Jem recently said that blogging makes her learn. Well, the people I meet as a result of web design and blogging makes me learn.
I recently started a class that will last the second half of the summer semester. Geography. In case you are questioning that, it isn’t all about maps and where places are. We learn about certain aspects of certain countries, some of their history, etc. Well, I realized when studying that my online friends and connections helped.
A year or so ago, I did an article for a writing class on how other countries view America. I interviewed Jelena about her experiences with it and I got a lot of feedback in the comments (sadly, my blog post about it wasn’t saved; it was on my old blog), including some by Nela. In her comments, Nela referenced Croatia’s upcoming decision on whether or not to become part of the EU. It made me smile when my professor brought up Croatia when talking about the EU’s history and the upcoming possible entering countries. After class, I told her about Nela and Jelena, including Nela’s comments about how Croatia wasn’t ready to become part of the EU. She thought it was great that I had been able to talk to someone about it and, also, that it was the opinion of “the youth,” as she called it. She said that so many people don’t realize that there are many people who have many reasons not to join.
When she was talking about the EU creating a monetary system for the countries to adopt, I recalled Jem’s post regarding exchange rates and geek t-shirts. What caught my attention was that Jem, an inhabitant of the UK, had referenced dollars into pounds rather than euros. And, bang, right after that question popped into my head, the professor states that the UK was the country who decided not to adopt the euro.
My friend Aime (no website, the poor guy) grew up in Belgium. I recalled him mentioning that he lived in Antwerp and that it was a port city by the water. As it turns out, it is one of the three major port cities in Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) with Rotterdam and Amsterdam being the other two. Back in 10th grade I wasn’t lucky enough to have as many online friends to talk to as I do now but he was my friend even then. When we studied Napolean in History, I was bored as anything until my teacher mentioned that his last battle was in Waterloo (which just so happens to be in Belgium!).
Association tends to help me remember and recall. Sadly, I don’t have any online friends in Ireland, but my obsession with the place makes me stay attentive to that country as well.
After our test today, we started on Australia and New Zealand. Apparently, more and more Asians have begun to move to and inhabit the countries (or so my professor says). Funnily (yes, I make up words) enough, my two friends from Australia (Xuan and Amanda) are both Asian. And my only friend from New Zealand, Rilla, is as well. Coincidence? Either way, it’ll help me remember that tidbit of information.
We also discussed the aboriginal people of Australia, which brought to mind Amanda’s blog about her issues with it. Apparently, the Aboriginies have been given land in the center part of Australia to have as their land (kind of like the Indian reservations): land that everyone else doesn’t want. Apparently (I’m saying that too much), most of the population lives on the coast due to larger cities being there due to better resources (livestock, sugarcane, wheat, mining) being there due to better climatal (another made up word, I think) conditions. We were told that most of the big cities are in the southeast of Australia but that some are sprouting up in the western coastal areas as well. Xuan lives in Sydney, which is in the southeast. Amanda lives in Melbourne, which is in the southeast.
As I said, association seems to help me. Because this is the stuff that I remembered from the lectures without studying. All of the rest I don’t remember as well and that is after I even studied it.
And offline? The GM of my store is from Norway, the only country to back out of the EU twice. The AGM is from Germany, the country that was split into East and West Germany in 1945 after WW2, East belonging to Russia and West to the USA. West Germany was one of the first six countries to join the EU (France, Italy, and Benelux {Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg} being the other five). And my chiropractor is from Sweden, which we went over but which had no interesting facts. Sadly.
And that is just the first test. Imagine all the other online friends that will help with the other three!
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