Fellow Stories
True gap year stories from Fellows abroad!
Check out the latest blogs from Global Citizen Year Fellows in Brazil, Ecuador, and India!
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Class Year
Country
Days of Frustration (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Country)
Sunghoon Kwak
2018-03-02
Near the beginning of my fellowship, my TFI mentor taught his class a lesson on self-control and choices. A simple but engaging half-hour followed. He went over the factors that we as individuals are able to control on a daily basis. Despite being several years older than the target audience of sixth graders, I was...
Read MoreAll Bollywood Films End in Marriage
Meaghan Coulter
2018-02-20
“Marriage is about two things: sexual satisfaction and building generations. Nothing more. Only useless people are thinking about love.” I’m 18, and I’ll admit I’m not ready to be tied down. I currently take marriage as a joke; I have much of my life left to live, why would I do so in the reigns...
Read MoreFlame Day
Soraya Waller
2018-02-09
Last week the India cohort had a training seminar at a place called Govardhan. Every evening, near a pond, ISKCON disciples would congregate for their evening prayer. They would chant, waving lighted candles at the edge of the pond. Each person present could take a turn with the candles, before passing it on to someone...
Read MoreAn encrypted dialogue
Sydney Scanlon
2018-02-03
Picture meticulously hand building a life-sized Taj Mahal from common playing cards with minute detail then carefully shaping your lips into a perfectly round O and releasing a soft, though exact breath into the foundations of the masterpiece causing the intricate structure to topple from slow to rapid procession. Imagine the feeling of euphoric oblivion...
Read MoreAmerican cooking for the modern Indian family
Isabel Hallock
2018-02-01
My host family once again asked me to make dinner. Niraj, my host dad said it was my duty for Sunday nights, and I had 3 hours to whip something up. I knew I didn't know how to cook very well, especially not Indian dishes, so I looked up American recipes instead. I asked my...
Read MoreMoments I will look back to
Boby Yazdi
2018-01-25
So often, I have moments of self-realization. Underneath are some of these moments I will always remember. Cigarette man- I was drinking my daily carbonated water at the little metal shack turned store I am a usual customer at where I saw a relatively young guy with a thick stack of cash in his hand...
Read MoreWords of a 10 year old
Ayla Blair-Smith
2018-01-24
I remember when I first got a proper smart phone. By “proper” I mean a non-hand-me-down phone. I must have been 15 or so, and I was over the moon about it. You see, I made a deal with my father when I was 12 (I’m simply estimating that number, it could have quite possibly...
Read MoreThe Art of Letting Go and Going with the Flow: My Year of Embracing Jugaad
Claire Darrow
2018-01-23
My feet pounded the pavement and my vision started to fade into shades of blue and yellow as I sprinted to catch the last train home. The ancient train let out a yawn and creaked as if it were reluctantly awakened from a deep slumber. Out of breath, I glanced around the compartment and...
Read MoreDepression
Soraya Waller
2018-01-19
I don’t know what depression is. I don’t know if it’s a purely chemical, genetic thing totally outside my control, or if it’s a direct reaction to my basic needs not being met by my lifestyle or the society I live in. I guess probably a little bit of both. My first memory of depression...
Read MoreCollege as a Video Game (And the Gap Year as a User’s Manual)
Sunghoon Kwak
2018-01-15
Skill tree(Noun). A hierarchal visual representation of customizations a player can make to their character. Skill trees can either branch out or eventually fold back to a single point depending on the game. Skill trees are found prominently in video games, but you don’t have to be in a virtual world to realize the presence of a...
Read MoreTakk for og til det norske velferdssystemet
Emma Boe
2018-01-14
This blog post has been written in Norwegian about Norway. If you are interested to know more, feel free to contact me. Takk for og til det norske velferdssystemet. I Norge betaler vi skatt. En skatt som dekker offentlige goder jeg nok ofte tar for gitt. Her vil jeg reflektere over noen av disse....
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At Last, a Full Circle
Gemma Kelton
2018-01-03
The best gift one can receive is having their mom visit them after living away from home for 4 months, especially as far away as India. I know this sounds cheezy and corny, but I truly couldn’t have been happier to see my mom. And it’s not for the reasons you think you know....
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