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 =)