It’s been about a month since I last updated. While nothing super huge has happened in the past month, I figured it’s good to check in now and then!

I made it through a couple weeks of Area Studies, where I learned more about Bangladesh and South Asia. I knew very little about the partition and the devastating toll it took on the region, which is still being felt to this day. So the class was really helpful in learning about the background of South Asia, and anything about Bangladesh was especially fascinating.

I took a week long course on SharePoint that was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. And now I am in the midst of my “gap days”, which are basically days I have no scheduled FSI course. Instead, I take online trainings and get time to research my future post. It’s been nice to take a little break, and I will be headed to my parents’ house this weekend for Labor Day.

Next week I begin the much anticipated Bengali/Bangla language course – 5 days a week for a marathon 28 weeks long. It will be nice to be on a semi-regular schedule after switching classrooms, hours and instructors for the past few months. Plus I get to learn a new language!!!! Then again, when I do a Google image search for Bangla, it looks like this…

Pretty intimidating! I have learned strange languages before, but nothing like this. I’m really really excited.