Fewer than 10 hours are between my departure flight and myself

With patience and steadfastedness, I will be updating here regularly enough to give you a good idea of what is happening with me in Ecuador. After today, I promise there will be photographs, succinct bulleted lists, and other textual assists that will make following me more interesting than you might find reading chunks of uninterrupted text.



You're encouraged to leave comments for affirmation. You're also encouraged to follow my friend and Quito housemate Savannah on her blog. She's probably much better at blogging, and plus she has pretty pictures.


The general appearance of this page is should improve exponentially in the coming days - please bear with me.




The name of the program I am attending is GAIAS, or the Galapagos Institute for the Arts and Sciences, which is a clever moniker incorporating the fact it is an environmental science-focused semesterly program designed for visiting American students who probably care about the environment (For my Student U kids: Gaia is the Greek goddess of the Earth! She embodies the concept of "Mother Earth", you might say.).

My track of study is "People, Politics, and Environment", and the courses are set up in 3-week modules, with nothing but one class happening during each module. I am taking Tropical Ecology, Mountain Geology, Political Ecology, Natural Resource Management, and Human Ecology. The first two courses are flip-flopped from two of the other tracks (Ecology & Evolution and Mountain studies, respectively) and will be happening in Cumbaya, a wealthy suburb of Ecuador's capital city of Quito. (I'm sure I'll have commentary on that soon.) The rest of the courses will be in San Cristobal, the capital island of the Galapagos. Where better to go to learn about the human relationship with the environment but the place with one of the most delicate and vivid ecosystems in the world? And also the place voted to have the best scuba opportunities?



This week I've crammed what I hope is 4 months' worth of belongings and supplies into one large suitcase, a small carry-on, and my trusty bookbag that I'm pretending is a purse, all the while finishing up my independent research write-up and visiting with family and friends.

And so, here is my tally of things pre-departure:
Quality of my Spanish? Passable.
Empirical knowledge of my destination? Perfunctory.
Amount of excitement I'm feeling? ASTRONOMICAL.

I can't sleep.