I totally forgot to put a title here

Aloha!


My semester began at 9am this morning, but it was from 8.23am that I found out exactly how widespread this campus is. Here's a summary of my classes so far:

Hawaiian Studies 107 - Hawaii: Center of the Pacific
This class is great. It's only a small one - about 35 students, of which I was the lucky last to register into - and one extremely enthusiastic Hawaiian teacher. You get that vibe off of her, that she knows what she's talking about and she really wants you to understand what she's saying. Because it's a small class, she gets to know us individually (me in particular because I'm from Australia) and encourages us to participate in discussion.

Topics to be covered include the history, traditions, culture and environment of Hawaii.

Oceanography 201 - Science of the Sea
This class is huge. I think there are about 200 students doing it (although that might be a vast exaggeration), mostly freshmen. It sounds like the main professor is Australian. He knows about the trek from Hawaiian Studies to the other side of campus for this class, and sympathises. Now, the coolest thing about this class is that student participation comes in the form of an i-clicker. The i-clicker encourages blind participation, meaning students don't have to worry about making an idiot of themselves when answering the teacher's questions. It looks like a remote control but with buttons lettered from A-E, and when the professor asks a multiple-choice question you just press whichever you think is the correct response, and immediately a column graph pops up on the screen with all the responses. It's really quite cool.

End sales pitch.

Biology 123 - Hawaiian Environmental Science
This class is small but held in a large room. The first few classes will discuss what science is all about, after which we will take this knowledge and apply it to the isolated environment of Hawaii. The professor is a bit of an oddball, and hopefully from now on he'll stand on the lower level of the auditorium instead of looking down at us like today. One of my Japanese friends is doing this also doing this class.

So those were the three classes I had today. Tomorrow I've got Geology of the Hawaiian Islands and Beginning Filipino. That makes five classes altogether; 15 credit hours out of a minimum 12. I know that by the end of the week I will drop out of one of them, and I've pretty much made my mind already.

Can you guess which one? Vote in the poll below:

What class will I drop out of?
	Hawaii: Center of the Pacific
	Science of the Sea
	Hawaiian Environmental Science
	Geology of the Hawaiian Islands
	Beginning Filipino
pollcode.com free polls

I'll let you know the answer in the next post. For now, I've got some readings to do.

Mahalo!