JUST TO GET STARTED

It's been just three days since I hit Chicago and it seems to me I will love this city and experience for the rest of my life. People at UIC are really charming and trying to get things easygoing and interesting for us all. When I say us all, I mean this extraordinary bunch of people coming from literally all over the world, not every day you've got the chance to meet someone from Mongolia, Norway or Nicaragua, just to put some examples.
English as a lingua franca...how many times can I have used this expression in my writings? don't know, maybe hundreds, and I must admit it is precisely now when I can thoroughly understand what I meant. Different accents, different mistakes, different intonations, but a common wish to be understood in terms of courtesy and politeness...it's the English language what I certainly call a linking element in this case, and I'm so proud of taking part in this linguistic experience...I feel I've got to say I'm sorry for taking everything into the philological way (as my new friends already know) but, what else can I do? I do enjoy it and tend to look for a philological side in almost everything I do!
Chicago is simply awesome...with a perfect mixture of the classical American skyscrapers and sort of European side with its amazings overviews on Lake Michigan ... I do enjoy this city and I'm pretty sure I will learn to enjoy it even more...
Jet lag apart, we are enjoying wonderful housing, finance and academic conditions thanks to the perfect organization held by Neil, Janet and the rest of the guys who are simply a dream come true. Professor Arnesen and the rest of the teaching staff started everything off today with a general approach to the three basic topics on which we will base our research here, that's to say, History, Law and Literature, a perfect combination to really be capable of getting near to the commonly accepted concept of the complex American identity. Who are they? why are they the way they are? who's written American History so far? who were excluded? who shouldn't have been included?
Many many questions to which we will try to find an answer in the following weeks...I will inform you as soon as I get the possible answers, but I'm afraid we will never be able to reach a consensus and that's is exactly what all of this is about: respectful debate from different points of views no matter how far we get in the discussion...
I could also talk about my flight, my Internet connection or the socializing events which we have already enjoyed, but it's late, and the real essence of American is waiting for me hidden in some readings I must fulfill before going to bed. Let's get it done then!
I'll be back.

Javier Barbero.