はじめまして! Nice to meet you!

Today, I would have to say, has been the best this week! I'm even counting tomorrow because I am very certain that nothing that will happen Friday will trump this awesome experience.
During class, Sagawa-sensee, my Japanese teacher, told the class in passing that there will be a club meeting between Japanese exchange students and UCR students studying Japanese and that it would be a great chance to practice what we have learned. Of course, I'm interested, how often out of school will I get the chance to practice my Japanese with a native speaker? Surprisingly, not often, but it's only the third week of school! At 4o'clock today I went to meeting room, and to be honest I was expecting much and I sure wasn't happy because  first off my last class of the day ended at 3 and I trekked 20 minutes from the class room, a movie theatre, past a highway, and up a hill in 100 degree weather -.-. As if that wasn't treacherous enough, to get to the club meeting spot, I would have to make the same trek back down the hill, past the freeway, and back near the movie theatre in 100 degree weather. I wasn't in the best mood, but I stuck with it and I am oh so glad I did ^.^.
I was nervous at first when I waled into the room and I saw all these students seated and talking among themselves. To my right I heard strings of fluent Japanese, absolutely beautiful, and to my left, mostly English with a dash of Japanese. Everyone was comfortable, laughing and joking together looking like old friends, I had gone alone to the event, but I did see someone from my class. I sat on the left as instructed and turned to my sides to make conversation, there is no point in sitting there stoically when the whole point of the meeting is to socialize. Fast-forwarding a bit, the club representative explained the rules. We were to play a game of sorts. On the table are note cards strewn face down on the table, each with a name written on them. We, the UCR students, are to choose a card and find the person whose name is written on the note card and introduce ourselves and start talking. Simple,  right? I thought so.

It was like fate. I went to the table, picked up a random note card and got this name-------------------->
I was so nervous. I kept going over in my head everything that I learned so that I could impress ちえみ and of course when we met the only thing that I could remember was はじめまして and how to say my name. Talk about epic failure, of all times for my mind to go blank, but it's okay ちえみ rolled with it and she made me comfortable. We started talking and realized that we had a lot in common. Despite being from the opposite ends of the world we had a lot in common and we didn't run out of things to talk about. She helped me more than I helped her lol. Talking with her in my broken Japanese and her fluent English motivated me. Before our encounter, I was happy to go along with the pace in class, but now I want to know more sot hat the next time I meet ちえみ, I won't be speaking as broken Japanese as I am now. I guess that is all it takes, one person, one thing, one experience to get you motivated, to inspire yourself. I am glad that I made the 20 minute trek to the Extension Center for the club meeting.

Week 1 and 2

Cheers to Week 1 and 2! halfway through week 3

So, typically the first couple of weeks are the hardest for incoming freshmen, especially the ones that are far away from home - like me! and I totally agree. The first couple of days everything is exciting and new and there is just so many things to take in. There is the freedom to wear what you want and express yourself because who here at college is going to judge you, certainly not me. You don't have your parent(s) nagging you to do your homework, to enforce your curfew, to badger you about your day, to make sure you wake up on time to get to your class, heck even to attend your classes and chastise you for skipping a discussion, I sure won't - unless you're my room-mate of course *parental eyes on full blast* ^.^.

Me pinning my friend down in a friendly match!

I admit, I cried a bit on move-in day because I called my mom and my niece started crying saying that she missed me. It helped. I got it out of me and I was able to enjoy my time knowing that my family missed me, that was out of the way and I thought it would be the last. These past two weeks, now that I am writing of them retrospectively seem like a blur. I went to all my classes and most days I was done by 11 in the morning, I promptly did my homework and I studied... all by 2 in the after-noon -.-. Lol it's funny because by the time I am finished for the day, the majority of my 40 hall-mates are either now starting their day or are waiting for their next class to start. My hall mates are amazing and we have created a lot of memories in this few weeks. We have dance parties, movie nights, game nights, and we plan to eat lunch/dinner together; we have formed a community, a close-knit community and I appreciate it, but it's not the same. Of course I get along dashingly with some more than others (look at above picture) and others, we are cordial we talk, we're not as close. I have fun with all them, but there is something missing that I have with my friends back home. They know my quirks, my way of speaking, my likes and dislikes, and they know how to comfort me. Yesterday, I was sad and crying and no matter how close my room-mate and I have gotten these past few weeks, it's not like she ignored me, but she didn't know how to comfort me so she acted as though I wasn't crying. I just kept thinking of what my best friends would have done and I cried even more. Ehhh, forming a bond takes time and it's only the third week together. I have to keep remembering that the close bond that I have with my best friends back home in Florida weren't forged in such a short time, they took 4 years.
On another note, I would like to talk a little bit more about one of my classes, I haven't really said anything about them. A class that I love the most out of the three is my Japanese class. The class is very fast paced, four times a week, 50 minutes at a time. In these three weeks I can read and write in ひらがな(Hiragana) one the two alphabets in Japanese and this week we are starting the second alphabet カタカナ(Katakana). I predict by next week, I will have mastered カタカナ and will have moved on to Kanji, Chinese characters. I am very excited to learn Kanji as I have a year of Mandarin under my belt. Also, a quick notice, on the 26th of this month I will be taking my Mandarin placement exam so fingers crossed, I want to stay in Mandarin 1 because what I've learned and the focus of my class is different than those of the schools'.

Move-in Week!/ Week 0

Move-in Week! / Week 0

It has been exactly one week since I have moved into my dorm, settled in, and made friends with my room-mate and hall mates, all 40+ of them. I do not know the exact number because every day I seem to find another person that swears that they have resided in this dorm hall the entire time and I also meet other people that just come to visit because as they say, B1East, my hall, is the most awesome, more social hall in the building. *Insert major gloating and pride.

Move-in day was a bit hectic because I essentially had no one to help me. My plane from Florida left the West Palm Beach Air Port at around 6:30 am and landed in Houston, Texas around 7:40 am, a two hour plane ride as Texas is an hour behind Florida. There was an hour and a half lay over until my transfer plane was airborne once again, this time dry, sunny, yet chilly, Riverside, California, in which it would land in Ontario Airport. During that ride I was met with a superb surprise, one of my elder sisters was a flight attendant. At that moment, my day didn’t seem so daunting ^.^, I had family along with me for the journey to a new chapter in my life.  It was fun being able to see my sister in action and be able to converse with the other flight attendants without the normal forced, tight smile, and helper-customer relationship. All of a sudden those women, and men no longer appeared to be impeccably dressed in their crisp out-fits and perfect hair and no holes in their stockings kind of people; they were just like the rest of us, talking, laughing, gossiping, dreading going back to work and standing on their aching feet.

When the plane landed and I exited to the baggage claim area, it still hadn’t set in that I was starting my life as a college student away from my family and friends.  Even as I met up with the shuttle driver as he loaded my luggage into the van and picked up two other passengers, one a 2^nd year at my school, and drove us to our designated areas to move-in, not once had I cried or felt nostalgic, I was excited for this once in a life-time opportunity. I checked in and got the keys to my dorm building and room and loaded my heavy luggage onto a cart and lugged it into the jam-packed hallways to my dorm room. Then it hit me, I had trouble putting the luggage inside of the cart, how in all of my 5”4, 115lb frame am I going to lift a 57lb suitcase that goes up to waist, a pink 50lb trunk, and my carry on out? I had no one to help me. When I was lugging the cart inside the building I passed by numerous students with their parents and siblings helping them and there I was with my lonesome self… Fortunately for me my next door neighbor are these three guys and one of their mother’s saw my struggle and said to me, “Honey, why are you trying to lift these heavy bags when we have very capable men all around us? Hold on a minute, let me call my son *Hayden to help you.” Hayden was a huge help, he took out my entire luggage and even placed them neatly in my room for me. That one act of kindness put me at ease; well I had a smile on my face as I began the task of un-packing and packing. As I began to make my bed, which thanks to my Mommy, included a bed skirt and the correct sized sheets, one of my hall mates walked in and asked if she could help me make-up my room. That was the second act of kindness in a span of 10 minutes. Maybe this wasn’t so bad. Even though I didn’t have my family there to help me that day, because of that, I was able to meet and be-friend two of my hall mates before the school year officially began.

                Move-in week included a lot of activities to keep us freshmen and transfer students busy and I assume it was a way to keep us from feeling home-sick and calling Mom and Dad to come and pick us up, as if I had that choice. Yeah, let me call my Mommy to buy my a flight ticket home because I feel home-sick, :p.  If I were to write about all the activities that occurred during the first couple of days, this blog post would never end. So, to summarize, it was exactly what I needed. My room-mate and I went everywhere together, we really bonded. I wasn’t expecting us to bond like we did, but I am glad because in the beginning I thought I was paired with the wrong person. We are in different majors, me Asian Studies and she a Pre-Business major and on top of that she had never listened to Korean pop music, something that I love and listen to all the time, but it all worked out. I’m hoping by the end of the year that we are just as pleasant to each other as we are now.

                I started my first day of class on Thursday 22^nd. I had two classes, First-year Japanese and Language and Linguistics. Both went well, one better than the other. Friday I had Intro to South East Asian Stories and First-year Japanese again. All three of my teachers are wonderful and they are very passionate about what they teach which I am enjoying very much. There is nothing more disappointing than being taught by someone that is not passionate and is only going through the motions. 

                I am adjusting well to college life and I do have to thank my many older siblings and fours of International Baccalaureate classes for that. Thanks to my many siblings it is not hard for me to adjust to neither the communal bathroom setting nor the loud noises resounding through the walls of which are my hall mates talking and laughing during the night. Balancing my schedule also isn’t difficult because I am only taking three classes and no discussions, so I have a lot of time. I am more used to having four classes a day for 8 hours a day and going home to write research papers, read short stories/novels, and completing my three online courses.

                All-in-all, Week 0 of college life has progressed smoothly. I do miss my family and friends, but I know that this is one step towards my future and sooner or later this was going to happen. Fortunately for me, this happened sooner.