Local, Near and Far: Our journey of exploring the world.

Category: Feature Friday (Page 3 of 3)

Every Friday, we take a break from our regular blogging schedule and each author has the opportunity to share with you a bit of their personality, interests, and passions. All of the Feature Friday posts have been filed here; series have been grouped together as well for easier sorting.

Experiencing Food as Culture

Every Friday we take a break from our regular blogging schedule to allow the authors an opportunity to feature a certain topic they are passionate about. In the past you’ve read about art and studying abroad. Through this and other future posts we hope you’ll enjoy reading, we hope to share with you our personalities, passions, and interests on a more personal level.

Food is a necessity to human life. It sustains us physically, the sharing of food can foster community, and food can reflect culture. By far, one of my favorite things to experience when I go to a new place is the food. You can learn so much based on it: what is grown local, what is considered delicacy, how the food is eaten, who is your company, what flavors are emphasized or subtle, what social cues are in play, just to name a few.

Ethiopian Cuisine

Ethiopian Cuisine

I’ve had multiple experiences traveling abroad where I was served a very lavish meal by my hosts. They could barely afford the cost of the meal, but in those acts, it was communicated that hospitality was valued, that I was a honored guest, and that the food was the best of whatever it was that I was served. As I reflect on those experiences now, I think about how much the host culture revealed of itself in those instances. I might have been hesitant to eat whatever was served (not being a fan of insects) or be nervous about how the conversation might flow, but those things didn’t matter at all. What did matter was that I embraced what was provided and thus embraced my hosts and their culture. I’ve learned that there is value in being invited to dine with someone of a different culture, being served traditional food, and being willing to try something new even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Food from El Salvadore

Food from El Salvadore

Now this is where you interject and say “I’m not going abroad just for that” or “Is there a way to experience this close to home?”.  You’re right, I don’t just travel for food either…although it is usually a pretty high priority for Matt and I, we do love to sight see. And YES(!), if you live in a decently sized city, you don’t have to travel far to be able to experience different cuisine; you just need an adventurous appetite and/or a guide to help you along the way. Food allows you to explore the world without leaving your hometown; in a matter of a couple hours you can experience a different culture than your own just by tasting something new.

Indian rest 2Recently, Matt and I went out to eat with several of Matt’s co-workers. A majority of his co-workers are from India and they took us to an authentic (Southern) Indian restaurant. It was so fun and interesting to hear them speak about their food, what their favorites are, and explain how to eat it. I think they loved sharing it with us and they seemed appreciative that we were enthusiastic about trying a piece of their culture. Through this experience of eating together, we were able to learn so much from them about food, festivals that are celebrated, traditions, music, and values. It was an experience that I won’t soon forget and didn’t even require us to leave DFW!

I would strongly recommend getting out of your normal “box” in terms of cuisine–it will be a learning experience and a wonderful local way to experience food as culture.

indian rest 1

Study Abroad

Every Friday we take a break from our regular blogging schedule to allow the authors an opportunity to feature a certain topic they are passionate about. In the past you’ve read about art, however we have a number of Feature Fridays ahead. Through this and other future posts we hope you’ll enjoy reading, we hope to share with you our personalities, passions, and interests on a more personal level.

Travel changes people.  It fosters understanding and enriches our life.  As a seasoned traveler, this fact seems like second nature.  That is why traveling abroad can have a profound impact on a student’s life.

Thinking back to my time in college, I did not participate in my university’s study abroad program.  However, I was able to spend one summer in Bolivia through another organization on campus.  To this day, I attribute many life changing moments to my time in Bolivia.  If you visit a place for a week or so, you can easily disengage from the culture and just be a tourist.  But when you actually enter into a different culture, it is amazing what you actually learn about yourself, your own culture, the world and perhaps your faith. It was an amazing and difficult time. I had to grow up quickly and learned to take risks. It was a pressure cooker for seeing my weaknesses and shortcomings.  I started learning Spanish, which has helped me immensely.

In my day job, I work for a non-profit that hosts two grants from the Department of Education called Upward Bound.  During LBJ’s administration, Upward Bound emerged out of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 in response to the administration’s War on Poverty.  The program is specifically designed for high school students who will be the first in their family to go to college and/or are low-income.  The goals are to increase the rates of secondary graduation and enrollment in and graduation from post-secondary education.

A few months ago, our office went to a conference. One of the breakout sessions discussed the benefits of first-generation students studying abroad.  I volunteered quickly to go to this session!  I love traveling and my students, so I was excited to learn.

This particular session was offered by a graduate student who was working at the University of Texas in Austin.  The initiatives from the University and staff to help first-generation students were amazing!  Their initial research along with other programs, shows that when a student studies abroad, their GPA will often increase as well as increase graduation rates. Traveling abroad could even help students secure jobs and summer internships later in their career path.  Traveling provides soft skills such as confidence, critical thinking, and helps makes connections to the world with their academic discipline.

If you know someone who is a first-generation student, or if you are a first-generation student and are interested in studying abroad, as soon as you speak with your advisor on campus, let them know that studying abroad is a goal.  Speak with the financial aid and the study abroad office to figure out your options.  Also, start looking up scholarships.  There are many scholarships that are specifically for first-gen. studying abroad.  Below is a list of scholarship links.

Scholarships

Gilman International Scholarship

The next two scholarship links are housed by UT-Austin.  Use them as a resource.

Global Assist and UT International Office Database

Chasing Caravaggio – The Cardsharps

Every Friday we take a break from our regular blogging schedule to allow the authors an opportunity to feature a certain topic they are passionate about. Through this and other future posts we hope you’ll enjoy reading, we hope to share with you our personalities, passions, and interests on a more personal level.

As part of our continuing desire to bring beauty into focus, From Texas to Beyond will periodically feature brilliant pieces of art that have influenced our lives.  We are excited to showcase these universal works of beauty with you.

As a follow-up to my earlier review of the Kimbell Art Museum, there is one artwork by one artist in particular that I absolutely love:  The Cardsharps by Caravaggio.

Discovering Caravaggio

Caravaggio’s creations reignited my love of art.  As a child, I always loved art.  However, in 8th grade, I quickly learned that others were much more talented than myself.  Gradually I lost interest as I realized I would never be a great artist.  Or a good artist.  Or even a mediocre artist.

What I learned recently is a simple truth: you do not have to be an accomplished artist to appreciate the artwork of others.

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Introducing Feature Friday

Today we are taking a “break” and I want to introduce to you what, behind the scenes, we have been calling “Feature Friday”.

Every week, we’re bringing you content and that’s all well and good, but we thought it best to interrupt that normal content and shake things up a bit. I am now so happy to introduce “Feature Friday”.

When we first started this joint venture, we decided it would be good to know what each other is passionate about and our interests. Yes, we are all interested in travel and love to explore new places, but what else did we have in common? That led to each of us intentionally writing a list of topics that we are interested in and sharing them in more detail with each other. We did this at the very beginning, before even launching our blog but didn’t really have a plan with how to use the information.

As we started talking more and more about scheduling and strategies that we had found or read were effective, we began to think about how we could use the information about our interests to our advantage. As a way to incorporate those interests, and so that you can learn a little more about us individually, we thought we would start a series where each author could have the freedom to write about whatever they wanted. You’ll hear from each of us monthly and our features will provide an outlet of sorts to get to know each of us more individually. Don’t worry, each feature will somehow tie into our overall theme of travel and/or Texas!

We hope you enjoy these glimpses into our lives, our interests and thoughts outside of the regularly scheduled programming.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and being a fan of From Texas to Beyond. We are so glad you are a part of our journey.IMG_1250

 

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