ひらがな improvements and the second lab

I'm happy to report that I finally feel like I have a good grip on ひらがな。Both my reading and writing are slowly but surely improving in speed, and I'm ready to start learning Katakana. Yesterday I had my second language lab of the semester and it was a lot more entertaining than the previous lab because it actually had a conversational section in which the TA practiced with each of us, ensuring that our pronunciation and intonation sounded natural. I look forward both to becoming more comfortable with Japanese grammar and to learning more vocabulary!