Hey everyone,

It feels a little weird coming back online and typing a blog post. I won't lie, I haven't done too much since the last post. Part of this is because I've been busy with school, and another part has to do with the lack of time left in this semester.

It feels weird to say it, but in three weeks I will be going home. Yes, you read that right! In three weeks I will have left Hawaii and be on my way home. However, for this post I want to talk about a something that every out-of-state student (or at least those in Hawaii) absolutely have to do before the semester ends!

About a third of a mile from campus is a storage unit center where students are encouraged to buy a unit for the summer. There are other places, but I will be talking about this one because

1. They provide student discounts
2. I'm most familiar with this company

At this company, they have been quite clear that student discounts, as well as pick up and drop off, are services they provide. I actually just bought my unit today, but have decided to forgo the pickup option. One thing I will advise is to go into this with more than one person. Obviously the more the better, but that isn't always the case. In mine, I had originally agreed to split one with my other friends. However, it's been weeks since we talked initially about renting one and, with literally three weeks left, I couldn't wait any longer and just got a unit myself. I decided that, in my case, less is more, and will be splitting the unit with someone else. However, my biggest fear is that the others won't be happy, but a unit is most definitely something you don't want to put off renting, and so I knew I couldn't wait.

I plan on moving my stuff in finals week and, from there, won't touch it until I fly back in August!

--

I also wanted to bring up something that I'm sure many of you have been curious about since my last post. Will I be transferring? Short answer, I'm not sure. My opinion of Manoa hasn't changed since I've made that post and, if anything, I have decided that if next year really is my last year, then I'm going to make sure I take advantage of everything at Manoa. Granted, as a language major, there isn't much to take advantage of. But I mean this in terms of classes. I have decided to sign up for Korean 101, a decision that I really wanted to have made last semester, but unfortunately couldn't make. This is something I really want to do, and can't begin to explain how excited I am. I'll also let you guys in on a secret- from what I have heard (from people both in the department and out) Korean is a very easy and enjoyable class. Compared to Chinese at Manoa, which I won't go into but could make a separate post about, it also has a much higher retention rate. This doesn't matter that much to me, but I think it says a lot about the program if you have a lot of the students returning each year. 

Also worth mentioning is the amount of aid I have received for the next year! While I'm happy, and shocked that the school has been so generous, I have been awarded over $5,000 in scholarships for the next year. I'm happy, because this is something I won't need to pay, but concerned because I know that if I want to transfer that there will be no way I can get a school to match the price I'm paying without it being an equally low tier school. But, regardless, I can't be upset at the fact that I've been given essentially free money. 

I hope that everyone is having a great week. Keep pushing on!

Until next time,

Aislinn