Okay, I just tried to post this, but I don't see it so...

So, today I took my Sinhala oral exam, which together with my written exam brings an end to session 1 of my OCS experience. I've also had the first class for most of my academic courses in session 2: Buddhism (auiditing), Women and gender studies, and art literature and drama. Women and gender studies could be good. Buddhism, unfortunately, is really boring so far. We had a hundred pages or so of an analysis of which parts of the Pali Cannon came before which others and who may have written what. In short, we have learned a great deal ABOUT Buddhism, yet have learned very little of Buddhist doctrine, belief, teachings, etc. I'll keep going though in the hopes that it'll pick up. Art, lit, and drama is really great though. The class is just me and one other student. The professor is (at least officially) retired, and clearly has a passion for the subject and a poet's soul which shines through his considerable academic experience.I've also started some extracurriculars. In Batik (a traditional Sri Lankan style of art and dying), we traced some patterns onto cloth. We'll probably start the dying next time. We also have dance and drumming twice a week. The drumming is very cool, but it's rather hard for me. On the other hand, I'm starting to get the hang of the dancing I think, and the instructor apparently approves of my progress (I've heard through others). He's actually pretty accomplished as a dancer, so much so that he's the one that teaches the president's children, dances in the place of honor in the Perahera (an annual buddhist festival). In any case, the dance looks a bit goofy at first, but has certain similarities to Aikido movements. The fingers of the hands are supposed to be in the closed position though (as opposed to Aikido), so I'm having a great deal of difficulty with that.Speaking of which, I'm not getting much Aikido practice here. I ran through the basic movements once, and in the beginning I was teaching Will Cole some Aikido, but he hasn't asked about it in awhile and I don't want to push him if he's not interested. I'd like to practice breakfalls, but I hesitate to roll around in the grass and mud since my Amma does my laundry (and is a little protective. That's less of an obstacle though.) I MISS AIKIDO! : ( Is it odd that I find myself really wanting a bokken or a katana to swing around? Maybe I should pick a fight with some machungs (Sinhala for "bro" "dude", etc., and having a rowdy reputation).