I have to admit that I never thought I’d be doing this. I feel like I’ve joined Alcoholic’s Anonymous. Alright, here we go, let’s introduce ourselves:

My name is Christina Paschyn, and I am a…um…gulp…blogger.

Oh God, I said it. I just admitted it. How did it ever come to this? I never thought I’d be one to join the revolution that is blogging. What’s the point, right? I don’t have time to type long, eloquent prose every day, every week or really ever year. I owned several diaries in my youth, all of which I never could be bothered to finish. There were just too many pages to fill up and too many unspoken thoughts to write down. How can I possibly be expected to maintain a blog long enough to attract interested readers?

But hey, let’s just hope that third time (or is it fourth, fifth, sixth maybe?) is a charm.

So, once again, here we go:

Yes, my name is Christina Paschyn, and I am a blogger. A travel blogger to be exact, hence my site’s title “Somewhere Beyond the Sea.” Recently I graduated with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. My time at Northwestern can be summed up in seven meager words: the best four years of my life!!! (Please note the triple exclamation mark.)

Yet while each year had its special moments, the highlight of my university career had to be junior year.

Why junior year? As any college student knows, that’s the year you tell all of your earnest, erudite professors to piss off while you devote your days to lounging in a foreign, exotic and hopefully cheap city. That’s right…it’s time for study abroad!

I spent the fall quarter of 2005 at the American University in Cairo. At the risk of becoming a walking cliche, I am not ashamed to say that those three months were the most life-altering three months of my life. Prior to 2005, I had never really traveled outside of the cultural borders of the grand ole U, S of A.

Sure I had been to Canada, but every American can attest that doesn’t really count. I spent my freshman spring break in Paris, but two weeks of running down the the Champs-Elysees didn’t achieve enlightenment. And then there’s that summer of high school which I passed exploring the developing country of Ukraine. I guess that counts, right?

Not quite. My whole family is ethnically Ukrainian – 100% baby! And since I had grown up spending all of my Saturdays locked up in Ukie school, all of my Thursday nights at Ukie dancing and all of my Wednesday afternoons at excruciatingly tedious Bandura lessons (our harp-sounding, guitar-shaped national instrument)…let’s just say it wasn’t an entirely different experience.

Egypt, however, WAS the utterly new adventure I had been craving. Although in the beginning I felt as if I had landed on a different planet, I quickly fell in love with the country and its complicated history, wonderful people and beautiful culture. In such a short post, I can’t even begin to describe how Cairo transformed me personally and intellectually for the better. But let’s just say it opened my eyes to the sad fact that I had been setting my horizons short.

In many ways the spring quarter of junior year also turned out to be a similar phenomenal experience: I traveled to Johannesburg to report for the television station, E News. Lastly that summer I interned at the CBS News bureau in…wait for it…London. To say the least, I truly was the envy of my Alpha Phi sorority sisters.

But all of that is in the past; now it is time for me to embark on a new mission of cultural, religious and political understanding. One that will challenge my beliefs and perceptions of the Middle East and will force me to reexamine my own place in the field of journalism.

Last week I landed in Tel-Aviv.

No, I haven’t come to make aliyah (although I will be living in one country for more than three months, a pretty remarkable feat in itself).

I was awarded a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship to study for a master’s degree in Middle East studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Above all, my Rotary duties include promoting international goodwill, peace and understanding.

Needless to say I am determined to serve Rotary International well during the upcoming year. And I am steadfast in my resolve to make the Rotary Club of Parma, Ohio, proud of their hometown ambassador.

But now back to my post’s main topic: Despite all of my whining, I regret not having kept any sort of a journal of my exploits in Cairo and Joburg. And that is why this time I want to do it right. So I hope you enjoy reading about my very own Middle East odyssey.

That is if I can be bothered to write anything…