Wittenberg University

So these first three weeks back has been flying by. Classes are great even though they are a lot of work… In my Honor’s class on Poverty and Education we have already gotten hands-on experience from a program called Promise Neighborhood here in Springfield. It is inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York. It is a very cool program where people from poor communities come together to figure out how to make the situation better for the people living in the area. Promise had a meeting for about 150 people last week, and together with a few people from my class we took care of the kids so that the parents could discuss the changes that needed to be made. It was a lot of fun to hang out with the kids, but I was exhausted after three hours.

Other than that I would like to propose adding an extra day for the weekends, they are just too short! There are just so many activities to get involved with, homework to be done and friends to hang out with! And all those little things that you want to do just never seem to get done. Me and my roommate have been thinking about bunking our beds for two weeks now, but we never seem to have the time to get it done. We both pulled up our calendars earlier today and put “BUNK BEDS” for Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. I guess that’s just nerdy planning for you…

Have a great week!

Hanna

I did see that Cody wrote about rush for the fraternities so I thought I’d write a little about rushing a sorority. We started out this past Saturday with philanthropy day, where the girls who are interested in joining a house come visit every one of them and talk about the philanthropies that we are involved in. All Greek houses have different activities throughout the year to raise money for the organizations or causes.

Tonight will be sisterhood day and some of the girls come back to the house and we get to talk to them about our sisterhood, why we decided to join the sorority we did choose, and also what they expect to get out of the rush. Even if you decide to not join a house, rush is a great experience and you get to meet a lot of people. I had no idea what Greek life was like when I was a freshman because it does not exist in Sweden. But I decided to go through rush and I have not regretted it one second!

Saturday is preference night, and Sunday is bid day. It will be a long week for both the sorority houses and the girls going through rush, but it is such a fun experience and I hope everyone will enjoy it! Have a good week!

Hanna

I got back to Witt Saturday afternoon, and luckily my roommate Laura and one of my other sisters were already in our sorority house and could let me in. I am so excited to be living in the house this year, I can’t describe how fun it is to have more than 20 of my sisters living in the same house. I realized how much I’ve missed them during my semester abroad and it is just great to see everyone and catch up.

Both me and my room mate have the morning free on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays so we got up early today to go to the gym. It was awesome to get a real workout again. In Santiago, Chile, the air is so polluted that I got sick every time I ran, and I didn’t have a gym right around the corner like here.

Today I will have one class, an honors class that I am looking forward to a lot. Dr Welker is one of my favorite professors, and I’ve known him since he taught my WittSem and it will be interesting to have class with him again. I am also picking up some books at the library and attempting to move in the rest of our stuff to our room today. It feels so great to be back on campus and I feel like this semester will be great!

Hanna

Everything went well during the last few days of writing my thesis in Chile, as well as my presentation. I was a little nervous to talk about my work during 15 minutes in Spanish, but it went very good, and me and the rest of the SIT students had a good time in Algorrobo. Algorrobo is a very pretty beach city where we stayed during our presentation and evaluation days.

When we got back to Santiago I only had one day to buy Christmas presents and pack before I left Chile. It has been a great semester abroad from the States, but I am ready to see my family and then come back to Witt in January!

I got to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, late Saturday night. My aunt and cousin picked me up at the airport and we drove to the celebration of Lucia that the Swedish Uruguayan Institute hold every year. In Sweden, the 13^th of December is the day when you celebrate this Italian saint, with candles, gingerbread cookies, saffron bread, spiced hot wine and songs about the light, Lucia and Christmas. It’s a very Swedish tradition and I´m happy I got to celebrate it here in Uruguay.

So now I am just hanging out in my aunt and uncle´s house, with my cousin. I can´t wait for Tuesday when my parents, brothers and my brother´s girlfriend are all flying in from Sweden to celebrate the holidays.

I did here about crazy snow and storms in the States, so I hope all is well over there. I got stuck at the Dayton airport last year because of the weather, so I hope everybody gets home in time for the holidays!

Feliz Navidad!

Hanna

When I first started classes at Witt my freshman year, I was extremely scared of writing papers and studying in English. It is one thing studying English as a foreign language, like I did in Sweden, another to do everything in that language.

But I did soon get introduced to the marvelous Writing Center at Witt, where I now take every single paper I write. Well, not this semester unfortunately, since I am in Chile. But I miss the opportunity to go to the Writing Center, having somebody read my paper out loud and realize which parts to keep, and which ones to erase right away.

Today I am now 4 days before handing in my final paper her in Chile, I have reached the 25 page limit and I am still attempting to cram more information in there. Change font anyone? I hope not, because I believe less is more.

Plus I feel like I am repeating myself like there is no tomorrow. So I wish there was a Writing Center here. Well, I asked a friend to look over it and then I am meeting with my advisor tomorrow. I guess I am just going to let it rest for a little and then look at it with fresh eyes later.

One week left here in Chile, on Saturday next week I am off to Uruguay and then OHIO!

Good luck with finals,

Hanna

Much thanks to my WittSem professor, Dr. Welker, I have now gained one more family in Chile. The Blacks have 3 kids, a little bit younger than I am and they have just moved back to Chile from Australia. They invited me over a few weeks ago and this past Sunday we went hiking in Yerba Loca.

Although it was a pretty cool day it was a great walk and we got to see some cows, mules and horses up in the mountains. The kids were super excited so it was a lot of fun.

I don´t know how we  reached a decision, but I promised to come to their house and make Swedish meatballs. There´s still no IKEA close by here, so I guess a real Swede has to do the hard work then, haha.

It was a great night, I made meatballs with mashed potatoes and cream sauce and I have to give myself a pat on the back because they turned out delicious!

It can also be because, as usual, we ate on Chilean schedule, at 9 pm so I was starving at that point.

Today I´ve just been hanging out at Café Literario, the library/café here in providencia, writing up some interview stuff. Tomorrow I have an interview with some hot shot at SERNAM (Servicio Nacional de la Mujer), so I´m preparing some questions as well. I only get half an hour according to his secretary, so I have to be precise.

Take care,

Hanna

Part of my program here in Chile is writing a paper on something that relates with the social, economic and political transformation of the country after the dictatorship (1973-1990). I have chosen to do mine on the situation for working women. The situation is pretty bad here, women only make up 30-40% of the workforce and they make less that 70% of the salaries of men.

But the improvement during the past few years has been pretty good and I am focusing on the organizations, worker´s unions and government projects that are doing this work.

Today I had an interview with Isabel Urzúa, who works for Comunidad Mujer, an organizations for women of the middle class and lower class. They help them with starting their own companies and getting micro loans to have some money to start with.

I was a little nervous before the interview, but it went really well. I also got to meet Esperanza Cueto, who is the president of Comunidad Mujer and hopefully I have an interview later this week with her.

The sun is shining and I´m off to sushi with a friend, take care!

Hanna

It may sound weird that spring is almost here, but that is the truth in this part of the world, Chile. Officially spring started September 21, but it is not until now that I feel like it’s really here. For a few days we had 90´s and then down to 60´s and then up to 90s again. And now I think it’s here to stay!

Last Monday my most abuela (grandmother) turned 95 and it was a huge celebration at my house. We´ve been eating the leftover food for a few days now and it is delicious. The house was packed with family, friends and relatives but I guess they just didn´t eat enough… It was a great party though and a lot of fun!

So this week we’ve been closing up our Spanish class and our seminar on Chile´s social, political and economic transportation. All my classes here are in Spanish and taught by Chileans so the level of Spanish is pretty high to be honest. There’s NO English in the classroom. My program is called SIT (Student International Training) and I would highly recommend it to anybody who wants a challenge, both with the language, studies and of course the culture. I have learned so much during my semester here and this program has been perfect for me! (And no, I don´t get paid to say this… J)

Next week we begin the research with our independent study project which will take 4 weeks and result in a 25 page research paper in Spanish (with 1,5 space – I miss American spaced papers! J). I am super excited about it, but first I have to finish our final in the seminar. It´s a 9-10 page paper on Chile´s History, Economy and Social situation. In Spanish of course… J

And on Thursday me and some friends are going to a concert with the Black Eyed Peas. It feels a little weird that they´re going to be here, because reggeton is more the kind of music I associate with Chile, Black Eyed Peas feel like college in the States to me. But I look forward to it a lot!

Also registered today, Spring semester 2011, here I come!

Cariños,

Hanna

Hola!

My name is Hanna Franck-Larsson and I am currently a junior at Wittenberg. I was born and raised in the wonderful country of Sweden and decided to move to the US in 2008 to improve my English studying at Witt. Originally I was only supposed to stay for a year but I fell in love with Witt and the country and I decided to stay for all four years.

I am a Political Science and International Studies double major and this semester I am studying abroad in Chile! They have Starbucks in Chile too (surprise!), with free internet, so I am writing this sipping coffee in Santiago while doing homework and hanging out with one of my brother’s friends from high school. She is also studying here, and speaking Swedish with her, some English with my co-students and Spanish with the rest of the Chilean Population is creating an awesome language mix in my head…

I miss Witt a lot of course, even if Chile is great. I talked to my parents on Skype earlier today and my mom just left Sweden to go on a college tour in the states with my younger brother. They will be at Witt November 3, so if anybody reads this and notices two people speaking a weird language on campus this week – feel free to hug them!

I am taking a lot of interesting classes here but also looking forward to the classes at Witt next semester. There will be some great ones for sure. I am taking an honors class on poverty in the US and Kenya which I look forward to a lot.
That´s all for now – I´ll be back soon!

Hanna