Long Time, No Post

Well, its been well over a month since I posted up here. I suppose I just haven't been 'inspired' by anything recently to write about here. I've been in College Park, MD since May 31 at the University of Maryland for a program called RISE doing research in the electrical engineering department (I know its not my major). I've met some pretty cool people and had time to hang out with a few of my friends from VT. Two of the people in my group at RISE were born and lived a good portion of their lives in another country.

Maria grew up in Romania. When she was really young, her dad was on a business trip in the US and decided to never go back to Romania (Romania was having a rough time... corrupt gov't and the works..). Anyway, once word got around that he had never returned home the government began harassing her family. While they attmepted to get out of Romania to join her dad in the US, the government wasn't giving them permission to leave and kept trying to get them to fess up about the father's wherabouts. Anyway, by the time the family finally got permission to leave, the government had collapsed and was beginning to rebound, but they were sick of the way they had been treated so came on to the US anyway.

Aimi spent most of her life in Nigeria. Her mother had moved to the US when she was very very young. But Aimi stayed in her town in Nigeria. Her father had many wives and so she really didn't get a chance to get to know him. Other members of her family took care of her until she was about 17. Then she moved to join her mother and sister in NYC. She spent about a year there before her mother kicked her out. So at 18, Aimi had spent only a year in the states and was supporting herself.

I'm so impressed by these stories of their lives. Its very brave of them and I have so much respect for how far they've gotten.