três, dois, um...drei, zwei, eins, tres, dos, uno....

Well, its been nearly two months since I wrote anything, and I have been Scheiße at remembering to write anything in here. Its actually not that I don't remember, and more that I don't have the time. But I've decided to make the time.

Quick summary of the last two months.... then to my new project I will dedicate this blog to for a while - that project will be: I plan on having a 1 on 1 dinner with each member of my program. I'll post their comments and the meat of our dinner (haha) with their permission after each one.....

anyway,
Lets see, for the first few weeks I was in Germany, we didn't have classes yet. There was an alumni summer school taking place, which gave us the opportunity to lots of trade unionists from previous years. We also had some great lectures and discussions with professors, and a good introduction to what we are now studying. On the social front, everyone in our program began bonding, and we started to learn what we love and hate and about each other. At one point I took off on a ryanair flight for about a week with 2 other comrades from the program to Italia y Slovenia. I'll have to write about that trip in a separate section..... in any case, after that, I got back and we started classes.

My classes, for those of you who care, are as follows:
- Trade Union Strategies in a Global Economy
- Governance of the World Market
- Advanced Research Methods: Qualitative Designs, Social Movements & Campaigns
- Economia Solidaria, Movimientos y Debates en América Latina
(class is taught in Spanish and Português)
- The Politics of Privatization
- Environmental Politics in Global Perspective
- One World Seminar
- Economics Tutorial
- Português (language course)

There is a lot of reading. Lots of presentation and group work, which I suppose is typical for a masters program, and there will be a lot of writing, though most of it hasn't started yet.

I've pretty much confirmed I'll be in Brasil after Jan. of next year in order to do my second semester in Campinas, São Paulo. And I should be in Argentina after that for my internship, studying the intersection of trade unions and social movements there.....

I'll post some of my papers as I write them, so people can see some of the content of the courses.