Sharon – Transpositions

2022-05-232022-05-23

News Balance – by Madelaine Amezquita

In Colombia, all the families, including mine, have the tradition of having dinner while watching the 7:00 pm news. I remember it as the most important event of the day. Parents, grandparents, children, even pets get together to find out what is happening in the world. When I was teenager, most of the news was about the war between the Army and the FARC guerilla. I had nightmares from that news because it was so shocking for me. News companies should balance negative news with positive news for these two reasons: inspire the spectator to do good deeds and benefit the mental health of the spectator.

First, news companies should balance negative news with positive news to inspire the spectator to do good deeds. Canal Caracol, one of the most important and traditional Colombian television channels, has a special section named Actuar Ciudadano that means act citizen in English. In this section, they show social and environmental activists working in the most remote regions of Colombia such as Guajira, Amazonas, and Pacifico. One day my friend Pablo of the National University of Colombia told me that he decided to study Agricultural Engineering because he watched the section Actuar Ciudadano when he was a child. He said that when he finished his degree, he would go to work in those remote regions that need more help.

Second and more importantly, news companies should balance negative news with positive news to benefit the mental health of the spectator. In the middle of the pandemic, the two biggest television channels in Colombia, RCN and Canal Caracol, only broadcast news about the COVID-19 disease. At that time, I lived with my in-laws Myriam and Juvenal in their house in Bogota. They sat down every night at 7:00 o’clock to watch the news. They started to feel depressed because all the news was negative. In addition, they started to get anxious and panic about going out in the streets. I am sure that if they had not watched just bad news and instead watched more hopeful news, they would not have developed these mental health issues.

In conclusion, news companies should balance negative news with positive news for these two reasons: to inspire the spectator to do good deeds and benefit the mental health of the spectator. News influences the actions of the viewers. If the news is positive, probably the spectators will do good actions like my friend Pablo, but if all the news is negative, they can cause stress and mental illness to the viewers like to my in-laws Myriam and Juvenal. What would happen if all people watched positive news? Would they change some of their decisions?

Madelaine Alejandra Amézquita Suarez was born in 1998 in Girardot, Colombia. From a very young age, she was fascinated with the classical music, especially with the violin, which she started playing from the age of five. In her teens, she studied at the Tolima Music Conservatory, where she belonged to the Youth Orchestra, in which she played the role of concertmaster for three years in a row. She also played in the Tolima Chamber Orchestra and in the Tolima Symphony Orchestra. As a member of these orchestras, Madelaine participated in several classical music festivals in different countries such as the I International Meeting of Children and Youth Orchestras (San Juan de Pasto, Colombia 2011), the V International Festival of Children and Youth Orchestras Iguazú in Concert (Argentina, 2014), Premier Orchestra Instituted Festival (USA, 2014), XVI Festival Musicanas Montanhas (Brazil, 2015). Later Madelaine entered the National University of Colombia where she graduated as a Violin Musician in 2020. Madeleine currently lives in Georgetown, Texas where she also works as an Au Pair.

2021-07-292021-11-10

From ESOL to Graduate School

By Daniela Téllez

Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to develop advances and innovations so my country can improve its services and policies for children with disabilities. I was born and raised in a small city in Mexico. I am the youngest of three siblings and one of them has intellectual disability. These two details about me, and many other experiences through my life, have influenced me in the pursuit of my ideals to thrive in order to help others.

I have resigned myself to the idea that to accomplish my goals, I must persevere to obtain a higher level of education. It was my dad’s most repeated saying, “Education is the best investment someone can make,” which made me believe in it. I believe that if I invest in my preparation, I can contribute to my city, my country, and my world.

I was eighteen years old when I first moved away from home to pursue a degree in psychology. During that time, I also performed my first study abroad in Spain, searching for specialized, scientific, and evidence-based treatments for children with developmental disorders. The experience was inexplicably amazing. I came back home with tons of new ideas, an open mind, and motivation to keep on learning.

A few months later, while I was doing research, I realized most of the updated papers were in English. At that point, I realized I needed to start my journey of learning the language. In fact, I started considering graduate school in the US. Even when the language was a challenge, I ended up choosing the US because usually the papers I was interested in were written by authors from recognized universities in this country. Learning English started to become a very interesting and convenient option for my professional development.

Finally, it took me a few months to find the perfect program I needed to boost my professional career, the Intensive English Program at Austin Community College, which is part of the ESOL program at ACC. I studied there for one year as an international student, and that was surprisingly efficient for me. Nevertheless, at the same time I faced many ups and downs such as economic and emotional instability during the pandemic of 2020. However, at the end of the day, the adversity encouraged me to keep working and finally apply for the second level: graduate school.

This period was tougher than I imagined. Having no dominance of the new language, staying away from family and friends, not having permission to work because of the F-1 visa, experiencing a different culture, not having opportunities to socialize due to the pandemic, and facing difficulties to find real Mexican tacos made life challenging. However, it was my intrinsic motivation and my support system that helped me persevere. By the end of this struggle, I finally received four acceptance letters to study for a master’s degree in a few Texan universities. Although the journey is just about to start, I’d like to mention that preparation, dedication, and determination were key to filling up my tank. It wasn’t simply a miracle that happened from one day to another.

I strongly encourage every international or foreign student who may be struggling in the journey to study a foreign language, especially English, to persist, and always keep in mind the main motivation. Allow yourself to enjoy the journey, celebrate your small achievements, and ask for help if needed.

2021-06-292021-11-10

A Girl’s Game Turned into an Adult Goal

What have you dreamed to be since you were a child? Somethings, which we have wished to become since our childhood, generally become in our motivation while we are growing up. This happened to me. Everything started like a dolls’ play, but day by day, that play became in a gift which gave light to my existence. In other words, my childhood’s play has become in a wonderful reality for the rest of my life.

My parents told me that since I was a child, I have loved to help others. For example, they say that I always played with my favorite doll, Patty. In the dolls’ play, she always helped other dolls, so Patty was a doctor or a psychologist. Years later, my younger brother suffered encephalitis; due to this, he lost his speech and movement in the upper and lower extremities of his body. Then, he needed a neuropsychologist to do therapy and try to regain his body movements. For that reason, every week a neuropsychologist went to my house to help my brother, and I was always there observing everything that the neuropsychologist did with my brother. His therapy lasted for years, and during that time, she had been asking me if I wanted to learn somethings to help my brother with his therapy, and finally, I responded to her “yes, I want.” Since that day, I stopped to help my dolls, and I started to help my brother like my favorite toy.

I continued growing up, and during those years, my dream had been becoming more and more clear. That clarity helped me to be aware of my love for psychology; immediately, I started to do different things to achieve my goal which was to become A PSYCHOLOGIST. First, I stared to study with my best high school’s friend about psychology and general topics to pass the public university test, but I did not pass the public university test. I remember that for that semester, the university only had twenty seats for psychology students, and I got ranked twenty-five. That was a bad moment for me because my family did not have enough money to pay for my psychology career at a private university. After that, I started to work in a shoe store because I wanted to save money for my first semester at a private university. By the time I had two years working in that shoe store, I had saved enough money to pay for the admission Test, the first semester, and books. That was the moment to start the way to achieving my goal. When I just had finished my first semester, I knew that my grades had been one of the best in the school of psychology, and this kept happening semester by semester. As a result of this, I got a full scholarship for all my psychology career.

Five years later, I achieved my goal: I graduated as a psychologist, after that, I started to work in a foundation with children with special needs. Really, I had been dreaming with a work like that during all my career. Since then, I have been falling in love more and more with child psychology. Sadly, I have not been working with children for two years because this is the time that I have been living in the United States, and I have not validated my degree in this country yet. Nevertheless, for one year and half, I have been studying English and preparing myself to take my psychology classes, validate my degree, and of course be a wonderful child psychologist in this country.

In conclusion, if we have put attention to our inner child’s dreams, it surely has a connection with our present. In short words, our inner child has been guiding our life’s path.

2021-05-172021-11-10

Persistence by Javid Entezar

“A bundle of belongings is not the only thing a refugee brings to his new country”

Albert Einstein-

I am one of the million refugees in the United States. I was born and raised in Afghanistan, attended high school in Kabul, and after passing the university entrance exam successfully, got a scholarship from the government of Pakistan to study at one of its prestigious and privileged universities. My bachelor’s is in computer science from the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, Pakistan (https://uet.edu.pk). As a new international student in Pakistan, I struggled with languages, subjects, and the new culture, but I eventually overcame my speech impediment by watching, reading, writing, and speaking in both languages.

In Pakistan, life had ups and downs. During my four years of university, I could not go back to Afghanistan to see my family because of the security situation. Thus, I had no choice other than to apply as an asylum seeker. I completed 12 interviews, and for every interview I had to travel from Lahore to Islamabad, sleep on the bus, and walk miles in cold weather. Sometimes I argued with police officers as they wanted money because I did not have a valid visa while I was a student, and I was busy with my immigration case. I waited five years, one month, and three days to get the U.S visa. It was a GREAT day for me; it was like a great dream come true.

Long before reaching one of the great nations (the U.S.A), I lived in a small town where terrorism, crime, drugs, gang violence, and bomb explosions were on every corner. I am Hazara, and we have a long story of systematic persecution, facing violence at the hands of the Taliban, the Islamic State group (ISIS), and some other groups. For the last 15 years, I have lost my teachers and classmates right in front of my eyes, but I never gave up; I pursued my education with even more passion.

I have been living, studying, and working away from my family, taking care of myself. I also have been self-financed in my education since high school until now, not troubling my family as they are not able to pay my education expenses, and it is what I intend to continue to do. Besides that, I contribute marginally to provide financial support to my family and a few other students whose parents are unable to provide their school and course expenses in Afghanistan. Additionally, even though there were always possibilities of attacks from the Taliban and ISIS, I voluntarily used to go from Kabul to my village during my summer vacation and winter break to teach English, math, and other subjects to students.

I plan to complete my higher education in one of the best universities in the United States, and I am working for it every waking hour. Let me say this: living in another country reminds you of how incredible life is. Besides all the ups and downs, you get used to a new routine and enjoy new comfort. It gives you an appreciation for everything, things that you would not usually pay attention to or notice.

2021-05-172021-11-18

Learning English Faster.

Learning English Faster

By Jazmin Echavarria

Would you like to learn English faster? I know that like me; you would like to wake up one morning, speaking, reading and writing English. I wish it was that easy, but it is not impossible, either . Definitely, this is a process that can take years, but surely it becomes more fun, motivational and accelerated if you learn to know its logic. I have been studying English for one year, and I really did not bring good foundations of English from my country. However, at some point, I realized that learning English was a matter of strategy. For this reason, in this article, I have decided to share with you three main tips that have helped me to advance significantly during my process to learn English which are strategy, dedication and practice.

First of all, being strategic when it comes to learning English can help you quickly to develop skills for learning English. I do not know if you have heard of color theory, but when you color your ideas, texts, etc., your brain captures with greater speed what you are seeing, reading or learning. For example, when I learn verbs, gerunds, paraphrases and vocabulary in general, I used index cards of colors; then, I wrote the regular verbs on the green index cards, and the irregular verbs on the yellow ones. Moreover, I generally use highlighters of different colors to underline the words in books as I read them, so I like to use green for verbs, orange for nouns, yellow for unknown words, and blue for important ideas to highlight. All of the above helps me to have a better understanding of grammar, allows me to better understand texts and learn vocabulary faster.

Equally important, dedication before and after class allows your brain to open in a more assertive way to learning a new code. For this reason, I recommend that you investigate a little about the topic that you will see before attending your class. When you do this, you get your brain more ready for the teacher’s explanation. Therefore, you will not be lost in class; on the contrary, you will be relearning and recording in your memory important details that you did not know before. In the same way, it is important to study after your class. Reviewing what you have learned allows your brain to save the information more accurately. Furthermore, making mind maps or organizing your class notes are excellent techniques to pay attention to what you have learned after your class session.

The most important of all is practice as a means of putting your learning in real context. For this, I recommend you immersing yourself in English. Watching TV, listening to music, reading books or magazines, making your market list and trying to take your class notes in English are the best ways to put English into practice in your daily life. Every time that you do this, your brain adapts to the sound, the grammatical structure of the words and the correct use of them. On the other hand, it is very important to start thinking about your day to day activities in English. If you do not have someone to practice with at home, I recommend that you have internal conversations in English with yourself; then,start building those self-thoughts that we have on a daily basis in English. For example, if you are planning to go to the gym this morning, ask yourself how you might say and plan it in English.

In conclusion, learning English depends on the methodology that you use to learn it, the time you spend on it, and the way you adapt it to your reality. Although it seems impossible to us, learning English is not an impossible mission. It is a mission of challenge and discipline. Now, what are you waiting for? Try these tips in your learning process!

2021-04-192021-04-23

This Country Surprised Me – by Jazmin Echavarria Monsalve

Could being surprised be synonymous with being reborn? Being surprised is a sign that you are feeling, seeing, or perceiving a new experience. It is something that you had not experienced before or something that takes you out of your comfort zone and calls you to feel alive. This is a phrase that I have been repeating frequently since I left my country, Colombia, and arrived in the United States. My arrival in this country was undoubtedly synonymous with joy and excitement, but at the same time, it was synonymous with a surprising cultural shock that would be evident in three main contexts of my life: communication, food, and weather.

In the first place, the culture shock that I felt was evident. I can define it in five words: I was starting life over. I felt as though I was being born again because of my communication skills. Somehow, this situation made me feel frustrated for different reasons. For example, at that time, I would have wanted to be able to write, communicate and understand what the people around me were saying, and to read and comprehend the newspaper, but my brain did not recognize this new communication code. I will never forget an occasion in a store where a person wrote something on a piece of paper in English, and I could not understand his message. That definitely made me feel like a little girl who was just beginning the process of exploring and understanding the world.

Moreover, I began to live experiences very different from those that I was used to having in my country. For example, the experience of adapting my palate to new food flavors was, without a doubt, a great shock. That will sound incredible, but the flavors of the fruits and vegetables were not the same as the flavors of the ones that I consumed in Colombia. In addition, the climate was a surprising change, too.

My whole life, I had lived in the famous City of Eternal Spring in Medellín, where the climate does not exceed 77° Fahrenheit, and where there are no seasons. The whole year is always spring. I do not deny that it has been beautiful to be able to see each season go by in Austin; however, at first, the high temperatures gave me a headache, and the low temperatures gave me allergies. I could be sure that it was a new world full of challenges, but at the same time, a new place that I was beginning to enjoy with all its changes.

Starting to live in the United States has been a surprise for me because the communication, food, and climate was a big challenge that gave me the opportunity to be reborn and grow personally.