For you avid blog readers of mine, you might remember the bucket list challenge that I created a few summers back. On the list I created a set of challenges of various levels to complete throughout the summer. Some of them were more personal (such as creating a Youtube video and my first resume) while others required help and setting goals (traveling to Florida and loosing weight). During my time in Montpellier France, I created a mental bucket list of things I wanted (and/or hoped) to complete before the end of my adventure. One of these things was doing karaoke.

You might be wondering why I would consider this to be a challenge seeing that I have videos of myself on Youtube signing. Well folks, to put it simply- singing in front of an audience is completely different than doing it for an online audience. You're probably thinking that I'm stating the obvious. In real life you cant rewind, edit, or retake videos. You simply have to give it your best on the first try and hope that you don't make a fool out of yourself.


Throughout my time here in Montpellier I have somehow become a regular on Wednesday nights at a local bar for karaoke night with a few friends of mine. Magically, one of my biggest fears (performing in public, which I used to dread doing) has become a joy of mine to do; and I've received positive feedback from it. No, I haven't received a record deal or anything (and probably never will). But I have received something more valuable than anything Simon Cowell could ever give; a better attitude. At the end of the day, I'm going to keep on making a fool out of myself regardless of if I try or not. Its inevitable. So I might as well have fun while doing it; one note at a time.


Until next time,

Sometimes it's honestly easier to rant about the problems of life in a vlog rather than right down problem after problem. For those of you who hate hearing me ramble here are some tips for the Chicago Consulate when getting a long term visa for la France.

Things you'll need:
    (1)Copies of your passport
    (2) Long term Visa (D) for assistants de langues
    (3) Arrete de nomination
    (4) Passport size photo
    (5) US Mail Envelope (double check that you have the correct one folks!!)
     (6) Positive attitude

Remember that it is noted that you should have an idea of when you are leaving (some consulates will require that you have reserved a flight). Be aware that every consulate has different security measures. For example the Chicago consulate only allows small bags allowed into the building. Don't leave your bag with a stranger folks. If you have any specific questions about this process feel free to ask below!


Until next time,



   

On January 11th, I packed my bags and moved to Paris for a semester abroad. As my parents said there goodbyes to me they gave me there last words of advice: to stay safe, and to especially stay away from the area of the recent attacks. I shook my head and boarded the plane. Flash forward to 12 hours later. I'm in a taxi cab and my driver asks if I want to see where the attacks where. As someone who was studying international journalism it was an obvious choice for me to see where the horrific attacks took place and pay homage to those who had passed. Throughout my time in Paris I studied on the attacks and the motives of the attackers. I attended talks, visited the graves of those who passed, and snagged a copy of the next edition of Charlie Hebdo. The city that I had love had been attacked. Suddenly in the midst of couples making out on the Seine river banks where police guards with large rifles walking around the streets, ready to attack at a drop of a hat.

Many of my relatives and teachers asked if I ever felt uncomfortable in Paris. My answer to this day is still no. Others have questioned my sanity about going days after the Hebdo attack to live in Paris and even return to France after the numerous attacks have happened in the country I love and its neighbors. My answer is simple. I still intend to live in France. Yes, I was worried at times for my safety. Yes, I am worried now for my safety, but these attacks could happen virtually anywhere.

The unfortunate reality is, I could be killed tomorrow by ISIS in my hometown. I remember last year when an ISIS leader sent out of video giving ideas of attacks to other members. There were four places he listed, all of which where shopping malls. Three where ones in Europe, specifically in the Paris region which I frequented during my travels. The other was in my hometown. I was angry. WHY WOULD SOMEONE SUGGEST TO OTHERS TO KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE? I wanted to show that their bullying didn't scare me.

I ask those who question why I am returning to France, even after all these attacks, if they truly feel safe in their hometown. The answer for them is the same as mine. No. This is especially true for people of color who do not of the same privileges that I do as a white female. There are many more battles to fight against than terrorism. In 2016, we still are fighting for equality for people of different socio-economic, sexual orientation, and race. So no, I don't feel safe for myself or for others. This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop perusing my dreams and let this fear rise over me. Having the opportunity to be a teacher, especially during such as difficult period, will be a challenge. In the same manner, having the opportunity to speak to young people about these issues will be extremely rewarding as well. These horrific events need to be used as learning opportunities for young ones.
It is important to know, regardless of who you are and where you come from, that everyone deserves to be treated equally and with compassion. So call me crazy or whatever you would like for deciding to still commit to moving to France. I want to be able to change the world in a positive way, and this is what I know how to do best.


Until next time,

Now that I've had time to process graduating from college, here are a few tips that I learned while I was in college.

#1) Prioritize

#2) Get involved in a student organization

#3) Stop stressing out

#4) Study Abroad

#5) Get to know your professors 

By Sabrina Kennelly

On January 7th, 2015, two brothers, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, forced their way into the Paris offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo killing twelve people. Two days later, Amedy Coulibal fired shots in the kosher grocery store, Hyper Cacher.

The deadliest terror attack since the 1961 Algerian war, French President Francois Hollande called the attacks an act of “extreme barbarity” (CNN, 2015).

Around the world, the phrase “Je suis Charlie” or “I am Charlie” was shown on social media and at public demonstrations in solidarity with the victims.

The media showed illustrations of two pencils being hit by an airplane comparing the attacks in Paris to those of 9/11 in the United States. For Jim Hoagland, contributing editor for The Washington Post, there is a difference between the attacks in Paris to those in New York. “Americans immediately understood 9/11 as a foreign attack against the homeland. We did not have to and still do not worry about an enemy within. It will require great care, and great skill, to prevent the Charlie Hebdo attack from becoming a point of division” he stated in his opinion piece after the attacks (Hoagland, 2015).

Almost a month after the attacks, on February 9th, four specialists Antoine Mégie, Sophie Fesdijan, David Vaulcair, and Dr. Jane Weston discussed the controversial magazine at a roundtable conference in Paris (Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today, Paris, 2015).

Figure 2"Liberty I cry for your name" sign is placed on the Place de la Republique (center).  On the left in purple the phrase “I am free” is marked. Photo taken by Sabrina Kennelly (2015).

A cultural clash

Dr. Weston, who studied the magazine and its controversies for her doctorate, began the Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today roundtable by explaining the history of the satirical paper.  “I would encourage everyone to read it,” said Weston, calling the paper “friendly” for readers (Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today, Paris, 2015).

The weekly magazine has always been known for its controversial humor. Previously known as Hara-Kiri in the 70s, the publication was banned for mocking the death of former French President Charles de Gaulle. By 1996, the publication was re-named as “Charlie Hebdo” and has been publishing weekly issues ever since. Many of the publications issues contain cartoons mocking religious leaders (Gibson, 2015).

In 2011, Charlie caused controversy when it listed the prophet Muhammed as editor-in-chief. The next day, on November 2nd 2011, Hebdo’s offices were firebombed and damaged. Editor Stéphane Charbonnier told BBC the following day that “if we can poke fun at everything in France, if we can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of Islamism that is annoying,” said Charbonnier (Gibson, 2015).

For Dr. Jane Weston religion should be seen as fair game for satire. “When you understand a language and get the jokes, you become part of a group,” said Weston at the roundtable. “Humor is an explosive picture. You have to be in that spirit without bearing in mind of it’s consequences” (Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today, Paris, 2015).

Though Charlie Hebdo may seem easy to read with its use of common language, the question still remains if readers are able to fully comprehend its humor. This is especially true for immigrants in France. According to Pew Research Center, France was noted in 2010 to have the second largest Muslim population in the European Union with 4.7 Million Muslims living in France. Roughly 3 million of these immigrants are from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (Pew Research Center, 2015).  

Figure 3 The phrase "I am Charlie" is paved on a Parisian sidewalk. Photo taken by Sabrina Kennelly (2015).

Product of the French School System

According to CNN, all three men involved in the attacks in January were first generation immigrants in France; Coulibaly was of Malian descent and The Kouachi brothers were of Algerian descent (CNN, 2015).

“The terrorists didn’t come from outside. The terrorists were produced by the French school system,” remarked Sophie Fesdijan, professor of immigration housing, and panelist for the Charlie Hebdo roundtable (Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today, Paris, 2015).

“For immigrant children school is the opportunity to learn about France,” Fesdijan proclaimed.  She went on to add that school is also an opportunity for immigrants to become liberated from religion. (Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today, Paris, 2015).

“The (French) national education system has made it necessary to give children, at the same time, help to assimilate while helping them, at the same time, to find their place within society to do well,” explained David Vauclair, author of Les religions abrahamiques: judaïsme, christianisme, et Islam and professor at Université Paris Sud at the Charlie Hebdo roundtable (Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today, Paris, 2015).

For Vauclair, secularism, or “Laïcité”, within French public schools is one of the ways French society relays the concept of living together. “Each time that religion has entered into France, it has been a catastrophe,” he said (Vauclair, personal communication, April 2015).

On January 7th, Paris became a catastrophic scene when the Kouachi brothers attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo in the name of Prophet Mohammed. In a video, Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, a member of Al Qaeda in Yemen, claimed responsibility for the horrific events saying,“As for the blessed battle of Paris, we in the organization of Qa’idatul Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula, claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the Messenger Allah,” (CNN, 2015).

Figure 4 Drawings on the Place de la Republique serve as a memorial for the attacks with the phrases "freedom of expression" and copies of the covers of the satirical magazine. Photo by Sabrina Kennelly (2015).

Who’s to blame?

Since the attacks in January, fingers have been pointing at who is to blame for the attacks. “Terrorism didn’t just start in January,” said Antoine Mégie, director of the journal Politique européenne and member of the editorial board of the journal Cultures et Conflits, at the panel. Terrorism, he explained, has been going on since the creation of dynamite. “We have to realize that we constantly use the word ‘terrorism’ and that the term terrorists can cause problems,” said Mégie. One of the problems, Mégie added, is profiling certain people as “terrorists” (Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today, Paris, 2015).

For many Muslims, being profiled as a “terrorist” was a reality even before the attacks in New York.  According to the French Council for the Muslim Religion, anti-Muslim acts have risen since the attacks in January. In France, 128 anti-Muslim actions and/or threats were reported from January 7th-20th alone. In addition the National Consultative Commission of Human Rights found that from 2013 to 2014 the number of anti-Semitic acts had risen to 851 from 423 (Rubin, 2015).

“Islam is in no way conductive of terrorism,” said David Vaucalir.  Very often the link of terrorism and the Islamic faith is made, he said. But this isn’t the case. “There are 5 million citizens in France that are Muslim. Only 1% is considered ‘radical’. This gives an idea of what is considered a threat,” said David Vauclair (personal communication, April 2015).

Victims of globalization

Though terrorism has been blamed for the attacks in January, it could also be blamed on effects due to globalization. According to Jim Hoagland, the cartoonists who died were “indirect victims of globalization and the communication revolution, of the electronic rubbing up against each other of societies at different levels of development and of the backlash,” (Hoagland, 2015).  

According to Yahya R. Kamalipour, author of Global Communication, globalization is “the process of different cultural groups strengthening and sharing values, ideas, opinions, and technologies together”.  This has created a global community with an increasingly homogenous culture in the political, economic, educational, and scientific activities. Kamalipour notes that religion, unlike other aspects, has difficulty integrating into different cultures and communities (Kamalipour, 2007, p. 165).

    In order to understand how Charlie Hebdo and globalization play a role in the attacks in January I decided to sit down with David Vauclair, one of the panelists from February’s Charlie Hebdo and Paris Today roundtable.  “Each culture has its own rules,” explained Vauclair. “These rules are vague but relay to the concept of ‘living together’, which corresponds to the way one eats, dresses, and interacts into society,” he explained.  “The central question is this: what will it take for immigrants to adapt and feel welcomed into the local community and culture?” asked Vauclair (personal communication, April 2015).

This question of French citizens and immigrants “living together” in a hospitable manner has been put into question since the 1940’s. From 1945-1980s immigrants were housed by the French government in shanty huts known as “Bidonvilles”, which were in poor condition, overcrowded, and located on the periphery of large cities such as Lyon, Marseille, and Paris.

“Bidonvilles tend to have states of problems ranging from access to water, sicknesses, to disputes over territory,” stated Vauclair. In order to respond to the poverty of Bidonvilles, the French government constructed apartments known as “HLM’s” in the 1980s, which had low rent and access to more resources, said Vauclair (personal communication, 2015).

In addition, the Bidonvilles, which were supposedly destroyed by the French government in the 80’s, are still intact for immigrants to live in. “The government does not wish to have these and considers those who live within Bidonvilles not real ‘immigrants’ and rather people who are passing through,” emphasized Vauclair (personal communication, 2015).

According to Vauclair many of the immigrants that reside in the periphery come from former French colonies such as Algeria or Mali. “The Front National sees immigration as a problem and talks about Arabs,” stated Vauclair.  For Vauclair, he hopes to break this stereotype, and show that the tendency to imagine immigrants as colored, Muslim, and from the Middle East is false.  “Immigration doesn’t come uniquely from ancient colonies—it is universal,” he claims (personal communication, 2015).

Instead Vauclair hopes that people will focus on the facts, rather than stereotypes on immigrants within France. “Sixty percent of immigrants aren’t colored,” he states. “The media is only focalizing on what is the problem at the moment. We are more interested in what doesn’t work than what does work,” admits Vauclair.

Because of the focalization and negative sentiments towards Muslim immigrants in France, Prime Minister Manuel Valls has announced a plan to combat this problem. In April, Valls announced the creation of a new three year plan dedicating $108 million to combat racism and anti-Semitism nationwide through education programs and police forces (Rubin, 2015).

The question remains if programs such as these will diminish negative sentiments towards immigrants within France. “Immigration has been a problem since the beginning of antiquity,” acknowledges Vauclair. “We are still in a state of shock (from the Charlie Hebdo attacks)…it is way too early to understand what the impact of this reaction will be,” he concludes (personal communication, April,2015).

References

CNN News. (2015). Complete coverage: terror in Paris. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/specials/world/shooting-at-charlie-hebdo

Gibson, M. (2015). The provocative history of French weekly newspaper Charlie. Time.com Retrieved from http://time.com/3657256/charlie-hebdo-paris-attack/

Hackett, C. (2015). 5 Facts about the Muslim population in Europe. Pewreserach.org. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/15/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/

Hoagland, J. (2015). France’s tough task in reacting to the horrific attack on Charlie Hebdo.  WashingtonPost.com. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/frances-tough-task-in-reacting-to-the-horrific-attack-on-charlie-hebdo/2015/01/07/3c2d666c-96bf-11e4-927a-4fa2638cd1b0_story.html

Kamalipour, R. J. (2007). Global  Communication (Vol. 2). Belmont, CA : Thomson Higher Education.

Madi, M., Ryder, S., Macfarlane, J., Beach, A., & Park, V. (January, 2015). As it happened:

Charlie Hebdo attack. BBC.com.  Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-30710777

Rubin, A., & Breeden, A. (2015, April). France announces stronger fight against racism and anti-

semitism. NYtimes.com. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/world/europe/france-announces-stronger-fight-against-racism-and-anti-semitism.html?_r=0

Hello everyone!
    For those of you who have already read my travel posts and seen my Instagram you know that I have returned to the land of 10,000 lakes. Its been two weeks since I've been back and it honestly feels as if I never went to Paris. It's weird because I know for a fact that I studied abroad in the city of lights. It's true- I have documentation to prove that I lived there. But the memories seem to be a blur now, and it feels surreal that I could have possibly had the experiences I had while in Paris. I described it to my sister like this: It feels as if I was knocked out and just woke up after four months of being unconscious. When I woke up, I recognized the things I had known since I was a child. Family, friends, my favorite food, and parts of town. But how I see them now is different than when I had several months ago. Everything now seems to be "new" in a sense for me, as if I was visiting them again for the first time.

      I have some plans for this summer. I always liked how well my bucket-lists have gone in the past and hope to create something similar for this summer as well. After all, its my last summer ever. Crazy right? The last summer job, the last summer trips, and extended vacations. Of course being the person that I am  (who can't have only one task at a time) , I have decided to enroll in some summer classes so that I can graduate early (eek!). I'm writing my BIG paper this summer. I'm not too excited for this, but I'll be happy once it's over :) I've been writing this paper for several years (but what seems like forever) and can't wait to have it completed and conducted. It will be a total of two years that I have been working on this paper once it's finished this summer. Crazy-right?

   I'm also working on some other projects of my own. Currently, I'm finishing up my first book. I have set a deadline to have it finished by Memorial Day. It's May 16th, so that doesn't give me too much time, but I am loving where it has been going so far. I can't wait to see where this book goes- and to say that I have finally accomplished one of my goals of writing a book. No matter how many pages this book may be, short or long, I will be able to say by the end of the month (and proudly) that I have written a book. I don't think that it will turn out to be anything like Divergent. But I do hope that it will generate conversation for at least one person. That's all that a writer can really ask-right?

   For this blog I'm testing a lot of things out. Right now, I have some more posts from France and my looks to show you. I've been looking at other blogs (particularly those in Minnesota) to get some inspiration for this blog. So far I'm really happy with the progress that this blog has been making and I cannot wait to see how far it will go. I want to thank all of you readers who continue to read my blog. You truly motivate me to think out of the box, and type away on my computer for this blog. You motive me.




I think that's that. This week is going to be full of changes and new projects. I can't wait to share them with you once they have been finalized. Let's make this last summer count!

Hope you enjoyed this pictures, until next time!