Greetings Readers!

It has been an incredible first week in Ecuador. It was great to finally meet my host family… they are awesome! The first few days were full of orientations and getting to know the local area. We began classes on Wednesday and so far so good! We have taken a few trips to downtown Quito to see the historic area and botanical gardens. I’m definitely practicing my Spanish a lot and am learning new words, like chévere (c0ol), which is super common here.

Preparing to leave for Salamanca has been characterized by a new, distinctive feeling of anticipation that isn’t quite like any I’ve experienced before: a sort of self-precluding nervousness.

I’m a compulsive planner. For me, the unexpected is far more stressful than any exam or final paper. A friend, upon returning from study abroad in South America, recalled countless moments of unpredictability during her semester, including a time where she arranged to meet with a professor at noon only to find out upon arriving at his classroom that he was teaching until 4 o’clock. Study abroad would be good for me, she said, it would teach me to go with the flow. Naturally, I panicked.

In February of last year things we’re going great for me.  I was happily entrenched in my major coursework, I had secured two campus jobs that I really enjoyed, it was (as always) obscenely warm for the season, and I was surrounded by an amazing group of friends.  I go to Claremont McKenna College in California; we’ve been ranked the number-one happiest school in America several times and – trust me – we’ll gleefully shove that factoid down your throat should you join us for a campus tour.  My life I knew it in the liberal arts bubble

Greetings, friends!

This is my first post for the Beijing Language Intensive program, and I’m so thrilled to share my upcoming travels with you all!