Student Blogs

Living here for the last couple months I have met and lived with some pretty amazing people. My host family whom I lived with for about two months are the most caring and hospitable people, I have ever met. My host family gladly invited me in. Their hearts are very pure, and their focus to serve God is bar none. I feel that I have been made a part of their family. They are very loving, and this shows in all that they do. There has only been a couple times in my life where I can truly say I have felt at home. To me home is where you have family.

Tuberculosis: A disease caused by bacteria that float through the air, infect your body, and eat holes in your lungs so that you can’t breathe and eventually die.  Well, that’s the TB 101 version, but you understand; it’s nasty stuff.

Hello Blogosphere! I am not a Northwestern/Gordon Romanian Semester student, but I was able to join this great group over the weekend. I thought you all might be interested in hearing about this program from the perspective of an outsider.

First, something about me. I am a Northwestern College faculty member doing a Fulbright in Cluj Romania this year. I came to Lupeni to meet with the 2 psychology majors who are doing their senior thesis research projects in Romania.

We have made our home in Lupeni for the semester, a town once caught up in the spotlight of Communist industrialization when coal-mining was a booming industry. Now Lupeni is a victim of history, a town floundering in memories of the glory days while trying to keep its head above water as part of the now-forgotten Jiu Valley.

After a most wonderful and relaxing fall break spent in Italy, Switzerland, and Austria, it was time for us Northwestern students to get back into our classes full swing. For the past three days, and tomorrow being the last, we have intensely been studying the idea and concept of Sustainable Community Development, and right now as I sit on my bed at 1:30 in the morning, my mind is continually swirling with thoughts and ideas about development and all the different ways and possibilities that this topic could apply to me as an individual living in today's society.

To piggy-back off of Michele's post - I also wanted to say how much of a blessing it was to be a part of the Zacusca making processes.

We spent our last days in Bucharest touring the Palace of Parliament and a really cool outdoor museum. As the hours passed the realization of returning to the United States became more and more vivid. One whole semester submerged in a different life. Different friends, different family, different world; yet, there were similarities.

I sit here writing this entry with only 14 days left of my semester here in Romania. I can barely wrap my head around this fact and keep thinking to myself "where did the time go?" To answer that question would be to write a novel about all of the spectacular things that I have seen and accomplished in the short four months that I have been here. Because I do not have time to write a novel and other homework is beckoning me I will leave you with a taste of the many things that I hold dear to my heart since the beginning of this adventure.

One of the projects assigned to us for our Sustainable Development class required us to give a twenty minute presentation focusing on the development, particularly through the lenses of the GDI(Gender-related Development Index), HDI(Human Development Index), and the GEM (Gender Empowerment Measure), of a country. This assignment was to help us see how these statistics do not show the entire picture of a developing country.

After our week of Viata we came down from Straja into the town of Lupeni with feelings of accomplishment, awe and nervousness. I, in particular, was especially nervous about my homestay. I was so afraid that my family would not like me and had been praying ferverently every day for my family to accept me.