Arrived at Flow House!

Actually I've been here since Friday, but it's been such a whirlwind I've just now sat down to update le blog. This house is utterly amazing; donated by the Flow family in 1999, it's housed about a dozen students every semester, and a smaller group in the summer as well. There's space for 14 or 15 students, but this semester we have a small group of 7 so it's quite roomy.

some of you may have my address in vienna-- letters are fine, but please do not send packages! customs officials here charge really high tariffs, in some cases they are higher than the actual cost of the item. if it's important, my parents might be willing to bring it in march :)

I'll try to post more pictures of the inside and around the city soon. This week we have intensive German classes to prepare us for getting around the city and ordering food, etc, and next week our classes begin. I'm taking Intermediate Political Theory, Politics of Identity in Central Europe, Austrian Art & Architecture, Photography (1 hour), German 113. I might also audit the intermediate German class, depending on how I find the beginner's class. My German host parents have prepared me fairly well in German, and I'm surprised at how much I remember from 4 years ago.

Class starts at 9, so it's off to bed for me. Tschuss!

Vienna Bound!

leaving for Vienna tomorrow night, getting there Friday 1/15 around 2 pm (8am eastern time).

Updates soon!!

homecoming pictures

some highlights from homecoming, where i once again forgot my (and andy's!) camera... thus, my selection is limited....

pictures... finally!

finally some pictures from junior year... it's been a busy semester so far. classes are going great, but i'm getting more and more excited to be abroad in the spring (only 14 hours.. i haven't had less than 16 since my first semester at wake!!)..


roomies together on homecoming weekend :)



















living room:


















our huuge kitchen, yes i put a futon in it:



































my rather messy side of the bedroom... it's much more tidy now ;)

back at wake!

first day of classes went well, all things considered. my psycholinguistics course that i need for my minor in linguistics was completely cancelled due to "lack of interest", which was (long story) seriously miscalculated and unfortunately erroneous. but it looks like i'll be able to take an independent guided study program with another professor, so that worked out in the end.

Thus, my schedule:

MWF
9am explorations in mathematics
10am islamic political thought
11am globalization

TR
political research methods

and then my linguistics course, time TBD.


just about settled into the apartment with hannah, sarah, and lexii, and we love it here! pictures to come soon!

on my way home!

sitting in charles de gaulle, about to board my second plane... meant to wake up at 4:30 this morning, get to the airport by 5:30, and leisurely get through customs and on to my plane.... that didn't work out so well, as i woke up, to my horror, at 6:30.. got to the airport at 7:05, thanks to a dedicated and fearless cab driver, and got through customs (thanks to a very nice french couple who let me back in line when i forgot my customs card, ack!) just in time to board my 8am flight at around 7:40... so besides feeling like a totally inept traveler, i feel extremely grateful that everything else besides the failed wake-up call has gone smoothly.

i'll try to post pictures from marrakesh and essouira.. as soon as i get pictures from other people (and off my camera phone.. we'll see how those turned out..). the last week has been a blur of traveling and paper writing as we finished arabic class with finals last thursday and wrapped up our film class with our final papers this week.

this trip has been amazing in that i've gotten to see so much of this country and engage in many fascinating and enlightening conversations about many current topics and events about islam, the role of women, and geopolitics. i've seen the beauty of the sahara, the wilderness of the mountains and waterfalls, and the differing ways of life in various cities.

this has also probably been one of the most enlightening trips of my life, and unfortunately i must say i'm more than ready to get back to the states. it's been overwhelming to see the global changes we have to make if we want to preserve the planet and our way of life as we know it. i've been reading thomas friedman's book, "hot, flat, and crowded" (which i highly recommend), and being in morocco i've seen firsthand how the globalized world, our dependence on foreign oil, and exploding middle class are already wreaking havoc on our planet, our politics, and foreign perceptions of america.

i realize i sound extremely pessimistic here, but the truth is we just can't ignore it anymore. if we continue to shirk responsibility and fail to plot a new course, we're going to destroy our habitat, continue to support terrorist organizations and tyrannical regimes, and drive our world further from peace.

so while i could, and perhaps should, focus more on the amazing parts of the trip and the memories that i will cherish forever, for the moment it seems to me that it's just another way of adopting the silence that blankets the truth about what's going on in the world, and of ignoring the problems that we can't afford not to face.

cascades d'ouzou

last weekend, we went to the cascades in the middle atlas mountains to hike and swim and see monkeys. probably my favorite weekend trip, along with the sahara! there were lots of places to jump off of rocks into really deep cold water (which felt great after our hike!), and it was clean and protected wildlife, without the commercial buildup of niagara falls.











































on our hike, you could see caves in the rock cliff, where there are still neolithic cave paintings (it can only be reached by rappelling down ropes.. "so easy, a caveman could do it"...?), and archaeologists are still digging around up there.


























and while we were eating our lunch, barbary apes came and helped themselves to our bread and melon. they were kind enough to stay for a brief photo shoot.