The Upwith People and my Pancakes

Okay, I'm used to writing down my thoughts and memories in the form of poetry, but my poetry tends to be very enigmatic, and I'm sure nobody but myself could possibly understand most of it (I don't even understand some of it myself). So, I suppose I'd better just record my epic adventure in the more coherent form of memoirs (though I'm sure I'll bust out in poetry every now and then). So, thus begins the documenting of my spectacular voyage with Up With People.
Today was the second official day of our UWP experience. So far it has been utterly amazing - especially getting to know so many great people from all over the globe (18 countries alltogether). Since I'm keeping a sociology journal for school along with this one, I'll try not to repeat myself too much. But yeah, the people here are amazing. However, I think instead of giving a generic description of each of them, I'll just let them reveal themselves through my writing.
My host family is really great - Alex and Tonya are both alumni of UWP, so they know just what we're going through. They have three little kids all under the age of four. Ian, the oldest, is very entertaining and surprisingly smart for his age. He refers to Raine (my roommate, who lives in Canada) and I as "the upwith people", as if "up with" were an adjective describing us. For instance, he will sometimes say things such as:
"Mom, can the upwith people read me my bedtime story?"
"Why aren't the upwith people coming to church with us?"
and
"Will the upwith people play Sorry with me?" (which he has so far talked us into doing twice - Raine has even showed us some of the special Canadian rules).
It's cute.

Yesterday was overwhelming, and felt more like two days than one; to the point that Raine and I were referring to events from that morning as "yesterday", when it was only later that evening. I met a LOT of people that day - some of whom I'd "met" on Facebook prior to coming here. It's so strange when that happens - "meeting" someone before actually meeting them in person; kind of like a blind date. It was extremely embarrassing though, because for some reason I had chosen to wear the tightest shirt I'd brought (my Righteous Babe "resolution" tee), and was thus pitting out like mad. Raine referred to my sweat stains as "pancakes". Gotta love the Canadians. I usually don't care about such things, but this was my first impression on most of these people, and pitting out is kind of gross... okay, I'll cut the pretense: there were plenty of hot guys running about from Sweden and Texas and other places, and I'm sure my "pancakes" didn't make too much of an attractive impression on those who just might be of my persuasion. I mean, these babies were very visible.
One of our seminar-ish things was about goals, and we wrote and sealed letters to ourselves concerning our goals for the semester. I don't really hold too much regard for making goals, seeing as I signed up for Up With People basically on a whim. But I was able to think of a few. One was to find a way to be proud of my country (it made me slightly jealous to see how patriotic some of the foreign students are to their native countries - especially those from Mexico), and to be ambitious enough to try to change the things that I still don't like about my country. I wonder if that will happen? I guess the events to happen in 2008 will probably have a little effect on that.
Today I was diagnosed as a tenor, and I did organized dance for the first time (we had audition-type things for both). We also had a lot of down time in between, so I went exploring down 16th street with several new friends. I felt proud to be seen in such a group - I mean, we were comprised of people from the USA (of course), Brazil, Sweden, Canada, and the Netherlands. It's funny, because just a couple of days ago, my Dad said that he could distinguish European guys from Americans while in a city by the way that they dressed in an almost-American sort of way, but not quite. I wonder what he would have thought of this eclectic ensemble. It was odd to think that this was the only time in my entire life that I would be in such diverse company on that particular street. It was great. I'm getting better at reveling in such moments while they are actually happening, the only time I'll ever be able to properly.