For all you Southerners, spring is finally here! Even in Gainesville, Florida, the temperature dipped to thirty degrees. Now for people living up north, that’s a warm winter. But for me, it was sub-artic temperatures. I get cold if it’s under seventy-eight degrees. Anyway, spring is here with plants and flowers, and its message of new life. I think God meant for spring to be in this month, because He knew we would celebrate Easter in March or April. In a way, the new animals and plants symbolize Jesus’s resurrection.

So what’s new in geography? Lots of things. We finished with Europe and started on Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and South Asia. Russia is the biggest country in the world, covering one-tenth of the earth’s land mass. It contains Lake Baykal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, and the Trans-Siberian railway. This railroad is the longest running structure in the world, and extremely helpful to the Russians for transportation. The government has been very unstable in the past. The Soviets suppressed the Russian peoples, often forcing them to give up money for food to make weapons. Then the Communists took over and didn’t do much to help either. Joseph Stalin killed over six million people who stood in his way. Russia looks for a better future in its government.

The Caucasus and Central Asia are also very important. If you are ever called a Caucasian, it is because a man found skulls in the Caucasus Mountains and decided they most resembled the white race, but that’s not very accurate. Central Asia also contains a lot of countries with hard names to pronounce, like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. I wonder if a guy named Stan named all these countries, because they all have the word “-stan” in them. Another country shares its name with a US state. Georgia’s capital is Tbilisi and they export grapes, tobacco, citrus, and wheat products. Sorry, they don’t have peaches or pecans.

South Asia contains more commonly known places like India, Pakistan (more of the “stan” countries), Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. India is the seventh largest country in the world and has the second largest population. It holds the River Ganges, which flows south east more then 1500 miles. Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world. China has the most people, but Bangladesh squeezes more people in. It would be like having Florida and Texas’s populations squashed into the state of Alabama--and throw in a couple thousand more for good measure. Sri Lanka and the Maldives were hit hard by the recent tsunami, so clean-up efforts have been strong.

We’ve finished our Home Front projects and are now thinking about the next one, Borders. No bookstores are associated here, you must pick a country and tell why the lines are drawn the way they are on maps. We also finished the third unit with a test. Maybe I’m just slow, because I study hard for these tests, and I get an average grade, but not the grade I want. Possibly memorizing every chapter would help--just kidding. I think I’d probably go blind if I tried doing that. Enjoy the beginning of springtime, and look forward to spring break! I know I am.