Introductory Blog Post About Myself

Dear reader,

I’m Coco Bink and have lived in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. for 5 years now. It’s been an incredible journey full of new opportunities and experiences. These years will forever have an impact on who I am and who I will become in the future. I have learned how to be an international open-minded student who cares for the people around and appreciates the variety of cultural distinctions. I’m originally from The Netherlands, Amsterdam in specific, which is a very busy and fascinating city known for its significant canal houses and modernist architecture. However, arriving in the U.A.E. was everything but what I expected. I thought of Abu Dhabi as a very desert-rich conservative culture while in fact I have never lived in such a culturally diverse country. Eventually Raha has encouraged me to become socially very interactive with over 60 different nationalities with each their individual languages. Language has therefore been playing a big role in my life and it has become an important skill to communicate in different languages across the globe. It has also increased my interest in studying languages in the future, although my real passion is dedicated to industrial design and architecture. English is a very influential and global language. Almost in every country they speak a little bit of English, which has never really created any exclusion due to language barriers. Do you even need to know a language to be able to communicate? I don’t think so! If your speaking is very limited in a certain language you can still communicate with each other through gestures. Body language is almost as important as speaking a language in my opinion. You can understand a lot behind one single facial expression or a certain hand gesture.

As for my personal journey through the English Language, I'm not a native speaker and before 4 years ago I did not speak a word. It was an incredible transition, which I will cherish forever! I think that language does not only expand your knowledge on diverse grammatical rules and communication skills, it carries a cultural value too. The use of a language shapes your identity to an extent where people are able to identify your travel experiences, your origin or even determine your personal relationship to a culture. Lucky me this Language and Literature course enables me to delve into such contemplations! I never knew the explicit value of studying English (or any language) until I entered Raha. It's a privilege to be introduced to such high quality teaching and having the opportunity to develop hidden talents. In Grade 7, when my level of English was about as low as my confidence in English, I hated it! It was horrible, nothing interested me and I could not understand a single word. Looking at how far I have come has made me realize how passionate I became about the subject English. I would like to inspire the next person who reads this and is going through the same phase as I did in Grade 7 and tell them to never give up. Language in the end is something that develops naturally over time and significantly improves. If I can do it, you can. It's all about willpower and being a 'risk-taker' as a drilled IB student would say. The photo below is actually shot by myself in the Nike store. I like taking photographs of inspiring and motivating things. It is a visual image to remind yourself that there is always a purpose or a reason to undertake a challenge.

I hope you enjoyed Coco's autobiography in a nutshell and feel free to ask me anything!

#stayclassy