This is the first entry in this blog. I am leaving tomorrow for Spain with my little sister Lucia. I'll be there for a full year. Lucia and I will spend the rest of the summer vacationing in Galicia with family. Lucia will go home right before her school starts in August. In September I'll move into an apartment in Madrid with my cousins Alejandro, Manolo, and Blanca. I will be attending la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid where I'll be studying computer science.

I was planning on just using my UMR website to keep this blog but I don't have much space left for pictures there and this blogger thing seems to be pretty good.

The idea of using a "web log" as an online journal has always seemed stupid to me. Pretending that these thoughts written here are personal and private is a pretentious self indulgence. The fantasy of writing a "private" diary that will be read by friends and strangers alike seems to be irresistable to many of the kids that subscribe to livejournal.com.

Anyway, this is not that kind of blog. Nor is it a topical blog. This personal blog serves two purposes: recording my experiences in Spain and keeping in touch with my friends and family in Missouri. However, I don't know how my internet access situation will be throughout the year or how much time I will have so I don't often I will be posting.

Time to go pack and make sure I'll have everything I'll need for the next year.