美国国家公共电台 NPR--Unlikely connection: college students in Ukraine and the U.S. form a bond

Unlikely connection: college students in Ukraine and the U.S. form a bond

Transcript¹

A few years ago, Daria Samotuga was living a typical college student's life, in the dorms at Alfred Nobel University in Dnipro. The war forced her to move to her hometown of Kryvyi Rih, about two hours away. Now, she rarely leaves the house, which is near the city's air raid sirens.

"It's really loud every day, every night," Samotuga tells NPR's Leila Fadel on Morning Edition. "At first it was really scary. At night, you didn't sleep because you're just sitting and waiting for something, I don't know. But right now it doesn't influence my life."

Before the war, Daria Samotuga attended classes in-person at Alfred Nobel University in Dnipro, Ukraine.

Daria Samotuga

But Samotuga's life is also shaped by a new set of relationships — with American college students. She and other students in her master's program in Dnipro have been meeting — over Zoom² — with undergraduate students at Colorado School of Mines since early February.

The idea: American students would learn about life in Ukraine during the war, and the Ukrainians would learn American cultural references to help them if they took up work as Ukrainian-English translators.

Bonding over memes

One of the first class assignments was to share memes with one another: Shrek, the road work ahead vine and the trend of trying to work but ending up in bed were a few favorites.

"We're all still young adults with the same garbage sense of humor," says Kate Diamond, who studies mechanical engineering at Colorado School of Mines.

At first, the American students were apprehensive³ about talking about the war with their newfound friends. But the Ukrainians showed them how.

The last class session with students from Alfred Nobel University in Dnipro, Ukraine, and science and engineering students from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo.

Kenneth Osgood

"At one point in a conversation, one of the Ukrainian students mentioned her experience in the war and no one responded," Colorado School of Mines professor Kenneth Osgood tells NPR. "They said, 'Well, we don't want to re-traumatize them.'"

Osgood decided⁵ to bring in a therapist to show the class how to support their Ukrainian classmates going through trauma⁴.

"In reality, humor is one of the greatest instruments for protecting our mental state," Yan Samosiienko, a Ukrainian student wrote on Discord⁶. "We make jokes not because we are indifferent, but because we have adapted to it. Something is funny when it is absurd. And it's hard to imagine anything more absurd than Russia and its narratives⁷."

College during a war

One of the class projects was filming a day-in-the-life vlog. It turned out that the students' lives were comparable in many ways — other than the air raid sirens.

In her vlog, Darina Dorokhina, 21, is sitting in her shelter with her cat. "Let's go to our shelter due to alarm," she narrates⁸. "Here we are sitting in the corridor. Reality sucks."

"After more than one year of war, it doesn't scare me anymore," her classmate, Eva Kusch, says, as she bolts a window shut on her vlog entry.

Alfred Nobel students attend classes online because of the war. Professor Tamara Ishchenko, Samotuga's instructor⁹ in Dnipro, says she spends around five hours in her shelter each day.

"We are about 100 kilometers from the front line, so we are regularly bombed by missiles," Ishchenko says. "In the university, we do have a shelter, but our students come from different towns and cities of Ukraine and we'd have to arrange bomb shelters in the hostels¹⁰ and dorms. We also would [need to] provide local authorities with the proof of extreme necessity to work offline."

Finding similar threads between Ukraine and the U.S.

Although the American students obviously do not share the experiences of attending college during war, design engineering student Hannah Weist, 21, says the constant threat of missiles in Ukraine reminds her of the constant threat of gun violence in schools in the U.S.

"There's often been lockdowns in high school for me," she tells NPR's Leila Fadel. "I know the feeling of being in that kind of environment, and how scary it is, and how you might just have to go numb¹¹ to continue what you're doing."

Weist wrote a poem contrasting her experiences at the Colorado School of Mines with the lives of her Ukrainian peers. In Colorado, she writes, students feel sick because of drinking and partying; in Dnipro, students feel sick from the anxiety of war. In Colorado, students hear the blast of homemade fireworks and in Dnipro, students hear explosions from missiles.

Samotuga says that she used to celebrate New Year's with fireworks. Now, she says that the war has ruined fireworks for her and, she suspects, the rest of Ukraine.

Not your typical college course

Although the Ukrainian and American students only meet bi-weekly on Zoom, they chat on Discord every day. They found easy connections in pet photos, mysterious geological formations and — of course — Taylor Swift.

They created their own slang dictionary together on Discord with definitions for words like "fire," "lit," and "hot potato."

"When you are just talking about daily life and suddenly [an American says] hot potato — what is it?" Samotuga says. She likes that she can talk about silly things on Discord, and says it takes her mind off of the constant thrum of war.

"I try to not talk about war as much [with American peers] because I hear about it every day," Samotuga adds. "I really appreciated that friends from USA were quite understanding. They agree to talk about everything; what animals I found in my garden and about scams in Dnipro and about music, movies as well."

The students plan to keep chatting on Discord and say they hope to meet in person one day.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 zoom   

n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升

参考例句：

• The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
• I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近，昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。

3 apprehensive   

adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的

参考例句：

• She was deeply apprehensive about her future.她对未来感到非常担心。
• He was rather apprehensive of failure.他相当害怕失败。

4 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 discord   

n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐

参考例句：

• These two answers are in discord.这两个答案不一样。
• The discord of his music was hard on the ear.他演奏的不和谐音很刺耳。

7 narratives   

记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分

参考例句：

• Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning. 结婚一向是许多小说的终点，然而也是一个伟大的开始。
• This is one of the narratives that children are fond of. 这是孩子们喜欢的故事之一。

8 narrates   

v.故事( narrate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• It narrates the unconstitutional acts of James II. 它历数了詹姆斯二世的违法行为。 来自辞典例句
• Chapter three narrates the economy activity which Jew return the Occident. 第三章讲述了犹太人重返西欧后的经济活动。 来自互联网

9 instructor   

n.指导者，教员，教练

参考例句：

• The college jumped him from instructor to full professor.大学突然把他从讲师提升为正教授。
• The skiing instructor was a tall,sunburnt man.滑雪教练是一个高高个子晒得黑黑的男子。

10 hostels   

n.旅舍，招待所( hostel的名词复数 )；青年宿舍

参考例句：

• The students were protesting at overcrowding in the university hostels. 学生们在抗议大学宿舍过于拥挤。 来自辞典例句
• Are there any cheap hostels in Nanjing for one person? 南京有没有便宜的旅店可以一个人住？ 来自互联网

11 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。