Sophie Kirpan's photo from CRC in Taiwan

My classmate Elsa was instructed to trace her hand along the thin waterfall inside the world Religions museum in Taipei, Taiwan on the Comparative Religion and Culture program. This exercise was meant to help participants practice walking into the museum in complete silence and only listen to the soft fall of the water and the gentle feel of the smooth ripples.

A big part of the Taiwanese culture is the food one may purchase from small stands on the street. These are fried dumplings filled with pork and accompanied with thick soy sauce. They were served on a plate covered in a plastic bag for easy clean up. Using disposable wooden chopsticks to eat this favorite food makes the experience much more fun. This dumpling delicacy was eatin in Taipei County, Taiwan by Sophie Kirpan as part of the CRC program.

This photograph was taken of Molly at the Chiang Kai-Shek Hall in Taipei City, Taiwan on CRC. Although the buildings look miniature, it is a big, beautiful memorial hall.

Molly and I are standing outside of the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei City, Taiwan on CRC. This large area hosts other buildings including museums, convert halls (frequently attended by the president) and gardens.

Sandra Martin's photo from India

After Dandiya - "Dandiya" is the name of the dance for the 9 Nights Festival for Hindus. The dance and sticks imitates a fight between two gods. The photo is some of the India Center students after returning from the party.

Indian Cloth - The first thing I noticed about India is the cloth - the colors and patterns are nothing I have ever seen anywhere else. This picture shows four different girls' 9 Nights Festival skirts.

Susan E Smith's photos from Nicaragua and Costa Rica

Heredia's local Saturday farmer's market, Costa Rica - Blocks and blocks of booth selling everything and anything, from fresh produce to fish to juice to clothes to flowers to chicken to soap to sugar cane to beef to honey to seeds to pork to coconuts to.......................

A Nicaraguan family's backyard

Rincon de la Vieja National Park, Costa Rica - The local volcano heats the streams that pour into this blue lagoon.

La Gigantona, Nicaragua - A local legend.

Lauren "Wren" Hayes' photos from CRC in 03/04

A woman peeking into a pouch outside of a mosque.

Washing of the elephants near Chiang Mai, Thailand.

A young boy crying on the stairs in Varanasi, India.

A woman overlooking the city in Agra, India.

Tessa Levine's photos from CRC in Taiwan

9/14/09 - A stand at the Shilin Night Market boasts a dazzling display of colorful fruit - yours for $100 NT cup! Taipei, Taiwan

9/20/09 - A child's bicyle stands in a building in the gardens of the National Palace Museum. Taipei, Taiwan

9/24/09 - A jumpled underground bookstore in Taipei, Taiwan offers not only books, but music, drums, perfume and clocks. And a spray-painted floor.

Phoebe Holland's photos from Japan

Prayers tied to a tree at the Heian Shrine.

A shinto shrine being re-painted in Osaka.

A boy playing in the river during the Hassaku festival.

A traditional wedding taking place in Osaka.

September Photo Contest Guidelines

With the hopes of contributing to our Global College Learning Communities through picture sharing, a second annual monthly photo contest will be held during the 2009-2010 academic year. Global College students and staff can submit up to four photos every month for the contest and all submitted photos will be showcased on a special blog. Even though we are all located in various parts of the world and learning different things, we can see where and what everyone is doing. Please participate!

-The file name of the photo must be labeled including the photographer's name and date the photo was taken. Proper grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalization is required.

-Every picture should be submitted by email to Susana.Smith@liu.edu on or before each deadline with a one sentence description about the photo's origin and inspiration.

-Photos must be in "Jpeg" format and be 200 dots per inch (DPI); however 300 DPS is preferred.

-Each individual may submit up to four photos per contest and eight photo contests will be held during the academic year. All photos must be from an experience while studying with Global College and must be appropriate containing no profanity, nudity or vulgarity.-Global College students and staff can participate and there will be one winner per contest. Each photo contest along with the theme, deadline and the previous month's winner will be announced via email. -By submitting photos, the photographer is giving permission to Global College to use the picture(s) within the Global College Community, for marketing purposes and on the world wide web.
-All contributed photos will be posted on http://globalcollegephotocontest.blogspot.com/.

Deadline:
-Please address any questions to Susan E Smith and submit up to four photos in a single email to Susana.Smith@liu.edu on or before September 30th, 2009.

May's Photo Contest Winner

Global College Photo Contest, May 2009

May Winner:
-Phoebe Holland’s photos from China are the winners for the Photo Contest in May, which is the last one for this academic year. Congratulations Phoebe! You will receive a $25 gift certificate to www.Amazon.com in 4-6 weeks to your email. Please see below to see Phoebe’s photos, along with all the amazing photos that were submitted for the Photo Contest DURING THIS ACADEMIC YEAR. You can also share this blog link with friends and family. Thank you to everyone who submitted photos and participated in the Photo Contests this year!

Phoebe Holland's photos from China

Two young Tibetan girls with their puppy.

Workers resting by a fountain at the unveiling of an artistic compound.

People enjoying the spring day at West Lake.

A bright shopping street in Nanjing.

Sophie Kirpan's photo from Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador

Overlooking the wooden blue canoe that was the mode of transportation for my classmate and I during our independent projects on an indigenous community in Panama.

Students prepare for departure in Ecuador for a grueling two day hike up the sacred Imbabura Mountain.

What is poverty? These boys are categorized to be living in extreme poverty in La Caripo neighborhood in Costa Rica. Despite the generalization, they seemed to be having a fine time playing with their newly befriended grasshopper held in the boy’s outstretched hand.

Can you believe that this is the space in which we are able to learn and grow? This picture was taken on Popas Island Number Two- where an indigenous community lives in Panama. It was taken during a two-week independent study project investigating the role of art in the Ngobe indigenous community.

Kerry Mitchell's photo from CRC

Bengali Mai, tantric aghori. Meeting her was part of our coordinator’s agenda to make Hinduism more complicated for us: a) it’s not clear how tantra is part of Hinduism, although they are commonly lumped together, and b) tantric aghoris are supposed to be male, and she’s not. Actually meeting and speaking with a living representative of the complexity and diversity of Indian religion makes it a lot less overwhelming and a lot more rewarding.

Head scarves drying outside a window in Istanbul. I had the idea that female, pious Muslims led relatively grey lives. There are certainly a lot of associated traditions that strike me as stultifying. But the Muslim head scarves are more colorful and expressive than almost anything that the liberated secularist women wear. In looking for expressions of individualism and personality, where do-I/should-I look?

Participating in domestic puja in Varanasi. Once I let my conceptions of religion and art, ritual and theater blur into one other, it ceased looking like superstition to me and started to become something I could appreciate.

Meditation in Thailand. Okay, they know what they’re doing. Give us westerners a meditation class with a great view over a misty valley and we’ll be happy. But they’re also wonderful about poking holes in our attachments. Meditation class was ridiculously simple, which made me realize how my preconceptions about meditation were ridiculously complicated.

Molly Dutton-Kenny's photos from Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador

Indigenous boy with new dominos in his elementary school, Amazon, Ecuador

Old meets the new: Indigenous Emberrá men in Panamá lead a cultural tourism boat trip, Panamá

Snack at the Ark Herb Farm for the Holistic Health Class, Costa Rica

Palm tree in biological reserve, Sarapiquí, Costa Rica

Yujing Shentu's photos of some China Center students

May's Photo Contest Guidelines

Global College Photo Contest, May 2009

Description:
With the hopes of contributing to our Global College community through sharing pictures, a photo contest will be held monthly during the two semesters of the 08/09 academic school year. THIS is the last Photo Contest of the year, so please participate!

April Winner:
-Sophie Kirpan photos from Ecuador are the winners for the Photo Contest in April. Congratulations Sophie! You will receive a $25 gift certificate to www.Amazon.com in 4-6 weeks to your email. Please visit http://globalcollegephotocontest.blogspot.com/ to see Sophie’s photos, along with all the amazing photos that were submitted for the Photo Contest. You can also share this blog link with friends and family.

MayTheme:
-OPEN. But once again, we like seeing pictures of Global College student(s)! Please send us your FOUR favorite photos from this academic year! IT WOULD BE GREAT IF EVERY GLOBAL COLLEGE STUDENT PARTICIPATES IN THIS LAST & FINAL PHOTO CONTEST OF THIS ACADEMIC YEAR!!!!

Deadline:
-Pictures must be emailed to Susana.Smith@liu.edu on or before May 29th, 2009. Please only send one email with FOUR pictures.

Guidelines:
-The FILE OF the photo must be labeled include the photographer’s name & date of photo.
-One person can submit one to FOUR photos per contest.
-There will be one photo contest per month, during the Fall and Spring semester, for a total of eight photo contest during the 08/09 academic school year.
-Global College students and staff can participate.
-There will be one winner per contest.
-The Global College listserve will be used to announce each monthly photo contest, the contest’s theme and the contest’s deadline.
-Each Global College center will post a flyer to announce each monthly photo contest, the contest’s theme and the contest’s deadline.
-The Global College listserve will be used to announce the winner each month.
-Photos must be in “Jpeg” format.
-Photos must be 200 DPI (Dots per Inch), but preferably 300.
-All contributed photos will be posted on http://globalcollegephotocontest.blogspot.com/.
- Every picture should come with a one sentence description outlining where it was taken and what captivated the photographer to take the picture.
-Photos must be appropriate, so no profanity, nudity or vulgarity.
-Photos must be emailed to Susana.Smith@liu.edu on or before the monthly deadlines.
-By submitting photos, the photographer is giving permission for Global College to use the picture(s) to share with the Global College community, for marketing purposes and to be posted on the internet.
-All submitted photos must be from an experience while studying with Global College.

Reward:
-The photographer of the winning photo will receive a $25 gift certificate to www.amazon.com

Questions:
-Contact Susana.Smith@liu.edu

Yoli Maya Yeh's photos from India

Alex Franjola meditate amidst fluttering prayer flags on the suspension bridge at Khandro Sangpo, the Cave of the Dakini, West Sikkim

Here are two photos from a recent field trip to Northeast India:

Larissa Fardelos and Julie Virgin celebrate Holi, also known as The Festival of Colors, in the village of Hat Govindapur, West Bengal. The spring festival is celebrated by throwing colored powder and water.

After a steep hike up above Kecheopalri Lake, West Sikkim, students enjoy a warming breakfast while gazing at the Himalayas

Julie Virgin's photo in Kechopalri, West Sikkim

Seth Robinson looks out along a river in a small village in Kerala at sunset during our two week field trip in the spring.

Seth Robinson, Larissa Fardelos, and Molly Greening pose in front of the Dubdi Monastery in West Sikkim, which was built in 1701.
Alex Franjola poses while on a trip in Kechopalri, West Sikkim. After hiking up a small mountain, students stopped at the summit to see ancient village monastery and numerous stupas, which are mounds of Buddhist relics, in the backdrop of the Himalayas.

Kayla Wexelberg's photos in NY and Washington DC

This photo was taken on Chinese New Year in New York City. It captures enthusiastic student, Sophie Vranian throwing confetti in the streets of China Town.

This photo was taken during the senior semester trip to Washington, DC. Cooper Browning and Alicia White pose in front of the capitol where we met congressman Tim Bishop.

This was taken in front of the capitol as the sun was setting. Brilliant colors spanned across the mall as birds fluttered around, soaking up the last rays of sunshine.