By Christopher Wink | August 29, 2005 | Travel Reflection Africa was not real to me.  It was imaginary; I saw a place where elephants roam and people starve.  I saw children with flies around their faces in villages and huts and tribes.  I saw in stereotypes and misunderstandings and prejudices and lies.  That was all [...]

By Christopher Wink | May 25, 2006 | Travel Reflection I have proudly represented Temple University on service immersion trips before. I have had South Dakotan ground beneath my feet before, too. Moreover, I have been with Jason Riley in a rental car and with John Dimino on an airplane before. Still, it is easy to [...]

By Christopher Wink | March 18, 2006 Temple University sent 23 of us to Laredo, Texas to work with Habitat for Humanity. We slept on the ground of vacant classrooms, took less-than-hot showers, and worked a watered-down form of construction from 8am until 4pm daily. For those unfamiliar with what the phrase college spring break [...]

By Christopher Wink | January 28, 2005 On a recent trip to poverty ravaged Tijuana, I could not help but see the irony, clichéd as it may be, of a border wall – that divides with great tumult the U.S. and Mexico – extending into the serenity of the Pacific Ocean. It is unreal to [...]

By Christopher Wink | Dec. 19, 2006 | Final JYA blog post UPDATE Feb. 12, 2011: All my NBCU JYA writing, video and photo work has been transferred to subdomain japan.christopherwink.com. Things are easier on this side. I realized that when I woke up and, in my persistently active manner, decided I had to go the [...]

Christopher Wink | Aug. 28, 2006 | First JYA blog post UPDATE Feb. 12, 2011: All my NBCU JYA writing, video and photo work has been transferred to subdomain japan.christopherwink.com. Everyone who is in Japan raise your hand. Note: I am typing with one hand. Clever, I know. I am writing to you in my [...]

By Christopher Wink | Nov. 29, 2006 | Tokyo, Japan UPDATE Feb. 12, 2011: All my NBCU JYA writing, video and photo work has been transferred to subdomain japan.christopherwink.com. I will go home on December 8, 2006. There is a ticket that asserts I will be traveling to a place unknown to the part of me [...]

By Christopher Wink | May 23, 2006 It was January 16, 2006 that I was offered and I accepted an internship with the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was that very Monday that I accepted a position I hadn’t expected to get, a position with the city desk of a large, historical, urban daily. I think about the [...]