Updates

First and foremost, a completely unrelated-to-Tunisia announcement must be made...

As of yesterday afternoon, my Brother, Charlie, has been officially accepted to Oberlin Conservatory and Oberlin College for the five-year "double degree program." He intends to study Biology and Cello performance. I am so excited for him and can't wait to continue watching him fall deeply in love with a place that has taken my own heart by storm. That was pushing the acceptable level of cheese for a blog, but I'll let that one slide.

And now on a completely Tunisia-related note...

I always know that the departure date of a trip is fast approaching when my travel nightmares start getting stranger and more complex. Last night I dreamed that I was still back at school waiting for my Mom to drive me to airport to fly home (this would have been easier than what I really did, drag all of my luggage on my own through the snow to the bus stop). Just before she arrived though, I discovering all of these things that I had neglected to store away in boxes including an entire bookshelf chock-full of books and several lamps that don't belong in Oberlin at all, but have always stayed in my childhood room here in Connecticut. I also recall needed to run around to several Overlin dining coops and look for the memory card for my camera that had gone missing. Wow.

Thank goodness life isn't really that stressful now at all. I have been doing several hours of reading a day for my seminar in Tunisia and still have another book to get through, but the material is really interesting to me so it's not such a task. Yesterday, after trying and failing to check a book out of the UConn music library about Mal'uf (Andalusian Arab Classical music) with my Dad's UConn ID, I got an email from the program coordinator in Tunisia with a list of required texts for my Arabic class. I couldn't believe that they expected us to be able to find and puchase these books in the week remaining before we leave. I really hope this sort of last-minute wish-washiness isn't characteristic of SIT. Luckily enough for myself, I live in a college town and was able to find exactly what I needed about half an hour later at the UConn Coop Bookstore. What are kids going to do that simply can't get the books fast enough?