This year I met 15 young people like Daniela, who is currently studying neurology at Carleton University. These young people had the opportunity to spend six weeks in the homeland of their parents and grandparents and gain some experience in their chosen professions. All of them felt the same as she did: they had experienced something extraordinary, gained more self-confidence, increased their knowledge of the Lithuanian language, and while becoming stronger as Lithuanians, they had gotten the priceless chance to put into practice what they had learned at their universities.<\/p>\n
Samantha Grigas is studying geography and anthropology at the University of Southern Maine. She had the opportunity to come into contact with\u00a0the past in a very real way \u2014 one of her assignments was to collect and categorize bones of people who had lived several centuries ago.<\/p>\n Dovil\u0117 Svirupskait\u0117 is studying political science at Western Illinois University, while Gabriel\u0117 Bieliauskait\u0117 is in the international studies program at Denison University. Both of them were happy to get some practical experience at two different government institutions: the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania and the City Council of Vilnius. The young ladies had the opportunity to meet the new mayor of Vilnius, Remigijus \u0160ima\u0161ius. They also came up with a Best Worker of the Month Contest. The winner would be allowed to park next to the mayor\u2019s car. \u201cIt is odd that the Vilnius City government has not had such contests before,\u201d\u00a0said Dovil\u0117. \u201cMaybe that is why the workers accepted our proposal so enthusiastically.\u201d<\/p>\n These two young ladies were not the only ones whose work caught everybody\u2019s attention. \u017dygimantas Katar\u017eis, who is studying electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago, helped install audio-signals into the traffic lights in Vilnius this summer. When he returns to the capital next year, he will be able to enjoy the results of his labors.<\/p>\n This summer the group of 15 college students was supplemented by eight high school students, who studied Lithuanian at the Language School of Klaip\u0117da University. They also did volunteer work at the Botanical Gardens and the Sea Museum of Klaip\u0117da University. All of them are Americans with Lithuanian roots. They came to Lithuania from places as far away as Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n The high school students had a lot of new experiences: they got to make potato pancakes with Sigita \u0160imkuvien\u0117, the president of the American Lithuanian Community, they saw the dolphin show at the Sea Museum, and they even got to shake hands with President Dalia Grybauskait\u0117!<\/p>\n The LISS program was founded in 2004 by the late Birut\u0117 Bublien\u0117. Four years later it became part of the activities of the American Lithuanian Community. It has become one of the most successful projects undertaken by this organization. The program seeks to put the vision of Birut\u0117 Bublien\u0117 into practice. This year Ina Stankevi\u010dien\u0117 was the coordinator of the program, while Auks\u0117 Motto worked with the high school students.<\/p>\n At the inception of the LISS program, Draugas correspondent Aurelija Tamo\u0161i\u016bnait\u0117 spoke with Birut\u0117 Bublien\u0117. Bublien\u0117 was convinced that the internship program for college and high school students would be an excellent opportunity for them to challenge themselves by living on their own in Lithuania. It would also provide them an opportunity to gain experience in a specific field and a chance to develop contacts with Lithuanian specialists, scientists and businessmen. An internship in Lithuania would be a way to strengthen knowledge of the Lithuanian language, not only by improving everyday conversational Lithuanian, but also by teaching Lithuanian terminology for specific fields of study. In addition, an internship in Lithuania would provide the interns with an excellent opportunity to become familiar with the cultural life of Lithuania, to travel around the country, to learn various traditions, to make friends and to find common ground with the young people in the country. This summer\u2019s interns were able to experience all of this and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By\u00a0DALIA CIDZIKAIT\u0116. The title of this article is not an allusion to the Talking Heads song from 1980 \u201cOnce in a Lifetime,\u201d which is included in the list of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame\u2019s \u201c500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.\u201d I heard these words from Daniela \u0160ablinskas, a Canadian-Lithuanian who visited Lithuania …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[112,79],"class_list":["post-1997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-music","tag-cidzikaite-d","tag-draugas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"LISS](\"http:\/\/draugas.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Untitled_Clipping_011516_042301_PM-300x254.jpg\")
Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskait\u0117, during the Sea Festival in Klaip\u0117da.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"Samantha](\"http:\/\/draugas.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Untitled_Clipping_011516_042335_PM-252x300.jpg\")
![\"Dovil\u0117](\"http:\/\/draugas.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Untitled_Clipping_011516_042732_PM-198x300.jpg\")