almost.thedoctorschannel.com

I don’t know if it was bad luck or the fact that I was due to deal with my roommates illnesses but, as you can guess my other roommate got pink eye as well. Between hospital visits for pneumonia and the pink eye break out I now own more hospital gloves and masks then the hospital itself (I also managed to get a hospital gown that made a great halloween costume, so there were some positives). After tailgating before one of the college game days I found myself rigourously scratching my arm, after a couple days it wasn’t just my arm though. This fall was illness packed, but I have made it out alive, even though my room still has an underlying smell of puke and my arm still looks like a tomato.

The Fulbright scholarship is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs whose goal is to improve intercultural relations,  diplomacy, and competence between the people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills. While implementing my project abroad, it challenged my ability to apply previously acquired research skills into a country filled with new nuances. These nuances were new challenges and new considerations, but through them, I learned how to adapt my survey tools to be culturally relevant and realized how important it is to understand the population and environment in which you work. When you are having an off day and your research isn’t going as planned, going to see historic sites, museums, and plays IS still engaging in a cultural exchange.

You will evolve to recognize those small interactions, like engaging with strangers on the street, building relationships with new colleagues abroad, all add up to this larger experience called ‘The Fulbright’. It took me months to reflect on what I had just been through mentally and physically, what I had accomplished, what I wish I could’ve done better, what I would like to do for the future, etc. The best piece of advice I can give you is to give yourself time to reflect but also build in the time to do it. I have always had great difficulty-since the initiation of the Fulbright scholarships in 1946-in trying to find the words that would persuasively explain that educational exchange is not merely one of those nice but marginal activities in which we engage in international affairs, but rather, from the standpoint of future world peace and order, probably the most important and potentially rewarding of our foreign-policy activities.

After a year of working on the proposal and statement, attending interviews, anticipating the announcement of semi-finalists and then surviving the anxiety-ridden months until finalists are revealed, I remember the day I received the notification. If you want to keep your same phone number when you return to the states, park it at Number Barn. You can bring your own phone and get a sim card or you can get a separate phone just for the year. If you don’t get a chance to read it before you leave, don’t worry.