Slept through another tornado

Almost New Year's. Doesn't feel any different.

Resolution toiuka focus for my immediate life:
Not to get a girlfriend, but to...
Graduate on time. Apply to everything and make preparations for what I have missed. Stop feeling bad that my phone never rings or gets messages and Stay connected with friends.

I don't think I ever wrote this;
One day Mon came up and asked me about Michelle. I was kind of amused that people (her or others) were still talking about that, but didn't bother asking how that matter got brought up.
It was only afterwards that I wondered, was that talking the source of other social ills?

Nat wrote being a philosphy major is lonely... what kind of unexpected 共感!!! Being the only Japanese major, especially with so few people even taking Japanese.... and not being able to study with anyone... If only I had brought this up earlier...

Lamenting that I never took graphic design, or really went to explore other majors. Graphic Design, Drawing, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, Computer Science....

Considering getting a second bachelor's degree... but you have to fund those yourself, and apparently can't get loans from the government. I really feel like I wasted the opportunities given to me these past 3 1/2 years...

Going abroad (Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea) for education or pursuing a more advanced, related degree (Japanese -> Linguistics or Asian American Studies or International Relations) are options, but... I needed more direction earlier in life... and still need it now.

Direction.

Connect. Reflect. Direct. MAASU is still with me I guess haha.

Do something decent and worthwhile next semester, and take a picture so that I am not just looking back to better days. (buttersafe's get over it flashes through my mind, and the range of emotion that comic inspires in me is kind of aw(e)ful.)

Should download and relearn illustrator... start drawing again. Get a new talent...

Just when things were looking up と思ったら。。。

Got a letter today! From a very good friend!!
Maybe this is what it feels like to get a surprise from a lover on a special day...

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Need to get work done. sigh.
And see friends. reconnect.
Get a head start on next semester. Not likely to happen but I will try.

xXxholic is like my very own self-help book.
[Deciding to do something is a promise you make to yourself, and one that only you can keep.]
If only manga sites had the chapters in order...!

孤独日記

孤独感に圧迫される。。。
要らない人間、ダメな人間、
つまり不器用な
私は、この三日間なにもしていないことは言えなかったら、最高だろう
でもこのまま最低の人生を何度も送るのなんて。。。

言いたくないけど、誰にも言ったことないけど、大学の体験はほぼ最初から寂しさとの戦いであった。
振り返って見ると、そう言いたい。
言う勇気は、僕には持っていないだろうな。
冬休みが始まる前、確かめた。そうだと。
一緒に住むことになるかもしれない後輩の女の子にでも、言わなかった。

最初の二年間は、誰かが部屋に来てくれるまで待って、一人になっていた。二人の女の先輩と、嬉しい時間も過ごせたけど、それでも私はずっと行く方であって、辛い嬉しさだった。
そして今年は、誰かが話を掛けてくれるまで待って、誰かが電話してくれるまで待って、ずっと一人ボッチでいた。
ノゾミにメガピスで先を越されたと思ったら、実は私はいつも彼女より低かったことは、日本で感じた寂しさを復活し、楽しかった時の重要さより巨大させる気がするけど、
悔しい
悔しい！
ぼくだって辛いんだよ、けど、だって誰もその理由聞いてくれへんだし

俺は怠け者だ。何回も自分にでもそう言ったんだが、ゴールのある人、幸せのある人、スキルのある人、それなりに友達のある人に羨ましい気持ち抑えられなくなっている、それが恐い。

最近僕は彼女さえできれば、と考えるようにもなった。いつもそう思いついて、自慰（ドンだけ皮肉が含まれているかい）しに行く流れなんだ。でもこういう考えのある、ダメな私は、いったい誰が付き合う？脂肪とか髭の問題ではなく、自分自身の性格に問題があると考えろぅ。

Nellやほかの昔の、幸福とも言えないけど大人の寂しさは知らなっかた幼い頃の音を聞くと未だに慰められる。それって、もう一種の自慰なんだけどな

反省、帰省

日本語はあまり使わなくなってしまいましたが、この冬休みを通じて、能力強化することに頑張る。

谷崎潤一郎の夢の浮橋を読み始め、半ばぐらいまでは読んでいる。意外と読みやすくて、もっと本を読むと英語と同じように言語習得になるのでしょう？同じ物を何回も読み返してみればどうかな？

「俺って最低」がエヴァンゲリオンの夢シーンのセリフなのだが、英語でI'm so fucked upに翻訳されたことを発見しました。それって、相当な表現じゃないんだろう？

Did nothing again today. Well it was Christmas. Never know how much you would like to have something until you have it, I guess.

Tried Breath of Fire 2 for the GBA but it was too easy. Maybe games have lost their appeal? It's been so long since I seriously played one on my own (meaning playing FFXII until I was too strong to not rely on guides for what to do next... Quests oh yeah, but besides beating secret monsters without help, hunting down the rare monsters without a guide is downright impossible... Kind of the same thing with FFX, the monster farm thing is such a huge gap in the power levels from beating the game and getting secret monsters...)

Tommorow is another day, waiting for the libraries to open. Hopefully call everyone, see what they've been up to...

今天我不知道为什么学中文了。最初觉得可能是因为有很多中国朋友，可是他们都说英语，也我跟大多的他们没说过。我只是尊重中文读力，除了点菜以外不用说话噢。台湾是我想回去的，可是那么好印象就是朋友的苦労给我的。。。
现代的言语教育只成会话重要。在这样世界，有翻译或者传译的工作的人就是在第二次世界大战开始工作学习的老人，或者双语多语的人，或者去外国学习的美国人。。。在这样世界上，将来我无法找到工作吧。。。

White Christmas

Christmas Eve. Doesn't feel like it somehow.

Figured out my weakness. Lazy and too content.
Leaving soon, so tempted to wage war but also tempted to not do anything because of it.

Jumping ladders (the friendship kind)! Is it hard only because I've never done it?

I find it hard to believe that myself, let alone the fat or the poor, are living on a 2000 calorie diet. Seems like only the rich can afford to purposefully eat that little (or in some cases, that high quality)...

夢の浮橋. I'm wondering how much of the dreaminess is lost vs just how good the translation is, or if that feeling kicked in only once I got further in the novel... Reading the 関西弁 (at least, I think it's 関西弁）I know I can't understand it and realize just how fake/toned down the 関西弁 in Gin from Bleach and even in お笑い is...

Finishing the last hour of Air Doll now. Wonder how crowded the Chinese restaurants will be tomorrow?

久しぶりに

Been a long time since I posted.

Taking an incomplete on a course (didn't really know what that meant beforehand...) and well, finding things difficult. Just feel like resting, but no rest to be had. Felt like procrastinating, but when I got on the internet I found there's really nothing to do (besides start another manga or something...)

I really want to play the game Gungi (軍儀) from HunterxHunter, it's really re-awakened my curiosity for board games. Need to get back into chess, but also could think about making my own version. There's a guy that already has computerized his own but yeah. Go （碁） I've given up on I guess...

Almost Christmas, hard to believe. No time or energy to get presents though.

Language teaching... interesting. Will definitely go for the tutoring position.

Will miss the deadline for applying to the Japanese lit MA, guess I'll try next year.
In the meantime I need to find other options for myself beyond "if I don't get JET then go to Shanghai for the summer program and apply for the MA and Fulbright during the fall".

Language ability is dying. Started Tanizaki's "夢の浮橋" or Bridge of Dreams, there's a lot of stuff that was cut out from the first few pages of the translation that only have significance if you know Japanese and know about 文語, so it will be interesting to see what else has been left out.

Winter break. Should I prepare for the GRE? Or save it until after the next semester? Should I apply for a real job, an intensive language program (in Japanese or Korean),

The Japan Club email has been getting an unusually high number of emails (by which I mean 3) from people with employment opportunities. One is supposedly from Google Japan(!), one is some guy from Sigma-Aldrich (who was either ESL or didn't care enough to put more effort into the length and grammar of his email...) trying to mooch some free translation work (yeah right), and one is from Pasona, a sort of job-hunting agency for Japanese (and possibly Asian) companies (this one wanted to interview asian international students -- I'm kind of squealing imagining the guy's response if I am the one to reply haha).

If only writing essays was as easy as putting one's thoughts down.... Probably should have toned down the name dropping, or this will wind up higher in Google's search results, and will be more likely to be found by people... but then again there's not too many embarrassing things on here. Maybe I should've been using this more, to make up for the lack of human interaction this semester...

Japanese are so creative...

with their use of language, at least as I see it. Wonder if it happens in English, and I'm just not noticing it.

Anyway, today's nugget: 稀に（だが）よくある（らしい）　　→矛盾系

http://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E7%A8%80%E3%81%AB%E3%82%88%E3%81%8F%E3%81%82%E3%82%8B

http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/11736.html

The more time I waste...

The more I realize I need to rest.

------------
In other news, you never know what people know (are saying) about you...

My options, assuming I can make it through this year (screw you clusters!!!):
JET. Masters. PHD. Foreign Service. Admissions. Language Learning.
Stuff I wanna do: CLS, Fulbright, etc

----------------------------------

From Seidensticker's Tanizaki eulogy.
"This parade of heroes hastening to martyrdom threatened to become a stampede. It was broken by a comic interlude, a period of immersion in the classics, and a period of enforced silence. A Cat and Shouzou and the Two Women (猫と庄造と二人の女） appeared in 1936, by which time Tanizaki had begun rendering The Tale of Genji into modern Japanese. Two women love Shouzou, or at least would like to have him, and Shouzou's principal love is a cat named Lily. The struggle for possession of Shouzou thus becomes a struggle for possession of the cat, and Shouzou is its helpless object. In a wonderfully successful and funny denouement, he is rejected by the cat. It is as if, like a kyougen actor, he had been brought in to burlesque the solemn performers before him."

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Chinese 口头报告 （是差不多真的话）
下个学期我会毕业。因为我的学位是日语，所以我的妈妈着急然后我找得到找不到工作。我也是。至于，我不像工作。
昨天跟我的指导教授讨论一下，他说，如果在华大念研究生，可以把大学的学分，又快快地又轻松地毕业。只是我得上日本文学系。
听说整天得写文章，也得经经常常地学历史。经常跟老师打交道是一定会成重要的事情。
我还听我朋友们的建议，才可能决定选不选申请华大。

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我再喜欢了这个歌儿

梁靜茹 的 “爱你不是两三天”

Need to find Tanizaki's 恋愛及び色情 (笑)

" 'I remember reading a piece of advice on women's etiquette in some book or other -- I'm fairly certain it was from Tokugawa Ieyasu -- that the secret to remaining in a husband's affections is not to remain endlessly in his bed but to return to one's own bed as quickly as possible after marital relations. Such advice reflects Japanese people's fundamental dislike for lustful indulgence, but to hear things said of a man like Ieyasu, unparalleled in mental and physical strength, is a bit surprising.
...So long as they are Japanese, husbands probably sense the truth of Ieyasu's advice even more keenly than their wives... The causes are no doubt various, but the fact remains that Japanese men fatigue comparatively quickly. It may be that the fatigue affects us mentally, convincing us that we have acted disgraceful, with gloom and passivity the result. Or it may be that our heads start out stuffed with traditional thoughts of love and sex as vulgar, so that, conversely, it is our melancholy mind that influences the flesh. In any case, it is clear that we are a race of people unable to withstand the more vigorous carnal pleasure. One finds this corroborated by prostitutes at the international port cities like Yokohama and Kobe. According to them, Japanese have much weaker desire than foreigners.'
Tanizaki's coy use of the nature/nurture riddle reveals that the long span of nativist tradition supposedly connecting him to Ieyasu, and indeed to all men "so long as they are Japanese," is comically short. He asks, Are Japanese men feeble on account of their race (人種) or on account of their tradition (伝統)? Either answer would allow for a properly timeless, unadulterated Japan. But clearly neither answer is correct. Japanese men are feeble on account, quite literally, of prostitutes at international port cities. These are the women whom modern capitalism has positioned in the most strategic places for judging Japanese men against their global competitors. Accordingly, they are the ones who know. To hear of Ieyasu's sexual weakness is "a bit surprising" not because the military hero was otherwise so virile but because the current moment is one when remembered remarks by hired sex workers are what decide such things."

from Margherita Long, Tanizaki and the Enjoyment of Japanese Culturalism

-------------------
Also, I heard from Da today (yesterday) that lots of Asian guys like Japanese porn -- this was in a discussion about being tricked into saying やめて！, mind you -- which just begs the question: Assuming it is true and that やめて and similar cries play a role in their attraction, is it because of some (quasi-)rape fantasy unavailable in their respective country's porn, are the Japanese simply regarded as porn masters? Is it an exoticism (orientalism) of Japan (in that same essay as above it reads: "Love and Passion" is not squeamish about acknowledging that the relationship between Japan and the rest of Asia is illogical precisely because it can only be sorted out through triangulation with the West", which is an interesting thought), does やめて hold some linguistic significance or is it precisely because they do not have the other contexts of the word in their own mental lexicon? These same guys, what is their opinion of western porn?
Reminds me of conversations with しゃっく、 こさっく and しゅうぞう....

冷酷という優しさ

http://buttersafe.com/2010/10/07/get-over-it/

good words:
文芸的にあまり文芸的な
話らしい話のない小説
捻くれ
嘘のことでないと面白くない
随筆、退屈読本

good song:
君のキス　－　ケミストリー

Teusday

My homework would take me no time at all, if only I had focus.

But I'm no longer sure if living on campus would have solved that problem for me...

-----------------
In other news I went to WILD the other day, and my first impressions were that it was a waste of time. However reflecting later, I did see Chingy and learn that she's still in STL, and also people watching at WILD was interesting. My explore kids (from both years) are growing up... and making rather interesting choices, including to the question of "who to dance with" hahaha.

Notes

DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

SLEEP EARLY.

BE ON TIME FOR CLASS.

Something I need to work on

And no, that does not refer to homework.
J.C. Powys's Confessions (1916)
On Staying Cool, Acting Normal, Not Getting Dessert:

"It is the little thing, the unrehearsed gesture, the catch in the breath, the droop of the lip, the start of surprise, which really reveals. We may analyze ourselves in volumes and remain undiscovered; and then - by yawn, a tilt of the head, a sob of exhaustion, a flash of hate - we are betrayed and unmasked forever."

I saw Melissa today, and was tempted to throw my backpack into her bike wheel. However! Today I resisted a temptation to do evil, and thus am able to declare myself VIRTUOUS.

10/10 coming up. Maybe I should ask Al to switch the tables for me.

Need to update this more.

Sleeping before 1 am FAIL ついつい続けられている

You know

I will give you everything~ I'll be there for you!

I can't believe I forgot how good Clazziquai was...
Sleeping at a semi-decent hour for once in a long while. Let's hope I can keep this up.

New York Times article... "A Thai Region Where Husbands Are Imported"
Rant to come on interlingual relationships...

The other day a friend (who shall not be named haha) was telling me I should date asian girls. Thought that was pretty funny... another rant on that to come??

好久不见，你好吗？

Been so long since I posted...
So much to write about, but the list of things I wanted to (from way back in November!!) has disappeared under the mess of whatever it is I call a desk.
So many things I need to do, but lately I don't have the energy. It's like creating a Wash U bubble but only in the area around Waseda and stretching occasionally to the next train station for more or less food...

Today, tumbling rumbling, for the first time in my life I seriously debated whether to eat or to dance. 「そして自分が誰なのかも分からなくなって」
Trying to get more involved with my circle, and lately have been joining in the meetings and things to see how things are run. I'm so sad that I will only be here for a few more months... and that Japanese is such a barrier to getting to know the people in the club. I don't know whether to think it bad that I want to improve my Japanese simply to get to know these people better... it's more or less the same reason I study Chinese and why I find it so fun and thrilling, although I have consciously put it on the backburner for now (along with Korean..). But just the thought that my reasons for learning Japanese have expanded from just pure -- I wouldn't call it love for the language but something close to that -- whatever it was is kind of a not scary, just chilling thought. Will I be able to keep this up, strive and continuously beat the myself of yesterday? 挑戦、a word I learned the other day and possibly my theme for the rest of this break.

I am incredibly saddened, distractions and sidenotes aside, at the time difference it takes for me to read a passage in Japanese and for me to feel as if I understand it (although academic grammar sometimes really throws me off sometimes....), to where if I re-read it, I could fall into the same kind of distraction free world I do when reading in English, free of worries and distractions and experiencing whatever it is the author set out for me to....

Adobe Illustrator! The first time in a long while. If it works, I'll be using it to design the poster to attract new students during the opening month of next school year, which is an incredibly big deal... Need to find time to catch up with everyone (what am I doing writing this then!? I still ask myself but know this kind of outlet (wrong word again) is important too)

I think it's partly the guys in my club encouraging me to go after different girls but lately I've been thinking too much about 人間関係、specifically 恋愛, to the point where I've wondered if one of my club senpai's was hitting on me... and I tried back.......... (FAIL), and today a student volunteer for the school run international club kind of thing told me she always noticed participate in events and stuff (lit she's watching me hahahah but not that creepily) -- she's kind of cute, so I took that as a come on..... and left XD this time.... aiya but I wanna stop thinking about these kinds of things. I knew I shouldn't have voiced anything when some of the guys asked me if there was anyone I was interested in, cause I had that feeling that once you say something it makes it sort of real, at least a little bit. Maybe the realness is just me thinking too much about how it's sort of real, or maybe it's real and I don't want to admit it and spend the time and effort so soon when I feel time is short, but I think I'm getting overwhelmed.

I've said it to some people before and it really creeped them out but I get infatuated really easily once I've first met a person, and in most cases after a while I just sort of get used to their existence... but everyone in my club is really really cool, and the sort of cool down period isn't happening as fast I guess I could say, and maybe that's just me not being able to get to know people well enough.... we'll see I guess. Most of the girls are taken anyway luckily, so I won't be doing anything TOO stupid hopefully -__-;;;;

This all started that night though, a few posts back.... or at least I feel like that was a serious turning point in my view of this kind of thing. But no more thinking about that for now!

Illustrator finished, I'm off to try it. Hopefully my computer doesn't die (My friend Ghazal's died today (in a horrible soup accident), and I tried to help her call tech support.... FAIL)

Argh. Can't end with a fail... so Naruto! WTF kishimoto ><;;;;; but Onepiece I'm really looking forward to and Bleach... man Aizen is pwning so hard but he doesn't seem all that powerful anymore, unfortunately... I'm really disappointed in that.... and wtf is Ichigo doing??? Ok, done for today... wah this was supposed to be a short post.... guess I need to use English more.... gonna be so weird to come back and be trying to catch up on popular lingo and that kinda stuff.... (Lately I've gained a new respect for international students at WU.....)

Lessons from a Bilingual Writer

"Do I have twice as much time after work if there are two words for the same space of time -- 'evening' and 'night'? In the 'evening' one can go to the theater and during the 'night' one can sleep. In Japanese there is only one word, 'yoru,' for evening as well as for night; therefore one does not sleep enough."
--Yoko Tawada in Lives in Translation