Author Archives: lclemente

Hay más tiempo que vida

When I think about the idea of “culture shock”, the first thing that comes to mind is an uncomfortable experience related to a difference between my culture and another one. In Luis’ IE class this semester, we read the essay “You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus”. In that essay, the author told a story about being on a bus in Thailand and there being a person at the back of the bus yelling out instructions to the driver as a “back seat driver” would here in the U.S. The narrator feels tense and worried about the situation, and eventually realizes that this is a customary practice in Thailand, that this person’s job is to shout directions at the driver. The tension of the essay quickly resolves.

The tensions of culture shock are usually resolved in this way—sometimes quickly and other times slowly. Over time, one becomes accustomed to their new environment, and hopefully stops comparing the culture they are visiting to their home culture. But the theme of culture shock that I’m interested in exploring in this blog post is the idea that sometimes by adjusting to a new culture, we learn about our own temperaments. Specifically, I want to explore my experience of time while I was in Costa Rica and think about how my relationship to time has changed since I went to Costa Rica and came back. Continue reading →

Mentor opportunity with local non-profit

Be a short-term mentor for university students from Latin America!!

Every summer in July and every winter in January, a non-profit called ITD (Institute for Training and Development, Inc.) manages and runs a Study of the U.S. Institutes Program (SUSI), a prestigious program that is sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. State Department. The program entails five weeks of intensive academic study in U.S. Policymaking, Entrepreneurship, Economic Empowerment, Leadership, and Politics. The highly competitive scholarship is awarded to twenty undergraduate students each time, all young leaders from Mexico and Central and South American countries. In the summers, the students who come to ITD are from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala; In the winters, they are from Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. The students live in Amherst for three and half of the five weeks of their program, and attend specialized lectures at Amherst College and at ITD. Continue reading →

Study Abroad!!! But first…Applications.

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Are you a Spanish major wanting to go abroad but you have no idea where you want to go? Do you overthink most things in your life, and this is another example of that? Did you already make a spreadsheet of twenty possible programs and their costs, pros, and cons, and still have no idea where to go? If you answered yes to all of these questions, first of all, I want to meet you. Please reach out to me. I’m glad I’m not the only neurotic Spanish major out there. Or if you answered yes to any one of these questions, congratulations on being less neurotic than I am. All jokes aside, I understand what it feels like to be so confused on where to go because I was there two months ago, and I want to give you some suggestions on how to decide. Continue reading →