Hello everyone!! How have you all been? I guess I have a lot of explaining to do, huh... >.<;;
So...well basically it's been a really large roller coaster ride since I last left a post. So many wonderful and not-so-wonderful things have happened, but I think it's a little too early for me to write about everything just yet. Maybe after I've come to terms with some of it, I'll be able to finally tell you all.
What's been occupying my life for the past 2 months? Haha everything, really!! School work, especially, but it's been SO much more than that! Lots of friend drama and even some issues with people who have made it their business to make my life kinda difficult (don't ask haha), but also a lot of pleasantly unexpected surprises too!
Over spring break in the first week of March, my older sister came to visit and she, my mom and I all went to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in Orlando for 3 very fun days! The first day was horrendously cold, which made a lot of things really difficult to ride (and I discovered that I am, indeed, prone to motion sickness, though mostly headaches, in the form of IMAX/3D simulators), but it was really fun still!! None of us really remembered anything about Universal Studios, so it was really great~! The last day my sister and I decided to bring a spare change of clothes so we could spend the entire day riding water rides (and the weather was thankfully warm enough for it), so we pretty much got soaked and spent the whole day doing that, which was hilarious and really a lot of fun.
The really crazy surprises have happened in the last 2 weeks though. I had a speech/skit competition in Japanese down in Tampa, Florida, on April 6th (which is 2 weeks earlier than it was last year) and it really was a blast, despite it being a horribly stressful endeavor prior to the day of competition haha. The weekend right before that, I had to write a 10-page double-spaced paper that was in the form of fiction writing in ANOTHER author's style, so I had a REALLY rough time with that since I'm REALLY bad at both of those things. xD But yeah, by the time the Wednesday right before the Saturday competition had rolled around, I had made 7 drafts of my speech and 3 drafts of my PowerPoint and my professor was even so kind enough to go out of his way to record himself saying my speech so I could practice my accent >.< So I only ended up having 2 days to memorize and perform it all with a PowerPoint, but I got it all down despite a few stumbles during the actual competition and...
I GOT FIRST PLACE IN MY LEVEL!! >.< <333
I'm Level 4, which means I've only taken 4 semesters of Japanese, but I was apparently considered as the runner-up for the Grand Prize Overall award for the entire speech section of the competition, so I was really surprised! My Level 7 friend got it of course (because it's kinda natural that a Level 7 would do better than a Level 4 haha), but the fact that I was even considered was the most surprising aspect! And I was also the only competitor who used a PowerPoint at all, so that surprised me a lot--and a lot of the judges came up to me and said that my topic was really interesting and that they wholly enjoyed it. A lot of people also came up to me and told me that I should have gotten the grand prize and that I even could have competed with the Level 6 competitors, so that REALLY shocked me haha. It was just an all-around good day and all of my friends from my university who also competed got first or second place in all of the categories they competed in too, so it was really an exciting day for everyone and I had SO much fun! We even got to eat with our Japanese professors over dinner right afterwards! So overall, it really was an unforgettable day!<3
The second biggest surprises have actually happened in the past 2 DAYS though! haha. On Friday, I found out that I had won the Alice M. Zirger scholarship, which is a merit-based scholarship that's usually awarded to one student who is the best Japanese student in the entire department, but this year it was awarded to TWO students and I was one of them! >///< Really too much shock because I know the other girl who won and I knew I probably didn't stand a chance against her and her crazy academic record xD But apparently I also got another award for me alone known as the Japanese Intermediate Award??? And they're having a reception for me for it, so I'm really surprised! haha I didn't even know this award existed, so well. xD Just too many surprises because I've never EVER gotten any scholarship before aside from Bright Futures(which almost every high school in Florida is designed to have you win), much less a merit-based one as big as this, so it was really a shock! >//< Too much happiness over all of it, so it's really been overwhelming!
But yeah, so aside from those two things...well basically I've been trying to squeeze in time to finish my big art pieces(I might put up a WIP collage so you guys can see what I've been dying to finish xD), but mostly I've literally had/made no time to draw anything at all! T___T So the submission from yesterday is really a small bit of happiness for me because it's so nice to finally finish something haha! And the person I drew it for really liked it, so that's more than enough for me ^^
I currently have a presentation, two 5-page essays and three final exams coming up, so it's gonna be quite a bit of a ride for the last 2-3 weeks, but I'm really excited for all of it to be over and for summer to start because those will be the last weeks I cherish most in the States before I head off to Korea and Japan for a year! haha
I hope all has been going well for everyone though, nonetheless!! I'm so so sorry for my lack of activity on here, but it's been quite a ride, so yeah! >.< I'll try to get back into everything soon, and good luck with everything! Take care!! ^^
