More to do, less time, mental health

Just like last year, I came two weeks before school started to be part of the pre-orientation, but this year from a position of an IPOP (International Pre-Orientation Program) leader, not a participant. We spent four days preparing activities and finalizing the schedule, and then five days with our ninety international freshmen. Each of us got a group of nine students with whom we established a close relationship and serve as their mentors not only for the first days at Grinnell, but also for the rest of the semester.

My classes started already in late August and I quickly learned that second year would be way more challenging both academically and in terms of time management than the first one. This semester I am taking four classes: Economics of Innovation, State and Society in Latin America, Advanced Spanish and Russian.

Economics of Innovation is one of the well-known courses at Grinnell. We study the importance of innovation for economical growth of countries, balance between policymaking and innovation, and analyze the possibility of solving problems through innovative methods. In political science class, State and Society in Latin America, we compare regime types in Latin American region. We mainly focus on the causes of similarities and differences among the states and their leadership. Advanced Spanish is probably the hardest class I've ever taken. The Spanish classes are very rigorous and after two and a half semesters, I just finished reading my first book.

This year has been very busy so far – beside school, I have to balance work and a lot of extracurricular activities. One of the most exciting ones is my Czech class at Grinnell. I am a teacher for the Alternative Language Study Option (ALSO) and have five students offer (which is the most out of all the languages thought this semester - Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Hindi, and Swahili). Each week I create a grammar overview and vocabulary related to topic such as: my hobbies, travel, food, at a restaurant, and so on. Students study the materials online and than come to classes three times a week to practice their speaking skills. Beside ALSO, I work for the Office of Communications: take pictures at various school events, make posters, write and edit texts for newspapers and our website.

For the past several weeks, my world has been all about the organization of Food Bazaar (an annual culinary festival), organized by the International Student Organization. As a president, I spent countless hours on shopping trips to nearby cities, sorting out vegetables and meat, measuring soy sauces and oils, putting everything in bags, checking and re-checking the content of the bags. Yesterday, we finally handed all the ingredients to this year’s chefs (98 of them!), and tomorrow is the D-day.

(photo: Yohee Takatsuka)

Together with my roommate, we continue with our Sunday meetings of Gourmet Cuisine Society, where we have the chance to prepare, cook, and dine with other food-loving students. Besides that, I took over the Extreme Society since all of the last year’s leaders graduated. Thanks to the vivid memories of last year’s surfing trip, I decided to continue with the tradition and organized a weeklong adventure to Colorado. With the financial support of our student government ($3,800), we were able to enjoy everything that Colorado has to offer from camping, mountain biking, and hiking, to hot springs and adventure parks. Grinnell once again proved, that any student initiative could always find needed support.

Wow, this has been the longest article, I have written so far. Higher level of classes which require more time to prepare for each of them, committee meetings, organization meetings, creating Czech curriculum and teaching the language, working, leading two organizations, and co-leading another one adds up. It is a lot of pressure to get very good grades and keep up with all other commitments. Therefore, I would like to join Ondra Hajda and his support of the initiative “Nevypusť duši.” As a student at one of the top institutions, I am well aware of how much is expected of us, and how much we expect of ourselves. It is really easy to get carried away and forget about the need to relax, rest, or just to have fun. American universities put a great importance on the topic of mental health. It seemed little strange to me last year, when the school organized study breaks with puppies and kitties; but this year, I complete understand. Taking a break and focusing on ones selves needs, is just as important as anything else. Big thumbs up for the organizers of the campaign, who introduced this topic in the Czech Republic!