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Consdier me oriented
Aug. 19th, 2009 07:30 pmMonday was the grad orientation. guess what? They want us to graduate! They also want us to have a great relationship with our advisor/mentors. And even though we got to get trained on having that relationship, they don't do a training for professors who are advisors/mentors, because that would be, like, um, useless, right? (obviously this wasn't mentioned in the session, but I spent time talking with the presenter just for the hell of it and discovered this amusing fact).
Tuesday was the day for me to take not one, but two oral exams in Japanese. YIPPEE! But at least it's over, and now my funding will come through and I'll actually be in a Japanese class. It's been almost two years since I was in the classroom, and a year or so since I was in Japan last, so my spoken Japanese was WORTHLESS. But placement, I keep reminding myself, is not about proving how great I am but establishing a benchmark for where I will be jumping off from - it's the ground state. So hey, my ground state was half forgotten stressed Japanese. It happens. I ended up taking a nap after I got home just because it'd been a while since I'd been that energetic about language.
OH, and I have an advisor! And while she will never ever come close to matching up with my advisor in Texas (because that was a wonderful fluk of a meeting of the minds), she is pretty awesome so far. And already had suggestions for me. OH, and guess what? I get to take classes from UCLA! (I don't know how many, but some, for free!)
Tuesday was the day for me to take not one, but two oral exams in Japanese. YIPPEE! But at least it's over, and now my funding will come through and I'll actually be in a Japanese class. It's been almost two years since I was in the classroom, and a year or so since I was in Japan last, so my spoken Japanese was WORTHLESS. But placement, I keep reminding myself, is not about proving how great I am but establishing a benchmark for where I will be jumping off from - it's the ground state. So hey, my ground state was half forgotten stressed Japanese. It happens. I ended up taking a nap after I got home just because it'd been a while since I'd been that energetic about language.
OH, and I have an advisor! And while she will never ever come close to matching up with my advisor in Texas (because that was a wonderful fluk of a meeting of the minds), she is pretty awesome so far. And already had suggestions for me. OH, and guess what? I get to take classes from UCLA! (I don't know how many, but some, for free!)
