traveling dreams forming in time

Well, I survived 2 weeks in Pittsburgh. I guess that's a good sign =P
I found a 3rd roommate. Her name is Sandra. She's from Zimbabwe, and she's a grad student at Pitt, in my program. She's really sweet. The house is still in progress, but it's getting there. The upstairs is mostly done and clean. I think we're going to pain the bedrooms at least though. Cleaning the downstairs is the project for the weekend b/c we're having a labor day fiesta here. The basement is starting to look much better. It was filled with stuff left by the people that lived here 2 tenants ago. We threw that all away this week. Now we need to vacuum out all the cobwebs and other creepy crawlies and grossness, and I think with a fresh coat of paint, it'll look pretty decent. I really will get some pictures soon.
This week was my first week of classes. So far, they are all pretty interesting. The professors all seem very nice, though tough. They're interesting and explain things well. There was some scheduling confusion. Apparently my section of statistics was closed, but I never got the email, so I missed that class. Fortunately, I know someone in the class I should have gone to, and was able to copy the notes, and I've had enough stats in the past that I didn't miss anything I didn't already know or needed to review.
I'm also thinking about getting my certification in African studies. The university offers certifications in different area studies, and they just added Africa. I was leaning towards Latin America for a while, b/c I love the culture, but there are going to be a lot more job opportunities working in/with Africa because the focus in the development world is shifting away from Latin America. It would be cool if I could do both. The biggest concern with that is language requirements. I have to have 4 semesters of a language, and French is better for Africa, although I am trying (maybe a little too ambitiously) to become fluent in both. A friend of mine from Venezuela is giving me Spanish lessons, so maybe I can just take a language proficiency test if I get good enough. We'll see.
For fun, I've found the salsa dancing contingent in our program. A group of us have been going out about once a week. My roommates all love to dance, so we're going to turn our dining room into a dance studio. We decided that none of us will ever eat together, so there is no need for a kitchen table. Once we have a couch, we can just eat there and use a coffee table. The entire house has pretty nice wood floors - perfect for dancing =)

MOTION

so i was taking a stroll through my very Jewish neighborhood yesterday when I stumbled upon a little Greek store. I went in to look for cheese pies and lo and behold, I saw Motion! This amazing fruit juice, also known as "the elixer of life" to my other Greek roomies and I, is the best juice I have ever had in my life (it's apple, peach, orange, grape, pineapple, grapefruit, kiwi, passion fruit, and mango juice). Until yesterday, I had not seen it anywhere in any other country. I went in, bought some, and told the lady she just made Pittsburgh a better place for me. Unfortunately, she was not the Greek woman, and told me to come in another time to meet the owner. Also, they only had juice box sizes, granted a grown-up size juice box and not a kiddie size, but hey, I'll take what I can get. I'll have a little chat with the owner sometime to see if it's possible to get regular size cartons. Anyways, if you ever come visit me, I will take you to get some of the most wonderful juice on earth.

Pictures

Here are some ridiculously out of order pictures from the past several months.
I think they're of:
Michelle's graduation
Jaime's party at Whiskey Tango
camping at Rickett's Glen for my birthday
offroading
picnics
party boat in Philly
80s party
Longwood Gardens
etc.

it's been a while...

Quick recap of the past 2 months:
*I actually ended up enjoying my new job. I met a lot of really great people, most of them around my age. They were a lot of fun to work with. I also have pretty much gotten over my fear of talking to random people on the phone, although I still hate answering machines. I can probably order myself a pizza now though =P
*Fun...had lots. Highlights were probably going to the Family Values Tour (my boss is also part owner of a clothing company that does a lot of music festivals and stuff for bands and he had free tickets). The other highlight was that this past weekend I finally got to the beach. My old friend Melissa and her bf and some of their friends had a place for the week so Liz and I went for the weekend. It was the perfect weather for the beach =) Other than that, just been going out locally with people a lot.

In other news, Michelle and I head off to Pittsburgh on Friday. Here's a really rough floor plan of my place:

I have one roommate right now, named Sarah. She's an ER nurse at the children's hospital. She likes to go salsa dancing, so that should be fun. We've been talking to a couple people, so should have a 3rd person soon.
I'll take some pictures of the place after we move in and get them up here.

Orientation is next week and then classes start soon after that.
I'll send my new address out in an email or email me to get it. As always, presents are more than welcome...especially IKEA gift cards =P haha