こんいちは、みんあーさま！ あたし の ブロッグ へ ようこそ！
Hello, everyone! Welcome to my blog!
My name is Christina. I’ve always considered myself a serious and diligent student, and I have a love for (if you couldn’t guess) languages, especially Japanese. I’ve always loved learning new languages—I’ve taken classes for Italian, Spanish, and Latin to date, in addition to teaching myself Japanese—but I think that Japanese, of these learned languages, is the one that I’ve put, and still do put, the most effort into learning.
My love for Japanese first started in middle school, through anime (Japanese cartoons) and manga (Japanese comic books). It may not make much sense, to want to learn a new (and complex) language just because I watched some cartoons and read some comic books, but the anime and manga were just the starting point, my first taste of Japan. Through the anime, I found music, and through the anime music I moved onto general Japanese music, to the point where I have pretty much completely stopped listening to English music in favor of Japanese music. Just by repeatedly listening to music and watching anime, I picked up words and phrases here and there—my first steps towards learning the language. I then moved on to reading about Japan itself, learning about their culture, which also helped give me a better understanding of the language I was trying to learn. Ultimately, it is my goal to at least have a semi-mastery of Japan, and to visit Japan and to not only see the sights, but to test myself and my understanding of their language and culture.
As for my being a serious and diligent student, I’ve always felt that those who work hard will be rewarded in the end—but it doesn’t always have to be a tangible reward. I work my hardest and strive to do my best so that, at the end of the school year, I can have the personal satisfaction of knowing that I did my best, and that the grades I received, I earned wholeheartedly. As odd as it may sound, I’ve had this same diligent academic attitude all the way back since kindergarten. My mom always would tell me how, even in kindergarten, I was completely independent, and would do all my work on my own, without slacking off; this carried me through the Delta program in elementary school, the Specialized program in middle school, the Honors program in high school, and into the Honors program here at Baruch. Here’s hoping that my diligence and dedication holds out until I graduate from college!
What I initially expected about being a college student has been true (for the most part) so far. I expected gaps between classes (which I enjoy immensely—it’s much more preferable than having four minutes to move from one class to the next!), I expected the syllabi at the beginning of the year (which I prefer to having teachers suddenly springing assignments on you out of the blue, with no prior notice whatsoever), and I expected the longer class times (though, thankfully, the classes that I have (so far) aren’t as long as I expected them to be). From the few professors that I’ve had so far, and from my impressions of them so far, I can already tell that they’re extremely intelligent people, and extremely knowledgeable about the material that they teach (though I suppose that you’d have to be extremely knowledgeable about an area in order to teach it at a college or university); the reason I bring this up is that, for as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a deep respect and admiration for intelligent people, which is probably another reason why I’m so dedicated to school and schoolwork—subconsciously, at least, I’m striving to be on the same level of intelligence (or at least close to it) as those people. Another factor of college life are the clubs, of which I’ve already joined two (the Japanese Anime Asylum and the Japan Club, big surprise there!). I wasn’t expecting there to be time set aside to join clubs—in high school, clubs met whenever they could meet, and if you had class when the club you wanted to join met, then too bad, you’d have to wait until next year to join. Having time set aside specifically for clubs is not only a nice break in the day, but it’s also a good way to push students to be more involved in the school.
For this first semester, I’m mainly just hoping to do well in all of my classes. The one class that I’m worried about is Art History, because I’m not very good at Art or at History—putting them together, and making me take the class, is torture is probably not going to end well…But I’ll do my best to pull through this class, no matter what!
ハブ ア ナイス デイ！ じゃあ ね！
Have a nice day! Bye!
~Christina
