Standards beyond reach

Last week the ministry of education and what all else changed the requirements for extending my scholarship through a year of grad school.

And now it would seem as though it may be impossible for me to make the cut.

Huh.

So maybe I will be leaving this place after graduation in less than 2.5 years.

That is, assuming I graduate on time.

AIM

I haven't had to log myself in for a very long time.

Because of that, I can no longer remember my password.

But I don't even care.

If anything, it's somewhat relieving.

It's finally over and out of my system!!

But it has been for years. Actually.

Awkwardly avoiding people on IM who I have no desire to talk to is now reduced by yet another step. MSN disappeared when I bought my mac. AIM, too, now. What's left? Google talk? Skype? I don't know how to work iChat.

And I don't really care.

Huh.

お洒落

Whether it's a good thing or not, I can't really say.

But I feel like it's time for a change into a more directed style.

And so, I've been going shopping, much in contrast to my usual aversion.

I'm thinking of getting some new glasses. about forty bucks. But where did I put my prescription?

You slipped my mind

I knew I was forgetting something.

Hello.

Finals!

done and done:
Italian
German
Korean Text Dissection
Psychology Seminar

up and coming:
Latin
Cosmology
Japanese
Korean
Gender Studies
Sociology

ah.

Gastroenteritis

Stomach flu.

This is the newest of things to be added to the list of illnesses I have somehow gotten. The timing really couldn't have been much better, though. I would have appreciated it if I weren't sitting at home recovering instead of on the slopes with friends this weekend, but that may be me being a little picky. My symptoms hit me the day after I turned in my last final paper for this term. I was free.

I find it a little funny that I spent the day with a friend who was hospitalized for the viral version over the winter just two days before I found my amazing skill at directing projectile vomit into my little blue toilet. It's just weird timing.

Or maybe not that weird. 

I have a tendancy to push myself until I break. That might explain why it seems like I'm always broken.

Putting the pieces back together takes a lot more time than I would like. 

At least it's time to catch up on things. Reading things. Sleeping things. Cleaning things.

I have too many things.

Oh, Amazon.

It makes me so happy to know that amazon.co.jp lets you pay via internet banking or at a convenience store. That is so nice.

If only other things were like that. I have internet banking, and hell, I even asked for a debit card. Why the hell can't I use my debit card to pay for things? I have yet to find any place that accepts J-debit, or whatever it is that I have. By Japanese standards, I'm still a minor, so I can't apply for a credit card, either.

This leaves me in a kinda rough spot at times.

Another somewhat ridiculous and unecessary complaint: Why isn't there netflix here? Why do they have monthly limits on internet rentals? Seriously.

Really, I'm probably just bitter about school.

That, and I'm bitter that I have to wait to read the newest Scott Pilgrim. They're not shipping through amazon.co.jp for another few weeks.

I feel the most geeky I have for a while.

On a lack of motivation

And here comes the end of the first school year at this university.

Where did the time go? Why didn't I pull out my books during the semester?

Technically, I did. I took my books with me to every class. Well, when I went to class. I went to class most of the time, but often times I ended up working on stuff for other classes, mostly Japanese and Korean, during those other classes. So, what was the point of going, anyway? Couldn't I have just stayed home and studied? Was it really so important to be in the lecture hall if I was only going to pick up the handouts for the day and spend the rest of the time in another world, attempting to memorize set phrases?

Due to my lack of better judgment, I am in somewhat of a pickle. (Which is a weird phrase that must be incredibly illogical-sounding to non-native English speakers. I am sorry, world. You have some weird sayings, too. Dragon heads and snake tails, I am looking at you. And you, too, horse ears on the Eastern wind.)

Apparently I need at least one social science credit in order to become a second year student. I failed my sociology class during the summer term, so that left me with zero entering into winter. Unfortunately, the number of classes that would fit that category in winter are extremely limited, and being as I have a required class in one of the few time slots where social science credits are offered, I decided to take a gamble, signing up for politics.

Pretty much, if I don't get this credit, I don't get to move up. When you consider that I'm on a scholarship, this could be a slightly more complicated problem.

I took the exam yesterday, and I turned in all of the assignments within the class, but I have little confidence. It's a little bit of a shock to the system.

You would think that being in a situation where advancement to the next grade is at stake I would have put far more emphasis on studying for that class, but it just didn't work out like that.

Here's hoping for a passing grade. Even if it's a low one, I will be thankful.

cutbacks

It seems like it might be a good idea to make some cutbacks this year.

I mean, I've been surviving pretty well off of a stipend each month, but come next year, I'll be out of a cheap place to live. No more dorm means that I'll have more freedom most likely, but it also means that I'll be paying a lot more than I currently am. I don't have a job. I don't want to get a job. But I probably should get a job.

I spent more money that I had intended over the holidays, so now I'm starting to feel some pressure.

The way I've been living is starting to disgust me more and more. I want to clean up.

Simplify. Go Minimalist. Maybe not so extreme, but change my lifestyle.

It's been fun

but now we're onto new things.

Better? Well, that's yet to be seen. But was 2008 really something that I can call bad? If everything is relative, can I really trust myself to accurately assess the quality of one year compared to another? I'm quite certain that as time goes on, you look back at things that have occurred quite differently. You forget the things that give you the overall experience. So, after it's over, saying something was good or bad is meaningless.

I don't mean this to be applied to everything in life, but there are certainly things that I can't look back on objectively and say conclusively was the best, or the worst, or anything like that. I can say it happened, but memories distort things. There's bias in everything. History books aren't going to give you the whole story. There's always another way of looking at the same story. Just as a friend to recall any incident to you. Chances are, it's going to sound a little different from your own recollection.

But as I see it from this point in time and my life, 2008 was a year for growth. The direction of that growth, as I said, is subjective.

I told myself that I would take the year to mold myself into a more "me" me. In some ways, I succeeded. There's still a lot of room for expanse on that front, too. Even more than the changes involved with getting out of the house, out of the country, I think that there was even more in the front of expanding self in 2008 than in 2007. New situations that I thought I would have been prepared for after the last year proved to be a completely different sort of challenge, and I'll continue to deal with this stuff from here on, too.

So, I can't say that I'm ready to face the future, or anything so bold as that, but I'm definitely willing to try. Maybe I can look at myself in a year from now and be a little more satisfied.

もっと自分らしくなりたい。

If people can be happy with themselves, maybe it will be ok.