Four weeks have passed since the start of the school year.

Autumn is here, and shades of red and gold are popping up here and there around Cambridge. In a few weeks they will have all fallen to the ground.

I have a four day weekend, and today I wandered around Cambridge with no real direction to where I was going. If I saw an interesting side street, I went down it. If a house caught my eye, I would pause to look at it. It was a nice break from my studies.

And that brings me to my other topic. Classes. Yes, they have been tough, and I've failed a couple tests (or barely passed if you look at the curve). For once I'm not at the top of the class. For once I'm actually finding it difficult to absorb every bit of information. It's quite disorienting. Frightening. Petrifying. Sometimes I want to go home.

But then I have these little triumphs. Small breakthroughs. And I'm lifted higher out of my misery. But at the end of the week, when I take the time to breathe a little, I realize how much I've actually learned. In the end, these are just growing pains.