Pajareo sin fronteras

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” -Jonathan Swift Well, I know both of the people following this blog (hi Mom and Dad!) have been eagerly awaiting an update from Vietnam, so here it is. The internet has predictably been pretty spotty lately, which is partly the reason this has taken so long (the other being my own laziness). Now then, where to begin.... Many of you are probably aware that Vietnam is a ways away from California. I was aware of this fact too, but only in the abstract, and hadn't really braced myself for the 13 hours of very, very cramped quarters that was our flight from San Francisco to Taipei, Taiwan. Anyone who knows me will know that I do not fit into planes very well. Now, this was a Boeing 737, which is a plane that could probably fit the whole population of my home town in Michigan onboard. If it had been one of the hobbit planes I usually have to fly in in order to get to and from Vermont, I probably would have died. Howe...

“And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.” -Rumi Well, I'm writing this blog entry from a concrete building in the middle of a swamp in Southern Vietnam, battling away mosquitoes and curious children. However, there's still lots more to write about my last few days in California. Which I'm sure is just as interesting. The second week of this program was packed to brim with as much activity as they could possibly pack in. The earliest finish for us was around 6PM. It's a far cry from normal college, where it's at most four to five hours of class every day. On the other hand, we only had two actual class periods that week, and the rest of it was composed of guest lecturers and site visits that were (at least tangentially) related to our topics of study. It turns out that SIT has some pretty high-up connections, because we got to meet with ...