Hey guys, 

This week I wanted to give you more of an academic update. I know that, as of late, the majority of my posts have been about Daniel and all of our adventures around the island. To counter these posts, I wanted to publish one that discusses my recent academic endeavors. I hope that you enjoy.

I think it's best we start with the most prominent event thus far: midterms.

Yes, it's midterm season again. This means late nights studying, cramming for exams, and suddenly getting homework in half of your classes. 

Actually, it hasn't been like this at all. You would think that, considering how I'm enrolled in 18 credits, my semester would be like this constantly. You would think that I'm always staying up late studying, or either having some homework assignment to complete, but in reality it has been quite the opposite.

The classes I'm taking, for those of you that may have forgotten, are: Chinese 301, Korean 101, Intro to Political Science, China's Political Economy, Oceanography, and the accompanying OCN lab.

Now while those classes look daunting (and 18 credits sounds just as bad), let me put to rest the notion that I do nothing but study. These past few weeks I have been going out much more and even just doing much more, and there would be no absolute way I would feel comfortable doing what I've done if I would have had the amount of homework that many people assume an 18 credit workload has.

Instead, my classes are quite easy in terms of demand. For Korean, we have homework once every chapter. That's it! One worksheet every chapter. This means that once every four weeks (give or take) I have a worksheet to complete. How crazy is that? I could only dream of the day my Chinese class is this laid back. 

Speaking of which, Chinese class , the outlier of my classes and the bane of my existence, is the one class in which I have homework every night. To be frank, I'm not sure how I've been successful in doing any of the homework this past month and a half, because it feels like I have done no work at all. The workload of Chinese class this year is much more manageable than last, and while I might complain, I'm still so very much thankful. In fact, this semester I have all but lost that familiar "panic" feeling I used to get when entering the classroom. Instead, I have been showing up to class feeling like "You know what? I've got this." and feeling very relaxed overall. I don't know what changed, but I do believe that it has to do with my level slowly (but surely!) increasing. I definitely should make more of an effort to remind myself of this, as I all too often get caught up in tearing myself down for not understanding, instead of praising myself for when I do understand.

As far as science goes, in my Oceanography class I never have homework. In fact, unless you find yourself taking the lab, then you really won't have any homework. For this class the only grades are: participation, a class field trip, and the unit exams. However, if you do find yourself in the lab, your grade will be based on lab reports and a scientific paper on the topic of your choosing.

In my Political Science class our only homework thus far have been the readings assigned to us before every lecture. To be quite honest, you really don't even need to do the readings, as they are more supplementary material. You may find that you like them, or you may find yourself more-so in my boat, where, after a few weeks, I found them to be boring and realized they were not required readings.

In my last class, China's Political Economy, our only assignments for the entire semester are two reports and an accompanying two presentations. Our final? A take home paper and a private presentation with the teacher. This is arguably my most laid-back class, as you should all remember at the beginning of the semester she introduced herself by saying "I'm sure you've all read my ratings and know that, rest assured, you will be getting good grades.". While the class itself regularly goes off-topic, I wouldn't let the idea that it's an upper division, writing intensive class make you believe I'm doing any difficult work. In fact, I think it's been very nice that I'm able to take a class that I find interesting that also doesn't require much work. It makes enjoying the class all the much better.

And now, with a solid idea of how much work I have in general, it would be fair to assume that my midterms are either going to be extremely easy or insanely difficult. Let me break it down some more.

The midterms I have had thus far are: Oceanography and Political Science

Now, I know initially that this doesn't look like much. And really, it isn't. But I think that, now knowing how these two classes require such minimal work, that the bulk of my grades will ride on these exams. 

Thankfully, I can say with confidence that I believe I did very well on my political science midterm. Our test requires us to memorize 50 vocab words and 2 individual questions. On the exam itself, our professor choose 10 out of the 50 words and asked we define only 6 of our choosing. I also believe I did fairly well on the ID question, which had an additional 3 parts to it. This midterm will account for one third of my grade. The other 66% will come from our final and our mid semester paper. 

Oceanography is a different story. The class itself is, I find, relatively boring. I don't understand much of what the professors are talking about, and this made the midterm much harder than the political science one. If I'm being honest, the entire reason I took this class and not something like food science is because I heard from all of my friends that it's an easy science credit. Unfortunately, what I didn't take into consideration was that all of those friends were either marine biology majors or biology majors. I passed the midterm, of course, but knowing what I know now I will definitely have to study up more so that I can do better on the next exam. 

Also, since this post has been published, I will have completed another midterm: Chinese Oral. This one, to me, is such a disappointment. This semester I have felt like I have been doing so good, and then today I didn't have such great luck. Our test seemed simple, to talk 1-3 minutes about Chinese doctors and convince your friend why they should or should not see one. However, what I didn't know about, was that even though our regular class time is 50 minutes, the exam itself would only be 15. Which means that, even though we were told "record yourselves as many times as you need", when the teacher said "TIME!", that she actually means that the test is over. I cannot tell you the sheer panic I felt as I looked away from my computer screen and locked eyes with her at the front. At only 30 seconds into my fourth take, I knew that I was done for. I wanted to perfect my audio file, and unfortunately not knowing this exam was only 1/3 of the class time led me to, without a doubt, fail the oral. It is times like these when I feel the most discouraged, as I know that I know the information, but it just doesn't come out. I wish I could say it was no big deal, but with a fellowship riding on my back, solely dependent on the grade I get in this class, I cannot say anything less. I can only hope that the midterm reading, writing, and listening go much better. 

The rest of my classes don't have midterms! Which are really just China's Political Economy and Korean. It feels nice to come home and feel like I don't have anything to study for or to work on. Of course, one could argue that I always have something that I could be studying for, but for now I would like to enjoy this tiny period of rest. 

Additionally, outside of class, I have begun Chinese tutoring again and have also been going to the gym more regularly. I was really good about going in the beginning of the semester, but once classes started picking up things seemed to fizzle out. I really hope that these next few weeks I can spend more time on the treadmill and less on my desk chair. I have also started working at my new on-campus job! For safety reasons, similar to last year, I will not be sharing where I work. Just know that it is "as demanding, if not more, than a class." as my boss told me on the first day. I guess that, even with 18 credits, I can't get a break. 

I hope everyone is having a great week and that midterms aren't causing complete havoc on your academic lives. 

Until next time,

Aislinn