The only two negative things I will ever say about the Rosen Study Abroad program are as follows:
1. You can't study abroad twice because the second time not all of the credits transfer over. Am I greedy to want to study abroad twice? Yes, probably. Am I in love with studying abroad? Yes, yes I am. I am pretty sure Rosen made up the rule about credit transfer so people like me wouldn't hog all the study abroad opportunities.
2. We are basically the only university here that transfers the letter grades back and not just pass/fail. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but all of my classes base our final grade off of four components: a midterm, a final, a group project/presentation and an individual essay. This means that everything has to be pretty good. Last week, my "fun and games" mentality took a four-day hiatus while the stress took over. I think I would have had a complete breakdown but there was honestly no time for that. My blood pressure was through the roof (and I live in a 21 story building so it was high). My current philosophy is that if I work really hard until the end of the semester, there will be much less stress during finals. I am pretty sure the most stressful part of my semester is over now that midterms week is over, and now I get to reward myself with SPRING BREAK! Just kidding, we don't get spring break in Asia. I will reward myself with another group project to focus on.
It took me about twelve hours for my body to calm down from all the stress on Thursday. I had finally submitted all of my papers, projects and finished my midterms but it took some pampering, shopping and laughing with friends for me to finally relax. My girls day with Anna and Taynah started off with an Asian nail salon that cut my toe open (it was bleeding profusely for probably a half an hour, but she fixed it eventually). That night, we were too tired from the week and the rain (HK rainy season has officially begun-hooray!), so instead of participating in the Thursday night pub crawl, we made our own Hung Hom Hall Room Crawl. The idea was to go from room to room and play a new game in each one but we only made it to two rooms. It was still so much needed and much fun.
On Friday, it was my friend's 22nd birthday and lucky for him (and us), it fell during HK's Restaurant Week. We had a number of different restaurants in HK to choose from. They all offered three course meals just $200 HKD. We dressed up and enjoyed the delicious food (that's right...it was good) and wine at an Australian steakhouse called Wooloomooloo that overlooked the harbor. We agreed that it was as classy as we had ever been so far in HK.
Speaking of enjoying food, I don't know whether to be scared or happy that I am adapting to the food here. I no longer think that everything smells repulsive, and the fact that some of my friends eat raw meat doesn't gross me out as much. I've gotten used to the fact that I often am eating my food and find a bone, and now I just spit it out and continue eating, instead of stopping and crying like I did before. Soon I will be slurping up octopus and chicken feet (not).
Time for the picture of the week!
1. You can't study abroad twice because the second time not all of the credits transfer over. Am I greedy to want to study abroad twice? Yes, probably. Am I in love with studying abroad? Yes, yes I am. I am pretty sure Rosen made up the rule about credit transfer so people like me wouldn't hog all the study abroad opportunities.
2. We are basically the only university here that transfers the letter grades back and not just pass/fail. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but all of my classes base our final grade off of four components: a midterm, a final, a group project/presentation and an individual essay. This means that everything has to be pretty good. Last week, my "fun and games" mentality took a four-day hiatus while the stress took over. I think I would have had a complete breakdown but there was honestly no time for that. My blood pressure was through the roof (and I live in a 21 story building so it was high). My current philosophy is that if I work really hard until the end of the semester, there will be much less stress during finals. I am pretty sure the most stressful part of my semester is over now that midterms week is over, and now I get to reward myself with SPRING BREAK! Just kidding, we don't get spring break in Asia. I will reward myself with another group project to focus on.
It took me about twelve hours for my body to calm down from all the stress on Thursday. I had finally submitted all of my papers, projects and finished my midterms but it took some pampering, shopping and laughing with friends for me to finally relax. My girls day with Anna and Taynah started off with an Asian nail salon that cut my toe open (it was bleeding profusely for probably a half an hour, but she fixed it eventually). That night, we were too tired from the week and the rain (HK rainy season has officially begun-hooray!), so instead of participating in the Thursday night pub crawl, we made our own Hung Hom Hall Room Crawl. The idea was to go from room to room and play a new game in each one but we only made it to two rooms. It was still so much needed and much fun.
On Friday, it was my friend's 22nd birthday and lucky for him (and us), it fell during HK's Restaurant Week. We had a number of different restaurants in HK to choose from. They all offered three course meals just $200 HKD. We dressed up and enjoyed the delicious food (that's right...it was good) and wine at an Australian steakhouse called Wooloomooloo that overlooked the harbor. We agreed that it was as classy as we had ever been so far in HK.
Speaking of enjoying food, I don't know whether to be scared or happy that I am adapting to the food here. I no longer think that everything smells repulsive, and the fact that some of my friends eat raw meat doesn't gross me out as much. I've gotten used to the fact that I often am eating my food and find a bone, and now I just spit it out and continue eating, instead of stopping and crying like I did before. Soon I will be slurping up octopus and chicken feet (not).
Time for the picture of the week!
This was taken at our Wooloomooloo lunch. We had a few photoshoots throughout the weekend and I have a lot of pictures of my friends and I, but this one is my favorite because I have the whole group of my amazing friends that absolutely make this trip for me. Also, this could very well be the only time we are this classy for the rest of the trip.