By Cara Leahy, Student Reporter
The morning of Feb. 2, Jessalyn Massingill “woke up to a clown peeking through her window.”
This is one of many entries Massingill has posted on Lista para Asombrar (Ready to Amaze), a joint blog for both Massingill and her roommate, Kara Dubose at http://acuinlatinamerica.blogspot.com.
The two girls are on their second trip through ACUs Study Abroad program, and are spending their spring semester in Montevideo, Uruguay. Last year, they traveled overseas through Study Abroad to Oxford, England.
“Part of our plan for this blog is to compare and contrast [as much as possible] the two programs. We at least want to juxtapose our experiences so you can share in our memories, and hopefully you’ll fall in love with Oxford or Montevideo or BOTH,” Dubose wrote in the blog.
Dubose and Massingill share the city of Montevideo through pictures and video clips, as well as descriptions sprinkled with Spanish and English. Their posts range from photo-heavy notes introducing the locals to entries straight from their personal journals.
Two additional blogs have links on Lista para Asombrar, authored by ACU students Morgan Neggard and Rachel Jinkerson. A third blog by Ashley Ohlhausen can be found under Neggard’s list of blog subscriptions.
The three blogs each include videos and photos, as well as posts referencing Carnavale, a month-long South American festival, a Candombe dance class and links to their “ACU in Latin America” Sing Song act.
While some contain as few as nine posts, Dubose and Massingill update multiple times a month, documenting the Study Abroad experience as they live it day-by-day.
Additionally, many students post pictures from their excursions on Facebook, allowing friends and family members to see what it’s like in another country.
Together, the blogs of ACU students who are studying abroad reveal a glimpse of life outside the United States. Ranging from the glitter of the Eiffel Tower to the wide smiles of Uruguayan children, blogs allow these travelers the opportunity to share their lives in living color as well as words.
Massingill’s and Dubose’s said this opportunity allows them the chance to speak directly to students interested in Study Abroad. In her Jan. 22 entry, Massingill specifically challenges ACU students to evaluate why they want to devote a semester to when they are living abroad. She admits to finding a new maturity in herself from one semester to the next.
“In summary, I would say that most everyone here (to my knowledge) is having the time of their life… and that includes us… and well… we already got to have the time of our lives once. But today, having already experienced the Oxford life with an amazing group,
I can see how everything has fit so perfectly into place,” Massingill wrote.
Travel with these students by reading their blogs and viewing a combination of memories, videos, photographs and diary entries.
