By: Danielle Barnes-Smith

The thing about studying abroad/relationships/life-in-general is that it’s full of disappointment.
They call it “culture shock.” It’s kind of like when someone mashes cauliflower so that the dish looks like mashed potatoes and calls it “nutritious.”

I call it disappointment.

It’s disappointing because through our kitchen window we can see beautiful lights and an old church, but if you look down you see garbage that washed up from some litter hurricane and air conditioner that definitely serves no purpose to humanity anymore.

It’s disappointing because even though tickets to Paris are cheap, cheap can still be expensive when you’re in college and newlywed (who would have known?).

It’s disappointing because a lot of expectations don’t get filled.

When I was accepted to study abroad, I still had several months before the departure date on the plane tickets, so there was plenty of time to romanticize. I imagined I would have been to London, Scotland, and the Stonehenge within the first month. I imagined that the water wouldn’t give me a weird stomach thing (although bad gas is a really good way to tell if your spouse truly loves you). I imagined I would make twenty Irish friends and have drank my share of Guinness.

I have yet to go to London, Scotland, or Stonehenge because time and money is surprisingly short. The water does give me a weird stomach thing. I haven’t made any Irish friends. And buying Guinness all the time is actually quite expensive and fattening.

So it’s full of disappointment. In order to avoid the disappointment, I advise avoiding going abroad at all. It’s much easier.

However, if you still want an incredible experience, don’t stop reading.

Incredible experience? But, Danielle, you just whined a lot and told us way too much about your digestion.

Well that’s the thing about studying abroad/relationships/life-in-

general, the best parts are the parts that we don’t have time to romanticize about.

I have not gone to London, Scotland, or Stonehenge, but I have kissed the Blarney Stone, experienced Fota Wildlife Park, and ventured through Ring of Kerry.

The water does do something weird to my stomach, but it’s worth it for how great the butter and goat cheese is here (I’m not even joking).

I have not made twenty Irish friends, but, if I can be so cheesy, I have made some really great European friends and been more social that I am normally inclined to (I’ve made fun of Germans more often than I am normally inclined it). And I’ve had a few pints of Guinness (it’s good with Blackcurrant syrup).

Studying abroad in Ireland is not what I imagined it would be. School is different (not harder, not easier, different). Sometimes I don’t know what anyone is talking about (what is the meaning of pudding?). But if anything is for sure, anything at all, studying abroad, relationships, life: they are all worth it.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

This past week I was staying at a tiger reserve in central India. We looked at how the tiger reserve and tourism associated with it has helped or harmed the local villagers’ livelihoods. We did profiles on several people within the village, like barbers, doctors, guides, basket weavers, shop owners, and a woman who runs a homestay.

I focused on the woman who was running the home stay. Her name is Shahanaj Baig and she is an amazing woman who is working hard so her kids can have a better life than her. She and her husband are some of the few people from the village of Moharli that have sent their kids to the neighboring city to get an English education. She doesn’t want her kids to come back after school, she wants them to go out and live their dreams and be able to support her when she is too old. She calls it her investment plan.

This all ties into the environmental issues I have been reporting on.The issue is  environmental vs. social.

The question is whether tourism should be allowed within the core zone of the tiger reserve. Some think that the tigers need to be even more protected than they already are and that the tourism is hurting the tiger populations. But if they shut down the tourism, the people who based their livelihoods off the tourism industry, like Shahanaj, would have to find a different way to make money.

The problem is finding a way to allow tourism that is also not environmentally harmful. I think India has done a phenomenal job solving this problem, at least at the tiger reserve I went to. They have done a lot of things to protect the tigers. They only allow tourism in a small section of the core zone. They only allow a small number of safari jeeps into the reserve everyday, and are very strict about these rules. So far the Indian government has favored the tigers over the economic incentives that come from  tourism.

A tiger we saw while on safari. These tigers are used to seeing humans but are still very wild and dangerous animals

Although they have done a good job of protecting the tigers, man-animal conflict is inevitable. While we were there a local villager who snuck into the jungle to harvest bamboo was eaten by a tiger.

All they found was his leg but authorities won’t take action against the tiger because they want to do all they can to protect  the tigers.

I have two more weeks in Pune and will be looking at the problem of accessing clean water in the slums. I can’t wait to look at some of the deeper environmental and social problems here in India.

By: Spencer Ruchti

One important aspect of the Ireland experience is, of course, the landscapes. I have 800 pictures on Facebook that prove my point. Below is a poem I wrote that reflected on the awe-inspiring scenery of Ireland. One place in particular, the Dingle coast, inspired me the most. Included below are pictures of the area.

A little while down the coast, when the sun finally decided to come out.

The Nearly Dead

Today I saw Dingle.

Today I watched heaven cast its light on the Atlantic
in beams and pillars,
spotlights on a swaying sea.
It had a mood, Tom said,
a tumultuous mood as the cold white frothing sea beat and churned against the polished black stones of the coastline cliffs
in anger, many say.

But I am not of that many.

I believe the sea is too large,
too God-like,
too beautiful to hold that kind of wrath.
It has an ardent passion, but I believe that Father Sea meets Gaia in love
every washing wave a breath breathed by the world.

Today I smelled sand and salt. The foggy fingers of distant rain tore down the sky itself and brought it to the Earth, to the sea old as the sky itself
old as Gods and myths.

There is history in this place, I know.
Time flows like sunlight,
year to year,
eon to eon,
and our time here is but a crash
a wink
a blink
a sinking ship
and in our time here
we find the thrill of death we’ve been looking for.

The Dingle coast. Like the sun’s fighting through the clouds.

Because the purpose of life is eventually death.
Not in the sen of an end
a telos
but in the thrill.
The thrill of near death that brings us closer.
The one that reminds us we are living creates
who see color
and light
and wind
and rain, most certainly rain.

The thrill of near death.
The feeling we get when standing on the walls of sheer
seven hundred foot cliffs, as wind threatens
and rain tears and we’re left with nothing but veils of fog.
The awe of the mad sky and green land breathing upon one another.
The anxiety of climbing rocks shaped like stairs shaped like something else and else
and else
and understanding that the Earth laid them down through the gale storms the hot slithering magma and the legends we know them by.

Ireland is the thrill of near death.

We cast cold eyes
on life
on death
forging in the smithys of our souls
that which we shall never forget. The green that all life must pass through.

We seek not adventure, but eh beauty and warm, expanding peace that we would welcome to our graves.
The white sun that brings us to our knees.

We are the Nearly Dead.

The view from Dunbeg Fort.

By: Spencer Ruchti

Looking through the Yeats museum in Ireland’s National Library, I came across some interesting documents. Psychology researcher Eliot Hutchinson from Cambridge University in 1949 made an attempt to understand the psychology of writers, much like the research I wish to conduct. Hutchinson sent a “Questionnaire on Creative Effort” to Yeats, among other great writers of the time. At first I laughed. Measuring creative effort through a questionnaire? Hilarious. But as I read the questions, I realized Hutchinson was a man who understood the creative process. He understood the woes of a writer in search of a Muse, the absence of “productive inclination,” the nature of inspiration and daydreaming, the disgust a writer often feels at his or own work. He understood, yet he was a man like myself, trying to translate those feelings, those frustrations, those inspirations into a science; a calculated process wherein one might unlock the biological doors to infinite muse and sublime art. And not unlike myself, from the nature of the questionnaire, I believe Hutchinson had difficulty capturing this artistic nature within a scientific process (though I haven’t read the book in which he incorporates this reasearch, How to Think Creatively, and though the book dates back to 1949 (which is “outdated” in terms of proper scientific research), I plan on ordering it from Amazon and reading it in the future as part of research). Which brought me to think: What if, by studying the biology/neurology of great writers, I’m going about it all wrong? I think I might need to start focusing on psychology, rather than biology, of great writers, for you cannot study the creative mind through pure science, just as you cannot understand a mountain with a microscope. By breaking an art or artist down, you fail to apprehend and understand the collective picture. Hard sciences, like biology, unfortunately, make an attempt to understand the world by dividing it into its most basic parts and building upwards. May one appreciate a sunset by examining light particles? Surely not. Psychology is much better suited for such a task than biology/neurology, with its basis in philosophy and the overall behaviors of the mind rather than its anatomical functions.  

The Psychology of Creativity questionnaire, used as research in “How to Think Creatively.”

Page 1 of the questionnaire. This questionnaire was not published in the book (I know, because I own a copy).

Page 3 of the questionnaire

Page 4 of the questionnaire. Notice Yeats’ sidenotes.