¡Que bueno!

I woke up early. I think I've always known this, but sometimes forget that I am a morning person. I have a spring in my step, I feel better about the day, and I am much more attentive when I wake up early and dink around before I have to do anything. So, I woke up early. I've been going to the park to walk/jog/people watch in the mornings, and have discovered that there is a whole other side to la Carolina with a graffitied skate park, more bicycle paths, open grassy fields, and neat views of the great big businesses to the south. I think I'll just leave the alarm at 7:00 from now on, whether I need to get up or not.

My history professor is in the US giving a lecture about pirating, not like stealing music or programs on the internet, more like men in ships with great big sails. Sooo... we didn't have history today! Anyel has a volleyball class at the same time as my history class, and the professor was glad to have another student that actually WANTED to be there, so I got to play volleyball in the boiling sun with Anyel and company. What she has told me about the class is absolutely true--there are three, maybe four women who actually want to be there and dress down for class. The rest see it as an opportunity to wine and compare outfits, watching the ball drop and then wondering why nobody is going to get it. Pretty funny. I pulled out the tough serve and giggled inside.

Gabi and Michel are two of the women who played in high school and really want to be there, and we ate lunch with them after class. They're both first year students, and seemed to be a lot more real than some of the people I've met at school. Super friendly, genuinely interested, and excited at the idea of hanging out with us some weekend. Anyel will see them a couple times each week, and we exchanged numbers, so hopefully we'll make it happen! I don't think I've been this excited to make new friends since I was in elementary school. I'm excited to find interesting people who want to give us a chance, and I'd like to spend time with people who will force me to speak spanish. As hard as we try, somehow we always slip into the old comfort zone and spend too much time speaking english. But it's so fun to be able to joke and laugh in spanish!

Our Sociology class was great today--the readings for the last couple of days have been very interesting and packed with new information about Ecuador. We're learning about all kinds of programs implemented by the government in the last 10 years, and I feel like we're finally going to discuss Ecuador more than the US in the class. It's tough, because all we really know is what we've experienced (and even that is very tainted by our narrow views of reality), and all of us are from the US, but I think with the lectures and the help of our professor we'll leave with a broad perspective and some specific knowledge about the social politics of this country. Our big assignment is to research a topic, do an interview, and then present some new information to the class. I'm planning to use Mensajeros de la Paz as my interview source, and I hope I can really dig in to the topic of youth with disabilities. We're touching on adults with disabilities, but there isn't a unit dedicated specifically to youth. It's all coming together...