Study Abroad A Little More Than Quarterly Report:

Areas of expertise: Old timey phone snake, Sudoku, turning down marriage proposals, avoiding cow/donkey/horse/goat poop, the menu offerings of every restaurant in Saint Louis

Points of interest in development, still improving: French/Wolof language skills, navigating the campus, bargaining for things such as cab fares and market items, fine tuning my "research project," riding in camions/kaar-rapits, figuring out the schedule of classes offered

New projects: Learning djembe (read: African drumming), planning trips around West Africa that may or may not come to fruition (hopefully the former)

Projects still on the docket but not yet commenced: learning to make attaaya (delicious tea), learning to cook yaasa poulet (delicious chicken and rice and onion sauce dish), learning Pulaar, starting classes!?

Recent highlights: Singing Hilary Duff's "Come Clean" at the Journée d'Integration (beginning-of-the-semester get together) for the Information and Computer Science majors on campus at the behest of my friend the President of the Information and Computer Science majors -- reactions were enthusiastic and supportive; requests for an encore, while numerous and resounding, were not realized (they will just have to wait until my next campus appearance to hear my winning rendition of "My Heart Will Go On"). Completely random and practically unannounced concert by Daara J (really awesome and well known Senegalese rap group) on campus; finding out that I am randomly kind of good at African drumming! and hopefully going to get better with under the tutelage of my cooler than cool djembe teacher Fodé; uploading Last.fm onto the computer lab computer so I can supplement my reasearch/iPod with lots of new music!

Upcoming endeavors: Trip to Niokolokoba (read: Safari Park!), Kedougou (ancient village on the top of a mountain), and Bassari Country (site of cool traditional ceremonies with masks and dancing and stuff? I think); first day of classesssssss!, Spring Break in London with my favorite cousins slash securing a job for the summer; concert with the campus Catholic choir

Life may be moving slow, but it seems that -- despite my concern that I was wasting away in the heat and sand here -- I have in fact been doing things!