AROUND THE HIVE

 

After some 15 hours of bus-tripping and ill air-conditioning (say nothing of the five hours I spent on the Serbian border, because our bus broke down), I arrived in Budapest. They say one should always look for the golden mean, and in that case it was definitely Obudai Island on the Danube, right between Buda and Pest, where Sziget Fest has been taking place every first week of August for the last 15 years.

While many AUBG students hurry to their classes grumpy and dissatisfied, consumed in daily routines, they often fail to notice and enjoy the charm of AUBG life. For an outsider, it seems to be different. Saskia Troycke thinks the AUBG campus is admirable, and finds Balkan culture, as well as chalga music, "interesting and different". Coming from a place near Munich, Saskia is in Bulgaria on a quest for an exciting cultural experience.

The student newspaper from the Foreign Language High School Romen Rolan of Stara Zagora won the first AUBG-organized high school competition in journalism. The competition was organized by the AUBG Admissions Office together with the JMC department. A total of 16 high school newspapers fulfilled the requirements and participated in the contest.

The Vasil Levski High School from Velingrad and the Foreign Language High School Lyudmil Stoyanov from Blagoevgrad won the second and third places, respectively.

 

From this year forward, alumni of the American University in Bulgaria will have access to the Alumni Lifetime Email Service. The service is hosted by Google and more than 290 graduating seniors already have access to the service.

 

 

Sushi has arrived in Blagoevgrad for the month of March and the bite-sized pieces of raw fish and rice taste fresh, out-of-the-ordinary and wonderful, if not exactly Japanese.

Arm wrestling is a sport that requires strength, concentration and a mastering of its techniques and strategies. Becoming an arm wrestler takes a lot of physical preparation and regular exercise in the gym. This may sound like a man’s sport, but Elena Dimitrova, a Bulgarian arm wrestling champion and an AUBG guard, will tell you that even if you are a woman it only takes determination to become a successful athlete.

More than one hundred students, faculty and administration members attended a lecture held by Ivan Stancioff, former Bulgarian ambassador at large and Bulgarian minister of foreign affairs among other titles, on February 9 in the New Academic Building Auditorium. The event was part of the Ambassador Elena Poptodorova Distinguished Lecture Series.

Over 50 AUBGers attended the Business Etiquette presentation by Kristina Krantcheva, founder and director of CM Consulting. Krantcheva talked about the dos and don’ts of business protocol, Bulgarian and international business manners, and answered students’ questions. The event was organized by the AUBG Business Club on February 10 in the New Academic Building Auditorium.

 

There have been many epics in the movie industry - starting with Gone with the Wind and ending with Emmerich's 2012 - but Avatar pretty much obliterates everything that has been done before.

 

The number of stray dogs around campus decreased last week after the Residence Life and Housing office asked the Blagoevgrad municipality to relocate them off campus.

 

Sometimes there are no words to express the sadness. Sometimes there is no time to spend watching a movie as bad as New Moon. Kudos to me for not actually leaving the theatre 30 minutes after the movie started, but then again, it had some good moments, albeit a few.

 

Even though the Bulgarian Health Ministry declared a national swine flu (H1N1) epidemic on November 6, the number of AUBG students with flu like symptoms is going down. Unless the situation changes, AUBG will not cancel classes.