School and Forward Thinking

My official return to school began this past Thursday, and I am happy to report that I made it into 3rd Year Japanese. My comprehension and vocabulary recall leave much to be desired, though, so I have a lot of catching up to do if I'm going to do well in Japanese this quarter. All the other kids in my class only had a 3 month break, so everything is fresh in their heads. Meanwhile my last class was 4 years ago, so my Japanese has a decidedly not-so-fresh feeling. I think if I do a lot of extracurricular studying, I should be okay. I have high standards for myself because I used to always get A's in Japanese, but I think I should lower the bar for myself just a little. I don't want to put too much pressure on myself. If I get a B, I don't wanna wind up devastated.

Otherwise, it looks like my first quarter of school will be a little disappointing. Other than Japanese, I didn't get any classes that had to do with my field of interest, due to a shitty registration policy and poor guidance. So far, I've gone to my Education, Culture and Development class, and it turned out to be a racial issues class disguised as something useful. I'm sure racial issues are important to a lot of people, but I find the whole topic to be over-sensitive and annoying. And hell, I'm a minority. Anyway, I'm also taking a graduate seminar on Southeast Asian Buddhism, which I figure is at least vaguely related to East Asia. That meets on Wednesday, so I haven't had it yet. I hope it's interesting and not too hard...

All things considered, I'm a little apprehensive about this quarter and, by extension, this upcoming school year. I'm still not convinced that grad school is the right direction for me, and it concerns me that this lack of conviction is costing me money. I think if the school had been more organized and forthcoming with what I should expect from a graduate education here, I might feel better. But UCSB has so far been very disappointing in all its administrative duties, so I'm starting off the year feeling frustrated. I'm hoping things will be better next quarter, when I can actually start taking courses that have to do with my field of study. *gasp! shock!* I think so long as I get to study abroad and get a shiny new degree out of this journey, it might just be worth it - even if I don't go on to a PhD.