I had been pretty excited to be back in Beijing after a year since my one-week summer vacation there. At Beiyu, I was happy to have my own room and my own space to settle down during the first week. Adjusting to a new environment was definitely always tough, but since China shared many similar cultural, social, as well as cuisine aspects of Vietnam, I was lucky it had been easier for me compared to others. The fact that Beiyu’s dining hall has so many food options also improved my mood significantly. I was surprised by the amount of workload we was made to get used to once class started. One day of material at HBA was similar to a week’s worth of material back at Williams, so concentration and determination was definitely needed: memorizing 50 words and finishing 2 full pages of homework a day. Third-year course started to focus more on social issues, as well as more formal language. This week we discussed the issues of finding jobs after college （就业）, finding a boyfriend/girlfriend （婚姻和谈恋爱）, and overspending among younger generations（消费）. The language pledge was also a difficult aspect, but speaking Chinese everyday all the time was a new experience, and I was enjoying it. I went on an interest group to 鼓楼 on Friday, and made a new Beiyu friend, her name was ZhaoYu. I believe that having the chance to speak with native speakers are the best chance to improve my modern everyday Chinese, so I was glad to make new friends, and always tried to speak to them as much as possible. Besides, HBA was well organized in the fact that they organize outdoors activities for students during weekend, so we went to the Great Wall on Saturday; here also happened to be Duanwu Jie (端午节），so I got to try zongzi too!