It's a small world after all!

Now that I have my first "self-study" day of the school year, I can update with what my masters program is like.

I'm not in Texas anymore. Hell I'm hardly in the Netherlands. My program brings people from 29 different countries from 6 different continental areas. I'm pretty sure I've stated this already but it's still impressive. Even the lecturers and teachers come from very varied walks of life. One professor is Dutch and has worked in Africa and Southeast Asia. Another has worked throughout Europe. One is from Venezuela and studied in Germany. It's a little crazy to wrap your head around, especially when you've only really seen the Southern half of the United States and lived in Texas your whole life.

Before I came here, I enjoyed meeting people from all over the U.S. I have friends from the Southeast, some real good friends from Kansas, some people from the rust belt, I know a few Californians and Rocky Mountain types. There was still alot of ground I had to cover in the U.S. though to really get a sense of all the places people are from. Now I've put that on steroids. Now people speak English which is EXTREMELY helpful, but they also speak Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Spanish, Italian, Persian and so many African dialects its hard to wrap your head around where they're all from. Instead of having to listen to a Louisiana dialect, Minnesota dialect, Chicago dialect, New York Dialect or So Cal dialect; I now have to jumble through all these different tongues to understand what they are saying in English. I'm going to have really good ears after this. With enough interaction I should be able to really get an amazing understanding of what other countries are like from the very people that live there.

The classes so far seem pretty straightforward. We've already had one debate which was a blast, but that's been the only debate so far which is a bummer. I really enjoyed working in a group with a collection of students. We're all in the same classroom right now for the basic courses and the subjects aren't really the most thrilling so it can kind of bog you down. I have this sinking feeling that I will be the death of many a tree this year. Even with the invention of computers and email, I suspect there will be multiple slides to be printed, papers to be written and books to be read. Today I'll get to catch up on a little reading and other things around the house, which will be nice. Tomorrow Alyssa and me celebrate our 1.5 years of dating. Maybe some Indonesian food will be in order... Who knows?