Category: Europe

The Familiarity of a Stranger

Published on by gwenmorgan323Leave a comment

I grew up in a big family. Christmas was a big deal. Easter was a big deal. Thanksgiving was a big deal. Birthdays, dinners, lunches, brunches, everything was a big deal with lots of people with lots of opinions and lots of noise. I’ve always been surrounded by people. Growing up, I frequently went to sleep-away camp and was left in a cabin with five to seven other girls at a time. College was no different. I was sleeping with roommates in buildings full of people, full of noise, full of community.

For someone like me, loneliness is an unfamiliar emotion.

Five days ago, I began my journey from San Antonio, Texas to Bilbao, Spain. Upon boarding my second flight (a connection from Atlanta to Madrid), I met a lovely 40-something-year-old lady. She was kind, allowing me to stand in front of her in line. Upon chatting, we soon realized we were in seats right next to each other, and I was instantly grateful.

I had felt nothing but bliss up until that point in my seventeen-hour travel day. Boarding my first flight out of Texas I felt excited; excited for the possibilities that were to come from being abroad. I’ve been traveling my whole life, most recently on my own for the first couple of times to and from Denver. The only international trip without my parents was with close friends, which made it easy to navigate and ease any nerves that may have bubbled up from being away from a familiar space.

It is when I sat in the Atlanta airport that I began to feel it.

The idea of an eight-hour flight, left to my own devices, seemed unappealing in a way I can only describe to be apathy. I felt anxious; was I missing something important like a charger? Toothpaste? AirPods? I felt guilty; Did I spend enough time with my family this summer? With my friends? With my pets? I felt intense unease; would I really be able to do this for three months on my own? Would my host family be nice? Would I be able to adjust?

My mind was a cloud of gray, my nails busy picking at my skin as a way to release the nervous tension I could feel bubbling up in the pit of my stomach.

All of that melted away as I followed closely behind Patricía into the narrow isle of seats lining the plane.

We began to talk, the entire conversation in Spanish. With Spanish as my second language, I was automatically grateful to have someone who allowed me to practice during the lengthy flight. Patricía was flying from Atlanta to Madrid and had been for the past couple of months due to her father’s continuous sick spells. Despite this, she maintained the most lovely and positive demeanor I’ve encountered in a while. She told me all about Madrid, Bilbao and other parts of Spain. How the culture was, as reflected in her own eyes, what the people were like, what the food entailed. Her Spanish accent made it difficult to understand certain words at times, along with the noise from the plane, but I found that we were able to communicate at times simply through hand gestures. I offered her some of my snacks, she offered me her eye-mask when it was time to sleep on the plane. We shared commentary, jokes, and even part of my Snoopy blanket throughout the flight, and it felt like I was back home with my tía, her personality comforting and familiar.

When it came close to being time to land, we exchanged contact information, took a selfie together, and said our goodbyes. I was rushing to make my connection, she knew I was anxious, making sure to direct me to the right place, giving me tips on how to navigate the massive airport.

Loneliness is a strange emotion, one easily felt even amid an airport bustling with thousands of people. We all as humans crave connection, it’s natural. We want to be around someone familiar, someone who feels safe. I am forever grateful for having met Patricía, to have had almost a little reminder of home with me on such a long flight was all I could have asked for. It just goes to show that you should be kind to every stranger you meet; you never know how big of an impact it could have on their life. I don’t know if Patricía realized how much of a comfort she was for me on just an eight-hour flight. Perhaps I’ll tell her over a cup of coffee when I get around to hopefully visiting her in Madrid!

First Class Recap

Published on by showtimeherink2Leave a comment
classroom

Today was my first class at Maastricht University. I was eager and nervous at the same time when I first walked into the building. I didn’t know anyone in this class. Still, I was keen to meet people from different countries and talk with them about the vast field of international relations and the themes and theories associated with the subject. I had arrived an hour early at the building where my class was to take place, so I sat in a study area, finalizing my reading notes and reviewing parts of the required readings and book chapters for the class. Soon, the time came to head to my scheduled classroom. I walked in with someone from the Netherlands and started a conversation. We discussed where we were from and what we were most excited about learning in this class. Soon, more kids started to fill the room, and they all seemed to know each other since the class comprised primarily Dutch students. 

Soon after we had all settled, the class professor walked into the room, and we started. The professor’s name was Birsen Erdogan, and she immediately introduced the class and briefly went over the syllabus, tackling the main ideas of what to expect from this class. The essential things included the fact that we had two mini exams during the duration of the class as well as a reflective journal. The two mini exams will be over the discussion questions from the book we are reading and the learning goals our professor had set out for us. The reflection journal is a project that consists of 8 lectures. After each class, we are to reflect on the class personally, discussing the contents and what we did and did not understand. After the syllabus talk, we went around the room and introduced ourselves. I was the only American student in the class. I expected not to be talkative in the first class because I wanted to get a sense of what the class discussion was like. However, things were about to be different this time around.

As I said before, I was the only American in the class, so I expected myself to be shy, listen more, and chime in on conversations rather than start them. This time, however, it was different. We started talking about world news immediately, and I immediately started talking. Because I read the news daily, the topics we started class talking about were right in the wheelhouse, and I felt comfortable expressing my opinions worldwide. After discussing the news, the professor asked who would like to lead today’s discussion on the Mearsheimer reading about structural realism and chapters 1 and 2 of our book. The professor then asked who in the class would like to lead the discussion. No one raised their hand, and everyone looked around, anticipating someone to take the role of class discussion leader. After no one raised their hand, I decided to take the role of discussion leader and volunteered to be the discussion leader.

After taking the role of the discussion leader, we began class by discussing the Mearsheimer reading. The main question of this peace was: why do states want power? The main argument for that was that it is human nature for states to want power. That was the main point brought up during our discussion. Some other topics we brought up in the Mearsheimer part of the discussion included:

  • uncheckedIf a state adjacent to you gives more power for survival
  • uncheckedWe need to get our defenses up for power; we can never be sustained for power, and it is about survival
  • uncheckedAnarchy is realism, a form of defense, and trying to form alliances
  • uncheckedPolicies will change; states are functionally similar but differ in capabilities. We all want the same thing (Structural Realism)

The main talking points of the first part of the discussion were about structural realism, defined as an international system structure forcing states to pursue power. In this world, it is about survival when it comes to power. The world is a system of anarchy as countries will either try to form defenses or form alliances to share power. These states are all functionally similar, but they differ in capabilities. Even though we all want the same thing, we have different ways of wanting to get there.

I wanted to talk more about the Mearsheimer readings, but we had discussion points and learning goals to get to, so I switched over to those. These questions tackled the content of the first two chapters of our required book. The first part entailed the aspects we discussed from the Mearsheimer reading: power, anarchy, and survival. This soon led to the topic of the international system. We discussed the global system, which describes the anarchy system of the world where states distribute power among themselves. This system of power is divided into three parts: bipolar, multipolar, and unipolar. For those who made an argument about a unipolar world, the reasoning was that the US was the true global power of the world because it has the most significant military and the most robust economy. Those who argue that our world is a bipolar system say that the US and China are the two global hegemonies because they have the most robust economies and militaries. They keep each other in check through cooperation and trade. Those who argue that the world is multipolar say there are more world powers than the US and China, such as France, Germany, Russia, etc. Because of this diverse perspective, we ended up having a long conversation about the topic of world power. I believe the world is bipolar, with the US and China being the two powers, but I also argue that the world could be seen as multipolar. For the multipolar argument, I brought up the five permanent members of the UN Security. I discussed how they represent a multipolar world because they have the final say in decisions on the Council. One veto from any of the five members (US, China, Russia, the UK, and France) automatically strikes down a decision. Because those countries have the strongest veto power, you could make a case for the fact our world is a multipolar system.

One takeaway from this first class session was that I was very well educated in the subject matter and felt comfortable sharing my perspective with the group. The readings helped me confidently lead the class discussion because I knew what I was talking about. In addition, the knowledge I gained from my international studies classes at the University of Denver helped me apply the context of the readings to real-world situations. The combination of the readings and my knowledge aided my confidence in leading the discussion. Being the only American in your first class abroad and being chosen to lead the discussion is nerve-racking. However, I could confidently lead the debate and felt good about the content I helped put out to aid that discussion.