ABOUT FULBRIGHT

My Fulbright Life

Transcript For: Current Fulbrighter Tiffany Joseph in Brazil

Current Fulbrighter to Brazil, Tiffany Joseph, discusses her Fulbright experience.

Schuyler:          Hello, and welcome to My Fulbright Life. Today I’m joined by Nicola Lugosch who is in Iceland on her Fulbright grant and she is going to tell us today a bit about her experiences while she’s been there. Nicola, thank you for joining us.

Nicola:             My pleasure.

Schuyler:          So, just briefly, tell us what you’ve been doing in Iceland and where you’ve been in Iceland and the title of your project.

Nicola:             I am living in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, and I’m working on a masters degree at the University of Iceland, or the Háskóli Íslands if you’re interested, and it’s a program in medieval Icelandic studies and it’s a one year masters program.

Schuyler:          Excellent. And how’s it been for you so far?

Nicola:             It’s wonderful. It’s a little bit different from what I was expecting but it’s been turning out really well.

Schuyler:          And, you said the name of the institution you’re at very nicely in Icelandic-

Nicola:             Thank you.

Schuyler:          And how did you acquire Icelandic in order to undertake your grant?

Nicola:             Well, I came to Iceland for a junior year abroad in college, and I spent a full 12 months there, also at the university, doing basically Icelandic language courses… that’s actually where I took my first medieval Icelandic classes and got interested enough in it that I decided that’s how I wanted to focus my medieval studies after I graduated. So basically, the language I learned that first year and then since then I’ve been keeping it up by reading Icelandic newspapers, singing the music, and of course this year I’ve been practicing a lot as well.

Schuyler:          Great. Well, it sounds like your particular project probably requires you to speak more Icelandic than the average person.

Nicola:             Well, the classes are taught in English, but I have to read both modern and old Icelandic, as well as using Icelandic to communicate with people working in libraries, or with fellow scholars.

Schuyler:          Well, now I’m curious. What’s a typical day in your life as a Fulbrighter in Reykjavik like?

Nicola:             Well, now that I am getting into the summer, to be working on my thesis. Usually, during the year, I would have classes of course. But now basically what I do is I will get up and I’ll work over at the Árni Magnússon Institute which is very close to where I live. And that is the main building that houses most of the Icelandic manuscripts as well as a wonderful library and it’s the working place of most scholars here in Iceland, who work on medieval studies. So, I’ll go over there and work for a couple of hours on my thesis. And then I will go and scrounge lunch somewhere, and either go back to work or find something around town to do. There’s a lot of really cool cultural stuff that you can do here in Iceland. Or I’ll go swimming at one of the local pools and go home and either read or translate and do a lot of knitting.

Schuyler:          Excellent. So it sounds like you have a very balanced life and you are truly a cultural ambassador in your ability to balance both your personal time and engagement to the community and your studies.

Nicola:             I hope so!

Schuyler:          Well it sounds certainly that was from this end and just out of curiosity, as you were talking about your life, I was wondering how it was that you came to find your affiliation. Because I think that that’s a part of the application a lot of candidates are always asking about, certainly when they’re applying to Fulbright- how to find an affiliation. So how did you come to find your affiliation, besides the fact that you’d spent some time there before?

Nicola:             Well, I had been doing medieval studies in college, but I read the literature for years and years before that. And when I changed majors in college and decided that’s what I wanted to do, usually you’ll do general medieval studies, and I didn’t exactly know where I wanted to go with that, but the thing about Iceland is that it has the most amazing literary tradition of almost any country that I’ve ever come across.

Schuyler:          Really?

Nicola:             Oh, yes, it’s fabulous, especially if you’re a person who’s interested in history of book writing or history of the church or history of language or history of novels. Anything like that. It has so much to offer. And so, since I’m interested in all of those, it was a natural choice, especially since I already had ties here from my year abroad.

Schuyler:          So it sounds like it was a pretty easy seg for you in terms of establishing your affiliation. And approximately how long did it take you to obtain that letter of affiliation?

Nicola:             It wasn’t too difficult. I had ties here with former professors, and other professors back home were interested in my studies over here so it wasn’t too difficult.

Schuyler:          Great. Now that I have a sense, just a tiny little window into your daily life, tell us about one of the highlights that you didn’t anticipate but has truly sparkled in your mind in terms of something that you’re going to remember the rest of your life from Fulbright.

Nicola:             Well, this year I have been singing with my church choir, and it’s interesting because I’m Catholic, and the catholic population here in Iceland is mostly made up of foreigners. There are some Catholic Icelanders, but… it’s always interesting to have people who are visiting here who are Catholic and go to Sunday mass before they leave or during there stay, and talking to them about how they find the country. And, in particular, I remember a visit that we had from the Papal Nuncio, just a short while ago and it’s the first time a Nuncio has visited Iceland in 20-odd years. And since I sang at the special mass that he officiated and I was chatting with him afterwards and he was talking about how beautiful it was here, and how interesting it was to come visit and since I’m writing my thesis about Icelandic church history it was so cool to find somebody else who’s interested in something just like that, as well as to participate in a fairly important ceremony with both Icelanders and a really interesting mix of other foreigners who were visiting at the time, or who live here as immigrants.

Schuyler:          Wow. Just out of curiosity, what immigrant groups are moving to Iceland?

Nicola:             There’s a very strong Polish population who has moved here, as well as some Thai and Filipino groups. Mostly they come for the economic opportunities that Iceland offers, it has a really strong economy. And they are able to get really great, high paying jobs here.

Schuyler:          Great. Now I have a sense of, I’m beginning to paint a little picture in my head of your life, and what is one of the challenges that you experienced that you didn’t anticipate and how did you address it, how did you deal with it?

Nicola:             Well, one of the things that I find most important about living in another country is showing respect to that country by working really hard at the language. So I like to speak Icelandic whenever I’m talking with an Icelander. And, a problem that I’ve faced is actually everybody here speaks such beautiful English. They start studying it when they’re about 12 years old and almost every single Icelander that I’ve come in contact with speaks almost fluent English, if not perfectly fluent. And so it’s difficult sometimes to make sure that I practice hard enough, because when I get into a sticky place and I can’t exactly think of the work, they’ll helpfully switch over to English and it’s hard for me to say, no I really want to learn the language, I’m trying very, very hard. It’s become less and less of a problem now that, you know, I can go without switching into English. But that was something that I faced both when I first came here two years ago and when I returned and I had been out of practice for a year.

Schuyler:          Well that’s a very unanticipated challenge. I think a lot of people going to Scandinavian Europe probably would encounter similar challenge. They tend to speak English pretty well over there.

Nicola:             Yes, it’s one of the things that I try very hard to anticipate whenever I travel, you know, when I go to France I try really hard to speak the best French I can. I even tried speaking some kind of awful Italian when I went to Italy. And it was pathetic, but they really took kindly to me because even though I sounded like a moron, at least I was trying.

Schuyler:          OK, so, Nicola, you’ve been in Iceland for how long?

Nicola:             Let’s see, it’s been about a year and three quarters now.

Schuyler:          OK, but on Fulbright?

Nicola:             Oh, on Fulbright, right, what 7 months?

Schuyler:          7 months? So you’ve got just about 2 months left of your grant. And given that, you’re probably feeling pretty at home now in your program. It sounds that way at least-

Nicola:             Oh yes.

Schuyler:          -from this end that you’re very comfortable there. Now for people who have anxieties and are trying to work diligently on preparing their applications for the 2009-10 cycle—it’s so crazy to say 9-10—but, what advice would you give them? I mean, any advice that comes to your head? It can be about the application, it can be about living overseas, it can be anything that you’ve run across that you’ve taken to heart and really learned from in terms of this whole undertaking that is Fulbright.

Nicola:             Well, I was lucky enough to have had a year abroad before this, but that was my first time really, really being away from home. So I had an easier transition this time. But I know that a lot of people, for a lot of people this might be not only their first time living out of the country but also living in a really strange environment so they might have a lot of culture shock. And I guess my advice would be that, you know, once you can get past the initial surprise and homesickness and everything, to do the absolute utmost to embrace the opportunity because, you know, it’s rare that you get the opportunity to go and live abroad for a year with financial support and have the opportunity just to research and make cultural ties and meet people and talk with people and it’s just a huge blessing. And I know that any opportunity that I miss I will regret having missed. So, whenever I get the chance to go do something with Icelanders or go out into the countryside or meet people or anything like that, I try to take it because I know this may be the last chance that I’ll have to do something like that.

                        And I guess for preparing applications, things like that, not to stress out about it too much. People were so nice and so helpful and everything went really well for me when I was going through the process and being panicky and nervous didn’t really help much. And when I just calmed down it really made things much simpler.

Schuyler:          And who would you say was most helpful to you in that process of putting the application together?

Nicola:             We had a Fulbright Advisor back at my campus. She was, rather, the person who took care of any kind of post-graduate scholarships.

Schuyler:          So your FPA?

Nicola:             Exactly. And she took really, really good care of me and anytime I had weird questions I could just run over to her office. And, I also was able to get into contact quite early with the Fulbright representatives over here in Iceland. And they are an amazing help making everything much easier, and I even I think wrote to them once or twice asking for translations of words that I couldn’t find in Icelandic when I was trying to write to people back here. So finding contacts like that makes it very helpful.

Schuyler:          Well, certainly I think the subtext of what you’re saying truly is a level of resourcefulness goes really far. That’s excellent.

                        So, in closing, what are your next steps? What are your future plans after Fulbright? And what skills or skill that you’ve developed while you’ve been in Iceland do you hope to use in the future?

Nicola:             I love that question because I’ve learned so much cool stuff while I’m over here. I’ve gotten really good at my Old Norse translations, or at least I’m getting a lot better, so I’m translating a saga and I’ve learned how to do paleography, which is learning how to read manuscripts. And I’ve even helped work on an edition which will be published pretty soon.

Schuyler:          Who knows what paleography is? I’ve never even heard of that word until this interview.

Nicola:             Well, you know, since there aren’t that many manuscripts running around, it’s not a very common thing that you have to learn. But it’s what I was really, really looking forward to. So maybe a rather motley and seemingly useless collection of skills, but which are to me something that I’ve been looking forward to all my life. And I guess the thing is people are always a little bit surprised when they hear about what I’m doing because the first thing they ask is, “Well, what are you going to do with that?” And the answer is, I’m not exactly sure yet. I think, I’m almost sure that I want to go into academia, be a professor, but I have been thinking recently also about maybe doing military translating, something like that, because I do love languages, and what I’ve learned from the Fulbright… I never considered a career in the military, like you know, CIA or translating before, but coming over here and finding out that I do love being immersed in a different culture and meeting people and chatting with people and seeing how much I can integrate into a new society has shown me that, you know, maybe I am good at this, maybe it’s something that I could do if I end up changing my mind about academia. So if anything, the Fulbright has shown me that I have so many more options than I even considered before, not just the obvious professor option, which of course does still look really, really appealing. But you know there’s so many things out there that you can do after you find out what you can do.

Schuyler:          I think that’s extraordinarily well said and, Nicola, thank you so much today for

Nicola:             It was a lot of fun, thanks!

Schuyler:          Thank you.

Nicola:             Bye-bye.

Schuyler:          Bye-bye.