I had been waiting for the opening words of prof Tõnu Lehtsaar because he has been one of the most loved lecturers in the department of theology during the five long years. I had been one of his students. He is an amazing teacher and a very good speaker. But only when he speaks Estonian. I know that he has spent several years in the US studying psychology and so I was quite …show more content…
The most memorable aspect in her presentation was the description of a three-folded identity of an Estonian immigrant in Canada – Estonian, Canadian and Diaspora identity. This theme is meaningful for me. My best friend lives in Sweden for the third year and her biggest problem is the feeling of homelessness. She tells me that she never feels at home – when she is in Estonia, she feels alienated; when she is in Sweden, she feels that she doesn't belong there either. I think she has a split personality and she agrees.
Keith Battarbee’s paper on the push and pull immigration model contained some new information for me. I assume that the push and pull model in immigration theories is a very trivial theme for the sociologists but I didn't know anything about this before listening to him. It was a good presentation – easy to understand, no strong accent and listeners didn't have to know anything about the immigration models before listening to him.
Another presentation that was easily understandable and followable was Raili Põldsaar’s paper on gender equality in the political platforms of three bigger parties in Canada. This paper also did not require any preknowledge on the …show more content…
I would have really liked to go to the A- workshop but this was extremely full. So I had to go to the B-workshop but I did not understand a word the speakers spoke there. To be exact, I understood the words but the presentations were meaningless for me, as I had not had a chance to read any of these books discussed in the workshop. I believe that the precondition to participating in any literary seminars or workshops is reading the books discussed there. For me the presentations were just the retellings of some books that were strange for me.
Parallel session III put also some hard decisions on me. Room 140 was extremely full because a lot of people participating the conference do not feel themselves comfortable with French. In room 102 two presentations were in French and naturally everybody wanted to listen to the English presentations. But there was no chance for me. I had to go the Room 102 despite the fact that the only word I know in French is oui. It would have been really nice if there had been some kind of translation