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'.