good credit is important. (esp. in a society that is built around consumerism.)

take it from me, dear friends, you want to request a copy of your credit reports each year. it is not a foolproof way of preventing someone from stealing your identity, but it will help you keep track of what accounts are in your name.

you can receive a free credit report each year. why not? below are the three major credit reporting agencies in the u.s.

experian
transunion
equifax

noli goods

as some of you may know, I have a lovely, creative friend who goes by kt. kt makes lovely necklaces as a way to spread pretty throughout the world (though this is mostly concentrated to the mission in sfo, or so I hypothesize). she recently scolded me for not including her website on my blog. super belatedly, here it is...

kt's necklace emporium

click, browse, order, enjoy! my endorsement: I <3 noli!

two weeks in...

and I've already skipped my first class. with swahili every day at 9:55a, it's bound to happen. mostly because of previous engagements (including traveling to l.a. for shay's wedding and giving a talk to 200 high schoolers on genocide and rwanda), but today it was partly due to a bad sleep schedule this week and an recurring eye problem. neither are too great, but at the very least, I've got up on some of the administrative bits of my life, so that's something. as usual, I have a substantial amount of reading, but I am determined to get through a good chunk of it before mct comes up for the weekend. looking forward to some yoga, scones from the farmer's market, and biking around one of the lakes.

so, in a few words: I'm surviving. there are, as usual, extracurricular academic-esque commitments that I've put on my plate, but those will get done in short order.

re: photos, I have managed to post some on flickr. rwanda photos will be up as soon as I get them transferred from my kigali roommate's computer.

and another year of school begins...

so, it's official. with my driving back into madison last night, I was returning to wisconsin for my second year in the program. there have definitely been times when I wasn't sure of what I was doing and if grad school was best for me. but after a lot of reflection and several discussions with people close to me, I'm taking a new perspective to my time here. I'm going to try and be more confident about my abilities as a pseudo academic and not take everything to be so serious. I'm just going to try and let myself be good at doing what I do and not doubt it. this may be somewhat difficult, but let's see how it goes, eh?

I'm somewhat settled into my apt. will have the last big piece (my desk) tonight, which will help with the settling in. now for all of those misc. things that I will only realize later on that I need...like knives, pots, mixing bowls, etc. I will be posting photos of my new place and rwanda soon! now that august has ended and I've stopped shuttling in and out of chicago, now that I'll be in a regularized weekly schedule, this should be a bit easier to do. I will need something to procrastinate with, after all.