A Day in the Life of a Fulbright Scholar: Jennifer Lawhorne
As the NSO begins recruiting candidates for next year’s Fulbright Award cycle, we will be highlighting thefive VCU students currently studying and working across the globe with the support of their Fulbright grant. These will feature a sample “Day in the Life”, to celebrate the endless opportunities a Fulbright grant can provide!
This week, we’re showcasing Jen Lawhorne (VCU master’s of science degree in cinema studies and language, ’13) of Woodbridge, Virginia, who is presently pursuing community-based research in Messina, Sicily through a participatory filmmaking project.
| Name | Jen Lawhorne |
| Country | Italy |
| How I spend my mornings | I spend my mornings harvesting fresh oranges from my backyard so I can juice them and enjoy them with breakfast while gazing upon the Strait of Messina from my terrace. I follow breakfast with some reading of media and research. |
| How I spend my afternoons | During the afternoon, I usually meet with my students who are involved with my participatory video project in Messina, Sicily. We do a number of things together: watch documentaries that we later analyze, talk about what we want to film, review footage that we have filmed and edit our footage. |
| How I spend my evenings | At the end of the day, I usually make dinner with friends. People eat late around here and evenings are reserved for being social. Sometimes, however, I prefer to be anti-social and work on my project. |
| What I do in my free time | I try to go on as many adventures as possible to discover as much about Sicily as I can. Sicily is a beautiful place resplendent with beaches, coastlines and mountains. I try to hike them and ride my bike near them as much as possible. |
| My go-to meals | I love cooking and I spend a lot of time learning local recipes because Sicilian food is so delicious. I love researching recipes and going to the food markets to get ingredients. When I’m on-the-go, one of my guilty pleasures is eating an arancino- a fried rice ball filled with cheese and sauce. |
Who do I interact with every day?
The people that I interact with everyday are immigrants and refugees from Africa and
Southern Asia. I’m conducting research about using participatory video to convey
displaced people’s experiences, so I’m teaching different immigrants and refugees to
produce videos about their lives. I also interact with local people from Messina. I
made a few friends here when I studied abroad at the University of Messina in 2013,
so I’ve been fortunate to rekindle those relationships.
What am I seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting every day?
Messina is a wonderful, chaotic mess of so many noises, sights, flavors and smells. It’s
a hilly city on the sea directly across from mainland Italy. While we have majestic,
sweeping views of the Strait of Messina, fresh produce on sale on the streets, and
cafes to enjoy, there is also a lot of traffic, congestion and problems with basic
government administration. There are also refugees walking all over the place and
you regularly see them being brought in on Coast Guard boats after they’ve been
rescued at sea. Living in Sicily can be difficult, but I like the challenge of it. There’s
so much to learn from this place with a history of 3,000 years of human civilization.
Categories Fulbright Award, NSO Student Features