Chinese [101/102] has been one of my best classes. It's easier for me than for most people, because my mom is Chinese and we speak it a little bit together, and also because I studied Japanese for seven years and many of the characters are the same. We have a good teacher who livens up the subject matter, and for some reason, everyone in my 101 section became really good friends, so Chinese is generally more enjoyable than most of my other classes. The homework could be a lot at times, but it really helped us learn the material. In fact, I almost feel like I learned more Chinese after studying it for one year than Japanese after studying it for seven years. My favorite part of the class has generally been when we go over the new vocabulary, since the material is new and I like finding characters that I already know from Japanese in the new words. Preparing for Thursday oral performance isn't a whole lot of fun, but it's really fun to hear other people's dialogues and narratives because everyone tries to add humor and some of them have been really funny. I'm definitely looking forward to going to Shanghai this summer--it's going to be so much fun--and hopefully I'll be almost fluent in Chinese by the time I get back.