end o' session 1

whats new? not too much. i'm studying (cramming?) pretty hard for my two finals tomorrow. i got a test in grammar and one in phonetics. i don't have one in language and society because we did a group paper, a group test and a group presentation all within the past week and a half. at least i'm done with that, all we have tomorrow for that class is a pizza party. woohoo!

so phonetics, im not too worried. each week we have had 1 production quiz and a transcription test. that first one is me pronouncing about 5 or so words correctly for a teacher by looking at the IPA symbols. what is the IPA you ask? why its the International Phonetic Alphabet, see here! the transcription test is a teacher pronouncing for us and us writing it correctly in the symbols. oh, we also had a couple mimicry tests. thats where we spend forever listening to some phrases from a language (last time it was cantonese) and then we go in and repeat them for a prof.

i guess the only thing bothering me about grammar is that we've not had any grades other than hw each night. no other test grades but i'll do fine. no worries.

what im really excited about is our four day weekend coming up. oh and i bought plane tickets to indiana for t-day. i cant wait!

aug 3's the best

i had a really great birthday. i think it was one of the best that i've had for awhile. i've made some good friends here so far. the other girls on the floor are molly, mae and anna, and my roommate emily. they are all pretty cool in their own ways. i get along really well with emily. its good that we both like it really cold, esp at night when we're sleeping so we have all these blankets and all. i think it also helps that we are taking the exact same classes. emily is a member of pioneer bible translators, a smaller organization, so she is in the same situation with me... having a ton of hw on top of pd(partnership development) stuff. my roomie and i both have a lot more hw than the other girls. its not unbearable, but i think i finally figured out how to describe the workload, its like 3x j-term. the first session is a month long and i have 3 classes every day. a lot of hw and reading.

i get along really well with molly and mae. molly was a music major from central california. she has good taste in movies and is fun to be around. mae and i have a lot in common, we both went to taylor (she was in bergwall a year ahead of me), she loves pink floyd more than i do, and we watch monty python's flying circus. she is a vegan, that's something new to me. we might find a vegan restaurant so i can try some food, but dont worry i will never be a vegan.

so for my bday, the first part was pretty uneventful, except that it was the first time i ever had school on my bday and that i forgot to do laundry so i was doing it in between classes because i needed clothes. i tried to take a nap before dinner, i had about an hour, i got maybe 20 min of sleep because people kept calling me. im so popular on aug 3 =) i ignored a few calls- it was my bday, i can do wahtever i want on my bday =P we walked to the cafeteria for dinner, us dorm folk always eat together (esp dinner b/c no one else is ever there for dinner). everyone made me awesome cards, witty ones with jokes or what have you on them. the girls got me a cookie cake and a napoleon dynamite poster and some redvines. after that we went to get some smoothies with tapioca pearls. yay! then we came back and watched some incredibly funny flying circus episodes. 'no time toulousse!'

so this weekend im spending some time doing a group project, but i dont mind all that much. i have the most industrious group ever. this is the smoothest group work i've ever done (so far anyway).

life is good. thank's everyone who said hi for my birthday, i miss you guys.
thank you God.