Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Creaive Writing Summer Camp

After the huge success last year, the U.S. Embassy in partnership with Writers in the Schools of Houston, Texas, will organize again the Creative Writing Workshops!
These workshops are hosted by the American Corners in Macedonia.

“Writers in the Schools” Writer and Professor Merrilee Cunningham, is traveling to Macedonia again. She will spend three weeks in Macedonia, leading the creative writing workshops in Skopje, Bitola and Tetovo

The groups were completely filled only few days after the announcement was sent out, and there even was a large waiting list.

Here are some pictures from Bitola and Skopje and Tetovo:

Ambassador Reeker vsisted the AC BItola Workshop


The atmosphere during in AC Skopje


The Camp in AC Tetovo



Read more on Merrilee's blog : The Macedonian Expess

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Observing the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Moon Landing


July 20, 1969: One Giant Leap For Mankind

At 10:56 p.m. EDT Armstrong is ready to plant the first human foot on another world. With more than half a billion people watching on television, he climbs down the ladder and proclaims: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Read the full story here. (nasa.gov)



at the American Corner Skopje:

"40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Landing"
With Charles Hornbostel, Consular Officer at the US Embassy in Skopje
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

A multimedia-rich commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing was held by Mr. Hornbostel who the audience was already familiar with as this was his third presentation at the Corner this year.
The 20 attendees enjoyed the brief overview of the origins of spaceflight and the 1960s space race between the United States and the Soviet Union that culminated in the Apollo 11 landing on July 20th, 1969.

The video clips from the JFK library and NASA websites brought all of us back in time as the voice of President Kennedy and his “The Race is On” speech filled out the room. Everyone got a glimpse of the countdown and the lift off of Apollo 11. Tribute was paid to the astronauts and cosmonauts who were lost along the way.

Thanks to Mr. Hornbostel’s Undergraduate degree in air and space engineering very insightful and professional explanations providing evidence were given to those doubting that the landing ever took place.

Many were wondering why the next mission is going to take place in 2014 and why the moon has not been inhabited yet. In the long discussion that followed different opinions were offered on the matter. The members of the Skopje Astronomic Society who were in the audience took part in the discussion too and invited everyone present to attend their celebration of the landing of Apollo 11 which is going to take place next week.

See part of the media presented during Mr. Hornbostel's talk: