2010.04.24 Edition nr. 3

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Dear Reader,

It’s been a long and tough semester, even though right now it seems that it started just a few weeks ago. So many changes have already hap-pened at LCC and even more are waiting for us ahead. Student Times is hon-ored to be with you during this new and exciting period of LCC’s his-tory. We are here to keep you update and informed. We are here for you!Thank you for reading us and staying in touch. Have a wonderful summer and read us in fall!

Always yours, Student Times Team

Erasing Borders

Academics, Academia and the Online Diploma

April, 7th

Eik Tu Sau!

Erasmus in Brussels

The Side Effects of Slicing

A Jacket That Shows Your Attitude

Sunday Delight

TABLE Of COnTEnTSp. 3

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Paci fat Miq or Good Luck, folks!

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* Photo by Nica Dulevich

By Iryna Popmaipompa09@students.lcc.lt

While sitting on the bench near the Arch de Triomf in Barce-lona during spring

break, I thought how easily I got there, and how much more I could see during the next three years of my student life. This wonder-ful traveling experience became possible thanks to my TRP (Tem-porary Residence Permit) card.

Today we, non-EU students, are given the opportunities to study in the EU country as well as to trav-el all around the Schengen area just by getting the TRP. Howev-er, what is the story behind TRP? When LCC started its work, non-EU students had to get visas, later TRP cards, all by themselves.

In order to help students, LCC in-volved staff members who were going through the whole TRP pro-cess together with students. Later an Admissions Office took this re-sponsibility on itself. Only in 2004 the LCC Migration Affairs Office started its work. Thanks to good ties between LCC Migration Affairs Of-fice and Klaipeda’s Migration Office lots of benefits were brought into the whole TRP reapplication process. We, students, are complain-ing about different inconveniences that the paper work brings to us, and about things foreign coun-try limits us to. Yet, do we actu-ally know what the LCC Migration Affairs Office has to deal with? LCC Migration Affairs Office staff answered some of the questions that might be interesting to you:Why TRP card does not allow us to work? TRP is the type of Lithu-anian ID that is given to non-EU students who are accepted to Lith-uanian universities. This implies that students here are to study, not to work. However, those who really want to have a job can get a work permit. This rather com-plicated process is a responsi-bility of the company that would like to employ a non-EU student. Yet! Some companies pre-sented at the Career Fair say that they are willing to employ non-EUs as long as they match company’s requirements. Though, not know-ing the language of the country you want to work in might become one of the biggest barriers. That is why non-EU students, who are looking for a job experience, might want to look into internship op-portunities that are offered at LCC. Why do all foreigner stu-dents have to live in the dormito-ries of LCC either register the place where they live? All students who

are under 18, as said by Lithuanian Law, have to live in the dorms of LCC because university is legally responsible for them while they are in Lithuania. Others, though, have a choice to stay in the dorm or rent an apartment/house. No matter what students choose, the place of their staying still needs to be recorded. Klaipeda’s Migration Office has to make sure that non-EUs will have a place to stay. The process is not hard: student(s) together with land-lord have to come to the Residence Declaration Office in Klaipeda (Vy-tauto str. 7) and sign the papers. LCC Migration Affairs Office is emphasizing, that the main rea-son of students’ frustration comes from unread e- mails. Students of-ten miss information e-mails or read them not carefully, that leads to lots of complains about the students “not being informed” about the changes made or missing their guidelines. Though, TRP card does not promise any additional ben-efits in the near future, we need to value the work that the LCC Mi-gration Affairs Office does for us and the opportunities we get. So, what is next? Italy, France, or Ger-many? Schengen, I am coming!

ERASInG BORDERS 3

By Andrew Kaethler akaethler@lcc.lt

A few weeks ago at LCC we held the third annual academic conference. There was a wide array

of people involved and disciplines covered. The topic was on homo-geneity and diversity—an impor-tant issue for all times and places. I don’t want to write about the topic, for four hundred words cannot do it justice, rather I want to focus on the word used in the first sentence, ‘academic.’

The community or environ-ment that makes up a university

is referred to as ‘academia.’ ‘Aca-demic’ is an adjective used to de-scribe the scholarly activities that take place in such a community. In addition, the term ‘academic’ can be a noun used to describe a par-ticular person who participates in academia, in other words, a schol-ar. Unfortunately many students at LCC may want to ask, “What does this have to do with me.” Well eve-rything! A liberal arts university is not the place to merely get a diploma—hey it would be cheaper to buy one online—but the place to engage in scholarly activity. Such activity does not simply mean reading your text-books and quickly, the night before, writing your papers. It is the place to rub shoulders with people who have spent far more time thinking

about things that matter. The hier-archy of academia is a place where one can grow tall by standing on the shoulders of the taller.

To echo Richard Weavers famous book, “Ideas Have Con-sequences.” In fact, they have far greater consequences than a di-ploma. Nations have risen and fallen over great ideas; saints have emerged, as have tyrants. Action is the concomitant of thinking. So all you pragmatists stop aiming so low. Raise your sights to the realm of thinking and in doing so the di-ploma inevitably follows behind. Immerse yourself in academia, put time and energy into academics, and perhaps become an academ-ic—there is no shortage of space.

ACADEMICS, ACADEMIA AnD THE OnLInE DIPLOMA

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APRIL, 7TH

By Denis Ivanovdivanov08@students.lcc.lt

Every respectful winemaker knows that in order to harvest grapes of

high-quality, the vine has to grow for nearly ten years until it gains the ability to pro-duce the fruit with all the necessary microelements and vitamins in it. Roughly a year ago on April,7 2009, a turning point in modern Moldova’s history occurred with nearly 20,000 people coming out to protest in the main square of Chisinau. What started as a peace-ful demonstration of disagreement with the results of national elec-tions has ended in a clash with po-lice and destruction of the façade of the Presidency building. The rul-ing Communist party lost its trust of the nation and provided Demo-cratic and Liberal forces to form a coalition for the European Integra-tion. Will it result in a positive or

a negative change in the long-run country’s welfare, nobody knows for sure. The only obvious outcome is that it has provided a solid vine for the grape plant that will result in good harvest and high qual-ity outcome in a near future. Right now Moldova is on a promising road to integration in the European Union with clearly stated demo-cratic rights of its citizens and their fair place in the country’s future. Kyrgyzstan, a country with similar political situation like in

Moldova, has ripe grapes for a good wine. Exactly one year after the revolution in Moldova, Kyrgyz-stan also has become the home of protesting masses. However, un-like the Moldavian case, initially peaceful protest in Kyrgyzstan has resulted in more than 80 deaths and thousands of wounded. On its revolutionary way to building a new root of its democracy for the second time after the Soviet Union collapse, civil population is the one who suf-fers. According to the Kyr-

gyz LCC students, the worst case scenario could have taken place if the president Bakiyev’s retreat to the south-ern part of Kyrgyzstan would have resulted in the bloody war between the north and the south of the country. How-ever, Kyrgyzstan is still missing its solid roots that could nourish the grapes. These grapes are the civil population that is currently suffering from the political uncer-tainty and cannot form the juice that is required to flourish and prosper in their mother country.

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By Nastia Kryvuliaakryvul08@students.lcc.lt

“He kissed me! Eros kissed me! Did you get it on the cam-era?” These words have

made Lorna Qesteri a star and an absolute record breaker in the number of facebook video views among the LCC community. It is often hard to define whether Lorna Qesteri is a teach-er, a friend, a psychoanalyst or all these simultaneously. All of the students, who have been in her class, know that studying Mi-cro and Macro can be fun when it comes from a charming Albanian with years of travel and volunteer experience behind her back. All the students also see her office always

open to those who want to laugh or cry. Lorna is always there for us as a tough judge of Talent nights or as a speaker at any event imaginable at LCC. With all this said, we know that when Lorna Qesteri leaves LCC to finally settle down in the beauti-ful Tirana, we will be losing much more than just an experienced pro-fessor with an excellent resume. A huge part of our hearts will be gone. So as we move into our last days of hardcore study-ing, the Student Times decided to share some facts about Lor-na that you might not know yet. Lorna as a talent hunter Before coming to LCC Lor-na was involved in various youth groups and a young children min-istry for many years. Together with her friends our Macro teacher travelled around Albania perform-ing as a clown and other respect-ful roles. Apparently, Lorna has not let time pass in vain. She discov-

ered many diamonds in the rough, because some of the children of her youth group have become fa-mous actors/actresses in Albania. Lorna as LCC student It is hard to imagine Lor-na any different from a confident knowledgeable woman she is to-day. But as a freshman she went through all those first impressions so familiar to LCC students: a hu-mongous history textbook which still makes us all tremble, FYS self-exploring assignments (which she found fun), and stressful first weeks of school with confusing Klaipėda weather adding to the experience. But little by little she caught the beat of the student life and got heavily involved in it. Lorna was an RA on the all-girls Karklu floor. We can be certain that there are legends about her Greek Goddesses party, or the Beach theme party with real sand all over the floor. And please don’t ask who cleaned it all up after-

EIk Tu SAu!6

wards. Lorna was also a part of the Spiritual life department, perform-ing as quite questionable charac-ters. She had to act “the bad guy” once. Another time they performed the prodigal daughter story from a perspective of a girl wanting to be an actress. Lorna has changed since those times, she says. Lorna as LCC professor Lorna starts telling about this aspect of LCC life in a very differ-ent tone of voice, very serious and concentrated. Our favorite Alba-nian had to learn a formal aspect to her, be serious in her work, but at the same time try to be in students’ shoes. The teaching of economics at LCC started for Lorna from heavy cramming on students’ national backgrounds. We might wonder sometimes how Lorna knows so much about our Motherlands, when some Westerners simply classi-fy them all as “Russia”. She can

now admit that those first sleep-less nights over encyclopedias as a professor paid off. Lornita is al-ways diverse in how she teaches, she always gives examples rele-vant to our lives, she always wants us to understand and appreciate economics. That is because Lorna cares: about our lives, about our fu-ture, and the future of our countries. Lorna after LCC This story yet remains un-written. We wish Lorna all of luck and strength as she pursues her dreams, whether it’s work-ing with World vision, a PhD pro-gram for professionals she has been accepted to, or another call-ing she might choose to follow. Dear Lorna, all LCC loves you dearly and will be cheering for all your goals to be reached. We are grateful and blessed to be a part of your life, and we thank you for changing ours!

ERASMuS In BRuSSELSBy Sara Dumitranasdumitr08@students.lcc.lt

When I first got out of the aircraft I knew that some-thing exciting and complete-ly different

is awaiting me. However, I never would have guessed what Erasmus in Brussels would really be like. Coming from two small cities (Cluj, my home town and Klaipe-da), one of the first things that I first noticed was the population density. And I am not talking (just) about the rush hours. The single thing that seems to distinguish mid-day from mid-night is the light. Pubs, restau-

rants, jazz club are all packed until late with people ready to take over the floor or just enjoy some relaxing time with anyone who is open for discussion. Speaking of the peo-ple here one word comes to mind: Babel. Walking down the street you will hear more languages than

in the European Parliament (the EU having 23 official languages). Also, if you have a taste for fash-ion Brussels is a must. Because of the cultural diversity you have all the important apparel styles start-ing with New York trends to Milan and Tokyo. Moreover, the various

nationalities are divided not only by their sense of fashion but also by neighborhoods and streets. For ex-ample, parallel to the street I live on you enter little China where “made in China” is on everything you buy. Down the street from my place ex-otic Arabia is lo-cated offering a variety of multi-colored scarves and carpers. Now that you have an idea about who lives in the city I will give you a short view of the city itself high-lighting it’s most important fea-tures. One of the most enchant-ing things about Brussels is the hypnotic smell of waffles and chocolate that draws almost against your will to the nearest chocolate store or waffle stand. Talking of food, the Belgian frites (French fries) are also a high tempta-tion with their golden crust and soft pulp (and believe it or not they are better than the McDon-ald’s ones). My advice, bring a bigger size cloth-ing wardrobe or a very strong will in order to survive the permanent enticement of the Belgian cuisine. Finally, I will briefly describe

the cherry on the cake and my rea-son for being here, the academic life at Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel. In the beginning of the ar-ticle I mentioned that Brussels is a very crowded city. Well, the same thing applies to the school. Once

you entered the main door you find yourself in a place where you bet-ter watch out for your toes. The school hallways are as crowded as the most tourist spots in Brussels.

Lunch hour in the cafeteria looks like an international youth camp, it’s so full, and the hunt for an open seat is tough. The classes look pretty much the same with the profes-sor in front talking in a microphone. Because the school fallows the Bo-

logna system the finals are heavily weighted on your grade and home assignments are rare. However, re-search projects are highly demanding and required to be built up in the most professional man-ner. Even though class attendance is not compulso-ry students don’t make a habit out of missing them because it’s hard to catch up if you do so. Also, the numbers of class-es per semester starts from 8 and up, making you work in advance for your finals even more seriously. As a last word about Erasmus in Brussels I would like to say that life gives us opportu-nities and it is up to us to take them or leave them. However, one might fear failure

and miss a great chance, but if you take God’s hand and dive in, all worst case scenarios will fade away in front of the prom-ises of greatness that He gives you.

ERASMuS In BRuSSELS8

By Gintarė Varankevičiūtėgvarank07@students.lcc.lt

According to the united sta-tistics found on Facebook, Skype, in the

hallways and in many silent, but earnest prayers - there are 16 DAYS LEFT until the end of Spring Semester 2010. Since my short re-port will be in your hands a week or so from today, it means that the number is going to be even more beautiful to many weary and heavy-eyed students. But wait…!? Is this what our life is all about? Counting down the days to Fall break, then Christmas break, then Spring break, and then finally, the BIG lifeboat by the name of ‘Summer Holidays.’ So many times, I want to slice up my life into different chunks and hop over half of them to get to the one I most enjoy. The result of this cruel slivering is that I spend half of my time trying to get to the ‘next best thing,’ which in turn re-sults in – I MISS HALF OF MY LIFE! A typical scenario looks like this: I wake up Monday morning and unconsciously start counting down the minutes until the clock hits 15:45, when my classes end. I al-low myself to enjoy this (delusional) freedom for about ten minutes or so and then, the counting starts again. Finally, by the middle of the week, the big countdown begins for the redemptive Friday. Two days later, the cruel cycle begins to spin its wheels yet again. Okay, I must ad-mit that maybe it is a slight exagger-ation of the situation, but I think you all know what I am talking about? Here is a proposition: what if we would all try to look at this from

a slightly different angle? What if I, when I wake up, not next Monday, but the next morning, stop slicing my life or my day into chunks and live it (I know this is going to sound cheesy, but here I go) as if tomorrow may not come (don’t worry –I think it will). This is what may happen then…The evening before the ‘last day’, I was sitting in front of my table on a very uncomfortable chair, listening to the cool breeze coming from my widely opened balcony. It was one of those moments when I dared to stop and allow myself to rest and be gently lulled by the sweet-ness of the unfathom-able stillness of the in-side and the outside. No special prep-arations were needed for the ‘last day.’ All it really required was for me to wake up the next morning and to simply enjoy – to know life with every sin-gle breath and be soaked in the magnificence of the present moment, the untamable ‘now.’ You are wonder-ing what happened that ‘last day?’ It turned into my ‘first day’ and from then on all my days were no longer the ‘last day.’ They were shaped and reshaped into my ‘first day.’ Since then, I of-ten find myself lost in the ceaseless amaze-ment of life and its mind-baffling mystery. I wonder what it would be like if all of us would have consciously experienced and would remember our very first breath… Maybe it sounds like a rather foolish ques-

tion, but what if we would all have that memory of our first breath? I can only guess the plausible outcomes, but I believe that it would bring so much more meaning to our daily, subconscious breathing process. I have a burning passion to know life with every single breath as if it was the first one, when I am on the bus on my way to the 8:30 class, when I sit down for a 2 hour class, when I go from classroom 204 to Neufeld Hall, when I have 4 exams in two days, when I need to write a 6-page, single-spaced paper for my C. S. Lewis class…

THE SIDE EffECTS Of SLICInG 9

By Tanya Rodi-na, the one who prefers wearing trench coatstrodina08@stu-dents.lcc.lt

Mmm, leather jackets… Al-most everyone

has at least one these days. For the last two years it seems that some sort of a virus (let’s call it leatherys-jack-etys) has been spread-ing on the planet Earth. I remember the day when I met that girl. She was an ordinary girl, and you probably would not even notice her on campus to-day, but back then… She was like a cosmonaut to me because she was wearing this weird thing on her body – a leather jacket. Today the leath-er jacket is an absolutely iconic thing. It all started with the cinema. First, there was a movie: The Wild One (1953) that showed the real beauty of a leather jacket. In that film Marlon Brando terrifically performed the main character. Just imag-ine: this 100% handsome, 100% spicy, 100% coura-geous Mr. Brando driving his shiny motorcycle, and during the whole movie he was wearing a tight black leather jacket. People on the streets started pan-icking; it was the first time when the dangerous vi-rus, leatherys-jacketys, appeared to the masses in the history of humanity. The popula-tion of Earth (girls especially) re-alized that one simply couldn’t

resist this thing; it’s contagious! “The black leather jacket has always been the uniform of the bad. Hitler's Gestapo, the Hell's Angels, the Black Panthers, punk rockers, gay bar cruisers, rock 'n' roll animals and the hardcore mu-tations of the eighties all adopted it as their own” writes English jour-nalist Mick Farren in his critically acclaimed book “The History of The Black Leather Jacket” (1985). Yes, quite often these fancy leather

jackets had some political context. For example, leather jackets were also popular among the Russian Bolsheviks. At the same time it was

nearly a uniform for the Commissars during the Russian Civil War and later for the members of the Cheka. This is a fact: bad boys love leather jackets. Just take a look at crazy and rebellious band the Ra-mones. For some time they had a monopoly on wearing leather jack-ets in punk-music. Then, some-where in the 1970s the Sex Pistols joined this trend, and leatherys-jacketys influenza was basically everywhere. Stylish jackets were

modified with railroad spikes, patches, or safety pins. From then on, leather jacket be-came sort of a canvas so everyone could show one’s individuality and unique attitude towards this meaningless life. The saddest thing about today’s fashion is that no one is trying to show his or her individu-ality through wearing a leather jacket. Almost all jackets look absolutely the same. Plus, it is of-ten a case that there is not so much leather in a leather jacket. And much of the time, the humon-gous part of all jackets is produced in Kanpur, India and Karachi, Paki-stan, so the quality is far from being perfect. The dangerous but charming virus, leather-ys-jacketys, has been modified, and now it’s just like a mosquito bite: everyone has one. Each mosquito bite looks absolutely iden-

tical and means nothing. Show your attitude! Express yourself through wearing a leather jack-et! Especially if you have one.

A JACkET THAT SHOWS YOuR ATTITuDE10

By Polina Kostyrya pkostyr08@students.lcc.lt

A couple of weeks ago a discov-ery was made: sweets and cof-fee help to keep up the mood. You, my friends, are reading the words of its founder. Some time ago I got sick and my doctor told me that I have to keep a strict diet for quite

a while. Diet meaning no sweets, coffee, fried food, etc. I am not a huge fan of sweets, but I still missed my Sunday morning coffee with a bandele. So finally when my “sentence” was over, I made myself a cof-fee with a cookie, and believe it or not, I kept smil-ing all day long. It seemed to me that it was all I re-ally needed. That is why for this edition I decided to share two fairly simple recipes for you to enjoy your Sunday morning coffee breakfast. Hope you like it!

Chocolate coffee

Mix together 1/3-cup melted chocolate, ¼ cup strong coffee and, if you wish, add some whipped cream or any other cream and sprin-kle cinnamon on the top. Another idea is to add a pinch of chili pepper to make coffee a little spicy.

Cinnamon delight

Buy already made flaky (puff) pastry, take it out of a pack, and let it thaw for 15 minutes at a room tem-perature. Preheat the oven 180 degrees. Roll out a layer about 5 mm thick and oil it so it doesn’t stick. Sprinkle the pastry with cinnamon and sugar. I usu-ally add vanilla sugar and a spicy called “chili & ca-cao”. If you don’t like cinnamon you can substitute it with nuts, chocolate or any other filling. Take one side of pastry and roll it to the middle. Do the same thing from the other side. Cut the roll into thick strips about 1-1.5 cm. Cover the pan with baking pa-per and put all the strips on it. Now, place the pan in the oven and leave it in for 15-20 minutes. Take out when you see the delights turning golden brown.

SunDAY DELIGHT 11

By Juliana Mujollari and Aina Jonuzajjmujoll08@students.lcc.lt, ajonuza07@students.lcc.lt

Are any of you going to sunny Albania this summer or simply want to wish good luck to your friends on the final ex-ams? If the answer to any of this ques-tion is yes, this information is for you!• Suksese në provime. Dalshi faqebardhë – Good luck in your exams. May you come out with white chicks :D (may you succeed)• Mos ngeltë asnjeri – May none of you fail (implied: may all of you pass)• Kalofshi një verë të mrekullueshme – May you have a wonderful summer.• Udhëtim të mbarë, kudo qe të shkoni – Have a nice trip, wherever you go!• Kujdes mos humbisni rrugëve nëpër udhëtimet alla Eu-ropiane – Be careful not to get lost in your European travels. • Fitofshi sa më shumë leke por mos harroni të bëni qejf në rradhe të pare – May you earn tons of money,

but do not forget to have fun first of all. • Mundohuni të mos harroni Izi-Shmnizin e Dimës; Qarkullimin neto te kapitalit dhe tre grafiqet e tjerë të Lornes; “Jeeeee-në” tipike të Erik Hinderlaiter; Buzeqeshjen e ëmbël të Xhon Kembëll-it edhe kur studen-tet duken shumë të hutuar, sidomos në klasën e matematikës; Mos har-roni ato 2-3 shprehje që keni mësuar në klasën e Gjermanishtes: Hallo-Ich bin…-Tschuess- Ich liebe dich!Try not to forget Dima’s easy-shmeasy; Lorna’s Net Capital Outflow and the other three graphs; Eric Hinderliter ‘s typical “YEEEAH”; John Campbell’s pretty smile even when students look confused (especially in calcu-lus class; and those 2-3 expressions you learned in German class: Hallo – Ich bin… - Tschuess – Ich liebe dich!• Marrshi sa më shumë diell dhe vitaminën D aq të munguar – May you get as much sun as possi-ble and so greatly missed Vitamin D.• Dhe për disa nga ju, mirupaf-shim – And for some of you, goodbye!

PACI fAT MIq OR

GOOD LuCk, fOLkS!

Promotion teamVaiva Pelanytė

Šarūnė TilvikaitėIveta Railaitė

Aurelija Kauneckaitė

Head of Promotion teamVaiva Čekatauskaitė

DesignAdomas Žudys

EditorsErik JohnsonSteve Hanson

Editor-in-ChiefIryna Velykokhatko

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