1st day of class.

So, classes started today. Surprisingly, I was not as excited about today as I thought I would be. The curriculum is quite different from VCU - but not drastically different. I've only been to two classes. My history class about Southeast Asia seems to be less demanding than I had originally anticipated. My professor is from Japan and she's actually quite adorable. We have 3 types of evaluations that will determine our grade for the semester: class attendance (20%), term paper (40%), and tutorials (40%). Tutorials are equivalent to recitation, but for this particular class, we only have to go to four tutorials and each tutorial is a presentation topic about Southeast Asia. The term paper is supposedly 10-12 pages but you can use any format you want, provided it's consistent and it can be about any topic connecting Southeast Asia with the Western world. The class seems reasonable enough.

My other class was a 4000 level class. I didn't realize that until I actually got to my class how difficult it is. It's actually a graduate class. It's about Chinese Intellectual History; 2 term papers - 80% total. The other 20% comes from mini-papers, I think. I zoned in and out of class because I had all the intention to drop it. I definitely do not want to take this class since it doesn't equivocate to any classes back at VCU.

Surprisingly, there are no quizzes or final exams - just papers. Everything requires thinking, which I am pleased about. Some of the courses at VCU practically spoon-feed the information to students. There is no book required for my history class and everything is expected of the student to independently research. I like that better because I can do things on my own time and the professors give students much more independence than at VCU.

It's quite hard to think about writing papers and studying, especially since I'm in Hong Kong - a place where there's so much to do. I really want to get to know the ins and outs of Hong Kong: the who, the what, where the locals go. I still feel like a tourist here...not a student who will be here for the next five months. Perhaps it's because I've been spending the past week as a vacationer, seeing all the sights that HK is famous for. HK has been eating at my wallet the past few days - I need to stop the spending. I hope I can do that by avoiding expensive places like Lan Kwai Fong and avoiding taking taxis to places.

HK is not as cheap as I thought it would be!!!