College and Its Many Changes

The month of August has blown by me like a whirlwind, leaving my mind spinning and my blog in the dust. After two weeks of travelling and two weeks of goodbyes, I sit in my dorm room in West Philadelphia. All of the sudden, I'm a college student. Just like that.

This experience has been half-liberating and half-intimidating. It's nice to be able to dictate your own schedule and do what you want at any given moment, but at the same time, it's hard to leave home and be thrust into a new place that is much different than the place you left behind with a new set of responsibilities placed on your shoulders.

I've enjoyed my college experience thus far. There are really interesting people all around me - people who have completely different perspectives than I; and they're from every state in the country and every country in the world. Professors and deans wander the campus, occasionally stopping a wandering freshman to ask their name, where they're from, and what interests they have. Indeed, the professors themselves are fascinating. Already, I have had the opportunity to hear a lecture on "The Paradoxes of Interactive Media" which made me think more about the technological world around us and how it functions at a marketing level. Oh, and my dorm is pretty dang cool too.

Yes, college is different, but I think I like it here.

Years of Spanish Classes Haven't Failed Me

For the last five days, I've been living in Oaxaco, Mexico where the official, preferred, and only language spoken is Spanish. Signs are in Spanish, taxi drivers only speak Spanish - even workers at the Dirección de Turismo (Office of Tourism) can't understand English! This immersion in Spanish has been such a wonderful opportunity for me to improve, practice, and utilize my Spanish in an environment that requires it. Not to mention the fact that it is simply awesome when you can have a legitimate exchange with someone (a conversation that involves something other than asking for their name or for the time) in your second language. I absolutely love it. Thank goodness for my six years of Spanish classes, especially the last three with Señor Olsen. Without them, I'd be un americano estereotípico, perdido en un idioma extraño.