Yes, I'm Alive...

Clearly I am the worst blogger in the whole entire world, sorry! It's the thought that counts, right? So, where was I...

The Monday after our weekend in Mayaro was a holiday (Trinidad has a ridiculous number of holidays, it's excellent), so classes didn't start. We just kind of hung out and tried to get ready for classes. Later in the day, we went to Professor Ramchand's house to have pizza, brownies, and lots of fresh fruit from their fruit trees. We also learned how to play cricket, which I am absolutely terrible at, but enjoyed anyways. This is a (very blurry) picture of Prof. Ramchand pitching during cricket. It was pretty intense. We didn't actually play, we just practiced batting and pitching, as well as learning the rules of the game.

So then classes started that week. We have two UWI classes and then two classes with Prof. Ramchand where it is just the Colgate students. The way the UWI classes work is that we have 2 hours of lecture each week, plus 1 hour of tutorial, which is where we can discuss the lectures and readings, ask questions, etc. My two UWI classes are Third World Political Thought and Latin American Government, Politics, and Development. They're both really interesting. I really like my professor for TWPT- he's very passionate and intelligent. My prof for LAGPD is also very intelligent, but she kind of scares me. She was very strict about 'not pandering to lateness' but then proceeds to show up 10 to 15 minutes late for every lecture. She was also pretty intense about the fact that if we want to talk to her, it must be during office hours- not before or after class, not at the gym, not on the street, etc. It's so different from what I'm used to at Colgate- a small, liberal arts college where we frequently run into professors around town and are encouraged to chat with them whenever we see them- that I was a bit caught of guard. My class with Prof. Ramchand are Festivals and Growing Up in Trinidad in Writing, which is a lit course.

So right now, my schedule is like this: tutorial Tuesday morning from 10-11 (I hope, I have to go sign up for that...), class with Ramchand 2-330 Tuesday afternoon. Lecture 9-11 (though it usually doesn't go past 1030) and 11-1 on Thursday morning, and class with Ramchand 2-330 Thursday afternoon, then a tutorial 1-2 on Friday. So I have nothing on Mondays or Wednesdays. As a result, I have a ridiculous amount of free time and need to find something to do with it all. My final is also 100% of my grade in both my classes, so I don't have any work to do other than reading, so I'm a bit lacking in the motivation department. I am going to start volunteering soon, either at an orphanage or at an children's AIDS hospital (or both, which is what I want to do!). I'm SUPER excited for that, I miss my sidekick (like Big Brother/Big Sister), my 3-year-olds at the preschool in Hamilton, and my mentoring group at the middle school in Sherburne-Earlville, so it will be really nice to work with kids again.

I also started taking a dance class with another girl from Colgate, Gabby. It's an African/Bele/Soca class. We've only been to one and I had a lot of fun, but I am absolutely TERRIBLE. I have no sense of rhythm at all, which I already knew but am re-discovering, haha. Gabby, however, is an incredibly good dancer- she's been dancing her whole life, so hopefully she can help me out a bit. All the girls in the Colgate group can dance in general, and have been dedicating a lot of time and patience to helping Laura (the other girl from Maine) and I learn how. It seems like everyone on this island can dance, so hopefully I'll be a bit better by the time I get back!

That's about all that's going on right now- classes, dance, and hanging out. Liming is a big thing in Trinidad- it's just hanging out and chatting, really doing nothing with friends, so we spend a lot of time doing that. Wednesday is a holiday, so we are all going to Maracas Bay, a really pretty beach, for the day. We also saw a parang band on Thursday in class and Merle Hodge, a famous Trini author who teaches at UWI, is going to talk with us about her book Crick Crack, Monkey, on Tuesday. So I will try to update on all those things soon!!

Also, here is a picture of my room. My side is the right side (the messy one, obviously). There is also a sink in the back corner and we each have a closet and a set of drawers with one big counter on top of both and mirror above it.

And this is a picture of St. Benedict's, a monastery just outside of St. Augustine, it's about a 20-30 minute walk from campus. I've only been up there once, when we ran up there early one morning for grubbing, but it's super pretty and I'm going to go back up soon to take pictures, and I want to try to go to mass there one Sunday maybe.

Love and miss you all!

xoxo