Bad Communication...

So...I actually have stuff to talk about. For once. I need to get better about this whole lj thing. And I figure now that I'm knitting again, posting stuff about that will help remind me to use this thing once in a while. So without further delay, my pictures!

( Happiness under the cut )

So this is what I do in lieu of a social life. I'm an eighty year old trapped in a twenty-three year old body.

In slightly less depressing news, my grad school stuff should be all but taken care of by tomorrow. After that I'll just sit back and wait for the letters. Good lord. I can't believe I'm doing this to myself again.

As my first post of the new year, I should, as per custom, do a year in review. But considering the fact that I've posted like, five times in 2007, I think it's hardly worth it. I should really be better about this, but I get the feeling no one reads my journal anymore anyway, so why bother?

Not that there's a whole lot for me to talk about. You'd think there would be, but I don't have much of a social life nowadays. I miss college life. I miss having days where my only social interaction wasn't from a bunch of six year olds. I miss having conversations with words that are longer than five letters. I'm speaking both English and Japanese at a pretty basic level these days, and I can feel myself getting dumber by the day.

It's also been a lot longer than I'd care to admit since my last relationship with a guy. I'm at the point right now where I don't think I can even function in a relationship...Maybe I will be one of those people that just, never finds anyone.

And now that I'm working a real job (or as real as life as a JET can be...) I feel it even more strongly. I'm grown up now...I realize thirty is the new twenty, but even so...once you hit a dry-spell, it's tough to get out of it.

Mostly I just wanna go to grad school now. I miss school, and believe it or not, sometimes I even miss the work that goes along with it. I've been studying for my GREs, which I'll have to take sometime within the next nine months or so. And then I have to apply to all these grad schools, but I have no idea where I want to go yet. I mean, with Earlham it was easy. That was my only real choice. But it's gonna be a huge decision this time around.

Last year all I wanted was to graduate and go on JET. Now I'm starting to look forward to the end of my contract and going back to school.

But on a happier note, I have a new celebrity crush. ^_^ Garrett Hedlund. The icon I have of him is from Eragon. He was the ONLY good thing about that movie.

Create your own Friend Test here

Jan: Yeah, it's that time again.
Feb: Well, now I know why my fucking lottery number is so high...
March: Little kids wear me out.
April: The point of this entry? To use my new icon.
May: There's a bunch of shit going on right now, and it's stuff I'd really rather not deal with right now.
June: I find myself becoming more and more excited/scared/unhappy/anxious about leaving.
July: So I should be writing fun entries about my trip, or stuff about how shitty it feels to be leaving.
Aug: I haven't updated this thing in fucking forever.
Sept: So I've got my ethernet cord running through our common room because, wonder of wonders, I can't get wireless.
Oct:
Nov: I'm a terrible person...because I haven't posted in almost two months.
Dec: I'm never going to finish.


God. This review sounds awful. It's like I never do anything ever. Much to my defense, the July post was much more interesting than the first line makes it out to be. That was the whole creepy stalker incident. And in December, all thoughts were on my thesis. So really, I'm just not very good at picking opening lines for my entries.

Sigh.

This should be amusing...

Okay, everyone. Give me lots of presents.

( my xmas stocking )

I'm never going to finish. I've spent about three hours revising and polishing my draft as best as I could. Unfortunately, all that work did not result in additional pages being written. Well, technically, once I write in the page numbers, that'll maybe add close to a page, so I guess I added a little. But that still leaves me at around sixteen pages.

And of course this article that I want to use is nowhere to be found. Not unless I want to buy it. Which I don't. I took a class with the man for Chrissakes. I probably have the article floating around somewhere. Grr...

So at the very least, I have an idea of some stuff that I'm going to add/expand upon. But really, this is going to be the death of me. And I'm not even taking into account the work I still have to put into my final project for Teaching. That's a lot of fucking lesson plans and quizzes to finish. Blah. It seems like out of nowhere, I keep getting these things piling on top of other things I have due.

I don't think I'm going to make it through this last week.

Oh. And I have hiccups. The really painful kind.

COMBAT CARDS 2.1

watch ikura_ka fight

CREATE YOUR CARD

...because I haven't posted in almost two months. I'm just so freaking stressed out right now, I can hardly deal with it. In fact, the only way I seem to make it through the day is by laughing at how ridiculously hectic these next two weeks are going to be. In the next sixteen days I will have to:

1. Write another ten pages of my thesis
2. Apply to the JET program
3. Finish my Japanese final project
4. Take two Japanese tests and an oral interview
5. Take an environmental models test on material I don't understand
6. Create enough lesson plans and activities for about seven days
7. Write a two-page reflection on my field trip

This is all in addition to attending normal classes, working, two concert performances, and trying to retain some amount of sanity by salvaging my social life. It's just crazy. I can't wait until next semester. I'll never do any work and it will be fantastic. Maybe I can finally finish Radiata Stories. I made a pretty valiant attempt over Thanksgiving break, and thusly got nothing else accomplished.

I feel like such a failure.

Right now I'm really just waiting for someone to come back to the office so I can talk to them about maybe getting some work study hours in. It seems like right now the most hours I'll actually be able to get will be four per week. More than anything, I hate trying to find work study at Earlham. Everything fills up so fast. Plus, I really don't have a lot of time outside of all the work that I'm doing for my classes. I'm going to be unbelievably busy until about monday, and even then, I know I can't get everything done that I'm supposed to. So I'm prioritizing and trying to decide what I can afford not to do.

And I have to go and talk to Joann today about maybe (hopefully) being one of my readers for my graduation thesis. I really want to have someone else that will be able to read all of my drafts and let me know that I'm on the right track. I'm just really really wanting to get department honours when I graduate. It's a long shot, but if I can manage to work really hard on getting this thesis perfect, I might have a shot.

I hope I can get the rest of my annotated bibliography done today, so I can relax a little bit this weekend. I'm going to Dayton with some friends on Friday, and I'd like to have as much done as possible. I have fifteen out of thirty annotations done, so I'm hoping the rest won't be too bad. Then all I have to worry about for a while will be my five page introduction, which, considerding all the research I've done, shouldn't be too bad at all.

Tomorrow is gonna be fucking hectic, though. I've got class in the morning, and then a meeting with Yasumi sensei to talk about the next drill session, and after that, Peter and I are going to try and work out the lesson plan before I finally get to chill out and leave for Dayton.

I'll be so glad when it's finally next week and all this shit is done. It's times like these where I really miss being in Tokyo and taking classes at Waseda. Everything was so laid-back, and I had tons of time to go out and really enjoy being there. Now I just feel like I'm working all the time.

So I've got my ethernet cord running through our common room because, wonder of wonders, I can't get wireless. Even though they promised us that Mills would be fucking full of wireless hotspots.

But maybe I'm just bitter because I'm going to fail out of school. It's like I spend every waking moment working on this goddamn thesis. And it wouldn't be so bad if we didn't need thirty fucking annotations. In past years, they did fifteen. Tops. But it's really hard to write one for my scholarly Japanese source because I don't have time to read the whole book, or even skim it really. It takes me like an hour to translate one page. I mean, what the hell is 必殺 supposed to mean? Okay, I know what it means, but what does it have to do with 美人研究?


As if that in itself wasn't bad enough, I still don't have all of my interlibrary loans in yet. Right now I've only got nineteen or twenty useable sources on me. To make matters worse, I need to find another professor to sit on my committee. Right now all I have is Kumi and Nelson. I know Nelson will be ridiculously busy this year, since he's taking over for Len, and Kumi has to read everyone's. Plus she's pregnant. And of course, because nothing in my life can ever be easy, half of the fucking Women's Studies department is on/will be on sabbatical.

I'm going to cry.

Aside from that, the paper shouldn't be too hard to do, because it's really interesting, and most of the reading I'm doing for it is pretty easy to get through.

On a happier note, I went to Eurotrash last night. It was a pretty good time. I felt like I was back in a Japanese club. It was hot, loud, and crowded as all hell. But it was fun.

I haven't updated this thing in fucking forever. Ah well. So here's an update. I'm in Mills this year which is overall pretty nice, except for the close proximity of the RAs. Sometimes it would be so much easier to have a house. But anyway...

I'm stressing out again about my thesis. Right now I only have one scholarly source in Japanese, which is scary. I need at least one more, because none of my Interlibrary loans are going through. There's also the fact that the one I have is fucking hard to read cause it's all in goddamn Japanese. Grr. So I've got five pages of introduction AND my 30 source annotated bibliography due in the beginning of October. Yikes. I'm going to DIE.

That and the fact that I still don't know what I'm going to do after graduation. I could go on JET, but here's the thing. I don't like teaching English. In fact, I've learned to hate it. Mostly because I'm not actually teaching it. I would be there simply to be there and demonstrate proper pronounciation. Oh. And come up with games. And that's fucking IT. I'd much rather be teaching my own class, and I'd rather teach Japanese. But before then, I want to go back to Japan and become more fluent. I don't actually need it, because for high school level, you only really need the basics because that's all you're teaching. But I want it for myself. Fluency in Japanese is something that I would kill for right now. And the way I see it, the most expediant way to achieve that is to go on JET. Blah.

But I'm looking forward to our little outing tonight. It should be a good time. I hope.

(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)

✓ I miss somebody right now.	✓ I don't watch much TV these days.	✓ I own lots of books.
✓ I wear glasses or contact lenses.	✓ I love to play video games.	× I've tried marijuana.
✓ I've watched porn movies.	× I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.	× I believe honesty is usually the best policy.
✓ I curse sometimes.	✓ I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.	× I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.

( it goes on... )

So I should be writing fun entries about my trip, or stuff about how shitty it feels to be leaving. Instead, I just went through the scariest night of my life.

Everything was going fine until my way home from drinking. I was still quite buzzed and not thinking as well as I would have liked. So I'm standing at Tabata waiting for my train, and this guy is like, "Excuse me, do you speak Japanese?" At this point, I should have taken a clue from Jess and said 'no'. Mistake number one. Being a retard, and still slightly tipsy, I said "only a little". He asked where I was getting off at, and by this time I was wary enough to start lying. I told him Akabane, and he said 'me too'.

I figured, eh...I'll be polite for a while, and then when he goes to get off at Akabane, I'll say 'sorry I'm late, can't stop here...bye' and leave it at that. However....

When I stayed on the train, he also stayed on the train. This was the point where I really started to worry. I thought, 'yep, he was lying too. That's never a good sign'. So finally I get off at my real station and he follows me. Thankfully he stopped at the gate and was like, 'If you have time, I'd like to talk to you more.' And I'm like, sorry, curfew.

I wish I could say this was where my story ended, but it's not.

I'm walking home, and this kinda creepy looking guy was standing at the same intersection waiting for the light. To give you an idea of what this guy was like, remember Misa's stalker in DeathNote? Yeah. He was kinda like that. Anyway, he smiled and nodded at me, and I just crossed the street and ran into the sunkus. I was really relieved when he didn't follow me, and I bought my stuff and left.

As soon as I cross the street, I hear someone calling for me to wait up. Uh-huh. The guy WAITED FOR ME TO LEAVE SUNKUS. And not only that; as I find out later, he heard me talking on the train and followed me. He's like, 'you're really cute...I heard you talking on the train.'

This is when I really started to freak out. I said 'I'm sorry, I really don't speak very good Japanese...' and he knew it was bullshit and kept insisting that I did. But nevertheless I kept telling him that I didn't understand him, and eventually he gave up on that. But then he was like, 'we should go out and do something sometime.'

I'm like, 'muri. I'm leaving soon.' so he said, 'what do you mean by soon?' And I'm really scared by this point so I'm like 'really soon,' and I start to walk faster. Then he said, 'look, if you don't have a boyfriend or anything...' and I said 'imasu' and picked up the pace again. Finally, he slowed down and said, 'if you ever want to...' and I cut him off with a nice 'don't fuck with me' in Japanese, and he's like, 'See?! You're speaking Japanese!'

Thank god he stopped following me then. I ran as fast as I could for home. The first guy on the train was kinda scrawny, and I figured I could probably beat him up if worse came to worse. But the second guy was really scary. The kind that might have a knife somewhere. And we weren't in a really public area anymore either. Most frightening moment of my life. Needless to say, my door and windows are locked, the shades are drawn, and I'm sleeping with a large, blunt object within armslength.

Why me?

About T-minus seven hours before we leave for Nagoya to see this concert, and I'm ridiculously excited. Ai apparently sent Nao-kun an email saying that he was going to have American fans in the audience, and asked him to say something in English for us. How hilarious would that be? His English is so cute. A little questionable, perhaps, but cute.

So...I bought a new bag at Gouk that I probably can't afford. But it's so pretty. And it's from Gouk. That's enough justification, right? Besides, it was on sale. Originally it was about eighty dollars. I'd say I did pretty good. I didn't really expect them to mark down stuff that much, and it was a nice surprise. If I had more money, I'd buy that store out. I'm in love with their clothes. They probably wouldn't fit me, but I love them anyway.

Took purikura with Ai and her sister too. They came out pretty well, and Ai wore her new hat in the pictures, which looked adorable.

I have barely over a week to do everything. Somehow I don't think I'm going to make it.

So I knew that Laruku went through this phase, if you will, when they recorded stuff as 'P'UNK~EN~CIEL', but I had no idea that meant there was a change in the lineup. I just bought two singles today that have Laruku songs 'covered' by P'UNK~EN~CIEL. Tetsu is the vocalist, and Hyde gets to live out his dream as the group's guitarist.

I have to say, I'm really impressed. I liked 'Heaven's Drive' before, but now that I've heard the P'UNK version, I like it even more than ever. I was just sitting here listening to it, and I was like, wait a sec...that's not Hyde...and sure enough, I was right. I heard some of Tetsu69's stuff too, but I'm not sure how to feel about it. His Tightrope PV isn't bad, but the other one scares the crap outta me. And his songs just sound so Larukuっぽい it's not even funny. All the guitar chords and even his voice quality scream 'Laruku' to me.

So that's my dorky rant for the time being. I'm sure none of you even know what I'm talking about, so whatever.

My karaoke presentation is over, which I'm really grateful for. But now our Japanese teacher wants to go to karaoke with us before we leave. It could certainly be interesting, and it'd make for some fun stories. My word structure quiz is over too. I like how I miss one point on the quiz, and it's automatically an A-. Go figure. At least it's done. However the fun is just beginning.

I still have to finish my Laruku sakubun sometime soon. I'm sure Narushima sensei hates me by now...I've got final papers in sociolinguistics and word structure, and a final exam in languages. Not to mention quizzes like whoa in Japanese class. Thank god I found a fool-proof method of studying for the kanji tests now...mwahaha. I've got a short powerpoint to do for socio as well, but my section is on English Imperialism (fancy that...) so it won't be so bad.

So I really need to stop buying manga, cause this is getting ridiculous. I think the count is now around one hundred. And I've still got ten more to buy to round out my Fruits Basket collection. I've still got -some- room in my suitcases, but I also have clothes that will need to be packed. I'm wearing my clunkiest shoes and tying a freaking sweatshirt around my waist in order to get maximum package in my suitcases.

I should really take my shower and get to bed if I want to get up for breakfast tomorrow. We're having pancakes. \^O^/

I find myself becoming more and more excited/scared/unhappy/anxious about leaving. Four weeks from tomorrow, I'll be on the plane heading for home. It's such a surreal feeling. Ten months seemed like such a long time when I first got here, but I'm not really sure when all that changed...

This last month or two in particular has gone by at 電光石火-like speeds. And to make matters worse, I have to say goodbye to a really good friend much sooner than expected, which is going to be hard. But I'm hoping that I'll get to see her and everyone else if we can manage to setup a reunion of sorts next year.

I just have so many things to do before I leave...there's no time. And also no money. I'm not sure what happened to all of it...but I'm low again, which means I won't be eating lunch this week (if I can manage that...) I blame it on the new cd I bought which, I might add, was completely worth it. I somehow found it used (discounted by about 700 yen) the day after it was released. How does -that- work?

This time on the twenty-fifth, I'll be looking at one of the most beautiful men ever. In person. Fuck yeah.

Wow. I still can't believe we're actually going to that concert next month. It's so unreal. The whole thing was decided in like, fifteen hours. Half of which was spent sleeping. I mean, who travels twelve hours round trip to go to a concert?? And not only that, the cost of transportation is twice as much as the ticket was.

Needless to say, this trip will be several kinds of ridiculous. But in a good way. Because it's TAKAHASHI NAOZUMI. The most adorable singer EVER. He's so dorky that it's actually endearing. And you'd never guess he's over thirty... ^_^;;

And it's almost time to go home. I've got like, five weeks left in Japan that are gonna go soo fucking fast.

There's a bunch of shit going on right now, and it's stuff I'd really rather not deal with right now. Since I'm less than two months away from leaving this place. And to top things off, I managed to get myself sick. So I'll be heading up to Nagano tomorrow with a cold. Splendid.

My computer is still acting up, so I need to take it in sometime to get it serviced. And won't -that- be an adventure.

There's stuff going on back home that I would never have known, because my parents don't tell me anything. I have to rely on Natalie for all my gossip. Granted, it's nothing too serious, but it's still distressing...

Add all this to the fact that this semester, I really -am- failing Japanese, and I become a not very happy girl. This could all be compounded by the fact that I just finished a book with what was quite possibly the end all be all of shitty plot resolutions. I stayed up till midnight just to finish that? Eight hundred pages of buildup...and nothing. I suppose it's a fitting parallel considering the suject matter...

Or it could just be that time again, in which case I won't have to worry about next week, which will be nice. But I have to deal with it now, so...

I'm just weary. I've been at this routine for so long, and now that the end of my stay in Japan is in sight, it just keeps getting worse. I'm having dreams every night of home, and family.

I'm considering not taking my NyQuil, for fear that I won't be able to wake up tomorrow on time to catch the bus to Nagano. Perhaps I'll just suffer instead.

God, I sound so wretched. It's not really all that bad. The bad things just happen to be more interesting than the good. ^_^;

I've just recently been introduced to the wonderfulness that is Suga Shikao. Someone on my DeathNote Movie community mentioned that he's writing an insert song for it, so I decided that alone required me to listen to his songs. And lets just say, I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. His voice is so fantastic, and sets him apart from other Jpop artists. Plus he writes his own music and lyrics.

I think I'm in love.

Now I'll be on a mission to find his cds at BookOff next time I'm there. I've also decided that I need the new Red Hot Chili Peppers song for my keitai. I don't particularly like the song, but it's the theme of Death Note, and it's Raito's ringtone, so therefore...it has to be mine too. I feel slightly less dorky about considering it, since Gretchen already put it on her keitai. But I'm still a dork. ^_^; Man, can y'all tell that I really want to see this movie? I'm putting it on preorder as soon as I can.

On another note, I just finished reading the first manga in Japanese this time. I'm sure it's tons easier to understand since I've already read it in English, but still. I can understand it. I never expected it to be such easy reading, but it is.