Can you believe it's been a month?

Tomorrow I'll have been here a month. Wow. So much has happened and I've learned so much it sometimes worries me that I'll never be able to go back to normal. Or prehaps this is what normal has become and everything else is what is different and strange.
I'm in an interesting mood due to the four hour theatre workshops I did yesterday and will do today. Basically, I switched from Economics to Theatre Arts. Everyone who hears that exclaims at what a dramatic switch it is but to me it all makes sense. I'm not enamoured with economics as subject. I like discussing the practical side of markets and how they affect a country or individual but I'm not incredibly fond of all the new terms, charts, and graphs. Perhaps if I had had a good teacher it would have been okay. However, my teacher wasn't too great. So, instead of suffering through it for two whole years, I switched to something I'll enjoy. I understand economics will be incredibly helpful in my career aim and I definitly plan on taking it for a term in university but I think Theatre Arts is also important. It's a real acting class. Not a performance class like at Taos High. Already, after only two classes, I know I'll be learning life skills; how to manage impulses and reflexes in such a way as to communicate a certain idea or situation to an individual or several individuals.
Anyway... I have these theatre workshops. They're very interesting and are run by an AC graduate (1990 I think) who has become a sort of "contemporary clown." He has worked with several famous actors and directors and has put us through a series of confidence building, concentration exercises. I really like it all so far.
Other than that...

Last night I was laying in bed (I amazingly got to bed very early, which means before 12am) and I was suddenly surrounded by a great love for the people here. I've had so many stimulating, interesting conversations as well as completely random ones and it's become more and more easy for me to connect with everyone. Mostly I speak of the people in my house. They've all become like family. In barely a month I've already come to love this place. It feels to me like an important example to the world that 300 students from over 80 different countries, religions, and cultures can come together in a peaceful setting and build a great world where international understanding is promoted and cultural education dominates. It can, it has happened.

Haha, okay... Malcolm (the principal here) would be very proud of that little speech. It's a joke around school how he is ALWAYS saying "challenge yourself" and blabbering on about being "culturally insensitive". But really, for the most part (in all the places it matters) I can truely say that AC is everything I hoped and wished it would be.

Feeling rather philosophical and missing you all as always,
Malia