Recipe for Viennese Vanilla Crescents at the end!

I’m natively from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but for five years, my husband and I lived in southwest Michigan. My husband has family that live in the area, and Fernando and I were newly engaged when we first settled in the Kalamazoo area in 2009. I started attending Western Michigan University in 2011 for my master’s degree, and we got married that same year in the fall. As a graduate student, you’re limited with time off because of academic commitments, but we didn’t mind delaying our honeymoon at all. 

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” - Edith Wharton

Refugees, Self-Reliance, Development: A Critical History by Evan Easton-Calabria, published by Bristol University Press, offers a comprehensive exploration of the complex relationship between refugees and their experience of integrating in new communities. 

2023 has been an amazing year for gaming, with the release of two of some of the most favorite games of the decade, Baldur's Gate 3, and the long-anticipated sequel to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. There have been many other beautiful games released this year, but these are getting by far the most praise—and for good reason. 

Music for Shifting Times: that is what we have chosen to call this series.

One of the ideas behind it was that music—especially the sorts of music we share with you here—can offer ways to help you reflect on these changes.

Migrant and refugee women across the globe face a number of challenges, often intensified by their gender, including workplace discrimination, domestic violence, and a lack of language proficiency. These are just some of the many obstacles these women face throughout their journey of integrating.

It is imperative to recognise that that what women migrants and refugees are faced with are often a result of systemic and societal factors in their host country. 

It’s November: the time of full speed ahead. The holiday break is in sight, but there seems like there’s always more to do, more decisions to be made, more work to be done, and needing to have a more focused approach. Whether you feel like huddling under a blanket in your self-sufficient pillow fort or forging ahead with the force of a bullet train, sometimes the world doesn’t give us a choice—and the only thing left to do is the next right thing. 

What that is is anybody’s guess. It will be unequivocally different for every single one of us. 

The promotion of inclusivity and building a strong community is extremely important in our incredibly interconnected and diverse world. Imagine you have just arrived in your new country, Scotland, after looking for safety by fleeing your home country.

You are unsure where to start with language, employment, education, groceries, housing, and cultural integration.