Memories I am afraid I'll forget

Foreword

Let's make this formal and call this is a foreword!

What brought me here? Or more importantly - What made me start writing this all up? Well, all the memories I am afraid I'll forget.

Welcome to my American Days' Journals! I do not particularly have any talent in writing things up from scratch, especially not my own experience as a Fulbright scholar, but you have got to start somewhere, especially if you are too afraid that you'll forget what you believe to be the time of your life. I warn you that this piece of writing might turn out to become a journal article in the end, not that I am really good at writing those either, but I am now here to get better at it anyways. So, it seems, it will be two writing types I want to get better at eventually. This fact came as a shock to me as well, when after a Stanford football match, 1,5 weeks into my scholarship period, I jumped into bed, fired up my laptop and just felt the urge to type.

Just to be absolutely clear, I am not a fan of expressing myself in speech, neither do I like writing blog entries or too long chunk of texts that are not academic in nature. And to be honest, sometimes an academic text is just a pain to write, too. Pure pain. If my researcher colleagues all around the world read this, they know what I am talking about. If my close colleagues read this, then I am joking, ofc.

If I had to express myself, I would rather choose to do that via arts, like pictures, videos, dance, or music (if you get bored here, for more such content go to my IG account: @keriancsi). So now you might understand the shock I experienced when I felt the urge to, well, write.

So back to the reasons. Why did I start writing this journal? First, what brought me here to San Jose, California, USA, was Fulbright. The most prestigious scholarships ever you can - or at least I could - hear about at this particular time of my life. I call myself a scholarship junkie and I always tell people that if you don't try, you'll never get these opportunities. So even though it is tough, and you have to work for it (surprise!), you can benefit from scholarships sooo much. But this is a cliché, let's get on with reasons. 

Second reason I started writing is that it always fascinated me how certain people can transfer their ideas and their personalities to a piece of paper. In my case, to a piece of virtual paper. I wanted to give it a go. I might not be good at it at all but will have to try. And the last and most important reason I can enlist now is because of the memories I am way too afraid I'll forget unless I write them down to as much detail as possible, hopefully creating an enjoyable read in the process.

So, let's get to it, as it is late at night and tomorrow I have an early Dragon boat practice.

3 September 2022