The end is also the beginning...

Today mark the last day of my exams and also, the end of my 1st yr in university.
These few arduous weeks were a test of endurance and perseverance for me.
I took on the challenge of balancing school with 5 days of tuition a week since the start of this sem and I guess I did manage well enough to keep up with projects and assignments, a whopping 4 projects out of the 5 modules. Wat have I gained after this sem is immeasurable.

1. The Nature of Language
In essence, it was an intoduction to the intricate system of the English language and its structure and forms. I did manage to learn more about the largely taken for granted language, though I still find the content essentially boring. I conclude that although language is an arbitrary system, the importance of effective communication through proper usage of this system is not to be trifled with.

2. Management and Organisation
For most part of the module, I learnt how mundane and dead a business module can be. A thorougly disappointing module with lacklustre teaching. Boo~

3. Japanese Society and Institutions
I was rather engaged in this module. A lot of autonomy was granted on us, the students. It certainly enriched my knowledge on the Japanese society and fueled my interest in related fields like the intriguing geisha and the dichotomies of tatemae/honne, uchi/soto, etc.

4. Japanese language 2
One level up and the difficulty level had increased in unprecedented scales. The majority of the 200 odd takers are highly driven and competition was inevitable. There are rumors that some of them take Japanese courses outside on top of the school's! Language learning would have been so much more fun if it wasn't in such a competitve manner and overly compressed.

5. Global City Tokyo
The module was largely steered toward the economic aspect of the global city paradigm. Lectures were a bore and classroom discussions more often than not, fell flat due to the incompetency of most students in this aspect. However, I managed to piece together a cohesive view of contemporary Tokyo, though many questions were left unanswered.

Very soon, from today in fact, I'll be able to preview the modules available for the next semester. Caution must be taken on the selection, i warn myself yet again.

This semester also marks an end of school-life for many of my friends and many seem as lost as they were before they entered uni on their future prospects. I shall and must not fall into this category. Paving the road ahead is critical for survival in this dog-eat-dog world.

To bring back to my title of this post----very often an end signifies a new beginning and the challenges that entails the new beginning is of greater significance than the its past. To put simply, to be forward looking is the key to unlocking the future ahead of us.