Madison, Wisconsin has been my new home for the past eleven days. It seems this pretty little town of a quarter million will remain my home for at least a thousand more. Two years of coursework at UW should get me to my preliminary doctoral exams, if I can manage to squeeze in two semesters of Portuguese and a couple of Latin on top of all the research methodology credits and literature seminars, but it appears feasible. This week was spent living in the department of Spanish and Portuguese, meeting colleagues, faculty, fellows, visiting scholars, fellow teaching assistants, etc. Free time to do anything fun has been relatively limited this week, but the energy is high and the anticipation, higher, as we head into the semester. Our incoming group of 18 MA and PhD candidates is very diverse, and we have a sharp cohort- really bright folks. Should be fun.
On a personal note, this is my home in the coolest neighborhood in the city's east side, right on the isthmus between the lakes. 
This is the cat that lives on our porch. It does not belong to any of the eight people who reside in this house, but it makes a great Saturday-morning-coffee-drinking-on-the-front-porch friend. 
This transition happened kind of quickly, coming on the tail end of a frantic summer of teaching abroad, then teaching locally...the week before the move was spent in the northwoods of WI teaching at an immersion camp for adults. It would have been great to spend the week seeing friends, but the opportunity was really good to gain some experience in adult language learning, etc. here's a shot from the camp back in early August.
Anyway, this blog will likely be neglected in lieu of other stuff in coming months.
