Micah Salkind '06 has to travel 45 minutes to get to his first class each morning. "I can no longer roll out of bed in Slater and get in class five minutes later," he said.
Salkind, a former post- executive editor, is currently studying abroad in Barcelona, but his friends and family are privy to the daily details of his life, including his commute. Everything about his life in Spain can be found on his online blog, from where he lives to which bar he visited last week.
For students back at Brown, these entries are a personalized introduction into a foreign world, as well as a letter home from a friend.
An increasing number of Brown students studying abroad have blogs or LiveJournals. Most writers, like Salkind, think of blogging as "an alternative to the annoying and longwinded e-mails" that usually circulate as a way to keep in touch and inform friends.
"It's a more democratic format," said Emily Pudalov '06, who is spending the semester in Sao Paolo, Brazil. "If someone wants to know what is up with me, he can look at it. If he wants to comment on it, then everyone can see it," she said.
Blog content for students studying abroad ranges from sightseeing lists and discussion of classes to funny anecdotes and complete essays, and of course, many pictures. Friends at home can contrast the experiences of their traveling correspondents. For example, former post- Editor-in-Chief Ellen Wernecke '06 writes of living with a family in Madrid, Spain - where she said everyone but the dog adores her - but her friend Pudalov shares an apartment with an old woman and her maid in Sao Paolo.
Students often write essays about the cultural difficulties they experience. "Apparently American culture, in most other countries, is just inherently offensive," Pudalov wrote. While having dinner at a Brazilian friend's house, Pudalov had offended the hosts by referring to her family back in the United States as white, thus bringing race into the conversation as a defining characteristic, which is considered distasteful in Brazilian culture.
Salkind's blog, on the other hand, is a project with two other friends to chronicle their time abroad in pictures and provide descriptions of the main events, as well as the trivialities, of life. "Milestones include staying out all night until my train began running at 6 a.m. (and) dancing my ass off to great music with beautiful people," Salkind wrote of one night.
With entry titles like "Thievery, Jewelry and Debauchery," the blogs make for a more exciting read than the scribbled reports found in the binders in the Study Abroad Library. Reading her friend's online journal "makes me want to get out of here," said Jessica Pan '07.
