Friday, August 14, 2009

The Land of the Cockroaches and Ants

It really is! Two nights ago, I got up in the night to get a drink of water. When I stepped up to the kitchen sink, my big toe crushed something soft. I ran to turn on the light and found a cockroach still alive and twitching... It was NASTY!

I can't believe all the bugs here! Our house is way clean, too. It's not like there's a bunch of trash just sitting around or food left uncovered. I've seen four different kinds of ants within five feet of our house. There are the huge black ones that are all over the trees, the fast scary red ones that feast on dead cockroaches, the little brown ones that infested our car our first night in Georgia, and the tiny ones that you can barely see that seem to like the porches. Who knew so many kinds of ants could live in the same place?

Did I mention the hornets just outside our window, about twice as big as the ones in Utah. There are also the cicadas that keep up a constant cadence. It's a loud throbbing hum that rises and falls all night long. (It's a little hard to describe, but it's not unpleasant.)

We've had a busy week, spending a lot of time at Augusta State University. Paul had an orientation with everyone from his master's program, and he is one of three men. All the rest are women! He made friends with a girl from Colombia who invited us to come to a fiesta tomorrow. I'll let you know how the Colombian food is. I was happy that everyone was nice to him and he feels excited and welcomed into the program. We love Settlers of Catan, and he found some girls who would like to play with us with their husbands.

It turns out that I will be going to school this semester, but my schedule is random. I'm taking most of the generals that will not be covered by my transfer credits, so that I can get them out of the way. So I'm in these classes:

-Fundamentals of Human Communication
-Spanish 1001
-American Government
-Introduction to Weather and Climate (Lab Science credit)
-Cultural Anthropology

That last class is for my minor, which I had to choose yesterday. I figured if I was required to have a minor, I might as well study human cultures. That should help me with my fiction. So now I'm an English major with an emphasis in creative writing and an Anthropology minor. I'm really excited, although I just found out that my text books will cost over $700! If that's not robbery, I don't know what is.