Week after week, I have the chance to view my personal growth in life. When I first arrived in Ghana I was Shanaya L. Johnson, daughter of Rhonda Allen and Curtis Johnson II, honors college student, but behind the titles who was Shanaya? In my life I have always aimed for perfection in an imperfect world. I have enjoyed accomplishing goals but I never thought it would become my life at one point. I was to the point where everything was about what I had to do for school or work. I took very little time for myself or the simple things in life. As I got settled in my Hostel on KNUST campus, I was truly able to see my life and the changes I wanted to make to enhance it. One thing about Ghana is most things are very calm and relaxed. There is never a rush to do anything; and life is just easy going. This has been the perfect environment for me to obtain academic, social, and spiritual balance.
Prior to this semester of school, I had limited balance when it came to school. It seems as if I studied more than I needed to and was stressed most of the time. Now I look back at situations and can only laugh. There were times at North Carolina A&T where I thought classes could not get any worse or the world was over when wireless internet was not working for a day. I look at all those different moments now and say it was not that bad. I guess this goes with the saying you do not miss something until you lose it.
In the mist of balancing my life, I have been able to broaden my arisen my meeting so many different people. It is very fun to meet people from a different part of the world; you can always learn something new and find similarities amongst the differences. When students were able to see that I was a foreign student they instantly want to know my name and where I was from. As much as I enjoy learning about the culture here they enjoy asking me about the American culture. It is also funny that Ghanaians are very knowledgeable about the US as a whole. Sometimes people have discussed different subject matters with me that I was not even knowledgeable about. It shows me that other Nationalities put more time into knowing global news. Most individuals want to know how I like the country and what are some major differences from the U.S. It seems every day I am meeting different people and I am to the point where I am unable to remember names but I remember faces. As a result, I have learned that amongst different nationalities everyone wants to be happy and have adequate monetary security.
Currently, the teachers are still on strike but we will know if the strike will continue any day now. The students as a whole want the strike to end so they can continue the academic year. If the strike does not end the entire academic year will be deferred and students will have to come back next August to repeat the same courses. As for me being an international student, I truly do not know what my options would be in regards to if the semester was deferred. I have just been hoping for it to end as it earliest convenience.
This weekend I will be attending an excursion to Northern Ghana to site see some more of this beautiful country. Look for the updates on the excursion next week.
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