A Story from ISU 2011
I passed a group of student, I heard they excitingly talked about ISU, and soon I googled it: What is ISU?
As usual, I came to Google! I’d like to find what ISU is, a program offered by my university. I know that I can have information about it by asking to my uni staffs. Yet, sometimes Google is more truthful.
I put the key words – ISU- and these are what I found: Illinois State University, International Space University, Iowa State University, International Salvage Union, and many more. I knew that those are not what they talked about. That time, Google failed to satisfy my curiosity.
In fact the depiction of ISU was well explained in a slip of paper sticked on an information board in my campus. ISU (stands for International Summer University) is a 3-week joint program, started from July 11th to 29th, organized by my uni (MM UGM) with WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. The theme of this program is Consumer Behavior and Marketing Research.
I found that the program was thrilling and interesting. Having three weeks program and activities with 20 Austrians would be a great flee from my classes. Since then on, I decided to apply and I was accepted (after proving that I can definitely perform traditional dance!). Even more, I was assigned as the group coordinator for my Indonesian fellows. Challenging!
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| ISU 2011 Participants |
Most of the time in the class, we worked in a group. Honestly saying, it’s not that effortless to work with people who have dissimilar culture although it’s not the first time for me and I could easily get along with them. Too many things need to be compromised. Yet I reckoned that it was a part of the lesson in intercultural learning on how I should be more adaptable in any activities and situation.
Some session in the class was the tedious part of this program. I guessed wrongly as I thought that there wouldn’t be so much assignment during ISU. That’s why I said that it would be a nice escape from my classes as I didn’t need to attend my class for three weeks. Yet someway it was fine since I could and know many things in the class, such as: the fact that the Austrian students also “Facebooking” during the class (I thought this habit only infects the Indonesian students), putting a frame in flip chart is somehow important (is it?), cockroach is not cute for the Austrians (actually for some Indonesian too), a prejudice that Indonesian eats sushi, snotting in the class is okay for the Austrian, and so on.
For the interesting program during ISU, I should say that the cultural evening is the utmost, where we all performed our own culture. From Indonesian side, we had prepared it for about a month. So, no wonder if we were very relieved afterwards. It was perfect! All the performers did their best. I myself performed Bambu Gila dance (Crazy Bamboo) dance which is one of cultural sacraments from Maluku. And kudos for the Austrian too! They prepared some nice dishes – which I forget how they call it - and a game “Who wants to be a chocolate millionaire”. Even now I still can feel the excitement of everyone during the night. Thumbs up for everyone!
And the saddest part??? Perhaps the farewell! Three-week might sound very short, but during the time we really had great time together. We did enjoy some tiresome session in the class together, party and dance on the floor together, had excursion together, and dinner together. What we missed was only "sleep" together! Lol :))
Overall, the program was well organized and everyone was great companion during three weeks. I have no regret to join this program except I should write 3 papers and do 4 presentations as the consequence to leave my classes (D*mn!!). But it’s really nothing compare with the experience I get!
Here, we shared a moment until the end of the program and we will keep sharing until we meet again. Therefore, it’s not yet “good bye” but “see you later” in another part of the world.
"Why cant we get all the people together in the world that we really like and the just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. The we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos (Charles M. Schulz)"
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6 testimonial(s):
"sleep" together? pheww..
I mean sleep in the same accomodation, heheh :D
and you have to add that you learned some incredible important german words and phrases like "hopp hopp gemma,schluchtenscheißer" ;)
mat! englishmu keren...! aq pgn punya blog nasionalis kyk gni tp bhasanya inglish.ahahaaay :D
@Melanie, yap..I forgot to insert that point, but for sure it's still possible to edit and put that most important lesson. Dankeschoen for the input ;)
@MasAdi, Thank you mas for your compliment ;) Ini juga masih belajar buat nulis artikel dalam Bahasa Inggris. Ayo mas, kamu buat blog berbahasa Inggris juga biar temen2mu yang dr luar bisa ikut baca cerita2 perjalanannmu yang seru ;)
Keep blogging!
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