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My HI Life

A collegiate's take on island life

Hey guys!

Wow, has it been a minute!

Is it shocking to anyone else how was have already reached one of my last posts as a freshmen? For those of you have that been reading since the beginning, which is insane because I feel like I just posted that "First Impressions" post about Manoa, congrats! Just like myself, we are a mere week away from being absolutely done with freshmen year. 

I'll spare you all the sappy montage of "favorite moments from the past year" and instead opt for telling you how I've been spending my last few days. 

Let's start with classes.

Since having dropped my sociology class (surprised?) I have been left with closing the semester off with, hopefully, good grades in my four other classes. This week in particular, appropriately titled Dead Week, is when my classes officially ended and one final already completed. 

Similar to the fall semester, the final I had first was my Chinese 202 oral. Exactly like the midterm, we were given 13 different questions to answer individually, and then 3 prompts we have to memorize with a partner. On the day of, the partners would then select a card which would have any one of the prompts on it, and from there we would have to almost act out our script. In my case my partner and I drew card #1, which meant we would be discussing the first prompt, which involved arguing about whether or not we prefer traveling as part of a tour group or alone. (This was material from a previous lesson). 

Overall I think the oral went pretty well. It could have been better, naturally, but I did the best I could and for that I'm glad. 

After Chinese I had a good two hour break before going to my last East Asian class and Honors Genetics. 

And so, in the meantime, I decided to go speak to the Political Science department at UH. Lately I've been wondering if I should either change majors or simply minor in Chinese. 

After talking with the Political Science Undergrad Advisor, I have decided to continue with taking a global politics class in the fall. It's not so much government that interests me, but international relations. By the looks of it, the program has quite a few classes on global law and relations, so hopefully this program will be something that clicks.

After the advising I went to my East Asian class and my Genetics class. 

For our last day of instruction in East Asian, we learned more about North Korea (which our knowledge of, go figure, is very limited) and touched on Taiwan. 

In Genetics we finished up presentations on our 10 page papers. After class the professor announced that he would like to speak to each individual person about their papers, and when it was my turn to speak with him I was shocked at what he told me.

In short, he commended me greatly on my "strong voice" in my scientific paper. He made a point to tell me that my paper was one of the only ones he has read that has had such a unique voice (in his words, "You have a voice that is not often found in scientific papers, simply because it doesn't usually work. However, your style of writing made it so that, interestingly enough, your voice fit very well with your paper. While a scientific paper, reading it did not feel like so. I have never read something like this. It's amazing.") and that I should seriously consider a career in writing. We concluded with me telling him I was thankful for the class and hope to take a class in the future on immunology. 

After class I met up with the girls and went out to dinner with one of their moms. The restaurant, called Sabrina's, is a very small Italian restaurant with big prices. I don't think it matters, but if you plan on going its BYOB, and the wine store is up the road near City Mill. 

After dinner we got boba (again, courtesy of Jade's mom) and called it a night. 

Because the next week is Finals Week, we once again had Thursday and Friday off as time to study. Or, if you're like us, go to the beach. 

My next post will be up soon, but I have homework to do so you will have to wait a bit. 

Until next time,

Aislinn
May 07, 2017 No comments
Hey guys!

I am exhausted. 

This has been quite the week for me, and it's only Tuesday! I have had more coffee in the past two days than I have had all semester. Also, I have gotten a total of about 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. Needless to say I am starting to crash.

This week has also held a lot of firsts for me. On Monday I experienced my first caffeine high ever. This consisted of me, only two cups in, feeling the overwhelming need to do my dishes, laundry, and run a mile, all over the course of one hour. While I did use this to my advantage and clean my tupperware, I had to practically force myself to sleep given that it was 3:30 and I was one of the few still awake in my building (presumably).

The second first was the opposite of a caffeine high. Yesterday, after about 3 cups of caffeine, I became very lethargic and slow. This was a different experience, because not only was my breathing very slow and shallow, but I was also just very tired. The plan was to pull an all nighter, but at 4:20 in the morning I realized that would be near impossible. I actually texted my friends and I told them that I would need them to call me and wake me up in the morning because I just knew I would need the extra push. 

After both exams I came back and took a well deserved nap. Before college, I found naps to be extremely hard to have, but now that I'm in college and staying up generally later (especially now) during exam season. I actually finished my psychology exam today and took a good hour and a half nap. 

Currently, the rest of my week consists of studying for Chinese and Religion. I'm not too worried about Chinese, considering I got a 98% on my speaking final, but I'm still going to study what I can. 

Besides all of that, I'm finding this week to be very enjoyable, albeit pretty stressful. I'm actually going to miss the late night studying. I won't miss the finals, though. 

I'll leave this post off at this. I don't have much else to comment on so I hope everyone continues to push through and try their hardest during this stressful week. The break is so close! 

Until next time,

Aislinn


PS: This is what Waikiki has been looking like lately. Isn't the sky absolutely breathtaking? It's a nice distraction from the reality of finals.


December 13, 2016 No comments
Hey guys!

It is officially 'Dead Week'. I had to look this up, but Dead Week is the week of finals where students are so busy with studying and cramming for their tests that they will literally appear dead. I haven't hit that point yet (as it's only Monday) but I'm two cups of coffee in and it's only 2:13, so I'm getting there. I'm actually blogging instead of studying, but let's keep that between us. 

As promised, here are some pictures that were taken yesterday. Bella brought her nice camera with her to Waikiki, and, in the midst of the tourists, managed to take some really nice shots. Most of the pictures include the girls, so I will wait to add it until I get their permission. Until then, here is my favorite of myself. Notice I'm wearing a santa hat. You can't see it, but the tourists were very confused. I think it was worth it.  


I think what I love about this is Diamond Head so picturesque in the background. The sun was setting and made Diamond Head look absolutely stunning, as well as make me look tan. Views like this are constant reminders of how blessed I am to be going to college here. 

Continuing off on the topic of Dead Week, I have successfully racked up at least ten hours devoted to studying. Like I said, I'm running on two cups of coffee here, and while that's pretty tame compared to what I assume will be much more as the days progress, I have found that either I know a lot more than I give myself credit for, or I'm not studying correctly. I have decided to break up my studying by days, so today was entirely anthropology. My finals schedule is:

Monday- Anthropology
Tuesday- Psychology
Wednesday- Chinese
Thursday- none
Friday- Religion

Thankfully, only one of my finals is cumulative. Because of this, I have a lot less studying to do. Don't get me wrong, I still have a lot of work to review, but not as much as I could have. Once my anthropology final is done I plan on spending the rest of the day reviewing psychology. This exam worries me the most, but I know a few people who got 5's on the AP exam, so, if need be, I will ask them for help. 

I don't have much else to say about Dead Week, but I will try and update as much as possible for you all. 

The coffee is starting to kick in, so I'm going to end this post here and study for a few more hours. 

Study hard, everyone! Remember to get some sleep and enjoy the next few days with your friends.   


Until next time,

Aislinn
December 12, 2016 No comments
Hey everybody!

It's exam season, which means the next few days, for myself at least, are going to be spent with my head in the books from morning till night. As difficult as it has been to convince myself that no, I don't need to go to the beach, I know that all of this studying will be worth it in the end. Like many other schools, the day before finals week is typically given as a "Study Day" for students. However, you all have been reading long enough to know that the chances of me studying on a day off of school are slim to none.

But you'd be surprised, I actually did spend my day off studying, albeit briefly. I used Friday to catch up (and finish) my Chinese homework for the semester. I missed out on hanging out with the girls, but I'm glad I was able to get my work done. I know that, had I gone out, I would not have finished everything on time.  

The next day Eric and I decided to go on a hike. Originally we were torn on the Kaniakapupu Ruins and the Lyon Arboretum, as both looked to be very interesting hikes, but in the end we went with the Arboretum. 

My first mistake of that day was making the conscious decision to wear jeans.

Looking back this was a horrible decision, as I've really hyped myself up to be this experienced hiker. Instead, the impression I got from the pictures of the Arboretum was that it was more like a garden, and I figured jeans would be the way to go. Obviously, I was very wrong. We were hiking for about 3 hours and I can't tell you how many times I wished I was in shorts. However, complaining aside, the Arboretum is a very scenic hike that just about everyone can enjoy. If you are considering going, I would recommend bringing bug spray. This seems obvious, but it's always the obvious things that you end up leaving behind. This was our second mistake. 

Here are some pictures I took of some plants in the hike. Some are indigenous and some are not, but either way they're all stunning in person. 


 





Additionally, the waterfall can take anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour to get to, but hardly anyone goes up there, so I would recommend going! It's not like Manoa Falls, but is still worth hiking to. 

A word of caution: if you decide to visit the Arboretum, there's a chance you will come across chameleons, poison dart frogs, and pigs. The chameleons can be taken, as they're an invasive species, but are hit or miss. Either you see them or you don't. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see any. However, I did get the chance to see a bright green dart frog. As cute, and tiny, as it was, I had no idea they are poisonous. Unlike the chameleon I would not advise you to mess with these creatures. Lastly, the pigs are out there but not easy to find. If you see a piglet, use common sense and be cautious, as chances are the mother is nearby.  

After our hike we walked downtown a bit and stopped for lunch. We opted for crepes and snow ice. For those unfamiliar, snow ice is a fluffy type of ice cream that is topped with mochi, pops, and condensed milk. If you have the chance you most definitely should try some! It's a very unique type of ice cream. 

The following day, Sunday, was spent entirely with the girls. While the majority of the day was spent in stiff chairs reading and quizzing ourselves on our finals, we managed to find some time and take a beach break. We had been talking about taking family photos, as we have truly become a family during this semester, and found this to be the perfect time. Unfortunately, two of the girls decided not to go, but the rest of us made it work. Tomorrow we will go back and take more pictures with the "whole family". I'll publish the pictures in the next post, as I really like how they turned out! 

Happy studying everybody!

Until next time,

Aislinn
December 12, 2016 No comments
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About Me

About Me



Hey there! My name is Aislinn and welcome to my blog. Here you will learn all about my times at the University of Hawaii; completely raw and unashamedly myself. In addition to writing about the University I also frequently post about lifestyle, beauty, and travel. I hope you enjoy reading my words as much as I enjoy writing them. Thank you for stopping by,

XOXO, Aislinn

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