Sheron Long's Blog
October 28, 2021
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July 27, 2021
OIC the Road Ahead and…
It’s time to set sail for new horizons.
Looking Back, a World Well-Travelled
In the last 9 years, we’ve enjoyed our travels with you to fascinating and often little-known parts of the world—moving across cultures, delighting in different languages, exercising the bilingual brain, and enjoying the insights that came from the ride.
In this—OICs last post—it’s time to say a fond farewell and to wish you well. May you continue to travel the world and discover how stepping into different cultures enriches your life.
May your road ahead lead to amazing places on earth…and off,
with wondrous “Oh I see” moments along the way.
Our almost 500 posts will stay live here, including our Greatest Hits Collections, each of which contains the top 5 posts on our well-travelled themes:
5 Life-Changing Travel Adventures
...
May 26, 2021
OIC’s Greatest Hits: The Boost of the Bilingual Brain
5 Reminders That Learning a Second Language Lifts You Up
One of our very first posts was simply entitled Being Bilingual Builds Brain Power, and it’s been among our favorite recurring topics ever since. Yet, the scientific benefits of a bilingual brain tell only part of the story—being bilingual also lifts up your life with enriching encounters and expanded horizons.
Since that’s what OIC Moments is all about, it’s only fitting that the grand finale of this “Greatest Hits” collection turns to posts where our bloggers highlight how learning another language opens wide the world.
1. Life Changes When a Brain Goes Bilingual
Sheron Long shares the 6 “warming” signs of a brain becoming bilingual, and illustrates how being powered by two or more languages inevitably leads to a series of life changes.
2. Five Sure-Fire Ways to Break the...
May 17, 2021
OIC’s Greatest Hits: A Global Yea for Wordplay!
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5 Signs that Wit and Whimsy Come in Many Languages
Where there’s a word, there’s a way lovers of language will have some fun with it. Idioms, puns, and culturally unique expressions are a part of languages around the globe. And, in this latest collection of OIC’s “Greatest Hits,” our bloggers display their brand of wordplay wizardry with astute observations and forays into that witty world of words.
1. A Taste of Italian Wordplay
Joyce McGreevy finds Italian wordplay to be every bit as cool as gelato and slick as salami, without the calories! So she served up a feast of food idioms that are the spices in everyday Italian conversation.
2. The Lucky Language of Fortune Cookies
Meredith Mullins cracks the code with a look at how fortune cookies offer us inspiration through wise or witty proverbs and sayings that bring a little happiness at the end of a...
May 3, 2021
OIC’s Greatest Hits: Different Eyes on the World
5 Everyday Ways That Cultures Show Their Differences
People in every culture celebrate, greet each other, share stories and good food together, fall in love, honor their ancestors, play music and sports, name babies, and more. But the customs—the do’s and taboos—surrounding these universal activities are a remarkable reveal into how varied and ingenious different cultures can be.
Culture reveals itself even in mundane ways from what communities show on their road signs to how people cook their onions or describe a downpour. At OIC, we say no one way is the “correct” way. And here, in our latest collection of “Greatest Hits,” our bloggers prove it with their observations and insights on everyday cultural differences. May they inspire you to look at the world with new eyes.
1. Oh Deer! Road Signs in Different Cultures
Sheron Long contends that warning...
April 26, 2021
OIC’s Greatest Hits: Bridging Cultures
5 Insights on Connecting Across Cultures
Cultures leave unique marks on the world and collectively offer unparalleled richness and variety. While cultural heritage is acquired by birth and influenced by those closest to you as you grow up, people who later cross bridges into other cultures find their lives enriched by the connections. Their horizon is wider, the respect for people is greater, and life is a more fortunate mix of experiences. So say the OIC bloggers in their many stories of connecting across cultures.
Looking back on these stories and in appreciation of our bloggers’ insights, we’ve selected five posts for this edition of our “Greatest Hits.” They’re stories that moved our understanding and appreciation of other cultures, and we hope they’ll do the same for you.
1. Cultural Heritage Below the Water Line
Building a foundation for...
April 16, 2021
OIC’s Greatest Hits: Travel That Left Its Mark
5 Life-Changing Travel Adventures
Travel expands horizons, literally and figuratively. And invariably, some trips leave a lasting imprint. In the last nine years, our OIC bloggers have vividly recounted impactful journeys, capturing their feelings and the significance of their travels. Happy to share, they say, because their life-changing travel adventures left such a mark on their lives.
Looking back on OIC’s unique and rewarding travel stories and in appreciation of our bloggers, we’ve selected five posts for this collection of “Greatest Hits.” They’re the stories that left a mark on us as well.
1. A Tale of Two Jungles
Eva Boynton takes us to Quintana Roo and Mexico City, two very different settings. But, when experienced through the senses, these two seemingly different jungles—one leafy green and one of concrete—become strangely similar.
...
March 31, 2021
Diving Deep Into the Sea of Travel Memories
Worldwide, many people replied to the epic wait with quick wit.
© Joyce McGreevy
Our Epic Wait Reveals What Matters Most
As our voyage back from quarantine nears the shore of normalcy, vaccination sparks anticipation. What are you waiting for? To see friends and loved ones? To return to school or the workplace? To make new travel memories or simply to regain your memories of “ordinary” life? Given our epic wait, we’ve all had time to ponder such questions.
How much time? By my calculations: 2020 to the nth degree, x number of months + the square root of insomnia, minus hours binge-watching gazillion seasons of “Law and Order,” carry the 1 = A LONG DANG TIME.
Would quarantine pass quickly, we wondered? Doubtful as Doubtful Sound, New Zealand.
© Joyce McGreevy
The year 2020 had barely taken its first steps when the pandemic knocked it down. Lockdown followed and the Worldwide...
March 22, 2021
Around the Wacky World of Sister Cities and Twin Towns
Who wouldn’t want to be sisters with Paris, especially in the spring?
© Meredith Mullins
It’s Not a Dull and Boring World
A story that features the words dull and boring can still show promise. We begin with a tale of two cities. Sister cities—Dull, Scotland, and Boring, Oregon.
This particular familial friendship (also called town twinning in Europe) was based on the humorous pairing of their town names. They even added a third city to the clan, creating a celebratory menage à trois. Bland, Australia was invited into the partnership, launching a possible new trend of town tripleting.
Due to the media attention and the increased tourism, these towns are now anything but dull, boring, and bland.
Welcome to Dull, with a side of Boring (and a hint of Bland).
© Gannett77/iStock
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Cultures
There are many reasons to seek a city-to-city partnership....
March 15, 2021
Memories of St Patrick’s Day In and Out of Ireland
Before the pandemic, March was a popular time for travel to Ireland . . .
© Joyce McGreevy
How Real Was My Cultural Authenticity?
What could be more Irish than memories of St Patrick’s Day in Ireland? Picture it: County Limerick, March 17. Sunlight illuminates my boarding school overlooking the banks of the River Shannon. Such cultural authenticity! We’ve the day off from classes. Cue the festivities!
The Dripping of the Green
Ah, but this is 1970s Ireland. St Patrick’s Day is a holy day, not yet a holiday. To “celebrate,” we each pin a clump of sodden shamrocks to the front of our school uniform. At Mass, I watch in dismal fascination as brackish liquid oozes along the wool grain of my personal upholstery.
Not how I’d imagined “the wearing of the green.”
My classmate Eileen sighs, “If only we were in Dublin gawking at the Americans.”
“Why Americans?” I ask.
...
