July 21: Grace's farewell speech

Hi my name is Grace Anshutz, 16 years old and from the United States. Pretty standard introduction for the past 3 weeks in GYI.  Introductions, the first vital step in communicating with others. Usually formal and not very personal, Introductions are not always fun but very important because communication is how we solve problems.

Food Security, a problem all the GYI participants have come to know very well. Through field trips, research, and presentations we have become experts on the subject. And in one way or another we all learned, communication is vital to solving the problem. Whether is communicating between farmers and the governments or organizations and companies it has to happen. This is just one way GYI has enhanced my communication skills.

Another means of communicating in GYI is social networking. Social networking has become a main source of communication for teenagers around the world.  If you don’t have a facebook or twitter you feel almost like a minority in today’s world.  You might ask what does social networking have to do with GYI? Well I can tell you about the evolution of it. From first requesting other members of GYI to be your “friend” and not knowing if you have found the right person to sneaking onto each others accounts while the user is not looking to change their status to something completely crazy or funny. We all have bonded over the use of Facebook. Facebook has also allowed us to get in touch with the whole group quickly; you’d be amazed how many times we log on a day to check your wall, inbox, or status. I can’t count the times the GYI group has posted a question and it has been answered almost immediately. Problem solved! But most importantly Facebook will allow us to continue our communication and friendships. I cannot wait to see all the pictures everyone will upload and having to use an online translator to translate the statuses of all my new international friends.

And the last and most fun kind of communicating I have learned about in GYI is the nonverbal communication found on the dance floor. Tuesday night after a long weekend in Chicago a few of us girls decided to go out dancing. After putting on our evenings best and giggling the whole way there we piled out of the car and onto the dance floor. We danced for 2 hours and laughed the whole time. The music was so loud we couldn’t talk but you knew what everyone would say, this is the time of our lives. Another dancing GYI experience came last night when another group gathered to play just dance, a fun dancing game on the wii. We grabbed remotes and random partners and every other song switched user. Many pictures and videos were taken and hopefully never to be seen again but even they cannot capture the true fun of the night.  I will never again dance without thinking of all the fun I had with the GYI dancers.

So back to introductions. After the life changing experiences I have had the last 3 weeks with GYI I can now enter the 2011 school year with a much more fun introduction, Hi my name is Grace Anshutz, 16, international communicator, Facebook translator, and crazy dancer.