la primera

well...here it goes. this is my first test blog (to make sure i know how to work this thing before i leave). after a tough week of finals (and boy do i mean tough), i'm finally starting to realize that i'll be gone in three days!

i just put up a picture of my last san francisco trip. i went with my old roomates lisa (who just got back from a two month trip around europe), and ahn (who currently lives in barcelona). as you can see we're a house who likes to travel.

so i leave on wednesday (out of lax at 3 pm) for somewhere around a 14 hour flight. i'll then fly into barcelona with a girl from my program named charlene. my old roommate ahn will pick me up and i'll stay with her for a week exploring barcelona. after that i go down to cadiz to start my classes. the head of the linguistics department john moore will be teaching our classes in spanish dialectology and language and culture of flamenco. he's a really good flamenco guitar player who used to live in spain the travel with the big wigs in the flamenco world. so i'll be taking classes and also doing my own research. if you don't know...i could have graduated this june, but in my delay to participate in the real world...i'm adding on another year. i'll be doing an honors thesis in the linguistics department. that entails taking two grad level classes, doing my own experiments and gathering research, then producing a thesis at the end. even though it'll take a whole year, it'll be really important for getting into grad school. plus, it's a really cool opportunity to work with professors, get letters of recommendation, and focusing specifically a topic that interests you. i'll be researching the differences between gendered speech. which includes comparing different genders and sexual orientations and the linguistic differences between tonal patterns, word choice and cultural stereotypes.

so that was long-winded, but regardless i'll be there learning, researching and traveling. i especially want to go visit my family in cordoba (as pictured -->). it's been two years since we've seen each other and after emailing back and forth we're both really excited to revisit! unfortunately they'll see the decline in my spanish during the last two years...but hopefully this will be a magical six-week rejuvenation.

so keep on checking back for the updates. i'll keep you posted on the trips, the peeps, the foods and anything else i find along the way!