First Post

I have set up the blog for my trip, coming up on Sept 12/2005. From this blog, I will write my thoughts and reports of where I am to the world. My trip is certainly an intersting one, since I am staying in one conflict torn city and eventually making my way to another conflict torn city. Those two cities are Belfast and Jerusalem.

I am going to Belfast to undergo research for my program, Peace and Conflict Studies, at the University of Toronto. I will be in Northern Ireland for two months exactly, researching my topic of 'Reconciliation of Youth Identity: Single and Shared Identity Issues'. Yup, it's a big topic, but to sum it down, I am looking at the issue of a reconciled national identity amongst youth in Northern Ireland. I intend to meet with organizations involved in reconciliation and community relations work, and to hopefully even go about with activities of my own with youth on my research. Above all that, I will also be exploring the conflict by simply being there, and report on it with this blog.

In Jerusalem, I will be mainly doing classes in Hebrew so I can finally learn to read and write in the language, and to also hopefully do some work there with my research. Jerusalem at the moment for me is not so clear, but I have some idea what I want to do there.

So, there ya go. I am hyped for this trip, and it is now three weeks till I leave. Stay posted.

Jonny