Dale-Time

After reflecting on my last post I realized that I forgot to tell about something else.

My daughter, Kellie, left last week for 6 months on a study abroad program to the Czech Republic. She is a junior at Michigan State University in the James Madison College majoring in Comparative Cultures and Politics. OK, so you don’t know what the heck that major really is. But in simple terms it means she’s studying how different cultures (countries, societies, people) act and relate to everyday life. And how those different cultures can work together. You’d be surprised how important this is to big international companies who need to understand how to sell the products and services to people all over the world. Kellie spent her junior year of high school as a Rotary Exchange Student in Finland and fell in love with foreign studies.

Kellie was supposed to leave two weeks ago but ran into some challenges with getting her Visa from the Czech Republic. It seems that they changed which official agency was doing the paperwork over there and it got lost in transition along with some 40 other students trying to get over there. Well, Kellie didn’t take this sitting down. She contacted everyone she could think of; teachers, friends, professors, congressman, senators, you name it. With the magic of facebook she was able to instantly touch base with other students in the Czech Republic and work on things from over there too.

She is also writing a blog for the university (MSU) about her study abroad experience and she started detailing her efforts there. Her story got picked up by the newspaper in the Czech Republic and a reporter called her. The resulting article didn’t paint a pretty picture of the government. But magically a few hours after the paper came out, Kellie received word that her Visa had been approved.

I couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s quite a talented writer. Here’s the link to her blog. http://clockkel.blogspot.com where you can also read the translated article from the Czech paper.

It’s also amazing to me how things have changed so much since my first days of foreign travels when I was a Navy Midshipman in the late 1970’s. On my first trip to the Philippines in 1976 I had to sign up to make a phone call back home. The operator had to make the connection and it cost me $20.00 for a 5 minute call. On Thursday morning while sitting at my computer in my bathrobe Kellie rang me up on Skype for a free 20 minute video chat. I could see her and she could see me.  She told me all about her flight, and train and bus ride to get her to the university in the Czech Republic. (which she did all by herself) I had already seen on her bank account online that she had gotten cash there and transferred enough money get her going for a couple weeks. How much easier and better things are now than from just the few years ago when I was in college where I had to buy toothpaste and write a check at the local drug store in order to get a few dollars spending money. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like in another 25 years.

I’m Dale Clock. Thanks for listening.