Albion College is a small liberal arts college in the southwestern part of Michigan hidden away in the rest stop side roads off of I-94. Chances are if you’re heading west down 94 and you’ve made it past Ann Arbor, you’re likely headed for Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, or possibly down into Indiana and across to Chicago. Likewise, if you’re heading east, you’re most likely headed for Ann Arbor or into Detroit. No matter which way, the signs for Albion will be in your rearview mirror before you have a chance to consider the city, or the tiny college tucked away. Perhaps [View Full Entry]

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"So I started into the water. I'm not going to lie to you people, I was terrified. As I got past the breakers a sudden calm came over me. I dont know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living creatures but I tell you Jerry, at that moment...I was a marine biologist! The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. I got about fifty feet out and suddenly the great beast appeared before me. As if sensing my presence he let out a great bellow, [View Full Entry]

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The one lesson you learn quickly while studying abroad that isn’t taught in the classroom is patience. In America, I took a lot of things for granted: internet, television, Wal Mart, Target, fast food, junk food, home cooked food—pretty much everything. Following my first month in South Africa I started to hit a slump where my proverbial batting average of enthusiasm was down. At our study abroad orientation at Albion during the spring, the instructors explained how the study abroad experience is U-shaped: the experience starts high, with everything being foreign and exciting. As t [View Full Entry]

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Cape Town’s location is a geography teacher’s dream: below the mountains, on a peninsula, and located at the intersection of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Unfortunately, all these geographical features contribute to unpleasant weather in their winter months, and this unpleasant weather caused high winds in Shark Alley in Gansbaai, the site of my shark dive. The winds were so high that my shark diving expedition had to be postponed. I was disappointed, but 2 Way Travel promptly rescheduled for the following weekend, so I was confident that I would get my chance to see Jaws in pers [View Full Entry]

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2 Way Travel sent us an e-mail saying that they offered a student discount with a local shark diving company for the weekend of July 26, and that sign ups were limited to a first come, first serve basis. I signed up right away; excited about the possibility of coming face to face with something that could bite my head off. Unless you come into contact with a log splitter on a daily basis, this opportunity doesn’t happen too often. Additionally, I checked McDonald’s South Africa website and found a McDonald’s location downtown near Green Point Stadium. While Indiana Jones w [View Full Entry]

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Prior to coming to Cape Town, I took summer classes at Albion, and during our summer classes, my friends and I went to Hardee’s to eat their Monster Thickburger. I had been doing a research paper on the fast food industry, and according to a nutritional chart I found, the Monster Thickburger is the fattest of all fast food burgers. I joked with my roommate about wanting to eat it, and before I knew it we created a Facebook event and about 10 people made a pilgrimage to Hardee’s to eat this greasy, Tour de fat of Americana. With that being [View Full Entry]

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Fear is derived from uncertainty, and there was plenty of uncertainty spinning within my mind as my flight landed in Cape Town. My global cell phone did not work in Amsterdam during my layover, so I had sent my dad an SOS e-mail to contact the service provider to see if they could straighten it out. Little did I know that in addition to being down one phone, I was also down one credit card. I had taken my credit card out to use a pay phone in Amsterdam attempting to call the service provider myself, and I either left the [View Full Entry]

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