Student Views

Surprisingly, recent life has been fairly chill.  Last weekend I helped out with the second annual Youth Environmental Summit on campus. We held trainings and informative sessions for high school environmental groups around Texas. There was a great turn out this year and I think they all got a lot out of it (as did I).

That night, Allies (the GLBT group), held their Drag Ball. A drag troupe from Austin, Kings N Things, performed again (they came last year too) and it was SO hilarious. If you ever get a chance to check them out in Austin, I highly suggest it. Some friends and I dressed up but I ended up looking a lot like Mr. Rogers. It was definitely a good time seeing all the boys in dresses but I’m pretty glad this thing only comes around once a year…

I just had a meeting to further discuss my study abroad options. I think I’ve decided to spend next spring in Montevideo, Uruguay. I’m SOO excited! As for this summer, plans are still up in the air. I’m definitely going on a program offered through Southwestern to Buenos Aires, Argentina for upper-level Spanish credits but I’m trying to find another program to do afterwards. I’d love to just bum around the continent for the remainder of the summer (you know, Motorcycle Diaries style) but I’m not sure that would fly with my parents. We shall see what I can convince them of.

As for the next two weeks… I don’t even want to talk about it. I just carried the most ridiculous bag of books from the library back to my apartment. As I look fondly towards the Thanksgiving break, I have to remind myself that it won’t all be fun and games (and green bean casserole). I unfortunately have two research papers (16 pages for History of Globalization and 8 pages for Human Rights in Latin America) and a movie review (4 pages for Mexican History) to finish, along with a voice lesson jury to get ready for and Mexican History and Spanish 4 finals to study for.  Gobble, gobble, gobble.

Actually, though, I’m really excited to write my Globalization paper. I’m writing on resistance movements within the developing world against the policies of the IMF and the World Bank. I’ll probably focus on the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the horizontalism movement in Argentina. It should be a really great paper and I have some sources (that I just checked out) that I can’t wait to dig into.

I also can’t wait to dig into our Thanksgiving meal, though. Hooo boy! I love me some tofurkey!