Wow! I had another package-ful day today! Gan mao ling from Graham, photos from Monee, and a card from Cass -- hooray! Thank you, everybody, I love you all!

So, as promised, here are further details of my future that have emerged from my plotting and scheming of the last week (and believe me, there's been a lot of that!) ....

So you know, if you read Tuesday's blog, that I changed my major, and dropped one of my ESR (Environmental Studies) classes and signed up for an anthro class in its place. Well, I dropped another ESR class (the uninspiring intro one with a terrible professor that encouraged us to be dumb). This brings me down to 12 units. I'm not going to sign up for another PSU class, but I'm certainly not going to waste that time. I'm designing my own French course, based on online tutorials, textbooks, audiotapes and tutors in the hopes of becoming at least marginally familiar with the French language before I go to France.

Now, onto the France bit. What I'm hoping... no, planning on doing is actually spending a good deal of the summer in France, starting with probably about a month of language school. I haven't quite figured out where I want to go yet; I still have a lot of research ahead of me. I picked up a bunch of catalogs and things from the International Studies department last week, and one of the programs that looks most intriguing is the EF International Language School in Nice (It's nice in Nice.) I would love to get some good language training there, and then stay in France for a while and travel and maybe do some sort of internship or volunteer work, but that's still a bit far away to think about concretely. The language school thing is definitely going to happen, though. I would really love to learn a language and have it actually stick with me. Also, if I do well enough, I'll be able to place out of some of the lower level French classes at PSU and come in at a higher level when I come back.

So, as you can see, I'm getting very excited about this whole thing. And I'm enjoying school and everything! (Did I mention I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays now?) It's all very exciting, and I'm thrilled! Okay, I'll stop now. :}