From Afar

We all went our own ways for Thanksgiving break. After a five day vacation, returning back to school should feel easy. We weren't gone for that long anyhow. However, five days is just long enough to get into a routine of being on vacation. It is also long enough for a lot to take place and for the need to update your friends on your vacation.

When I came back from Thanksgiving break, I spent my Sunday as I would any other Sunday of the semester - doing work that hadn't been done previously that week or during the weekend. I woke up Monday still sleepy from having to get up earlier than I had all break. So far, I had clicked right into the routine of my typical college-life as before.

One thing that I noticed is that five days is a long time to retrace and tell your friends all the little funny things that happened. Therefore, we often just skim over the broad actions and skip the details. Sometimes the details in life are what make things so special and unique to us. However to tell someone all of the little details and peculiarities that you experience, you must talk to them quite frequently.

Over holiday breaks, we reintroduce ourselves into an alternate community with our families. We leave our college community for a short while. Staying in contact over that break is important. Otherwise we will lose touch of the little details of people's lives that we often engage with on a daily basis.

Nonetheless if we don't remain in contact with people, relationships and interactions will click into place when we come back. When we have such strong friendships, it is hard to lose that in such a short period of time. If they are important to us, we will make the effort. So while we may have immediate interaction with a different community at school and over the holidays, our communities that we "take a break" from are still there for us, even if they aren't physically present.

Family Is...

Thanksgiving is a time when families come together. Whether they are families of blood or families of choice, that depends on the particular celebration. College friends go home with others who live closer. Children visit their families at home. Others just stay at school for the holiday.

One thing that I have learned is that family doesn't only have one definition. Family isn't only your parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents. Family is those who you choose to include in your life as important people and a part of your community. I consider my close friends part of my family. I spent this Thanksgiving with my grandparents in Upstate New York. For them family includes both blood family and close friends.

A person doesn't just have one family either. I consider myself to have multiple families that are defined by the groups I am a part of and different times in my life. I have my nuclear family in California. I have my high school friend family. I have my Lehigh family and within that many others: my PSP family, my softball family, my first-year family.

Family is what we make of it. When I am at home, my relatives always come over for a big Thanksgiving feast. This usually includes my extended family. However, it also includes my cousins' friends or significant others who don't have anywhere else to go. Similar to that, my grandparents invited a friend who is from the Caribbean and has no family to celebrate the holiday with. There is one commonality among my family whether I am celebrating a holiday with my mom's side of the family or my dad's and whether I am on the west coast or east coast. We welcome all that are in a need of somewhere to go because the more the merrier!

Community Group-Think

Tomorrow is the Lehigh-Lafayette football game. Lehigh and Lafayette have been lifelong rivals. Lehigh students show their school spirit through their dislike for Lafayette. Students wear brown all week. The school gives out Lehigh-Lafayette shirts. People celebrate like never before.

Le-Laf brings out a spirit in students that isn't seen at any other time of the year. Students feel united at this time to every other Lehigh student because they all share the common desire for Lehigh to win and Lafayette to lose. While I feel that I am a part of this community, I don't feel a deep hatred or dislike for Lafayette. If I meet someone who goes to Lafayette, I don't have anything against him as a person at all. Just because he goes to Lafayette does not mean that he isn't a good person. However, instilled in us as Lehigh students is the necessary rivalry attitude toward Lafayette students.

Often when we are a part of a group, we accept the group's beliefs and ideas without proper substantiation for why, except for the fact that it is what others are doing. Peer pressure. Following others. Being a sheep in the pack. These terms all describe what a majority of people do. They adopt the beliefs of the group that they are a part of. Instead they should pave their own paths and do things because they want to.

Communities have advantages, but they also have some negative effects. Being a part of a group encourages people to be a member of that group rather than a leader of one's own thoughts. Too often are we stander-byers and passivists instead of leaders and activists. While I may partake in the rivalrous activities of Le-Laf, I do not have anything against people who go to Lafayette or Lafayette as a school. Instead I have spirit for my team not hatred for the other team. Think with a positive rather than negative in mind; cheer with spirit for your team not dislike for the other.

A Meal of Connection

According to Merriam-Webster, a meal is an act or the time of eating a portion of food to satisfy appetite. Most people think of food first when prompted with the word "meal." While a meal consists primarily of food, it often is an engagement in which people interact.

Some people eat by themselves. For them a meal may be a ten-minute activity in which the sole purpose is to refuel their bodies. No social interaction is involved. However, for others a meal is an hour-long activity in which they refuel their bodies and their souls. In my Food and the Sacred class, we discussed the uniting principle of food. Food brings people together. It brings people together in not eating certain foods according to their religious practices. It brings people together in providing a time to share conversation and a good time. It brings people together in enjoying the same home-cooked foods.

Daily activities that we partake in are overlooked. Stop and take a step back. If you look at different aspects of your life, you will see that many of them contain small elements of unity among people. I eat lunch with the same people everyday. While this has become a routine, it has also become a time for us to catch up and appreciate each others' company.

I have noted a correlation between meal time and level of connection established. When I only have 20 minutes for lunch, I am often concentrated on the limited amount of time that I have rather than my engagement with my lunchmates. However when I have an hour for lunch, I feel that I can relax more and spend time conversing with my lunchmates. With more time comes a greater opportunity to establish unity.

Meals have become opportunities for us to share with others - opportunities to share our thoughts, share our time and share our foods. Often people that I don't get to see during the day are those who I share my meals with.

So next time you sit down to a meal, ask yourself if you are sitting down to a meal of refueling or a meal of connecting with someone. Have more of the latter! It'll make life more enjoyable.

Passionate Advice

New York City attracts people for different reasons. A married woman indulges in a girls' weekend with her friends. A young couple explores the large city and all that it has to offer. A college student and her Grammie visit the city for the first time with hopes to explore it by bike. Then there's me - a college student who meets up with her mom from California for a little weekend getaway.

While all of these people are from different backgrounds and have various purposes in their travel, they take the same form of transit and therefore are united in a small way.

The lady sitting in front of me on the Transbridge bus from Bethlehem to Port Authority was talking to another woman sitting across the aisle. She shared a secret gem of New York - a beauty salon converted into a club. From the outside it merely looks like a beauty salon, but on the inside it is a hopping place at night. The one receiving the secret advice asked, "Where is it and what is it called?"

The insider lady responded, "It's in Brooklyn. I wouldn't be able to tell ya what it's called but it just looks like a typical beauty salon on the outside."

As we drove through Bethlehem to get to the freeway, the man sitting in front of the insider lady shared information about their whereabouts. The advice-receiver asked what town we were in and the man shared that we were driving through Bethlehem and to the left was Fountain Hill. He shared the locations of several houses that he had lived in.

Sharing bits of information of their lives, the insider lady, the advice-receiver and the man formed a small bond. They had inside glimpses into certain aspects of each other's lives and shared experiences to help enhance the future experiences of the strangers they had just met.

We give advice, and we take advice. From who? From anyone who offers it. Whether it be a stranger offering directions to the closest Starbucks or a close friend recommending a delicious restaurant, we take the advice thankfully.

These are the things that bond strangers - passions over a commonality. The insider lady and the advice-receiver both want to have a fun time at a club in New York. The man and the advice-receiver both have an interest in the geographical location that they are traveling through. The married woman, the young couple, the college student and her Grammie and I share our destination - New York City - and our journey to that destination. Advice shared amongst us allows opportunities to experience something incredible whether it be a hidden gem or merely a connection with a stranger.

International Exposure

Lehigh students come from all over the world. Last year I had two girls on my hall that were international - one was from Ethiopia, one was from China. I have a friend from Morocco, another from Costa Rica. This year I went on the serve trip centered around hunger and homelessness that the community service office offers. Six students were selected to go and one of those six was a graduate student from China. Lehigh students represent 51 different countries.

One might ask, why would any student from another country choose to come to Lehigh in the middle of Pennsylvania. Well, the answer varies from student to student, but all that matters at this point is that they are here experiencing the American lifestyle. The Chinese graduate student that I spent pacing break with had never had any interactions with American people. The five American students with her on the trip were painting a picture and instilling in her mind what America is like. Often the first encounters that we have with people of a different culture than ours leave the strongest impressions in our minds.

Coming to America can be daunting though. Adjusting to the differences between high school and college presents a great change; adding to that acclimating to a new culture as well is unfathomable. However, on campus there are many resources for international students to connect with their own cultures and customs that perhaps they left at home.

This week is International Week. Organizations with an international focus are offering different programs to both expose students to other cultures and also to provide an ethnic connection for international students. While the sense of community established at Lehigh may not adequately represent that of their home, students embrace a touch of their homeland. The week's activities open students' eyes to the diversity in cultures. By acknowledging them, we can accept and embrace cultural differences. A sense of community and support is established whether superficial or sincere. Some people come for the food whereas others come to truly learn about the vast array of cultures. Nonetheless, students are exposing themselves to other mindsets - mindsets of the Middle Easterns, the Spanish and the Chinese. Whether mentally or physically students experience a stronger sense of unity.

Unspoken Connection

Every morning that I go to the gym I see the same men. They are in their 60s and 70s and are volunteering to work as monitors of the facilities. While this task of sitting at a table for hours on end may be boring, they make the most of it.

One man with white hair and a round face (a description that I could use for almost all of the men) is always there on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I often walk in with a smile on my face and greet him good morning. Just the other day he told me, "You always have a smile on your face. You must be such a happy young lady!" Instantly I realized that he had come to know me. And I had come to know him as the lovely start to my days.

Although we don't know a single thing about each other except that we are both there at the same time certain days, the white-haired gym man and I have formed a bond - a bond from consistencies and friendliness. Now I look forward to going to the gym so that I can have a pleasant encounter with him. Yes, it is only a 30-second engagement, but nonetheless it is satisfying and bonding.

All around us we experience community in ways that we don't realize it. Whether it is greeting the man at the gym every morning with a smile or saying hi to a stranger that one sees in passing every day at the same time, we create for ourselves a sense of community through our pleasant exchanges. So stop and think - when was the last time that you experienced a bond with someone unknown? Perhaps with the boy at the grocery store or the mailman delivering your package. Most likely it was more recently than you'd expect!

Elections That Divide

It's election time again! Today people voted for senators, governors and House of Representative members. Living in a country ruled by democracy, everyone is subject to his or her own opinion. Many people take it upon themselves to express that opinion strongly.

While the United States is seen as a "melting pot," it can also be seen as a land of contrasts in opinion and expression. Voting and political views more often than not create a divide among societies and groups of people. Rather than creating a sense of unity and cohesion, they allow for individual expression and thought.

However by having the ability to express our own opinions and by eliciting in people the desire to make their voices heard, are we fostering a society of contrasts or are we hoping that everyone will converge on a common ground? Perhaps we are learning to accept the diversities and differences that people have through our differing political views.

Do people feel a sense of communal unity when they are voting or a sense of anger and frustration? USA Today discusses the range of emotions that were felt on this election day (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-11-02-voters-election-day-mood_N.htm). We are allowing people to be frustrated and upset with our government. Therefore are we fostering a disconnect between the American government and the American citizens? In general the United States government aims to create nationalism and community among the American people; but do our political practices disagree with that?

See the election results at http://www.cbsnews.com/election2010/?tag=contentBody;quickLinks.