A day in My Life - 2nd quarter edition

Here we are again. Have a little peek behind the scenes of my life in the USA. 2nd quarter edition. Though, I am a little bit late, since we're already 4 weeks into the 3rd quarter... but better late than never, right?
Sadly, I never took the time to write down exactly what I did in a day... so I'll just give you some general ideas.

In general

The courses

This quarter I once again had 3 different courses: Beginning Photography, Linear Algebra and College Japanese 1. I know, it's a little bit of a change compared to last quarter. But, this time around I got out of my (and my family's) comfort zone and just explored all the options, venturing into the unknown.
Photography had always intrigued me (thanks to my father), so once I found this class, it was kind of a no-brainer to take it. My dad had given me a very good camera when I came here -thanks, dad *waves*- (to be clear, it was an "old one" from him that he didn't use anymore, I didn't just get a very expensive camera and lens), so I was more than equipped for this class.
Then, linear algebra. I chose this one mainly to keep up my math. Though, in hindsight, it didn't help me that much. I'm sure my first 3 classes of applied algebra back in Belgium will be a breeze, but after that, I'll suffer just as much as everyone else. It took us 5 weeks to get to a point where I didn't already know what the professor was talking about beforehand. (Props to my high school math teachers, I guess) On top of that, our teacher "only taught the useful stuff". This was great in some ways (not too much boring calculations, the most important part was us understanding what the mechanisms behind all the calculations were), but it also made the course very, very slow. Since he kept emphasizing "important stuff" over and over and over again.
Really nice professor, though.
And then I also took Japanese. I really just got this class, because now is pretty much my last chance to actually spend time on studying a foreign language that isn't English or French. We all know that once I go back, I won't be able to take any classes besides my university courses. (Unless I want to kill my social life... and not sleep anymore) So, I grabbed this last opportunity with both hands.
Another reason to take Japanese is that one of my best friends here is Japanese. So, whenever I have a question, or something isn't clear, I can just ask her right away.

The classes

Once again my classes were mostly two hours long, two times a week, apart from my photography class, which was technically 4 hours long, 2 times a week, but you only had to stay until you finished all your work, so it wasn't always that long. The downside to my photography class wasn't the length, though, it was the starting time. It started at 8 AM, BUT before you roll your eyes and start thinking the spoiled brat, can't even wake up before 8 anymore. I do have to remind you that I live on campus. Pretty much no one here goes to bed before 12 AM, or maybe even 1 AM (except our RA, probably). So, my friends sometimes want to hangout until 12 AM, there's people in the hallways having mini-parties, people coming back from actual parties, some people 2 doors down having sex... I was just never able to go to bed, let alone fall asleep before 11 PM. Which made those mornings very hard and those days very, very long.

The schedule

This time, I chose to just put my schedule here, since I didn't write any day down in detail (and I don't want to lie, even if it's just accidently). As you can see, there is no Friday on there, since I didn't have Friday classes.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
Beginning Photography 8:00AM – 11:50AM		Beginning Photography 8:00AM – 11:50AM
	College Japanese I 12:00PM–1:50PM		College Japanese I 12:00PM–1:50PM
Linear Algebra 4:00 PM – 5:50 PM		Linear Algebra 4:00 PM – 5:50 PM

Now, as I established in the first quarter, I have quite a lot of spare time. Especially since, this time, I barely had any readings and my homework was mostly centered around Wednesdays and Thursdays. But, probably the nicest feature I had this quarter, was the fact that my Friday was free. Which basically gave me a long weekend, every single week. This came in very handy, since I travelled a lot more last quarter.
Most of my travels were through the adventure center, which is a facility here on campus that takes students (for a small fee) to all kinds of different places for all kinds of activities. The stuff that I (usually together with some of my friends) did this quarter were:

•  A visit to the Getty Museum 
• A visit to the Griffith Observatory combined with a hike in Griffith Park (with a view on the Hollywood sign)
• A snowshoe hike (which is sooo exhausting! But a lot of fun) on the San Jacinto mountain in Palm Springs
• A 3-day trip to Yosemite National Park (since it was in the middle of the winter, we slept in little "heated" cabins)
• A 3-day trip to Death Valley National Park (this was still officially in the winter, but it is Death Valley, so we did sleep in tents)
• A 7-day trip to Utah (during spring break), where we visited  Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park and Zion National Park

I'm trying to upload some pictures of these trips as fast as possible, so far I've already uploaded the Yosemite pictures. I'm still working on editing the Death Valley pictures (long live procrastination) and after that the Utah pictures will appear soon. 

As some of you might notice, I did do some more trips (like the Universal Studios City Walk). These were not through the adventure center. Those were mostly done with the help of my friends (except for the City Walk, that was organized by the Office for International Students). So, I also went to Disneyland, LA, Universal Studios, some very good restaurants and the movie theater. But once again, before you can start thinking the spoiled brat, we get it, you travel a lot, those last 4 things were upon request of one of my friends who would leave soon for Japan to also study abroad for a year, and how can I say no to his final requests? 

Until next time... Whenever that may be...

-N