Hey to all,

Sorry for the lack of entries, but as school has started there hasn't been much going on, other than getting into the swing of things for the semester. But, even though I don't have too much to say tonight, I would like to give everyone an update on how things are going.

In terms of classes, I couldn't ask for a better situation to be in. As most of the material is information which I have covered to some degree at UNC, I am able to focus on the spoken Spanish instead of trying to scribble notes as fast as I can in preparation for the tests. However, one class has captured almost all of my interest, because of both the professor and the material; Greek Philosophy. The professor is a quirky man in his upper 60's who loves to change the tone of his voice in the middle of his sentences, tells the most random stories which end up being very relevant to the topic at hand, as well as laughs hysterically at both his own jokes and simple things which, to the normal person, only bring about a slight grin. He also likes to express his opinions on finance and business majors while praising the arts and humanities, as well as their value in education. Basically what I am trying say is that he is 100% my type of guy (no offense to the business or finance majors, respectable careers). Also, the fact that we are reading the likes of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Heraclitus doesn't do any damage to my opinion of him or the class (oh, and one other thing, we can also turn in our tareas in English).

As far as the social life goes, I must say, once again, that I believe I am in a pretty fortunate situation. Here, the international students really are international, instead of the title being synonymous with American students. As about 30 students are from France and 40 are from the USA, the rest of the students are composed of a sampling of countries such as England, Germany, Holland, Austria, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Colombia, and Canada. There is even a student a small French island off the northern coast of Madagascar.

Apart from all of these extranjeros, we had the good fortune of coming across a group of 3 Mexican students one of the first nights here, a completely random occurrence. As it turns out, we ended up making 3 pretty good Mexican friends, and a bunch of other Mexican acquaintances. Over the past couple of weekends, we have been hanging out with Ricardo, Rafael, and Daniel a lot, more so than with other gringos, and have some pretty good stories to tell from our adventures (pictures to come soon).

Speaking of adventures, we are planning to take a road trip down to Oaxaca this weekend, which I plan to share on the blog in both words and photos. It should be a great time, as we have all heard great things about the city, as well as Monte Albán, the ancient Zapotec city which is now a pretty impressive archaeological site. If you don't know much about Oaxaca wah-HAH-cah) or Monte Albán, check out the links to the Wikipedia pages which I have provided for you (if you have made it this far in reading my blog, I know you have time to do so).

I hope everyone has a great weekend, stay warm, cheer for the heels (I hear that they need it), and if you have a burning desire to do so, send me a package! I finally figured out my address today, so I have it listed at the bottom of the blog. If your not interested in sending me anything, you can get onto GoogleEarth and check out where I live (packages preferred).

Take care.

Ciao,

Address:

TO BE UPDATED