Money? yes. Strings? no.

Now that I'm basically decided to go do this crazy thing, the reality of the cost has been trying to set in. There aren't a ton of options for grants, etc to help out, though. There's one through my department, which could help nicely, but at the same time they expect you to write a paper to try to get published or to submit to a conference... and I don't want to have to worry about that in Morocco. I want to go with one thing to focus on: learning the language. And the culture. And meeting people. Ok, three things - you see how complicated it is with just that!?

Last summer I worked at the study abroad office (yay!) and worked on my thesis (hard.) I really do enjoy working on things that aren't related to my classes during the summer, but combining it with spending my out-of-work hours on my thesis made me go AGGGGHHHHHHKKKK. When classes started back up in August I was already fried and uninterested. I don't want that to happen again. The 2011-2012 school year should be my last year of classes. After that, I will be free to dissertate to my heart's content. Or my committee members hearts' content, more likely.

Why don't people offer me FREE money without the strings? :)

How's this sound?

I think I might go to Morocco this summer. Fes, to be exact. (I always thought it was Fez, but it gets more search results with an 's'. Ok.) Oh, and I would go to learn Arabic. To use for my dissertation.