Northerner member kicks off summer in South Africa

On May 13, I along with nine classmates and two professors, will embark on the trip of a lifetime to Port Elizabeth, South Africa for two weeks.

This clearly isn’t just a vacation that we are going on. It is part of our Media Around the World class, taught by Sarah Drabik and Chris Strobel.

The class began just after spring break, and we’ve been meeting once a week since then, to prepare for our projects, and to prepare for the trip as a whole.

 

My own thoughts on the trip

I cannot believe that this trip is actually happening as it seemed like such a far-fetched idea last semester when I found out about it.

Last semester at the study abroad fair, my friend Lindsey Rudd and I found out about the class, and decided it was a class we needed to take, even though South Africa had never crossed our minds.

Once we decided the class was the one for us, we had to break it to our parents that we wanted to fly halfway around the world, and it was a difficult week of waiting for their answers, as we felt that it had to be both of us or neither of us.

Luckily though it was a yes from both of our parents, and we’ve spent the last six months reading every article that we could find on what to do when you travel that far, things to be aware of, and how to pack, because as girls, well, we love clothes, and unfortunately planes have weight limits.

But in the midst of  a crazy semester, we’ve finally figured out how to kind-of pack, we are the proud owners of our first passports, and we are extremely anxious to just be there already!

 

Why we are going

While we are there, we are filming short documentaries of our choosing, ranging from topics of the long lasting effects of the apartheid, the effect of the invasive bass fish, fandoms in other cultures, and my own groups project, in which one of our group members, Darren Jones, will go five days living at or below the poverty line for the average South African person.

This topic was stumbled upon a last minute replacement when our other project fell through.

While it was a sudden change to our plans, we’re nothing short of excited to delve into this subject and see another country in a completely different way.

 

Continue to follow the trip

If you’ve have any interest, which I hope you do, you can follow my trip here at https://www.thenortherner.com/, or at http://nku-abroad-sa2014.tumblr.com where you’ll find a link to each individual students and professors blogs.