI-Y program in Bursa, Turkey, nearly three years ago (!!), at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she started studying last fall.
It was an interesting experience on a number of different levels. Macalester was actually my first choice college throughout my entire college search process, but I did not get in (which I'm still kind of salty about, to be honest). Visiting proved to me that it is indeed a very nice school, where I'm sure that I would have succeeded and had a positive experience, but I'm honestly past the point where I would ever consider transferring, for various reasons. I've enjoyed my time at Beloit far too much to justify going through the physical, logistical, and financial exhaustion that would come with trying to transfer, and I have a community of friends, academic and study abroad plans, and a general sense of belonging at Beloit that I would not be willing to leave behind at this point.
Regardless of that aspect of it, I had a lovely time together with Gianna, as we always do. We explored a bit of the Twin Cities' culinary scene, most notably Babani's Kurdish Restaurant and the Finnish Bistro, both delicious. She also introduced me to some great new friends that she's already made in her time at college, we went to a concert of her favorite Colombian band, Herencia de Timbiqui, which was, for sheer lack of any better terminology, lit af, and just spent some amazing quality time catching up, exploring, and having the amazing, thought provoking conversations that we always do. It was an awesome weekend.
I spent the rest of the weeklong break "home" in St Louis, where my family moved last summer during my time in Iceland. It was a pretty good time, for the most part. I chilled at home with my family and my cat, did a bit of exploring around the city, got to read a bit more for pleasure than I normally do, and just generally continued my enjoyment of a much-needed break in all senses. I also got coffee with my friend Nicky, who I met at my AFS Returnee Leadership Summit in 2015 and is from/currently is going to grad school in St Louis (she spent a year in French-speaking Belgium with AFS).
A good time, but one that also came with a number of reflections on the concept of home and homesickness as a whole, and how they manifest themselves in my own life specifically, that I plan to share in another post with y'all very soon.

A shot of Macalester's campus.

Some of the study abroad posters in the language faculty.

Gianna at Babani's

The beautiful stained glass

Decor on point

The city

Stone Arch Bridge

Best buds take on the Twin Cities

Me at Minnehaha

Me and Nicky

Ranoush, my favorite Syrian restaurant in St Louis

A candid of my mom at the Missouri Botanical Garden

The Arch

Thai ice cream

3) Reunion 2 with Gianna - Wisconsin edition 
About a week or so after I returned to campus at Beloit from my fall break, Gianna embarked on a reciprocal visit to come see me on my campus during her own fall break! It was very fun, as aside from the fact that she's a dear friend of mine who I always enjoy spending time with, it was the first time I've ever hosted anyone at Beloit, so showing her around was interesting. We hung out a bit on campus and in town with some good friends of mine from campus, and then spent a day in Madison, wandering through the Capitol Building and some of the lakeside waterfronts, before returning to Beloit, all the while catching each other up on our lives, reflecting on stuff, laughing, and nerding out about Central Asian cultures and languages, because we are who we are.
A+ extended weekend.

We edited each other's study abroad applications at a coffee shop called Michelangelo's

The Capitol

The lakefront

Us

A seagull that posed for me by the lake

4) Study abroad stuff
Already in my first days back on campus from Iceland, I began meticulously planning my next escapes abroad. I applied to the Critical Language Scholarship's Turkish program for the second year in a row, and for my next academic year. I will definitely be spending my first semester studying at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow, with which Beloit has a direct exchange program. The second semester I am planning to spend in Finland with International Student Exchange Programs (ISEP), hopefully in Helsinki (I recently applied with Helsinki, Tampere and Turku as my top three choices, and have yet to hear back). I have looked forward to studying abroad for an extended period of time as an integral part of my college experience since before I even began planning my college search, and to feel it so close at hand is tantalizing and exhilarating. Both semesters in both places will represent important culminating moments. In Russia I will be able to culturally contextualize and deepen my fluency in a language which I have made a major out of in college and have come to love a great deal. In Finland, I will be fulfilling a dream I have had to live in Finland for an extended period of time and learn its beautiful, mysterious language which I have carried with me everywhere I've gone since the age of eleven. I cannot wait for everything that next year will hold in store. Rest assured that you all will be kept updated and taken along for the ride.

5) Thanksgiving break
My Thanksgiving break was a fairly relaxed and non-descript affair. I rode down to St Louis with my good friend Abby, who is from the St Louis area, and got to spend a few days at home with my family, eating delicious food and gearing up for the final weeks of a difficult semester. My family hosted a good friend of my parents at our place during the holiday itself, who I had not seen since I was a very young child, so it was good to catch up. We also all went to the Cahokia Burial Mounds together, the ruins of an ancient Native American city located outside of East St. Louis across the border in Illinois, which was great as well. I also got to see two very different, but also equally amazing films in theaters: one was The Eagle Huntress, which was about a Mongolian girl of Kazakh ethnicity defying millennia of tradition to become her community's first female eagle hunter, and the other was Disney's newest animated flick Moana (alternatively known as Vaiana or Oceania in some of the dubs in other languages), which, as you can probably tell from my multiple posts on different versions of its songs, I am a big fan.
Overall, a fairly uneventful, but fun, Thanksgiving.

A candid of my sister Carson and our beloved cat, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Cahokia Mounds.

A view from the tallest mound.

6) This new semester 
Skipping over my trip to Italy for the entirety of winter break, to which I will dedicate an entirely separate post, this semester has been...decent so far, I daresay. Unfortunately, as many of you may know, American politics have dissolved into deplorable chaos, and this has had some tragic consequences that I have seen even on my own campus, most prominently in the form of anonymous, hateful threats made against Jewish and Muslim friends and classmates of mine. On the flip side, however, this has also motivated me to be more politically active. I've gone to multiple protests in both Chicago and Janesville (about a half hour north of Beloit), and done my best to attend and contribute to different events made by and for students of marginalized identities on campus spreading awareness of their experiences and the hurt/danger they are currently facing.
For me as an individual, I've been alright. I'm taking some pretty great classes. My favorite by far is called "German migrations," in which I am learning about immigrant communities in Germany and German diaspora communities in other parts of the world. I find myself nerding out constantly in ways similar to how I did in "nationalism and ethnic conflict" last semester, as we're talking about a lot of the same things that I love to learn about most: relations between people groups, intersections of national identity, how those are formed and defined, and so forth. I've reflected a great deal about even my own intersectional national identity as a dual Italian and American citizen that I will share with you later when I write about my latest trip to Italy. We're in the midst of a segment on Germany's well-established and large Turkish community, which of course is a joy for me. And we have to compile either a research paper or podcast about another individual case study; I will likely be doing mine on Trentino Alto-Adige/Südtirol/South Tyrol, due to my great experience visiting it over the break (again, more coming
My next favorite class is probably democracy in East Asia, in which I am learning about political systems and democracy in different East Asian nations. It's pretty political, but we do have some focus on the ways in which these political and democratic systems affect and are affected by local culture. I'll have to write an individual paper, and I'm thinking about doing it on democracy in either Cambodia or Thailand.
Russian is...just the same, really. The class feels almost exactly the same as it did last semester, in all the good and bad ways that I described above. To be blatantly honest, it gets kind of annoying at times, but as I need it for my major and to study abroad in Moscow, I'm just going to grit my teeth and power through.
And probably my least favorite class is intro to economy. I kind of panicked at the beginning, as this class definitely involves more mathematical thinking than any I have been exposed to since senior year of high school, and as someone who has the mathematical learning disability dyscalculia, I was initially quite scared, flashing back to the torturous drudgery of the endless extra tutoring and after-school help I had to get in order to secure even passing grades in math all throughout my K-12 education. I'm happy to say, however, that it seems like I may have overreacted a tad, as I scored a high B on my first exam, which I would daresay bodes well. It's not my favorite by any stretch of the imagination, and it's no secret I would rather be in "beyond machos and Marias," a class about portrayals of sexuality, particularly of women and queer people, in Spanish and Latino literature, but I think we can roll with it.
And I'm also continuing guitar, getting one last push of practice and expanding my abilities before I go abroad for a year (and almost certainly will not be able to take my guitar with me).
So far, so good. I'm hanging out a lot with good friends, strengthening many of my friendships and even making some new ones here and there. I spent another weekend in Chicago with my parents. I got to spend part of the first weekend back at Paula's house in Chicago again, having another lovely weekend of catching up with one of my besties. We also celebrated our collective success in achieving semifinalist status for the Critical Language Scholarship (basically college NSLI-Y with more languages) for Turkish and Korean, which we received a day before seeing each other. I screamed when I got my notification, and spent a great afternoon calling people on the phone in celebration. Regardless of whether I make it to finals or not, I'm proud to have gotten further this time.
I went to MBLGTACC, a conference of Midwestern collegiate queer alliances, in Chicago over last weekend, in which I was able to chill in Chicago with some of my favorite Beloiters and attend cool workshops to boot, such as faith and queer identity forums, "Uncovering Pakistan's Gay Scene," and "Beyond Bisexuality 101," in which I got to meet Robyn Ochs, a bisexual activist who curated two anthologies that I read during my coming out process and were instrumental for me in understanding my own queerness and queerness as an identity/community. It was so cool, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. :)

A picture my friend Cruz drew of me

Me with a sign I made saying "no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here" from an anti-Muslim ban protest in Janesville, Wisconsin

A hanging birdhouse thing I found on campus

From a delicious brunch with Paula

Dylan's Candy Shop in Chicago 

View from Navy Pier during MBLGTACC

And in general, I feel like I'm finding the balance I was mentioning before a bit more, ever more effectively. And I'm continuing to live, grow, and learn.

That's about all for now. I will be back soon with some more posts - I've got to update you all on my amazing trip to Italy, and there's a couple of other cool surprises in store, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, enjoy another original song by the girl who inspired me to learn guitar.
Be back soon!