A Breath of Fresh Air

Today was our hotly anticipated first day with the new teaching team leader. Of course, all of the students are wondering what she's like, and what kind of dynamic she'd bring to class. Well, long story short, she's GREAT! She has a lot of teaching experience, at DLI, in the US, and in Sudan - all language related, and boy, does it show. She's patient, she appears to have a plan each hour, objectives for us to reach. I'm very excited for her to fully take over this week and make improvements as we head into the home stretch of our year at DLI.

On the downside for Susan and I, though, is the fact that Wednesday is our Unit 6 test, and we are light years from being ready for it. We're exhauseted, and we're really trying to push through today and tomorrow in order to get some kind of studying done, and learn some of these words. Since Christmas break, we flew through this unit, and it's really making us nervous.

Blogging

Well, I think that I have hit upon a practical use for blogging. A few years ago I set out to watch the American Film Institutes's 100 Greatest American Movies. I'd always wanted to record my observations, and now a blog seems the natural way to do that. Check it out at http://afi100thoughts.blogspot.com.

Grad School

Susan and I returned a few hours ago from the grad school fair at DLI. The FAO office here at DLI invites grad schools to recruit FAOs, since we have to begin our applications for school very soon. Now that I've had a little time to digest what was there, I thought I'd share a little. Entering the fair, I was very worried that I'd be overwhelmed by international relations and very politically heavy programs that are trying to solve the world's conflicts. What I came away with was a very pleasant realization that many of the Middle East and Arab Studies programs are actually very language heavy. Since that's my main interest in the FAO program, that was a very positive feeling. My current #1 choice, Georgetown, seemed like a good fit for me, since it's a good language program. I was also surprised at Harvard's willingness to recruit and work with FAOs - especially given Harvard's history with the military. Without doing any more research, those two are at the top of my list.

Princeton, on the other hand, was not very impressive, and their school colors are really ugly.

Last thought - there was a huge and obvious difference between the high cost and low cost schools. Both Georgetown and Harvard had well established and interesting programs, ones where I could also further my Arabic skills. Texas A&M, by contrast, just seemed lost and they really didn't offer any Arabic language training that would benefit me.

How's this work again??

Okay, so the 'blog experiment' has hit day...something. I don't recall when I started this thing. I'm sort of forcing myself to post, to justify having started this. I'm not exactly sure what the big deal and draw of blogging is. I suppose that if I had 'things to say' that I arrogantly thought that other people would find enlightening or interesting to read, then this would make a lot more sense. I have a hard enough time using such modern marvels as the telephone and email - I am terrible at keeping in touch and telling people what's going on in my life.

So...the blog. Yeah, I'll give it some more time, but right now it feels a little stilted. I feel like I'm typing just to say that I did... It's a little lame.

First Post

This is my first post on a personal blog. I'm not entirely sure why I've decided to do this, other than sheer curiosity. It seems strange that me, a guy who loved computers as a kid and even has a degree in Computer Science, is so resistant to 'new' technologies like this. Computers are supposed to simplify our lives and make communication easier - which they have - yet I am very resistant to using them. At it's heart, digital communication isn't any 'better' than other forms, they're just faster, stronger, etc. For me, a person who doesn't network or name drop in person, 'social networking' website like Facebook hold zero appeal. I struggle to use the phone, and don't even have a cell phone, so I've found, as time goes on, that I use email less and less, to the point that I write very few emails and receive even fewer. For some reason, however, this held some appeal to try. I'll check it out for a few weeks before deciding if I like it or not.