Junior cinema major Max Cantor won first place in the 2009 Isabella Cannon Centre for International Studies Study Abroad Essay Contest.
Cantor studied abroad in Dublin, Ireland, in the fall of 2008. His essay, titled “The Winding Stair,” is a story of Max “finding (himself) in Dublin comprised of imaginings and half-truths.”
An excerpt of the story follows:
“The key to living in Dublin is throwing away the fanciful Irish myths inherited from so many romantic movies and sentimental great-grandparents. To live in Dublin you have to filter out the noise – see the streetlights bouncing off the puddles. Go to South William St. and find the graffiti of the weeping angel and look into her crying eyes. You have to see the way the overcast sky casts a faint light on every fair Irish face, flattening their pale complexions; see how the soft sky’s quiet, white light reveals every wrinkle and memory on their skin, every last flicker of a smile still imprinted in their bleary blue eyes. You have to see Dublin for what it really is, not what we want it to be. It’s not a place for pretty postcards.”
Junior strategic communications major Caroline Matthews received an honorable mention for her essay.