The 10-week term passes by sooo fast! It's not even been 2 months since I first met with my faculty advisor to elect my fall term courses, yet I've already found myself in her office this Tuesday to talk about my winter classes! I chose a pretty safe combination of courses for the fall. I'm currently taking Writing 2, Japanese 1, and Econ 1. I'd already learned a little Japanese before I got here, so I consider Japanese 1 my easiest class (I still have to spend time on it, but not as intensely as my two other classes). The only thing difficult about Japanese 1 is that we have language drill at 7:45 am four times a week, so I really have to carefully plan my schedule to make sure I have at least 7 hours of sleep each day. Other than that, Japanese 1 is amazing! Professor Watanabe is super great, and she knows how to make our class exciting and energize everyone to concentrate in the earliest class of the day. Moreover, I'm really bonding with my classmates. We have breakfast together everyday after drill, and we call ourselves "The Brekky Club!"

A snap of my Japanese class!
And the most amazing things about Japanese 1 is that even though we have only studied Japanese for 7 weeks, I've already found myself understand some daily Japanese conversations! I'm really excited to be fluent in Japanese by the end of the year, so I'm definitely continuing taking Japanese 2 and 3 in winter and spring term! Beside Japanese, I'm also going to continue taking Writing 3 to complete my first-year writing requirement. I also really really love my Writing class, even though the work load is very intense. We're studying about World War I, and war in literature is always the best topic ever! Professor Lannon and our TA Kasey are really friendly, and they have helped me improve a lot with my writing! I'm super excited continue challenging myself in Writing 3! My third course for next term, however, would be completely different from Econ 1. I'm going to take Film 33, which is Screenwriting I! The course entrance requirement is instructor's permission, so I have to send Professor Phillips two script proposals and one writing sample to get in the class. I was so inspired with my ideas for the scripts that I wrote two 600-word proposals in 30 minutes! And I got in! I'm really looking forward to materialize my idea into a feature script by the end of next term! My faculty advisor, professor Gaposchkin said that Film 33 would apparently be my most challenging course next term, especially when I'm also taking a writing course (imagine all the papers!). I myself have also considered this a lot, but eventually I decided to take the challenge because I've already played it safe this term. And beside, I've traveled half the globe to be here at Dartmouth, so why play it safe? I want to take the courses I wouldn't be able to take if I were studying in Vietnam! So even though I'm a little bit nervous for next term's workload, I'm really really looking forward to the challenges :)