I started here at MIIS on June 17, 2013. I have been having trouble in the Arabic SILP I am in but I absolutely love it. I have wanted to attend this school since 1980 or 1981. It represents a lot of things to be here now. I have worked hard to move forward this far and it might sound strange but you can say I have done it pretty fast even though it has been over 30 years.

I went through a foreclosure back in 2008 that forced me to leave my beautiful home in the woods on three acres. It has been a wonderful adventure to be honest and I am grateful everyday I think of how lucky I am to be here in this place experiencing many dreams come true as well as many others being born.

I have another blog that is a couple of years old  that you can find if you google, “Terri, Pugh, Blog” to find it. It includes pictures of my adventures in Europe along with details of life as I moved around a lot. It follows me from one college to the next as I have been working my way up through the system to get to this point in grad school.

I am a single mother, not at all wealthy enough to pull this off in style….but I am here.

I am in an Arabic Summer Intensive Language program and I want to pass my test in Spanish. I knew my Arabic was not my best foreign language but it was the one I knew I could get the most from during an intensive program like this one.

On a winter break from the local community college in 2009, I learned how to read Greek phonetically from Hellenic letters….played with Japanese over other breaks since my son was interested. I have studied formally Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French and Italian. I love all languages though and enjoy accents and the way people express themselves so differently in every culture. But here I am struggling to keep up….I have to remind myself that I knew all along that I was taking my worst language on purpose knowing that it needed the most work and that I was getting the best help I could possibly get in Arabic.

I also knew that this language would be well worth it in any job I get in the future. Language to me is a key….a key to a future that helps to allow people to understand each other no matter the distance, time or place….

My bookstore only has my first book on it today but I am hoping to have more time to load other books I have written and am writing now….

www.terripugh.com

http://terripugh.blogspot.com/2013/07/about-15-months-ago.html

The last link is my public blog….I don’t let them know I am in Monterey….to keep some things private for my son and I….but on this site I can be more honest I think since you are all MIIS folk as well….