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Emina Stojkovic: An Easier Marathon by Jennifer Randolph '00 Now that Emina Stojkovic has lived through the pain of last spring, the rigors of training four months for a marathon seemed simple. Emina grew up in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia. She came to the US in '95 as an exchange student and then decided to come to St. Olaf. Her parents and brotbrother were in Belgrade during the bombing last spring. "The phone lines were dead," Emina says. "There was no way to know how they were doing, whether a bomb had hit our house or not. I would never wish what I lived through on anyone." She thanks amazing support for helping her get through that, including good friends, understanding profs, and benefits like the Peace and Justice drives for food and clothing that were donated to refugees. When the bombing was finally over, she was so thankful that her family and house were okay, and she wanted to do something original and challenging. "To live through violence is the hardest thing in the world," she says, "so a marathon is easy." Before, she ran sometimes; starting in June she trained for four months until the Twin Cities Marathon Oct 3. At the race she wore a shirt that said "Running for Peace" in English, and in her own language she added "Running for my mother, my father, and my brother." She finished in four hours and twenty minutes. Emina says she cried when she crossed the line. "It meant so much to me--hard, but not close to how hard the bombing was." Now Emina is getting ready to run Grandma's Marathon in Duluth in June 2000. First, however, she's looking forward to going home for Christmas, the first time she'll see her family since the bombing. She says she would like to return to Serbia after grad school in molecular biology and genetics. "Things in Belgrade are very bad right now," she adds sadly. "It would be difficult because there's not much science going on right now because the economy's so poor. But yes, I want to go back. I love my country."
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