Happy 6 Months!

Have I really been here six months???? (to the day, actually). It's hard to believe, really. I remember the first month and a half or so went by REALLY slowly, and I honestly wondered if I'd be able to hold up. But now, it's the opposite effect, really. Time's sped by now.

Picture 1: Random celebration outside my house

The week between Christmas and New Year's Day was actually a fairly busy one. There were several celebrations being had by all my neighbors. Pictured above, we think that this may have been a naming ceremony, but we're not entirely sure. What we do know is that there was music, drums, people dancing and an overall enjoyment being had by people.

Picture 2: People warming up to play football

December 26th, we played football on the soccer fields. There were only two PCVs (if memory serves) present that day for football. The rest were all random other expats--including some teachers at the American School, various peoples working at NGOs, some military folk and a couple of others. It was a good time. Look for a video that'll probably be released later by someone that shows me and my friend Racey in a head-to-head collision during this game. It hurt. A little. But everyone's okay now.

Picture 3: New Year's Eve with Friends

New Year's Eve was spent with our pilot friends. Pictured above are Dave the pilot, Matt the American School teacher and George the pilot. George is South African. They're all good people, so I felt lucky to be around good people for the new year. We even managed to light some fireworks at midnight (as did everyone else, apparently, in the city of Bamako).

This coming week technically begins IST (In Service Training) that everyone from my stage is supposed to attend. I say technically because Tiffany and I are exempt because of the university. Speaking of, today, I finally received my schedule for what classes I'll be teaching. I'll be teaching 3 conversation classes, 2 British Studies classes (technically, it's just going to be 1 very long 4 hour class) and 1 American Studies class. It's not as heavy of a load as it sounds, and it still gives me room to do some side projects and continue studying to take the LSAT in June. So, while all my friends and compatriots are back at Tubani-So, I'll be bouncing between the University, the Teaching College (even teaching on Saturday), possibly the embassy and who knows where else on a very regular basis.

Speaking of LSAT--since many of you won't know about that--it's an idea that I've been toying with for a little while now. Technically, it's the reason I originally started studying English at University--for law. But I figure I should at least take the test. Recently, I've begun taking practice tests and I've been scoring 161. My family just sent me a couple of study guides, so I'm hoping to improve on this score a bit before finally taking the exam.

That's all I've got for now. Thanks for tuning in again. And wow, yeah, it's really been six months.