Hey everyone!

I hope everyone is settling back into their routines nicely. I am happy to say that classes have gotten much better (and yes, this includes Chinese!) and I am slowly but surely appreciating my schedule. 

I won't lie, the first few days have been pretty difficult. I had quite a bit I needed to work on, and felt like I wasn't making any progress in my work. I also have an on-campus job now, and this takes up either 3 hours of my time in the morning or evening. My shifts these past few days have been in the morning, which I like because I get out of work pretty quickly, but the downside is that I have to go to bed at around 10 so that I can wake up by 4. This has been really hard since it means I have to try and get my homework done before 10, which is usually when I'm doing it, and saying goodnight to my friends a lot earlier than I would like. I'm hoping that as I get settled in that I will be able to manage my time better. I like my job, but I wish I had more time to see my friends and do homework. Unfortunately I've chosen homework over socializing, so I can only hope it pays off. 

Anyways! Like I said in the beginning of this post, my classes have been getting much better. Chinese, which I believe everyone could tell stressed me out, was actually a lot better yesterday. I think the teacher picked up on that only a few students were understanding her, so in class yesterday she acted out more of her speech and I feel like she "dumbed down" her vocabulary. I'm not too sure on the late, but I am positive I understand more of her yesterday than I did the day before. 

After Chinese was my long break (which I spent trying to nap) and then East Asian Studies. That class also went by very quickly, and the lecture was about classical China. So far my impression of that class is that it's going to be pretty easy. It seems like a lecture and a paper halfway through the semester. It really doesn't seem all that demanding, and the focus is on China, Japan, and Korea. His syllabus says Taiwan, as well, but he never mentioned it on day one so I doubt I'm going to learn much about that country. 

After East Asian was Honors Genetics. Truth be told I'm not entirely sure what science class this is, so I'm just calling it genetics. Yesterday my professor, who seems very laid back, told us to "not take any notes, just sit back and listen". He also ended the hour and a half a bit early, which I appreciated. What I like about this class is that there are no exams and no tests. There seems to only be a paper during the semester, and at that it's a topic of our choice. The class is pretty small, about 8 kids, and they seem to be upperclassmen. 

After that I went back to my room and tried working on some homework. I met up with the girls for dinner in Waikiki, at the udon shop, and then returned to finish my work. I'm about 30 characters down, but I need to memorize 50 for tomorrows Chinese test, and I also need to do some pages in my Chinese workbook. I'm thinking I may dip out of my math class early today so I can work on some of my Chinese. 

It's almost Friday, everyone! Hang in there.

Until next time,

Aislinn