Wow, well I was pretty busy yesterday so I wasn’t able to get the post up. But anyways, The Cross Cultural Workshop was interesting. I thought it was going to be more specific to our study abroad but actually it wasn’t. It was more focused on being aware of values and contexts of other cultures.

Brent and Laura, our instructors started us off by getting the thirty or so of us together and holding hands in a circle. Then, Brent asked someone to lead us in prayer. I was shocked, I didn’t know what was going on. I thought it was going to be a information session on what France and Sweden is like. But then as soon as someone stepped up he explained that this was a “Critical Situation”.

Then they had us write a motto, quote or song lyric and tape it on the wall. Again little weird but ok, I’ll go along with it. Then they gave us a handout that had a little graph with different qualities that they wanted us to rate ourselves on. For example one was Direct vs Indirect communication and we needed to mark on a scale which side we thought we were. Then Brent put three strips of tape on the floor equally apart simulating the sides of the graph. He had us as a group fall into where we marked on the paper. He then asked us why we picked one or the other. We did this for 3 of the categories. I thought the results were interesting because of the different responses. These kids think they are the creme of the crop because they are going to study abroad for a few months. It kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but none of them are in my group so I think I’ll be alright.

After we talked about the communication I finally understood what he was getting at. We all could be speaking English or French etc, but we can still be talking in different languages. One of the examples Laura gave was about her time in Japan, she asked a friend where she could buy some Kerosene for her space heater. Her friend came back the next day with a jug of Kerosene. To drive this whole point home they split us up into two groups, and each gave us rules to follow when interacting with the other group. I was in the group that was pretty normal, friendly, make eye contact, shake hands etc, typical American. The other group was told to not make eye contact, look down at the other persons feet and talk to them based on what type of shoes they had on. It was pretty funny.

The best part I think I will actually use is this W concept. I read about this in the CultureShock books, but it describes the up’s and down’s of living abroad and getting used to a new environment. Basically you draw a W on a piece of paper and draw a straight line through the middle of it horizontally. It’s supposed to mark your progress of culture shock and if you are feeling down, you graph out where you think you are on the chart. I guess the whole point is understand that there are ups and downs no matter where you live.

Both Brent and Laura where very lively and entertaining. I think they did a good job of keeping us awake and making us think a little differently about our trip and how to prepare for it.

On a different note, I am going to add some links on long flights etc, from what I read, it’s going to be about a 12 hour flight.

Well I’m going to head out, going to relax a bit for the week begins and maybe play around with some more French.